73. To Prior Henry.
The Letters of St. Anselm
73. TO PRIOR HENRY.
Anselm thanks Prior Henry of Christ Church, Canterbury, for gifts he had sent to his old monastery. On behalf of Abbot Herluin Anselm gives Henry advice on obedience and patience in his troubles with Archbishop Lanfranc.
TO HIS FELLOW-MONK AND DEAREST BROTHER, DOM PRIOR HENRY:
BROTHER ANSELM, WISHING HE MAY DESERVE!, THROUGH A LONG-
LASTING GOOD LIFE, A BLESSED LIFE IN ETERNITY.
DOM ABBOT1 AND THE COMMUNITY of our brothers received with joy, praised and loved the gifts of your char ity, but certainly [they cherished] much more that very char ity which is never unwilling to do whatever it can but ever willing to do whatever it can. Dom Abbot also gratefully accepted, and my humble self gratefully read and heard, that your prudence asked his advice as a father and mine as a brother, and that you promised to act according to it in all things. Thus it becomes the wise man to make use of wise counsel. Indeed it is wise counsel, as you know, that one takes care to do everything with counsel.2
Since, therefore, the whole matter on which you consult us concerns advice in obedience and patience, and it is writ ten that God prefers obedience to sacrifice,3 and that pa tience has its perfect work4 you seek and receive advice nowhere more rightly than from someone to whom you owe obedience, and you serve no one more perfectly than when you hold firmly to patience. Dom Abbot therefore advises this, begs this, and, that your exertions find satisfaction not merely in consulting and asking—which is to be praised— but also obey on being commanded—which is to be crowned with glory—he commands this, and I, your brother and lov ing friend, advise and urge this: that the basis of your whole life should rest on these two pillars, namely, obedience and patience.
And indeed, as to patience, your love knows well that it is absolutely essential not only when someone deserves to be punished, but even when someone innocent is
The Letters of St. Anselm crushed it should be freely displayed. In the former case impatience is to be cursed, lest the guilty be more misera bly damned; but in the latter case patience is to be preserved, so that the innocent may more happily be crowned. As to obedience however, Dom Abbot orders this—which I think you should not question—: that whenever you obey the reverend lord, our father Archbishop Lanfranc,5 the abbot will accept it as if he himself were being obeyed; indeed even more gratefully than if you obey him because he wants you to obey Lanfranc through him; and he will consider this obedience of yours greater the more you not only obey him for his own sake, but also obey Lanfranc because of him. However, if we consider ourselves and him whom we invite you to obey, we can, without doubt, find many rea sons in ourselves and in him why we should freely and dili gently obey him.6 Farewell. c. end of 1076.
NOTES 1. Herluin, first abbot of Bee, to whom Henry had professed in 1061/62.
2. Cf. Si 32:24; RB 3:13.
3. 1 Sam 15:22, Si 4:17.
4. Jm 1:4.
5. See also Ep 63.
6. This letter was probably sent with Epp 72, 74, and 75.