Letter: On the Incarnation of the Word
LETTER ON THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD
TO THE LORD and father of the whole church in pilgrimage on earth, the Supreme Pontiff Urban:1 brother Anselm, in his life a sinner, by his habit a monk,by the command or permission of God called bishop of the see of Canterbury, offers due submission with humble service and fervent prayers.
Because divine providence chose Your Holiness, to whom God entrusted the guardianship of Christian faith and life and the governance of his church, there is no one to whom one might more properly appeal if anything contrary to Catholic faith arises in the church, so that it might be corrected by your authority; nor is there anyone to whom one might more properly show a response to such error, so that it might be examined by your sound judgment. Therefore, just as there is no one to whom I can more fittingly address this letter, so too there is no one to whom I would more gladly send it than
Your Wisdom, so that if anything in it requires amendment, it will be corrected by your censure, and if anything in it hews to the rule of truth, it will be reinforced by your authority.
When I was still abbot in the monastery at Bec, a certain clergyman2 in France ventured this assertion:"If in God the three persons are just one thing and not three things (each person a thing in himself taken separately, like three angels or three souls, but such that they are altogether the same in will and power), then the Father and the Holy Spirit were incarnate along with the Son."When this claim had made its way to me, I began a letter in opposition to this error; but when it was only partly written I decided it was not worth finishing, thinking there was no need, since the one against whom it was written had himself abjured his error at the council convened by Rainaldus, the venerable Archbishop of Rheims—and also because I could not imagine that anyone would not realize he was in error. But unbeknownst to me, some of my brothers transcribed the part of the letter that I had written and gave it to others to read. I point this out so that if anyone comes across that part, he will leave it aside as incomplete and not fully worked out (although there is
1 Urban II, Pope from 1088 to 1099.
2 Roscelin of Compiègne (roughly 1050 to 1125).
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nothing false in it), and instead seek out this letter, where I have more diligently undertaken and completed what I undertook there. For after I had been seized and held for the episcopate in England by I know not what arrangement of God, I heard that the originator of the aforementioned novelty was persisting in his error, saying that he had abjured his statement only because he was afraid of being killed by the people.
For this reason, therefore, certain brothers compelled me by their requests to answer the question by which this fellow had been so exercised that he thought there was no way he could escape from it without becoming entangled with either an incarnation of God the Father and the Holy Spirit or a multiplication of gods. I plead this as my excuse, lest anyone should think I was so arrogant as to suppose that the Christian faith in all its strength required the help of my defense. Indeed, if I, a trivial and inconsiderable fellow, should try to write something to add strength and support to the Christian faith, when there are so many holy and wise people all over the world, I would indeed be judged arrogant and could appear worthy of ridicule. For if other people were to see me well-supplied with stakes and ropes and other things, by which we often secure and steady things that are wavering, working to strengthen Mount Olympus so that no force would shake it or cause it to fall, it would be amazing if they could contain their laughter and derision. How much more so,then,with that "stone"that was "cut out of the mountain without hands and struck and crushed the statue" that Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream,which has now become "a great mountain that filled the whole earth."3
If I should try to support it with my arguments and steady it, as if it were wavering, so many holy and wise people who rejoice that they are secure upon its eternal steadfastness could grow angry with me and attribute my efforts not to sober-minded diligence but to frivolous self-aggrandizement. So if in this letter I have engaged in disputation concerning the steadfastness of our faith, it is not in order to strengthen that faith, but to satisfy the requests of the brethren who required this of me.
But if that man who put forward the aforementioned view has,by God's correction, returned to the truth, let him by no means suppose that I am saying anything against him in this letter, since he is no longer what he once was. For if he was "once darkness, but is now light in the Lord,"4 the darkness that no longer exists does not require rebuke, but rather the light that now is shining deserves approval. Nevertheless, whether he has yet returned to the light or not, since I understand that many are troubled by this same question, even if 3 Daniel 2:34–35.
4 Ephesians 5:8.
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their faith conquers the reasoning that they think contradicts the faith, I do not think it is wasted effort to dissolve the contradiction.
But before I speak to this question, I shall preface a few words in order to curb the presumption of those who with abominable insolence dare to raise as an objection to one of the articles of the Christian faith the fact that they cannot grasp it by their own intellect.With witless arrogance they judge that what they cannot understand is in no way possible, rather than acknowledging in humble wisdom that many things are possible that they are unable to comprehend. Indeed, no Christian ought to argue that something the Catholic Church believes with her heart and confesses with her lips5 is not true. Instead, always holding that same faith unswervingly, loving it, and living in accordance with it, a Christian ought to seek the reason of its truth as humbly as he can. If he is capable of understanding, let him give thanks to God. If he is not, let him not brandish his horns to scatter,6 but instead let him bow his head in reverent submission.
For human wisdom trusting in itself can more quickly tear out its own horns by brandishing them than it can roll this stone by pushing. For as soon as some people have begun to produce, as it were, horns of self-confident knowledge—not realizing that if someone thinks he knows something, he has not yet understood in what way he ought to know7—they often presume to rise to the very loftiest questions of the faith before they have developed spiritual wings through the firmness of their faith.This is how it comes about that they absurdly attempt to climb up through their understanding to those things that first require the ladder of faith: as Scripture says,"Unless you believe, you will not understand."8 And when they do this, they are compelled to fall into manifold errors because their intellect fails them. For it is obvious that they do not have the firmness of faith, given that they raise objections against the truth
5 Cf. Romans 8:8.
6 In the Old Testament 'horn' is regularly a symbol of power and aggression. The nearest parallels to Anselm's usage in the Latin Vulgate are in Psalm 43:6 (44:5),"In you we will scatter our enemies with the horn"; Ezekiel 34:21,"And with your horns you scattered all the weak sheep"; and Zechariah 1:19,"These are the horns that have scattered Judah and Israel and Jerusalem." The close parallel with Ezekiel suggests that by "scattering"Anselm is talking about the disturbing effect that undisciplined skepticism has on those whose faith is weak.
7 Or possibly:"he does not yet know it as he ought to know it"; cf. 1 Corinthians 8.2. The Schmitt edition refers here to Romans 12:3 ("For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has given to each a measure of faith"), but the wording of the Latin is so different as to make the parallel weak at best.
8 Isaiah 7:9 in the Old Latin text.
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of that faith, which has been made firm by the holy fathers, simply because they cannot themselves understand what they believe. It is as if bats and owls, which see the sky only at night, should dispute about the midday sun with eagles, who behold the sun itself with unflinching eyes.
