146. To The Monks John And
The Letters of St. Anselm
146. TO THE MONKS JOHN AND
BOSO.
Anselm consoles the monks John and Boso of Bee who are at Seez that the book let of his which they thought they had lost has been found. He promises to send them music they requested when it is returned from Caen.
A FRIEND TO HIS FRIENDS, ONE WHO IS LOVED TO THOSE HE
LOVES, TO DOM JOHN AND DOM BOSO1: BROTHER ANSELM,
WISHING THEM LASTING HAPPINESS IN THIS LIFE AND IN THE LIFE
TO COME.
ALTHOUGH WISDOM AND LOVE may be delightful and sweet, yet in the uncertainties of this life they sometimes engender sorrow and bitterness. The truer and greater they are, the less often but the more severely do they do this.
Wiser persons are fooled more rarely, but when it does hap pen they get hurt more seriously. In the same way, those who love more truly will offend those they love less often; but when this does happen, they grieve more deeply.
Wherefore, although what you did negligently was just a little thing—if what you did to my booklet2 can be called negligence—you tell me that you suffer greatly. In any case, you demonstrate that you did not sink to this out of habit or out of negligence but because of the inevitable fact that there is no man who does not sin.3 Hence you prove for certain that you are more prudent in caution and more fer vent in love.
The more closely I consider this, the more rightly, I con fess, ought the injury to your heart injure my heart. When, therefore, you write to me that a wound has been inflicted on your heart because of the love you bear me, whom you were afraid of having offended, you likewise strike a wound to my heart. For the more I realize how much you suffer by zeal for my love, the more I suffer because you are suffer ing, and rightly so. Heal your wound, therefore, so that it may no longer hurt you, just as you want to heal mine so that it does not pain me. For what you feared had been lost is safe and what you left in a safe place is in our possession.
The Letters of St. Anselm Greet our most beloved, reverend Dom Abbot Ralph,4 and our beloved brothers entrusted to his care. As to the music you asked for, we have again asked the prior of Caen,5 to whom we lent it, to return it and we will send it to you as quickly as we can. c. 1090/92.
NOTES 1. For John, see Ep 145. Boso entered Bee about 1090 (see VA 60-61) and is two hundred sixty-first in the Bee profession-roll or 125th of the 163 monks professed while Anselm was abbot. He became fourth ab bot of Bee, 1124-1136, see Milo Crispin's Vita Bosonis; PL 150: 724-734, translated in S. Vaughn, The Abbey of Bee and the Anglo-Norman State,
1034-1136, (Woodbridge, 1981) 126-133. Vita Bosonis is fully discussed in A. Poree, Histoire de VAbbaye du Bee (Evreux, 1911) I: 280-314. He was a sharp, eager inquisitor among Anselm's young, devoted disci ples and Anselm honored him by dedicating De conceptu virginali et de originali peccato to him; see AOO II: 139 and 162. He also gave the fellow-disputant of Cur Deus Homo Boso's name; see AOO II: 48; Ep
209; Southern, Anselm, 202.
2. Anselm seems to be referring to an early stage of De incamatione Verbi, on which he was working at this time; see Epp 129, 147 and AOO
78*-89*.
3. Cf. Qo 7:21.
4. See Ep 146.
5. Prior Helgot, 1075-1092, see Ep 25.