65. To Abbot William.
The Letters of St. Anselm
ship and point out that what he does for you he does for none other than my heart. For he and I have been sure of our mutual friendship for a long time; if only he deigns to remember what I never forget.
Greet him, as respectfully as you can, on my behalf, along with Dom Prior and my Dom Gundulf and our other fellowmonks and our brothers who are with you. Farewell, my dearest son, and do not despise the advice of him who loves you with paternal affection. Farewell. c. 1076.
NOTES 1. Arnulf was a teacher of great distinction; see Epp 38, 74, and Southern,
Anselm, 269f.
2. For the study of classical authors, see M. Gibson, Lanfranc of Bee (Ox ford, 1978) 44, 181; G. Evans, Old Arts and New Theology (Oxford, 1980)
57-137.
65. TO ABBOT WILLIAM.
Anselm humbly assures Abbot William of Fecamp of their mutual fraternal love.
As requested, he advises him on his behavior towards an excommunicated count, on married priests and on fallen priests who secretly confess and promise to live a virtuous life henceforth. Anselm supports his advice by quoting Calixtus I,
Gregory I, and other fathers.
TO HIS LORD AND FATHER, REVEREND ABBOT WILLIAM:1 BROTHER
ANSELM, WISHING ENDURING PROSPERITY IN THIS LIFE AND IN THE
LIFE TO COME ETERNAL BLISS.
AFTER YOUR FfONOR DEIGNED to send me a note, I con ceived such an affection for you that your memory is always dear to me. I have learned by experience that you are not undeserving, for I have perceived that your life was worthy of love and reverence and that your paternity is not without the affection of love towards my lowliness. The brothers coming from you have not only frequently edified me by
The Letters of St. Anselm talking about your holiness but have also honored me with a greeting from your grace. Even though my entire self, whatever is in me, can match such merits only to the slight est degree, nevertheless I very much want to display as much of my love and reverence as I can. But committing these things to God that they may be preserved and in creased in us, I shall now reply to the matters about which your prudence deigned to consult my lowliness, not with presumption but with obedience, not that this is perhaps adequate but as it appears to me.
Concerning that count of yours who, though excom municated, joined you at the celebration of holy Mass: it seems to me that he should be humbly admonished lest, by despising the sentence of those about whom God declares that he is heard when they are heard and spurned when they are spurned,2 that he binds when they bind and looses when they loosen,3 he bring down on himself God's judgement, from which man can nowhere escape. How much better it would be for him to abstain through sincere humility from those things from which apostolic judgement separates him than to involve himself through the contempt of presumption in those things which are never profitable unless sought by humility and always harmful if usurped irregularly. Nor, indeed, since you want not to offend him, should he force you by his advantage or his very grave evil act seriously to enrage God and the authority of the apostolic see; for he will be no help to you in making peace with them.
He will also more easily and kindly accept apostolic reason ing about him if he considers its sentence against him wor thy of reverence. And if this same count should rebuff this admonition, know that God is more to be feared than man.4
Wherefore, I think he must either act in accordance with the apostolic sentence already published against him or he must discuss it again himself with the pope or one of his representatives.
In the matter of the priests who by their reprehensible licentious behavior openly show themselves deserving of
The Letters of St. Anselm
God's condemnation, what apostolic providence decided with just ecclesiastical severity must be totally upheld. Cer tainly it is absolutely inappropriate that people reverently attend [Mass] where those reeking of open and shameful licentiousness and contempt for the prohibition of God and the saints, tenaciously serve at the holy altars. Indeed they do not serve, but pollute them by their very presence. No one should think that what they do is to be condemned; but those who do it are to be execrated.5 They do not re vere the presence of God and the angels, and rejected by the curse of men they do not desist from contaminating holy things. Nor is it ever right and proper for those who have through uncleanness made themselves outcasts from the service of the altar to be partners with those who do serve the altar.
Moreover, it should never be claimed that those in holy orders who have lapsed, but have, in spontaneous humili ty, secretly made their confessions to those to whom they should, can no longer perform what pertains to their orders if, having appeased God by the offering of a contrite dis position and a repentant and humble heart, they are ear nestly striving for the perfection of virtue. For nobody is disqualified for office before God because of a sin which he has already forgiven; nor is the dignity of holy orders sullied before men because of some person whose sin they are not aware of. And for both these reasons a sin of the flesh prohibits a man from taking or going back to holy or ders. But since it is nearly always hidden just whose iniqui ties have been forgiven and whose sins are covered over, but very slight, it is always safer, being mindful of one's guilt, to abstain through praiseworthy humility from those things which require a person pleasing to God than to presume through a culpable [sense of] security. For the one can al ways occur without God's disapproval, but the other should not happen unless God approves.
