#anselm of canterbury

[apenitentialprayer]

two silly questions for your scholarly mind, if it pleases firstly: do you think it is more likely that Paul was married but separated or widowed, or that Paul never married? and secondly: based on what we know of Paul's life, what do you think was the thorn in Paul's side that he mentions in 2 Corinthians 12?

I'm going to start with the second question, because this was something that had interested me. The Church Fathers seem split as to whether the "thorn in [Paul's] flesh" refers to a disability (Anselm of Canterbury, Bede the Venerable, Jerome), a serious temptation of some kind (Hugh of Saint-Cher), or the persecutions he faced on behalf of the Gospel (John Chrysostom, Ambrose of Milan, Theophylact of Ohrid).

I don't really have a strong argument for one of these possibilities over the other, but I will say that emotionally, I have an attachment to the disability interpretation; my "born again" moment roughly coincided with my own diagnosis of a chronic auto-immune disease, and so I often read 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 through the lens of my illness.

As for whether Paul was married, I don't know. It was normative for Pharisees, and is normative for Rabbis, to be married; while it was not universally required, there were at least some times and places where ordination would not be granted to unmarried men, studying certain forms of theology was limited to married men, and membership in the Sanhedrin required one to be married. Given Paul's adherence to the Law and his being "a zealot for [his] ancestral traditions," (Galatians 1:14) it would make sense that he was married. I don't know, though.

[cruger2984]

THE DESCRIPTION OF SAINT ANSELM OF CANTERBURY The Father of Scholasticism and the Defender of the Immaculate Conception Feast Day: April 21

"For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand."

The future archbishop of Canterbury was born Anselmo d'Aosta, circa 1033 in Aosta, Kingdom of Burgundy, Holy Roman Empire. His father Gundulph, was a Lombard noble, probably one of Adelaide's Arduinici uncles or cousins; his mother Ermenberga was almost certainly the granddaughter of Conrad the Peaceful, related both to the Anselmid bishops of Aosta and to the heirs of Henry II who had been passed over in favour of Conrad.

At the age of 27, he entered the Benedictine abbey of Bec, in Normandy, and three years later, he was elected as the abbot of Caen. Several monks murmured on account of his youth, but Anselm by his sympathy and patience won the allegiance of all. With regard to the training of the young, he had quite modern views.

To a neighboring abbot, who was lamenting the poor success of his educational method, he said: 'If you plant a tree in your garden and bound it on all sides, so that it can not spread out its branches, what kind of tree would it become? And that is how you treat your boys, cramping them with fears and blows, depriving them of the enjoyment of any freedom.'

Being an original thinker, Anselm was the greatest theologian of his age, and the father of Scholasticism. In the Monologion, he spoke of God as the highest being and investigated God's attributes; while in his Prologue, he gave the famous ontological proof of God's existence.

Anselm was called to succeed his countryman Lanfranc, as the archbishop of Canterbury. It was a time of great strife with the king over the Church's independence, and Anselm was exiled several times.

Amid the rejoicing of the people, Anselm returned to Canterbury in 1106, where he died a holy death on April 21st three years later in 1109. Anselm was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Clement XI in 1720; he is known as the doctor magnificus ('Magnificent Doctor') or the doctor Marianus ('Marian doctor').

[emo-ginger]

After today I'd like to never interact with an argument by Anselm of Canterbury again.

[humorwithatwist]

Ten Most Influential Christians in History

I was recently talking with a friend who wants to learn more about church history and they asked for some top ten lists to get acquainted with important people and books from the history of Christianity. So I sent them the following list. Now, a quick caveat here: these are Christians who specifically influenced theology, faith, and Biblical interpretation. Christians certainly can and have…

[jamesgraybooksellerworld]

Three Pesudo-Augustine Collections  

1498, 1686, 1718. Each contain the Meditations, Soliloquia, and Manuall The contents of these three volumes from three different centuries all contain the three ‘core’ pseudo-Augustine texts ,the two latin editions have texts by Pseudo-Bernardus, Petrus Damiani, Anselm of Canterbury, N. Laudensis, Pius II, Papst,  Maphaeus Vegius,Vincentius Ferrerius,Pseudo-Bernardus. The English edition has…

[filmcentury]

Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam. “I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe in order that I may understand.”

Saint Anselm (c. 1033 – 1109), Italian Benedictine monk and philosopher who held the office of Archbishop of Canterbury

[brianchilton]

S6E26 The Moral and Ontological Arguments

By: Dr. Brian Chilton and Curtis Evelo | April 13, 2023 On episode S6E26 The Moral and Ontological Arguments, Dr. Brian Chilton and Curtis Evelo discuss two additional arguments that contend for the existence of God. The ontological argument holds that God’s existence is both necessary and perfect by the nature of reality. The moral argument asserts that any moral code implies the existence of a…

[churchblogmatics-blog]

In total I've read 40 books this year: 4 re-reads and 36 new reads:

The Odyssey - Homer

Wellness - Nathan Hill

A Gift of Love - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X - Malcolm X and Alex Haley

Church Dogmatics II.2, §32 - 33 - Karl Barth

The Courage to Be - Paul Tillich

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

A Good Man is Hard to Find & Other Stories - Flannery O'Connor

Devotion - Patti Smith

White Evangelical Racism - Anthea Butler

Works of Love - Søren Kierkegaard

Encounters with Jesus - Timothy Keller

Genesis - Anonymous (reread)

Tom Lake - Ann Patchett

Modern Poetry - Dianne Seuss

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

Jesus and John Wayne - Kristin Kobes Du Mez

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo - Taylor Jenkins Reid

St. Paul: A Screenplay - Pier Paolo Pasolini

The Death of Adam - Marilynne Robinson

One Way Back - Christine Blasey Ford

Till We Have Faces - CS Lewis (reread)

