17. To The Monk Henry.
The Letters of St. Anselm
17. TO THE MONK HENRY.
Anselm urges Henry at Christ Church, Canterbury, to give up his plan of go ing to Italy to help his sister, for the sake of monastic obedience and stability, and asks him to greet Herluin and Osbem of Bee who are at Canterbury.
TO HIS FELLOW-MONK AND DEAREST BROTHER, HENRY1: BROTHER
ANSELM SENDS GREETING.
WHEREAS, AND MY CONSCIENCE is my witness, I do not wish to love you less than myself, I would surely fight against myself if I wanted to advise you any differently from myself. Indeed I find no advice more useful or more univer sal than that which Wisdom advises us: that we do every thing with consideration lest our deed be followed by repentance.2
Just as this counsel is very wisely given so it is very truly valid; to whatever degree somebody disregards this, to the same degree he chooses not to rejoice over his deeds but to rue them. Therefore, if anyone advises you to make use of this counsel his advice should be listened to no less heed lessly than the advice of him who is to be obeyed by all per sons and in all things.
For this reason, dearly beloved, your friend offers you this advice because I hear that in a certain matter you intend to act against your friends' advice. You intend, I have heard, to go from England to Italy to defend your sister, because you have heard that some rich man has deceitfully subject ed her to undeserved servitude. I beseech you, dearest friend, through our mutual friendship—if any there be in you—through my happiness for you—if you wish there to be any in me—not to do this. For, my dearly beloved, what concern is it of monks and those who claim they want to flee the world? To whom are they servants and under what name [do they serve] in the world? In short, is not every man bom to trouble and birds to fly?3 Under the name superi or or under the name servant, does not everyone, or near ly everyone, serve? Is it not so that someone who is called a
The Letters of St. Anselm servant in the Lord is a free man of the Lord and someone who is called a free man in the Lord is a servant of Christ?4 If, there fore, all work and serve this way, and a servant is the Lord's free man and a free man is Christ's servant, what does it matter, except to pride, whether one is called a servant or free man in the sight of the world or before God? The Apos tle says: if you are called a servant, let it be of no concern to you.5
And why are we, who are not permitted or need not be con cerned about ourselves, so concerned about others?
Even if it is good to want to free a person bound to difficult circumstances, yet what you intend is not good enough to be worth looking back at after having held on to Christ's plough for so long;6 worth having a monk break his vow by such an interruption; worth exposing him, by so impor tant and extraordinary a desire, to so many difficult dangers and dangerous difficulties of body and soul; worth resist ing, with such singular and inflexible thinking, the advice of all his friends—those younger, those of the same age, those older and his superiors—and I, aware [of the problem], shout a rebuke out of charity to my friend who is aware
[of what I mean]. Therefore, because there are so many and such certain difficulties or even evils involved in it, if this single good, so inopportune, so uncertain and so harmful a good be compared [with others], then who, understand ing the good, would not say that it is not only not good but positively evil? Therefore, dearest friend, trust more in your friends' advice than in your own deliberation, unless you consider yourself wiser than all of them. But because your mind, under the strain of great emotion, weighs any little good in it, it mistakenly does not for this reason weigh with equal measure the things which counterbalance it. For as often as we propound the many things it would be bet ter to choose, having once set aside all our own cravings, we should consider the weight of all these matters. For if we join the weight of love to the weight of the cause loved, we are without doubt deceived by the things we have to decide about. Therefore, if your prudence does not wish
The Letters of St. Anselm
to make a mistake in deliberating about your choice, you should not merely attach your affection to the matter you long for but you should fairly judge the arguments we put forward in this matter alone. And if you persist in your own will—which with God's help may not happen—just as you will act against the opinion of all your friends, so you will not have any of their support in this matter harmful to you.
Dom Abbot greets you as his dearest son. He wants every thing I have written here to be considered his own words.
Therefore, obey his and our admonitions so that by obey ing a kind father being in agreement with a friendly brother—if you love them—you may give joy to both father and brother. Greet on our behalf our beloved brothers Dom
Herluin and Dom Osbern. Farewell, and if I can do any thing for you, request it of me as quickly as you can whether you bend your will to one who loves you in the flesh—I speak of your will—or whether you shun the opinion of those who love you in the spirit.
Before 1074.
NOTES 1. See Ep 5.
2. Si 32:24.
3. Jb 5:7.
4. 1 Cor 7:22.
5. 1 Cor 7:21.
6. Cf. Lk 9:62.