So first our heart must be cleansed by faith; Scripture describes God as "cleansing their hearts by faith."9 And first our eyes must be enlightened by our keeping the Lord's commandments, since "the command of the Lord is bright, enlightening the eyes."10 And first we ought to become little children through our humble obedience to the testimonies of God, in order that we might learn the wisdom that the testimony of the Lord gives, for "the testimony of the Lord is sure, giving wisdom to little children."11 This is why the Lord says,"I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the learned and wise, and have revealed them to little children."12 First, I say, we must set aside the things of the flesh and live according to the spirit. Only then can we investigate perceptively the deep things of faith. For someone who lives according to the flesh is carnal or sensual. Of such a person Scripture says that "the sensual man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God";13 but one who "by the Spirit puts to death the deeds of the flesh" 14 is made spiritual, and of him we read that "the spiritual man judges all things, and he himself is judged by no one."15 For it is true that the more abundantly we take nourishment in Holy Scripture from those things that feed us through obedience, the more acutely we are brought to those things that satisfy us through understanding. Indeed, someone who ventures to say,"I have more understanding than all my teachers," is speaking in vain unless he is bold to add, "because your testimonies are my meditation."16 And someone who proclaims, "I have more understanding than my elders,"is lying unless he is well-acquainted with what follows:"because I have sought out your commandments."17 There is no room for doubt about what
I say: one who has not believed will not understand. For one who has not believed will not experience, and one who has not experienced will not know.
For as much as experiencing a thing is superior to hearing about it, so much 9 Acts 15:9.
10 Psalm 19:8 (18:9).
11 Psalm 19:7 (18:8).
12 Matthew 11:25.
13 1 Corinthians 2:14.
14 Romans 8:13.
15 1 Corinthians 2:15.
16 Psalm 119:99 (118:99).
17 Psalm 119:100 (118:100).
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does the knowledge of someone who has experience surpass that of someone who merely hears.
And not only is the mind forbidden to rise to understanding higher things apart from faith and obedience to God's commandments, but understanding once granted is taken away and faith itself is destroyed if one does not take care to preserve a good conscience. For the Apostle says of certain people, "Although they had known God, they did not glorify him as God or give thanks; but their thoughts became empty, and their foolish hearts were darkened."18
And when he commanded Timothy to "fight the good fight," he spoke of "preserving faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck regarding the faith."19 Let no one, therefore, be in a hurry to plunge into the thicket of divine questions unless he has first sought in firmness of faith the weight of good character and wisdom, lest he should run carelessly and frivolously along the many side-roads of sophistries and be snared by some obstinate falsehood.
And since everyone ought to be admonished to approach questions concerning Holy Scripture as cautiously as possible, those dialecticians—or rather, heretics of dialectic—in our own day who suppose that universal substances are nothing but empty air,20 who cannot understand color to be anything but body or human wisdom to be anything but the soul, ought to be blown far away from any engagement with spiritual questions. Indeed, in their souls, reason—which ought to be the ruler and judge of everything in a human being—is so covered up by bodily imaginations that it cannot extricate itself; their reason cannot discriminate between those bodily imaginations and the things that ought to be contemplated by reason itself, alone and unmixed. For they do not yet even understand how the plurality of human beings in the species are one human being. How, then, will they comprehend how the plurality of persons in that most hidden and most exalted nature— each of whom individually is perfect God—are one God? Their minds are too dark to distinguish between a horse and its color. How, then, will they distinguish between the one God and his several relations? And finally, they cannot understand how something can be human without being an individual; there is no way they will understand anything to be human unless it is a human person,since every individual human being is a person.How,then,will they understand that the Word assumed human being but did not assume a person: that is, that the Word assumed another nature, not another person?
18 Romans 1:21.
19 1 Timothy 1:18–19.
20 "empty air": flatus vocis, literally,"the breathing of a voice." The expression is associated in particular with Roscelin.
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I have said these things so that no one will venture to investigate the most exalted questions concerning the faith before he is ready—or so that if he does venture to do so, the difficulty or impossibility of understanding them will not dislodge him from the truth to which he has held fast by faith. Now we must come to the matter on account of which I have undertaken to write this.
This fellow who is said to claim that the three persons are like three angels or three souls says this (so I hear):"The pagans defend their law, the Jews defend their law, so we Christians ought also to defend our faith." Let us hear how this Christian defends his faith. He says,"If the three persons are just one thing and not three things (each person a thing in himself taken separately, like three angels or three souls, but such that they are altogether the same in will and power), then the Father and the Holy Spirit were incarnate along with the Son." Look at what this fellow says, at how this Christian defends his faith.
Surely he either intends to acknowledge three gods or else does not understand what he is saying. Now if he acknowledges three gods, he is not a Christian. And if he affirms what he does not understand, no one should believe him. The reply to this man should not be made using the authority of Holy
Scripture, since either he does not believe Scripture or he interprets it in some perverse sense: for what does Holy Scripture say any more clearly than that there is one and only one God? Instead, his error should be exposed on the basis of reason, which he tries to use to defend himself. Now in order to do this more easily and concisely, I will speak only of the Father and the Son, since these two persons are clearly distinguished from one another by their own proper designations. The name "Holy Spirit," after all, is not foreign to the Father and the Son, since both of them are spirit and both are holy. But what we will find in the case of the Father and the Son regarding the unity of substance and plurality of persons, we will recognize in the case of all three persons, without any room for doubt.
So let him say, "If the two persons, the Father and the Son, are not two things." Let us ask first what he means by 'two things'.We do after all believe that each person is that which is common to both and is also that which is proper to himself. The person of the Father is God, which is common to him and the Son, and is also Father, which is proper to him. Similarly, the person of the Son is God, which is common to him and the Father, and is also Son, which is said only of this person. So in these two persons one feature is common, namely God, and two features are proper, namely Father and Son. All those features that are common to them—for example, omnipotent, eternal—are understood in the meaning of the one common term 'God'. And the features that are proper to the individual persons—as begetter or begetting is proper to the Father, and Word or begotten to the Son—are signified by these
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two names,'Father' and 'Son'. So when he says that these two persons are two things, I want to know what he is calling two things: what is common to them, or the individual characteristics that are proper to the individual persons. Now if he is saying that the two proper characteristics (namely, Father and Son) are two things, but in such a way that what is common is just one thing and not more than one, there was no point in saying that, since no Christian professes that the Father and the Son are just one thing in terms of these proper characteristics, but two things. After all, we typically apply the word 'thing' to whatever we say is something in any way, and when we say
'Father' or 'Son' of God, we are saying something of God. And everyone knows that in God the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, even though in one human being a father is a son and a son is a father, if one and the same human being is both a father and a son. The reason for this is that in God 'Father' and 'Son' are said as opposites, whereas in one human being they are not said in opposition to each other—rather, he is said to be a father with respect to a different son and a son with respect to a different father.
So in this way there is nothing to prevent our saying that the two persons, the Father and the Son, are two things, provided that we understand what sort of things they are. The Father and the Son are two things in such a way that what we understand in these two things is not their substance but their relations. But this fellow makes it clear by what he says next that this is not the way in which he understands the two persons to be two things. For when he says, "If the three persons are just one thing and not three things" he adds,
"each person a thing in himself taken separately." He seems to mean 'separately' in a way that makes it impossible for the Father and the Son both to be present at the same time in the same human being.This, he thinks, is the only way to keep the Father from sharing the Son's Incarnation. For he does not see how, if one believes that there is one and only one God who is Father and Son, the Father and the Son can be separated in such a way that they are not both in the same human being at the same time, in virtue of the separateness by which being the Father and being the Son are distinct, given that fatherhood and sonship are distinct from one another.Therefore, either he is speaking of some other way in which the Father is separate from the Son, other than the separateness in terms of their being Father and Son to each other through their proper characteristics—since he does not understand that their being separate in this way is enough to make Incarnation foreign to the Father; indeed, he thinks that if the Father and the Son exist at the same time, it follows that the Father shares the Son's Incarnation—or else he is talking about that very separateness, in which case he is wasting his efforts, since as I have already said, the Christian faith does understand the Father and the Son to be two things in precisely this sense.