Anyone who wants, for no other reason than that it is supported by canonical authorities, to give his consent to
The Letters of St. Anselm the decision which allows a man to return to the office of holy orders after having lapsed, should read the letter of blessed Pope Calixtus directed to all the bishops established in Gaul, and that of blessed Gregory6 to the hermit Secundinus; in them they both confirm this decision so firmly with nearly the same reasons and authorities that approval of anyone else is on no account required. But that same blessed
Gregory earnestly forbids this very same thing in certain of his other letters: lest he seem to be contradicting him self, it is understood that in the case of public sins he for bids it, but in the case of hidden sins he permits it after suitable repentance. What is not adjudged sin by God should not be considered such by men. He does not reprove or reproach, as I have already said; but indeed, for some one in such a situation it is safer to feel fear before God than to feel secure.
That a reluctant person who freely and secretly discloses a secret sin in humble confession be prohibited [from serv ing], I esteem least of all, for fear the path of salutary con fession be blocked for many who, out of certainty or suspicion of some sin, choose to keep sins totally hidden until death rather than be encouraged by this opportunity
[to confess]. Nor is it considered a sin if the person to whom confession is made does not compel the penitent unwill ingly to give up the discharge of his order: but someone who does force him would appear guilty of an even greater offense, because he causes the penitent to repent of his con fession and many others who have not yet confessed to dread confession. It is clear enough that for a sinner to ap proach the altar with a humble spirit in the hope of mercy and the ardor of an accomplished confession is a lesser evil than is intruding on it with a hatred of confession, a despair ing of pardon, and a heart hardened by desire or even evil deeds. Therefore, the one to whom confession is made is in no way to be considered to share a lesser fault by per mitting this, not in consenting to evil but by prudently tak ing greater precautions. Yet he may appear to be the author
The Letters of St. Anselm
of an even greater sin, to which he drives many, even without wanting to, because he unreasonably fears the lesser rather than the greater sin. It is evident that those who de cide they have trampled down proud shame by humble con trition freely agree to put an end to their misdemeanors: for them it is much safer that they be permitted or even com manded to serve rather than those who avoid deciding justly between God and themselves out of human shame. As we have said before, let the person to whom they confess pro hibit the unwilling, because they are much more danger ous, instead of those who are willing.
And although it is necessary for both groups to abstain [from serving! for a time, I think that those who do not give up freely should be relieved of what they do not carry out well; but those who hold back of their own accord should be recalled to the duties to which they do not, appropriate ly, presume. Among the former, if they are recalled, presumption is cloaked by a mantle of obedience, whereas among the latter, humility is assisted by the firmness of obe dience. This recall is not to be exercised without distinction but at the careful discretion of the superior who receives the confession. For it often happens that a man may over come human shame, not by his enormous horror of sin but by the strength of humility. Yet through the darkness of folly and the obduracy of shamelessness he may not feel the foulness and the same of his evil deed and may not seek his office through negligence. Someone like this is never to be called or recalled to sacred office. But when humility makes supplication for the penitent, contrition prompts and a change of life intercedes for him, then certainly, if a su perior summons him to the exercise of his office not so much for any merits of his but rather comforting him by God's great mercy and abundance of his pity, I think that he may be seen to be acting not so much rashly as prudently. Often in such a case feebleness may be forestalled, the suspicion of contempt excluded, goodwill shown, and compassion dis played. In this way those who are like this may be more
The Letters of St. Anselm kindly and effectively spurred towards perfection and more closely bound to their good intention.
I could have inserted more of the Fathers' writings,7 but as the shortness of this letter, which already shouts that it has gone on too long, does not agree to this, I have can didly explained, out of what you asked, what I feel your paternity commanded. May almighty God so guide you in the rightness of truth, both in these matters and in all you have to do, that he may himself reward you for these things.
If I were now in your presence and in the presence of your holy community about which I hear much good from many people unanimously, I would prostrate my whole body with a humble spirit and beg you in brotherly charity to let me share perpetually in the good deeds God occasions in your monastery. But since I cannot do this, I do not presume on my merits but beg of your holiness that, not by humilia tion of body but by generosity of spirit, you ask this for me from your sons and with them grant it to me. Farewell.
Spring/summer 1078.
NOTES 1. William of Malmesbury identifies William as abbas Fiscannensis in Lam beth Palace MS 224, Ep 31. William de Rots was clerk, cantor, dean, and archdeacon of the church of Bayeux before he became a monk at Caen in 1077 'and before he had completed a full year as a monk he was translated to Fecamp as abbot' where he succeeded Abbot John in 1078, and 'held office for about 27 years'; see OV II: 151, 293.
2. Cf. Lk 10:16.
3. Cf. Mt 16:19.
4. Cf. Acts 4:19.
5. Anselm upholds the validity of the Sacrament regardless of the un worthiness of the celebrant. For Anselm's views on celibacy, see also
Ep 254.
6. See AOO 111: 183.
7. Anselm's interest in and knowledge of canon law was not great; see Southern, Anselm, 124f.