81. To Hunfrid.
214 The Letters of St. Anselm
81. TO HUNFRID.
Anselm advises Hunfrid to give up the world with all its transitory glory to folloiv Christ.
TO HUNFRID/ HIS LORD AND DEAREST BROTHER IN CHRIST:
BROTHER ANSELM OF BEC, A SINNER IN LIFE, A MONK BY
PROFESSION, WISHING HE MAY DESPISE THE GOODS OF THE EARTH
FOR THOSE OF HEAVEN AND OBTAIN HEAVENLY FOR EARTHLY
ONES.
FIRST OF ALL I GIVE THANKS and give you back the love I owe you for your freely-given kindness, which the bearer of this letter confirms he has perceived in you towards me.
Trusting in this not a little, he begged me earnestly to help him with regard to your love, that having been encouraged by my entreaties you may lavish on him the favor of your teaching still more attentively than you mercifully do al ready. If this were either harmful or useless to you—I do not speak for anybody else—I would scarcely presume to ask, or would not ask at all, even for myself. Now, however, since it is neither harmful nor useless, the divine reward will be incomparably more beneficial to you than your generosity to him. Neither boldly nor shamelessly—I think—but in a friendly way, I beg and beseech you to remember what is written: Freely you have received, freely give.2
For even if you perhaps paid a man to teach you, he could jar upon your ears, but he would not open your heart to understanding without God, to whom nobody gave first so that it might be repaid him again.3 If we are commanded to make friends who may welcome us into the everlasting habita tions through the mammon of unrighteousness,4 how much more
[should we win friends] through the understanding of truth?
If you do not want to do something for me because you owe me nothing, do it to put me in your debt.
I have said this for someone else, but let me add a few words for your beloved fraternity for whom I would wish more. Remember, dearest friend, and turn over in your
The Letters of St. Anselm
mind without interruption that it is written: Love not the world nor the things that are in the world,5 for the world and its lust pass away,6 and that the friends of this world will he reckoned as the enemies of God.71 beg and beseech you not to trust the world even when it favors you since it favors you not to mother but to smother you. The world is in darkness and its glory is not glory at all but a devouring fire. Do not, there fore, dearest friend, run after that glory like a moth flying into a night-time fire, for whomever it lures by shining it afterwards torments by searing. Oh how much wiser, how much happier will you be if you give up the world and fol low Christ, so that when Christ comes in majesty you will judge the world with him8 and, receiving a hundredfold, you will possess eternal life.9 Oh may it be so! Amen. c. 1077/78.
NOTES 1. Hunfrid was probably a secular cleric and teacher. Anselm considered such a person a prime candidate for monastic life.
2. Mt 10:8.
3. Cf. Rom 11:35.
4. Lk 16:9.
5. 1 Jn 2:15.
6. 1 Jn 6:17.
7. Cf. Jm 4:4.
8. Cf. Mt 25:31.
9. Mt 19:28.