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Now when he says,"like three angels or three souls," he shows quite clearly that he is not talking in terms of the separation or plurality that exists in them on account of their proper characteristics. Clearly we do not say of numerically one thing that it is two angels or two souls, nor do we say of two angels or two souls that they are numerically one anything, in the way that we do say of numerically one God that he is both Father and Son and of the Father and Son that they are numerically one God. For we believe and say that God is
Father and God is Son, and conversely, that the Father is God and the Son is God. And yet we do not believe or say that there is more than one God, but rather that there is numerically one God as a nature, even though the Father and the Son are not one, but two. For we call something an angel or a soul according to substance, not according to relation. For although the name 'angel' is taken from the angels' function ('angel' means 'messenger'), we use it to indicate the substance, just as we use 'soul' for a species of substance. He shows that he understands this by saying,"like three angels or three souls," without differentiating the two cases. And so what he means is the sort of plurality or separateness that a plurality of angels or souls have, that is, the sort that a plurality of substances have.He seems to indicate this meaning quite clearly when he adds,"but such that they are altogether the same in will and power," since he is understanding will and power in this plurality of things in the same way as in a plurality of angels or souls. And that makes no sense if one is thinking of the divine persons as a plurality of things in accordance with the proper characteristics of the persons, not in accordance with what is said of them in common. After all, there is no will or power belonging to the Father or to the Son according to their proper characteristics—that is,according to fatherhood or sonship—but only according to the substance of the Godhead that is common to them both. Therefore, if he means that the three persons are three things in accordance with those proper characteristics, it is clear how unnecessary it was for him to say this; when he goes on to add,"like three angels or three souls," it is also clear how absurd his words are.
But if he is saying that the persons are two things according to that which is common to them—that is, as each of them individually and the two of them at once are one perfect God—then I must first ask whether he is a Christian. I believe he will reply that he is. So then he believes that there is one God, and that this one God is three persons, that is, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, and that only the person of the Son was incarnate, although with the cooperation of the other two persons. But someone who believes these things also affirms that someone who sets out to make any claims that contradict them is not a Christian. So if this fellow believes these things, he also denies that someone who argues against them is a Christian. Now let us see whether this fellow is trying to undermine this faith.
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When he says (I will continue to speak just of two persons, meaning what I say to be understood as applying to all three),"If the two persons are one thing and not two, like two angels or two souls, it follows that the Father too was incarnate if the Son was incarnate," I take it that his reasoning goes like this:
If God is numerically one and the same thing, and that very thing is the Father and is also the Son, how can it be that the Father is not incarnate as well, given that the Son is incarnate? Clearly an affirmation and its negation are not both true of one and the same thing at one and the same time. But it is perfectly fine to affirm something of one thing and deny it of another thing at one and the same time. For it is not the case that one and the same Peter both is an apostle and is not an apostle. Even if we speak of that one person by two different names, and say of him under one name that he is an apostle and under another name that he is not—for example, "Peter is an apostle" and "Simon is not an apostle"—it is not the case that both statements are true; one of them is false.
By contrast, it is possible for "Peter is an apostle" and "Stephen is not an apostle" both to be true, since Peter and Stephen are two different people. So if the Father and the Son are numerically one thing and not two distinct things, it is not true that something ought to be affirmed of the Son and denied of the Father or affirmed of the Father and denied of the Son. Therefore, whatever the Father is, the Son is too; and what is said of the Son should not be denied of the Father. But the Son was incarnate, so the Father too was incarnate.
But if this reasoning is sound, the heresy of Sabellius21 is true. For if whatever is said of one person is said of another, on the grounds that the two persons are one thing, it follows that because 'Son' and 'Word' and 'begotten' are said of the Son, they must also be said of the Father. And just as the Father is Father and Begetter and Unbegotten, these things must also be said of the Son.
And if that is the case,the Father is not distinct from the Son nor the Son from the Father. Therefore, they are not two persons, but one. After all, the reason they are said to be two persons is that the Father and the Son are believed to be distinct from one another, assuming that God is both Father and Son. For a father is always the father of someone, and a son is always the son of someone; but a father is never his own father, and a son is never his own son.
Rather, a father is distinct from the one whose father he is, and similarly a son is distinct from the one whose son he is. Hence, if, in God, the Father and the one whose Father he is are not distinct, and if the Son and the one whose Son he is are not distinct, it is false to say of God that he is Father or Son. For if 21 Sabellius taught that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not distinct persons in God but merely different ways in which an utterly unitary God relates to his creation. He was excommunicated by Pope Calixtus I in 220.
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there is not in God someone distinct from the Father whose Father he is, God cannot be a Father. And similarly, if there is not in God someone distinct from the Son whose Son he is, God cannot be a Son. And from that it will follow that there is no basis for speaking of two persons in God: for we speak of two persons on the grounds that God is a Father and God is a Son, and a father is always distinct from a son.
So do you see how our faith is destroyed by the opinion of this fellow who supposes that if the plurality of persons in God are one thing and not a plurality of things, it follows that the Father was incarnate along with the Son? If this inference of his is correct, then what follows is not only what I have already said about the Father and the Son, but such extensive confounding of all three persons that whatever is said properly of any one of them must be said of all three in common. Consequently there will be no basis for distinguishing from one another the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father and the Son, as I have shown in the case of the Father and the Son. Nor will there be any relation in God, since there is no relation in God other than that in accordance with which the persons are distinguished one from another. Therefore, there will not be a plurality of persons.
For on the supposition that one thing is three persons,either what he says does not follow, or else everything I have said follows—for the strength of the inference is similar in each case.Why, then, does he proceed to the Incarnation, as if that alone raised a difficulty, and not say instead,"If the three persons are one thing, they are not three persons"? After all, he can raise the question independently of the Incarnation no less aptly than he can raise it on the basis of the Incarnation.
On the other hand, if he means to assert outright that the three persons, insofar as each is God, are not one thing, but three things, each person in himself a thing as three angels are, then it is unmistakably clear that he is setting up three gods. Perhaps, though, he was not the one who said,"like three angels or three souls,"but merely affirmed that the three persons are three things, without adding any comparison, and the man who sent me his question offered this comparison on his own.Why, then, is he fooled—or why does he fool others—by this word 'thing', given that the word 'God' signifies this very thing? Surely he will either deny that God is that thing in which we profess that there are three persons—indeed, that thing that we profess to be three persons—or else, if he does not deny this, it follows that he must affirm that the persons are not one God but three gods, just as he claims that they are not one thing but three things. I leave it to Christians to judge how impious these claims are.
