105. TO FULK, ABBOT OF SAINT: Pierre-Sur-Dives.
The Letters of St. Anselm
105. TO FULK, ABBOT OF SAINT
PIERRE-SUR-DIVES.
Anselm beseeches Abbot Fulk of Saint Pierre-sur-Dives to receive his monk Benedict back into the monastery.
TO HIS LORD AND FATHER, THE REVEREND ABBOT FULK: BROTHER
ANSELM SENDS PRAYERS AND FAITHFUL SERVICE.
YOUR SON1, WHO LEFT your paternity without permis sion, penitent and prepared to give full satisfaction accord ing to your judgement, is humbly returning. He does not ask you to remit the punishment he deserves but rather, in your mercy, to take him back, even as the last, into the fold deserted through his own fault. I beseech your holi ness, therefore, that your strictness not so much consider what he did in sinning, as your mercy carefully weigh what he is doing in humility by repenting. I beseech our other brothers and fellow-monks, your sons, that they, implor ing the mercy of your paternity for him, show that they are glad that their brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.2 Indeed you should show your judgement and mercy to that brother by the measure—as it is written, I shall sing of mercy and judgement to you, O Lord3—that the power and the prudence are yours to the extent that mercy may surpass judgement.4 c. 1085.
NOTES 1. See Ep 104.
2. Lk 15:32.
3. Ps 100:1.
4. Cf. Jm 2:13; RB 64:10 (CSEL 75/2:164).