117. TO THE YOUNG MAN: William.
The Letters of St. Anselm
117. TO THE YOUNG MAN
WILLIAM.
Writing from England, Anselm expresses his love to young William, warns him of the wickedness of the world and beseeches him not to go to Jerusalem to help his brother but to go to Bee to become a monk like Ralph, the treasurer of Beauvais.
TO HIS BELOVED FRIEND WILLIAM, LONGED-FOR IN GOD, IF ONLY
HE HAD A SENSE OF LONGING AND LOVE: BROTHER ANSELM,
STYLED ABBOT OF BEC, WISHING HE MAY DESPISE DANGEROUS
AND IRKSOME VAINGLORY AND SEEK SECURE AND BLESSED TRUTH.
THE LORD ALMIGHTY, by his grace, not by my merits, has so filled my soul with love for you, my beloved and longed-for friend that, torn between desire for your salva tion and fear for your peril, tormented day and night by anxiety for you, it can find no rest. And blessed be God in his gifts; O that he would take as far from you the hatred for your own soul as he has let me love your salvation! Bear with me, dear friend, and put up with someone who loves you, even if I appear importunate, and speak more severe ly to you than you would like. My love for your soul forces my soul not to permit yours to allow you to hate it, when it is always surrounded by my love. Receive, therefore, dearest friend, with love—which I pray God may give you— the words of someone who loves you.
You, my most beloved friend, you—and my love expresses this with grief and my grief with love!—are the one who has hated your soul loved by my soul; O if only God would lift this from you, because he who loves wickedness hates his own soul.1 Indeed, it is to wickedness and wicked deeds that you are hastening with such fondness, my beloved. It is to wickedness and wicked crimes that your impetuosity for seething worldly destruction is dragging you, my longedfor friend. For the bloody confusion of wars is wickedness; the proud ambition of worldly vanity is wickedness; the in satiable greed for hollow honors and hollow riches is wickedness. It is to this—woe is me—that I see him, whom
The Letters of St. Anselm
I want to hold back by loving him so much, being dragged by that cunning enemy who is deceiving his heart. O God, friend and deliverer of men, do not let this enemy entice your servant away.
You say to me, my longed-for brother: 'I love not those things, but my brother who is involved in them; and for that reason I hasten to be involved with him in them so that I may help and guard him'. Alas for the irksome sorrow of the irksome error of Adam's offspring! Why, O man, do you not rather say: 'I love not those things, but Christ, my
God: and for that reason, fleeing them, I hurry to him to be helped and guided by Him'? And you, having heard the crash of the world tumbling in ruin on your brother, despis ing Christ who is calling you, you rush beneath the same ruins so that one poor little mortal, one worm, may help and guard another poor little mortal, another worm beneath so confused a burden and burdensome confusion? Answer me, my brother: who will help and guard you while you are helping and guarding him? God, whom you strive to follow less than you do that brother of yours? Christ, who calls you to possess the kingdom of heaven as heirs of God and his co-heirs,2 you scorn following in peace, in your own country, among your relatives. And through so many and such rough hardships along the journey, through the raging of the sea and howling tempest you rush to your brother in bellicose disarray to see him holding—and this is saying a lot—the kingdom of the Greeks? And you really think God helps and guards him more through you than without you, or [helps and guards] you because of your brother rather than because of himself? Indeed he is most unlikely to do this. For he grows angry if he sees anyone being loved by anyone else more than himself.
But perhaps you say: If I begin to follow Christ, I am afraid I may fall away because of my foolishness. Again and again one must grieve and weep over the errors of the sons of men. Are they not afraid of failing at those things they always fail to achieve, indeed the very failure which they
The Letters of St. Anselm run after with their whole heart? But for fear of failure they dare not follow the God who never fails them and promises them his help? Do they take such pleasure in failing that they fail, and are afraid of making progress for fear of fail ing? Trust, I beg you, in God's counsel and commit your self totally to God's help and you will not experience failure in God's service. Cast, beloved, longed-for and dear friend, cast your thought on the Lord and be assured by the Holy
Spirit's promise, that he himself will sustain you A Do not delay so great a good for yourself but comply with my longing for you, that I may have you as my companion in following Christ; and let us struggle on together, so you may regard me as your companion and I you as mine in the inheritance of Christ by his gift. Be not ashamed to break the chains of your intended vanity, because it is not shame ful but honorable to cross over into the freedom of truth.
You should be ashamed to love God less than the treas urer of Beauvais does4: He was a young man about your age, or a little younger, spoiled, very good-looking, ex tremely rich, of the noblest birth and an immoderate lover of the world. Once, shortly after I had gone to England,5 he came to Bee, for what reason I do not know, intending to leave again immediately, but suddenly, changed by the grace of the Holy Spirit, he solemnly declared that he wanted to stay on as a monk and immediately received the tonsure and took our habit. He now affirms that he is hap pier than he ever was in his life. Do not blush at professing yourself the poor man of Christ, for yours will be the kingdom of heaven.6 Do not be afraid at making yourself the soldier of such a king, for the king himself will be with you in every peril. Do not tarry any longer in this life set ting out on the better path as you resolved, lest perhaps you loiter in receiving the crown of blessedness in the life to come. I admonish, advise, beg, beseech, and command you, as my most beloved friend, to abandon that Jerusalem which is now a vision not of peace but of tribulation, and the treasures of Constantinople and Babylon now being
The Letters of St. Anselm
pillaged by cruel hands, and set out on the path to the heavenly Jerusalem which is a vision of peace, where you will find treasures which you can only receive by despis ing the former ones.
Reluctantly I bring this long letter to a close, since out of the abundance of my heart my mouth wanted to say many things to you.7 May almighty God who did more for the man about whom I just spoke and whom I desired with a similar but slighter desire, because with less hope than I do you, may he who rejoiced my heart more than I could have hoped, not disappoint my greater hope and greater longing for you. Should God deign to inspire your heart before my return, God is at Bee with our brothers when
I am absent just as when I am present. May the Lord direct your heart according to his will and satisfy my wish for you according to his mercy. Amen.
Spring 1086.
NOTES 1. Cf. Ps 10:6.
2. Cf. Rom 8:17.
3. Ps 54:23.
4. Ralph, see Epp 99, 115.
5. Anselm refers to his first journey to England in 1080/81, see Ep 98.
6. Mt 5:3.
7. Cf. Mt 12:34.