But he will reply,"My saying 'three things' does not compel me to acknowledge three gods, since these three things together are one God." To this we
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say: Therefore, each of these three things—that is, each person—is not God; instead,God is composed of three things.Therefore,the Father is not God,the Son is not God, and the Holy Spirit is not God, since 'God' must not be said of any one person or of two,but only of all three persons named together. And that likewise is impious. For if that is the case, God is not a simple nature but is composed of parts.Yet anyone who has a simple understanding, one that is not overloaded by a surfeit of phantasms, understands that simple things as such are superior to composites as such, since necessarily every composite can be divided either in reality or in the understanding. Such division is unintelligible in the case of simple things, since no intellect can divide up into parts something that cannot be conceived to have parts. Therefore, if God is composed of three things, either no nature is simple, or there is some nature that is in one respect superior to God's nature—and it is no great mystery just how false both of these alternatives are. Even if this fellow belongs to those modern dialecticians who believe that nothing exists apart from what they can grasp through their imaginations, and he does not think there is anything that has no parts, he will at least not deny that he understands that if there were something that could not be dissolved either in reality or in the understanding, it would be greater than what can be dissolved, even if only in the understanding. And so if every composite can be dissolved, at least in thought, when he says that God is composite, he is saying that he can understand something greater than God. So his understanding passes beyond God, which no understanding can do.
But let us see what he adds as if to drive away the absurdity that seems to result if these three persons are three things: "but such that there is one will and power of these three things."Here we must ask whether these three things are of divine nature insofar as they are understood separately from each other, or in accordance with their common will and power, or neither only in accordance with what they possess individually nor only in accordance with what is common to them, but in accordance with both at once. Clearly if they possess deity in accordance with what they are separately, they are three gods.
In that case, they can be understood [to be gods] apart from their will and power,since proper characteristics are always understood as distinct from common characteristics and vice versa. But in fact the divine nature can in no way be understood apart from will and power.
Now if the persons taken singly or two at a time or all three at once are God in accordance with their one will and power, what are these three separate things doing there? For some other thing would have to bring them together into the unity of the Godhead, and they would not be sufficient for perfection or for any contribution to God's existence. After all,if one will and power is sufficient for God's perfection, what are these three things that God needs,
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and for what purpose does he need them? For we believe that God needs nothing. So it is pointless to conceive of these three things in God.
And if it is not just these three things, and not just the one will and power but all these taken together that compose God, I will note again that God is a composite, and that things that are not in themselves God or gods compose
God.Or if he says that these three things bear the name 'God'in virtue of their power or will, as a human being is called 'king' in virtue of his royal power, then 'God' is not the name of a substance; rather, those three whatever-theyares are called three 'gods' accidentally,* in the way that three human beings who have the same royal power are called three 'kings'. Three human beings, after all, cannot be one king. And there is no need to point out how blasphemous all this is.
I would need to fill a sizeable volume if I undertook to write out all the absurdities and impieties that result if indeed it follows that if one divine person is incarnate, the other two must also be incarnate, on the grounds that those three persons are one thing in accordance with what we say in common of all three; or if, because only the Son was incarnate, it follows that the three persons are three separate things, as this fellow against whom I am writing supposes.Therefore, it is clear that he ought not to be eager to engage in disputes about profound matters, and especially about those in which error is dangerous.
But perhaps he will say to me:"You think the conclusions you draw follow necessarily if I am right about the inferences I make. But the inferences I make seem just as necessary to me as yours do to you. So show that my conclusions do not in fact follow, and then I will acknowledge with you that nothing absurd follows if the Son alone was incarnate or if the three persons are one thing.If you fail to show this,you do not solve the problem but merely compound it by joining me in proving that many absurdities follow from these assumptions. And if those absurd conclusions must be rejected, both of us equally ought to conclude that if only the Son was incarnate, the three persons are not one thing, and that if they are one thing, all three were equally incarnate."
It is therefore incumbent upon me to show in what respect he is mistaken, and how it does not follow that if the Son alone was incarnate, the three persons are three separate things, or that if the three persons are one thing, all three were incarnate.Now the fact that God is both one,single,individual,and simple* nature* and also three persons has been set forth by the unassailable arguments of the holy fathers, and especially of blessed Augustine, following the apostles and evangelists. And if anyone will think it worth his while to read my two little works, the Monologion and Proslogion, which I wrote mainly so that what we hold by faith concerning the divine nature and persons, leaving
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aside the Incarnation, could be proved by necessary reasons, independently of the authority of Scripture—if, I say, anyone should be willing to read these works, I think he will find in them discussions of this matter that he will not be able to refute and will not wish to belittle.If in those books I have said anything that I did not read elsewhere (or do not remember having read elsewhere) as a reply on behalf of our faith to those who refuse to believe what they do not understand, and ridicule those who do believe, or to assist the devout inquiry of those who humbly seek to understand what they most steadfastly believe, I do not think I should be reproached in any way. For I have not said it as if I were teaching something that our teachers did not know or correcting something they did not say well, but as saying something that they were silent about—something that nevertheless does not contradict what they said, but harmonizes with it. But to save those who read this letter the trouble of looking into those other writings in order to know, not just by faith but by evident argument, that the three persons are not three gods but only one, and yet that God's being incarnate according to one person does not necessitate his being incarnate according to the others, I will say something here that I think will be sufficient to refute the opinion of this self-styled defender of our faith.
He says explicitly that either the Father and the Holy Spirit were incarnate along with the Son, or else the three persons are three separate things— separate to so great a degree, in his estimation, that neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit is in the Son. After all, if the other two persons are in the Son and the Son is in a human being, they too are in that human being. Hence, since the three persons are all in one and the same human being, he thinks it follows that if they are one thing, there is no way for the person of the Son to be incarnate in that human being apart from the other two persons. He does not, however, deny that there are three persons or that the Son was incarnate.
Now as was shown above, if the three persons are three separate things, either it follows that there are three gods, or else the other absurdities I have already discussed are true. Therefore, with the help of the one and only God, I will now show briefly,first,that even if there are three gods,that will not help avert an incarnation of the Father and the Holy Spirit (which he thinks we can avoid only by positing a multitude of gods), and second, that there is only one
God, not more than one.Then I will make it clear that although the one God is three persons, the incarnation of one person not only does not necessitate the incarnation of the others but in fact makes their incarnation impossible.
It belongs to the divine nature to be always and everywhere in such a way that nothing is ever or anywhere without its presence. If this were not so, it would by no means have power everywhere and always, and what does not have power everywhere and always is in no way God. For even if he says that
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it is not the divine substance, but its power, that is everywhere and always, he will still not deny that power is either accidental* or substantial* with respect to the divine nature. Power is certainly not accidental with respect to God, since every substance can either exist or be understood without its accident, whereas God can neither exist nor be understood without power.Yet if power is substantial with respect to God, it is either a part of his essence* or the very same thing that is his whole essence. Now it is not a part, since, as was said above, that which has parts can be dissolved either in reality or in the understanding, and that is altogether alien to God. Therefore, the being of God and of his power are one and the same. And so, just as God's power is always and everywhere, so too whatever God is is everywhere and always. Therefore, when the aforesaid self-styled defender of our faith says that there are three gods, he cannot show how they are separate in the way that he thinks is necessary in order to save the Father and the Holy Spirit from being incarnate.
So this multiplicity of gods cannot help him defend the Father and the Holy Spirit from being incarnate, since in his multiplying of gods we cannot find the distinction without which, on his own view, such a defense cannot succeed at all.
Here is a straightforward argument for the conclusion that there is only one God, and not more than one: either God is not the supreme Good, or there are many supreme Goods, or there is only one God and not more than one. Now no one denies that God is the supreme Good, since whatever is less than something else is in no way God, and whatever is not the supreme Good is less than something else, since it is less than the supreme Good. And clearly the supreme Good does not admit plurality within itself in such a way that there are several* supreme Goods.For if there are several supreme Goods,they are equal; but the supreme Good is the one that so surpasses other goods that it has neither superior nor peer.Therefore, there is one and only one supreme
Good. So there are not several gods, but one and only one God, just as there is one and only one supreme Good. And the same reasoning that applies to the supreme Good proves also that one cannot in any way speak of more than one supreme substance or essence or nature.
Though this one and only God is three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—it is not necessary, as my opponent thinks, that if the Son is incarnate, the other persons are incarnate as well; rather, this is impossible. For he does not deny that there is a plurality of persons, precisely because the persons are distinct from one another—after all, if they were not distinct from one another, they would not be a plurality. But in order to lay out more concisely and easily what I want to say, I shall speak only of the Father and the Son, as I did above; it will be clear from what is said about them how we ought to understand what is true of the Holy Spirit.
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Now qua substance the Father and the Son are not a plurality or distinct from each other, since they are not two substances; the Father is not one substance and the Son a distinct substance, but rather the Father and the Son are one and the same substance.Yet qua person they are a plurality and distinct from each other, since the Father and the Son are not one and the same person, but two persons distinct from each other. So he says,"If the Son is incarnate, and the Son is not a different thing from the Father, but numerically one and the same thing as the Father, then it is necessary that the Father too is incarnate. For it is impossible that numerically one and the same thing at a given time both is and is not incarnate in one and the same human being." But I say that if the Son is incarnate, and the Son is not numerically one and the same person that the Father is, but a distinct person, then it is not necessary that the Father is incarnate as well. For it is possible for one person to be incarnate in one human being and at the same time for a distinct person not to be incarnate in that same human being. He replies: "If God the Son is incarnate, and the God who is the Son is not distinct from, but is numerically one and the same as, the God who is the Father, then although the Father and the Son are indeed distinct persons, it seems more necessary that the Father be incarnate along with the Son on account of their oneness in deity than it seems possible for him not to be incarnate too on account of their distinctness as persons."
Notice how the one who says this is limping with both feet when it comes to the Incarnation of the Son of God. Someone who understands his Incarnation properly believes that the Son assumed human being not into a unity of nature but into a unity of person, whereas this fellow dreams that human being was assumed by the Son of God into a unity of nature rather than into a unity of person.For if that were not his view,he would not say that it is more necessary for the Father to be incarnate along with the Son because the Father and the Son are one God than it is possible for the Father not to be incarnate as well because they are a plurality of persons. So anyone who thinks that this Incarnation is according to the unity of nature in such a way that the Son cannot be incarnate without the Father, and who does not understand that it is in accordance with the unity of person in such a way that the Father cannot be incarnate along with the Son, is limping with both feet (that is, in both respects) when it comes to the Incarnation of the Son of God, who is one nature with the Father and a distinct person from the Father. Certainly
God did not assume human being in such a way that the nature of God and of human being are one and the same, but in such a way that the person of God and of the human being are one and the same. This can only be the case in one divine person, since it is unintelligible for distinct divine persons to be one and the same person as one and the same human being. For if one human being is one person with each of a plurality of persons, it is necessary that a
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plurality of persons that are distinct from one another are one and the same person, which is impossible. For this reason, once God is incarnate according to any one person, it is impossible for him to be incarnate also according to another person.
Now although it was not our aim in this letter to show why God assumed human being into a unity of person with the Son rather than into a unity with either of the other persons, I think some reason for this ought to be given,since the topic has come up.Certainly if the Holy Spirit had become incarnate, as the Son did, the Holy Spirit would have been the son of a human being, and so there would have been two sons in the divine Trinity: the Son of God and the son of a human being. The result would have been a confusing uncertainty whenever we talked about "God the Son," since each would be both God and a son, although one would be the Son of God and the other the son of a human being.There would also have come to be an inequality of sorts between the divine persons—who ought to be equal in every respect— qua sons; the one who was son of the greater parent would be superior in dignity, whereas the one who was the son of the lesser parent would be subordinate in his lowliness. For the dignity of being Son of God exceeds the dignity of being the son of a human being as much as the greatness of divine nature exceeds the greatness of human nature. So if the Holy Spirit had been born of a virgin, then given that the Son of God would have only the more exalted birth that is from God, whereas the Holy Spirit would have only the lesser birth that is from a human being, one divine person would be greater than another according to the dignity of his birth, which is absurd.
Now if the Father had assumed human being into a unity of person with himself, the plurality of sons in God would have caused the same absurdities, plus an additional one. For if he had been the Son of a virgin, two persons in the Trinity would have taken the name of 'grandson',since the Father would be the grandson of the virgin's parents, and the Son would also be the grandson of that same virgin,22 even though he would not derive in any way from her.
Therefore, since it is impossible for there to be any absurdity, however trivial, in God, it was not appropriate for any divine person to be incarnate other than the Son. For nothing absurd follows from his becoming incarnate. That the Son is said to be less than the Father and the Holy Spirit according to his humanity does not mean that those two persons are superior to the Son, since the Son possesses the very same majesty by which they are greater than the 22 Because he would be the Son of the Father, who would in turn be the son of the virgin. See the parallel arguments given in Cur Deus Homo, Book 2, Chapter 9.
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Son's humanity; and by virtue of that majesty the Son is, like them, greater than his own humanity.
And there is another reason why incarnation is more suitable to the Son than to another person. The person who was to become incarnate was going to pray for the human race, and the human mind understands well enough that it is more fitting for the Son to pray to the Father than for any other person to pray to any other person—although it is not divinity that makes this prayer, but humanity that prays to divinity. The Son of God makes such prayer because a human being is the Son of God by unity of person.
Moreover, the person who was to assume human being was going to come in order to fight against the devil and in order to intercede for human beings, as I have said. Both the devil and human beings willed to make themselves like
God through an act of robbery when they exercised their own wills. And since this was an act of robbery, it was an act of falsehood, since they were not able to will this otherwise than unjustly. For the will of an angel or of a human being is his own when it is contrary to the will of God; someone who wills what God forbids has no author of his will but himself, and so his will is his own. Even if a human being at some time subjects his will to that of another human being, his will is still his own if it is contrary to God; for he subjects it to someone else only in order to achieve something that he himself wills, and so he is the author of his own subjection of his will to another. Hence, his will is his own; it is not subjected to another. Now it is the prerogative of God alone to have his own will, a will that is not subjected to another. So those who exercise their own will are trying by an act of robbery to be like God and are guilty of depriving God (as far as they are able) of the dignity that rightly belongs to him and the superiority that is his alone. For if there is any other will that is not subjected to another, God's will will not be superior to all others, and it will not be the only will to which no other will is superior.
Therefore, none of the three divine persons could more fittingly "empty himself, receiving the form of a slave"23 in order to wage war against the devil and intercede on behalf of human beings, who by an act of robbery arrogated to themselves a false likeness of God, than the Son who, being "the splendor of eternal light"24 and the true image of the Father,25 "did not regard his being
23 Philippians 2:7.
24 These words are taken from a liturgical text sung in the week before Christmas. Cf.Wisdom 7:26, "He is the brightness of eternal light"; Hebrews 1:3: "He is the splendor of glory."
25 Cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4:"He is the image of God"; Colossians 1:15:"He is the image of the invisible God."
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equal with God as an act of robbery."26 Rather, in virtue of his true equality and likeness, he said,"I and the Father are one"27 and "Whoever sees me also sees the Father."28 For no one acts more justly in vanquishing or punishing the guilty, or acts more mercifully in sparing them or interceding for them, than the one whom they are proved to have particularly wronged. Nor is anything more fittingly put in opposition to falsehood in order to vanquish it, or applied to falsehood in order to heal it, than is truth. For those who arrogated to themselves a false likeness to God appear to have sinned in particular against the one who is believed to be the true likeness of God the Father. But as has been said, he took human being into a unity of person, so that the two natures, human and divine, would be one person.
I think it would be useful to say something about this unity of person, which we most steadfastly believe is not from two persons in Christ; for some things that are said about it could cause those who do not understand clearly to think that Christ exists from two persons and in two persons. For some people say,"How do we say that in Christ there are not two persons as there are two natures? After all, before assuming human being, God was a person; and he did not cease to be a person after he had assumed human being. And the assumed human being is a person, since we know that every individual human being is a person. So the divine person who existed before the Incarnation is distinct from the human person who was assumed. Therefore, since
Christ is both God and a human being, there seem to be two persons in him."
This reasoning appears to show that there are two persons in Christ on the grounds that God is a person and the assumed human being is a person.
But that is not the case. For as in God one nature is a plurality of persons and a plurality of persons are one nature, so too in Christ one person is a plurality of natures and a plurality of natures are one person. For as the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet they are not three gods, but one God, so too in Christ God is a person and the human being is a person, and yet there are not two persons, but one person. It is not the case that God is one thing and the human being another in Christ, even though
God is one thing and human being another. Rather, he is himself God who is also a human being. For "the Word made flesh"29 assumed another nature, not another person. The expression 'human being' signifies only the nature that is
26 Philippians 2:6.
27 John 10:30.
28 John 14:9.
29 John 1:14.
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common to all human beings. By contrast, when we use a demonstrative and say 'this human being' or 'that human being', or when we use the proper name
'Jesus', we designate a person. A person has a collection of distinguishing characteristics along with the nature; it is by those characteristics that human being in general is made an individual and is distinguished from other individuals.When Christ is designated in this way, the expression signifies not just any human being, but the one who was announced by an angel, is both God and a human being, is Son of God and son of the Virgin, and is whatever else it is true to say of him either as God or as human. For the Son of God cannot be designated or named personally apart from the Son of Man, nor can the Son of Man be designated or named personally apart from the Son of God, since he who is the Son of God is the very same as the one who is the Son of Man, and the same collection of distinguishing characteristics belongs both to the Word and to the assumed human being. But it is impossible for one and the same collection of distinguishing characteristics to belong to distinct persons or for two persons to be predicated of each other. After all, the same collection of distinguishing characteristics does not belong to both Peter and Paul, and Peter is not called 'Paul' or Paul 'Peter'.
So when "the Word was made flesh," he assumed the nature that is all that is signified by the word 'human being' and is always distinct from divine nature.
He did not assume another person, since he has one and the same collection of distinguishing characteristics as the assumed human being. For human being is not one and the same thing as the human being assumed by the Word—that is, Jesus. As has been said, by the expression 'human being' we mean only the nature, whereas by the expression 'assumed human being' or the name 'Jesus' we mean, in addition to the nature (that is, in addition to human being) the collection of distinguishing characteristics,which is one and the same for both the assumed human being and the Word. For this reason we do not say that the Word and human being, without qualification, are one and the same person—which would imply that that human being is no more one and the same person as the Word than any given human being is—but instead that the Word and that assumed human being, who is Jesus, are one and the same person. Similarly,we do not believe that that human being is one and the same person as God, without qualification, but that he is one and the same person as that divine person who is the Word and the Son—otherwise we would seem to be professing that this human being is the same person as the Father or the Holy Spirit. But since the Word is God and that assumed human being is a human being, it is true to say that God and a human being are one and the same person, so long as we understand 'God' to designate the Word and 'human being' to designate the son of the Virgin.
I have not been able to look at any of the writings of the man to whom I am responding in this letter, apart from what I set forth above. But I think the truth
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of the matter is so evident from what I have said that anyone with understanding will see that nothing that is said against it has any power of truth.
But if this man has been called back from positing a multiplicity of gods and now denies a plurality of persons in God, he is doing this because he does not know what he is talking about. He is not conceiving God or his persons, but something along the lines of a plurality of human persons; and since he sees that one human being cannot be a plurality of persons, he says that God too cannot be a plurality of persons. For they are not called three persons because they are three separate things, as three human beings are, but because they bear a certain likeness to three separate persons. Let us examine this in the case of the Father and the Son; the same reasoning should be understood to hold for the Holy Spirit as well.
So let us posit a human being who is only a father and not a son, and his son, who is only a son and not his father:Adam and Abel. And we say of Adam the father and Abel the son that the father is not a son and the son is not a father, since Adam and Abel are two human beings and two separate persons, and there is no one whose son Adam is and no one whose father Abel is. It is in this way that we profess that in God, the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, even though they are not two gods, since the Father does not have a father and the Son does not have a son. Similarly, the Holy Spirit is not a father or a son, because there is no one whose father he is or whose son he is. So the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are called three persons, not because they are three separate things, but because they are three and are distinct from one another, and cannot be said of one another (as we showed for 'father' and 'son' in the case of distinct human persons).
But if he denies that 'three' can be said of one and 'one' of three in such a way that the three are not said of each other,as we do in the case of the three persons and one God, on the grounds that he does not see an instance of this in other things and cannot comprehend it in God, let him put up with the fact that there is something in God that his understanding cannot penetrate.
That nature is above all other things and free from every law of place and time and composition of parts: let him not compare it to things that are hemmed in by place or time or are composed of parts. Rather, let him believe that something exists in that nature that cannot exist in those other things; let him accede to Christian authority and not dispute against it.
Nevertheless, let us see whether we can in some respect find in created things that are subject to the law of place and time and composition of parts an example of what he denies in God. Let us imagine a spring from which there rises and flows a river that later opens out into a lake. Call it "the Nile."
We speak of the spring, the river, and the lake so separately that we do not call
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the spring 'river' or 'lake' or the river 'spring' or 'lake' or the lake 'spring' or 'river'.And yet the spring is called 'the Nile', the river is called 'the Nile', and the lake is called 'the Nile'. The spring and the river are both the Nile; the spring and the lake are both the Nile; the river and the lake are both the Nile.
Moreover, all three together—the spring, the river, and the lake—are the Nile. Nonetheless, whether we call one or two or all three of them 'the Nile', they are not distinct Niles,but one and the same Nile.So the spring,the river, and the lake are three, and yet they are one Nile, one stream, one nature, one body of water; and we cannot say what they are three of, since they are not three Niles or three streams or three bodies of water or three natures, nor are they three springs or three rivers or three lakes. So in this example 'one' is said of the three and 'three' of the one, and yet the three are not said of each other.
Suppose he objects that neither the spring nor the river nor the lake individually, nor any two of them together, are the complete Nile; rather, they are parts of the Nile. In that case, let him conceive the whole Nile as existing for its entire lifetime, so to speak, from the time it begins to exist until it ceases to exist. After all, that whole does not exist all at once in either a place or a time, but only part by part; and it will not be complete until it ceases to exist. In this respect it is like an utterance, which is incomplete as long as it is still springing forth from the mouth, and no longer exists once it has been completed. Anyone who entertains this analogy and attentively understands it will recognize that the whole Nile is the spring, the whole
Nile is the river, and the whole Nile is the lake, but the spring is not the river or the lake, the river is not the lake or the spring, and the lake is not the spring or the river. For the spring is not the same as the river or the lake, even though the river and the lake are the very same thing that the spring is, that is, the same Nile, the same stream, the same body of water, the same nature. So these three are said of one complete whole and the one complete whole of the three, and yet the three are not said of each other. Of course, this holds in a quite different and more perfect way in that supremely simple nature, which is supremely free from every law of place or time.Yet if this is evident in any way at all in a thing that is composed of parts and exists in place and time, it is not impossible to believe that it exists perfectly in that supremely free nature.
And one must also bear in mind that the spring is not from the river or from the lake, the river is from the spring alone and not from the lake, and the lake is from the spring and from the river—and in such a way that the whole river is from the whole spring and the whole lake is from the whole spring and from the whole river. This is how we speak of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And one must also bear in mind that the river is from the spring
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in a different way from that in which the lake is from both the spring and the river, so that the lake is not called a river. Similarly, the Word is from the Father in a different way from that in which the Holy Spirit is from both the Father and the Word, so that the Holy Spirit is not a Word or a Son, but proceeds [from the Father and the Son].
I want to add a further comparison, since although there is a great disanalogy in this case, it nonetheless has some similarity to the Incarnation of the Word. Perhaps someone who reads this will make light of it, but I will mention it anyway, since I would not reject it if someone else said it. If the river ran through a pipe from the spring to the lake, would it not be the river alone that is "piped," so to speak, even though the river is not a different Nile from the spring and the lake—just as only the Son was incarnate,even though he is not a different God from the Father and the Holy Spirit?
But since these earthly things are very far removed from the supreme nature, let us with his help raise our minds to that nature and contemplate in it, though briefly and partially, the things we have been saying. God is nothing other than simple eternity itself. Now it is inconceivable that there should be a plurality of eternities. For if there is more than one eternity, they are either outside each other or within each other. But nothing is outside eternity, so an eternity is not outside eternity. Moreover, if eternities are outside each other, they exist in different places or times, which is incompatible with eternity.
And so there are not several eternities existing outside each other. But if instead it is said that there are several eternities within each other, one must recognize that however many times an eternity is repeated within an eternity, there is only one and the same eternity. For a nature that when repeated within itself always comes together into a perfect unity is more exalted than one that admits plurality within itself. For where there is plurality, there is also diversity; and where there is diversity, there is not perfect harmony. For a perfect harmony is one that comes together into a single identity and one and the same unity. Therefore, if a perfect harmony is better than an imperfect one, and it is impossible for there to be anything imperfect in the supreme Good— which is eternity itself—it is not possible for the nature of eternity to admit plurality. Hence, however many times eternity is repeated within eternity, it is always only one and the same eternity.
Similar remarks apply to many other things. For example, omnipotence within omnipotence is only one omnipotence. And (to offer an analogy from characteristics that the divine nature does not have) a point within a point is only one point. For a point, such as the midpoint of the earth or a point of time (that is, the present time) has a certain resemblance to eternity, a resemblance that is quite helpful in contemplating eternity. I will examine this matter
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in greater detail elsewhere;30 for now it will be enough to note that a simple point (that is, one that has no parts) is indivisible, as eternity is. For this reason a point together with a point without any interval is only one point, and in the same way an eternity together with an eternity is only one eternity.
Therefore, since God is eternity, there is not a plurality of gods; for God is not outside God, and God within God does not add numerically to God.
Therefore, there is always only one and the same God. And so when God is born of God, given that what is born is not outside that from which it is born, the offspring is in the parent and the parent is in the offspring: that is, the Father and the Son are one God. And when God proceeds from God the Father and God the Son, he does not depart and go outside God; God—that is,
God the Holy Spirit—remains in the God from whom he proceeds, and the Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one God. And since this birth and this procession have no beginning—for otherwise the eternity born and the eternity proceeding would have a beginning, which is false—we neither should nor can in any way think that God began to be Father or Son or Holy Spirit.
Yet even as the divine substance preserves an eternal and singular unity, the nature of these relative qualities—Father and Son, proceeding and proceeded-from—retains an inseparable plurality. For just as it is necessary that God is always one and the same, not many, so too in accordance with these relations the Father is never the same as his Son and the one who proceeds is never the same as the one from whom he proceeds. Rather, the Father is always distinct from the Son, the one who proceeds is always distinct from the one from whom he proceeds, and the Persons can never be said of each other.
Therefore, when God is born of God or God proceeds from God, the substance cannot lose its singularity and the relations cannot lose their plurality.
For this reason, in God something one is three and what are three is one, and yet the three are not said of each other. And even though no perfect analogy for this can be found in other things, we should not find it incredible that this is true of the nature that is above all things and is unlike all other things. Now the Latins call these three 'persons', whereas the Greeks call them 'substances'.
Thus, just as we say that in God one substance is three persons, they say that one person is three substances, signifying by 'substance' exactly what we signify by 'person', so that they do not differ from us in the faith in the slightest respect.
Now we cannot in this life see God "as he is,"31 and so blessed Augustine in his book On the Trinity has carefully examined, as though "through a mirror
30 On the Procession of the Holy Spirit 9.
31 1 John 3:2.
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and in a riddle,"32 how the Son is born of the Father and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, and yet is not himself a Son; and I have investigated these things myself to the best of my ability in the Monologion,33 which I mentioned above. If anyone is interested in knowing why, given that there is no sex in the supreme being, the parent is called Father rather than
Mother and the offspring is called Son rather than Daughter, or why the Father alone is unbegotten, the Son alone begotten, and the Holy Spirit neither begotten nor unbegotten, he will find these matters treated explicitly in that book.34
32 1 Corinthians 13:12.
33 See the Monologion, Chapter 29 and following.
34 See the Monologion, Chapters 42 and 56.
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Commendation of the Work to Pope Urban II EVER SINCE THE days of the apostles, many of our holy fathers and teachers have spoken of the reason of our faith,1 in order to refute the foolishness of unbelievers and break down their obstinacy, and also in order to nourish those who, because their hearts have already been purified by faith, have come to take delight in the reason of that faith—reason for which we too should hunger, once we have attained the certainty of faith. Indeed, they have spoken so often and so well that we cannot hope for anyone in our day or in the years to come who will be their equal in the contemplation of the truth. Nevertheless, I do not think we should find fault with anyone who is firmly established in faith and desires to expend his labor in investigating its reason. For "brief are the days of man,"2 so even our holy fathers and teachers were not able to say everything they could have said had they lived longer; and the reason of truth is so abundant and so deep that mortals cannot come to the end of it.
Moreover, the Lord never ceases to bestow gifts of grace upon his Church, for he has promised to be with her "even to the end of the age."3 And—leaving aside all the other places in which Holy Scripture urges us to search for reason—when it says, "Unless you believe, you will not understand,"4 it is clearly admonishing us to direct our energies toward understanding, since it is teaching us the right way to make progress toward understanding. Finally, since I take the understanding that we achieve in this life to be intermediate between faith and vision, I think that the more progress someone makes toward understanding, the closer he comes to that vision for which we all long.
Although I am a man of very little knowledge, these considerations give me such great strength that I will endeavor to raise myself up just a little to gaze upon the reason of the things we believe, so far as heavenly grace sees fit to 1 For an explanation of what Anselm means by "the reason of faith," see the Introduction, p. vii.
2 Job 14:5.
3 Matthew 28:20.
4 Isaiah 7:9 in the Old Latin text.
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grant it to me.And when I discover something that I had not previously seen, I will gladly reveal it to others, so that I may learn from others' judgment what
I ought to maintain with confidence.
For this reason, my lord and father, Pope Urban, whom all Christians should love with reverence and revere with love, whom the providence of God has appointed Supreme Pontiff in his Church, I submit the enclosed work for Your Holiness to examine—for there is no one to whom I could more properly address it—so that your authority may give approval to those things in it that are worthy of acceptance and may correct those things that require amendment.
Preface Thanks to certain people who made copies for themselves of the first parts of the enclosed work without my knowledge, before it was completed and fully thought through, I have been forced to complete it (as well as I could) more hastily than I cared to, and therefore more briefly than I had intended. If I had been allowed freedom from distractions and enough time to work on it, I would have included and added quite a few things that I have left unsaid.5 For it was in the midst of great turmoil in my heart—God knows the source of this trouble and why I have suffered from it—that I undertook this work in England in response to a request and finished it as an exile in the province of Capua.6
Because of the subject matter of this work I have named it Cur Deus Homo,7 and I have divided it into two short books.The first presents the objections of unbelievers who reject the Christian faith because they think it is contrary to reason, and the answers given by believers. It goes so far as to prove by necessary reasons—leaving Christ out of the picture, as if nothing concerning him had ever taken place—that it is impossible for any human being to be saved apart from Christ. But the second book—which again proceeds as though nothing were known of Christ—demonstrates, by means of argument and truth that is no less evident, that human nature was established in order that 5 See the Introduction (p. x) for an account of what Anselm would have "included and added."
6 Anselm began Cur Deus Homo in 1095. As a result of a quarrel with King William II in which many of his own bishops sided against him, Anselm went into exile in November
1097. He spent part of his exile in the Lombard duchy of Capua as a guest of his former pupil, the abbot of San Salvatore at Telese. He finished Cur Deus Homo there in 1098.
7 That is, Why God [Became] a Human Being.As is usual, I have left the title of the work in Latin.
CUR DEUS HOMO
the whole human being, both body and soul, should at some time enjoy blessed immortality, and that it was necessary that the purpose for which human beings were made should in fact be achieved, but only through the agency of a God-man, and that it was necessary that everything we believe about Christ should take place.
I ask everyone who might want to copy this book to put this short preface before the beginning, along with the chapter titles of the whole work, so that anyone into whose hands it falls will be able to see from its face, so to speak, whether there is anything in the whole body that might merit his attention.
Chapters BOOK ONE 1: The question on which the whole work hangs 2: In what way the things to be said are to be accepted
3: The objections of unbelievers and the replies of believers 4: That unbelievers think these responses lack necessity and are merely pictures, as it were
5: That human redemption could not have been brought about by anyone but a divine person 6: In what way unbelievers cast aspersions on our claim that God redeemed us by means of his own death, and that in this way he demonstrated his love toward us, and that he came in order to subdue the devil on our behalf 7: That the devil had no just claim on humanity; and why it seems that he had such a claim, thus requiring God to liberate humanity in this way
8: How even though the lowly things we say of Christ do not pertain to his divinity, it seems absurd to unbelievers that they are said of him even as a human being; and why they think this human being did not die of his own accord 9: That he died of his own accord; and what is meant by "He was made obedient to the point of death," and by "for this reason God has also exalted him," and by "I have not come to do my own will," and by "God did not spare his own Son," and by "Not as I will, but as you will"
10: Another way in which the same passages can be understood correctly 11: What it is to sin and to make recompense for sin
12: Whether it is fitting for God to forgive sin by mercy alone, without any repayment of the debt 13: That there is nothing less tolerable in the order of things than for a creature to take away the honor that is owed to the Creator and not restore what he has taken
14: In what way the punishment of a sinner is an honoring of God 15: Whether God allows his honor to be violated even to a limited extent
16: The reason that human beings are to make up for the number of angels who fell
BASIC WRITINGS
17: That they cannot be replaced by other angels 18: Whether there will be more holy human beings than there are evil angels
19: That human beings cannot be saved without recompense for sin 20: That recompense ought to be proportionate to sin, and that human beings cannot make recompense on their own
21: How serious sin is 22: What injury human beings did to God when they allowed themselves to be overcome by the devil, for which they cannot make recompense
23: What human beings took away from God when they sinned, which they cannot repay 24: That as long as they do not repay God what they owe, they cannot be happy; and that they are not excused because of their inability
25: That of necessity human beings are saved through Christ BOOK TWO 1: Human beings were created just, in order that they might be happy
2: That they would not die if they had not sinned 3: That they will rise again with the body in which they live in this life
4: That God will complete what he began in human nature 5: That although it is necessary that this be done, God is not compelled by necessity to do it; and that there is a necessity that eliminates or diminishes gratitude, and a necessity that increases gratitude
6: That only a God-man can make the recompense through which human beings are saved 7: That it is necessary that one and the same being be perfect God and perfect man
8: That it is fitting for God to assume a human being from Adam's race and from a woman who is a virgin 9: That it is necessary that the Word alone and a human being come together in one person
10: That this human being does not die out of obligation; and in what way he can or cannot sin; and why he or an angel deserves praise for justice, even though they cannot sin
11: That he dies of his own power; and that mortality does not belong to pure human nature
CUR DEUS HOMO
12: That although he shares our misfortunes, he is not unhappy 13: That he does not possess ignorance along with our other infirmities
14: How his death outweighs the number and magnitude of all sins 15: How his death wipes out the sins even of those who put him to death
16: How God assumed a sinless human being from the sinful mass; and concerning the salvation of Adam and Eve
17: That there is no necessity or impossibility in God; and that there is compelling necessity and non-compelling necessity
18: How by Christ's life restitution is made to God for human sins; and how Christ both owed and did not owe suffering
19: How very reasonable it is that his death brings about human salvation 20: How great and how just is God's mercy
21: That it is impossible for the devil to be reconciled 22: That the truth of the Old and New Testaments has been proved in what has been said