The Exvangelicals - Sarah McCammon

The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory - Tim Alberta

Ficciones - Jorge Luis Borges

Jack - Marilynne Robinson

Moral Man & Immoral Society - Reinhold Niebuhr

Critique of Pure Reason - Immanuel Kant

Proslogion - St. Anselm

Rejection - Tony Tulathimutte

Poverty, By America - Matthew Desmond (reread)

Nudge - Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler

A Boy and His Dog - Harlan Ellison

Exodus - Anonymous (reread)

Evangelical Anxiety - Charles Marsh

Silence - Shusaku Endo

Christianity and Liberalism - J. Gresham Machen

That All Shall Be Saved - David Bentley Hart

Deliverance to the Captives - Karl Barth

top four reads of 2024

[portraitsofsaints]

St. Anselm of Canterbury  Doctor of the Church 1033-1109 Feast day: April 21

Saint Anselm is a Doctor of the church and called the “Father of Scholasticism”. His writings are comparable to St. Augustine’s. He became a monk at the Abbey of Bec and with patience, gentleness and superb teaching skills, he became prior in 1063. The Abbey became an influential monastic school of philosophy and theology. In 1093, he became the Archbishop of Canterbury where he struggled with Kings Rufus and Henry I over ecclesiastical rights and independence of the church. St. Anselm had many crosses to bear throughout his life, especially in the political realm. Though gentle and mild he wouldn’t back down when principles of faith were at stake.

Prints, plaques & holy cards are available for purchase here:{website}

[apenitentialprayer]

Anselm of Canterbury and Satisfaction Theory of Atonement

- Juniper B. Carol, O.F.M. (The Universal Primacy of Christ, a condensed and translated version of a work by Xavier Pancheri, O.F.M., pages 14-16). Bolded emphases added. (Pancheri's criticism of this articulation of atonement here)

[meltorights]

girls who have internal crises over the ontological argument

[apenitentialprayer]

From that time on, Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day and be raised. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to You." He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan! You are an obstacle to Me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do."

the Gospel According to Matthew (16:21-23)

God the Father did not treat that Man in the way you seem to think, nor did He hand over the innocent to death in place of the guilty. For God did not compel Him to die, or allow Him to be slain, against His will [...] God did not, therefore, compel Christ to die; but He suffered death of His own will, not yielding up His life as an act of obedience, but on account of His obedience in maintaining holiness; for He held out so firmly in this obedience that He met death on account of it.

Saint Anselm of Canterbury (Cur Deus Homo, Book I, Chapters VIII and IX)

Jesus suffered because he was being faithful to his vision of the Truth even as it collided with the powers of the time [...] Politically and historically it was the final step and consequence in a way of life, a life spent befriending those in need and resisting oppression and violence.

Terrence Rynne (Gandhi & Jesus: The Saving Power of Nonviolence, pages 125, 161)

"Issa and the Giant's Head" by Nicholas Roerich, 1932

[catholic-saint-tournament]

About St Anselm (left)

About St Maximus the Confessor (right)

PRE-SCHISM BRACKET ROUND 1

[thepastisalreadywritten]

SAINT OF THE DAY (April 21)

On April 21, the Catholic Church honors Saint Anselm, the 11th and 12th-century Benedictine monk and archbishop best known for his writings on Christ's atonement and the existence of God.

In a general audience given on 23 September 2009, Pope Benedict XVI remembered St. Anselm as “a monk with an intense spiritual life, an excellent teacher of the young, a theologian with an extraordinary capacity for speculation, a wise man of governance, and an intransigent defender of the Church's freedom.”

St. Anselm, the Pope said, stands out as “one of the eminent figures of the Middle Ages who was able to harmonize all these qualities, thanks to the profound mystical experience that always guided his thought and his action.”

Anselm was born in Aosta, part of the Piedmont region of present-day Italy, around 1033.

While his father provided little in the way of moral or religious influence, his mother was a notably devout woman and chose to send Anselm to a school run by the Benedictine order.

The boy felt a profound religious calling during these years, spurred in part by a dream in which he met and conversed with God.

His father, however, prevented him from becoming a monk at age 15.

This disappointment was followed by a period of severe illness, as well as his mother's early death.

Unable to join the monks, and tired of mistreatment by his father, Anselm left home and wandered throughout parts of France and Italy for three years.

His life regained its direction in Normandy, where he met the Benedictine prior Lanfranc of Pavia and became his disciple.

Lanfranc recognized his pupil's intellectual gifts and encouraged his vocation to religious life.

Accepted into the order and ordained a priest at age 27, Anselm succeeded his teacher as prior in 1063 when Lanfranc was called to become abbot of another monastery.

Anselm became abbot of his own monastery in 1079.

During the previous decade, the Normans had conquered England, and they sought to bring monks from Normandy to influence the Church in the country.

Lanfranc became Archbishop of Canterbury, then asked Anselm to come and assist him.

The period after Lanfranc's death, in the late 1080s, was a difficult time for the English Church.

As part of his general mistreatment of the Church, King William Rufus refused to allow the appointment of a new archbishop.

Anselm had gone back to his monastery and did not want to return to England.

In 1092, however, he was persuaded to do so. The following year, the king changed his mind and allowed Anselm to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

But the monk was extremely reluctant to accept the charge, which would involve him in further struggles with the English crown in subsequent years.

For a three-year period in the early 12th century, Anselm's insistence on the self-government of the Church – against the claims of the state to its administration and property – caused him to be exiled from England.

But he was successful in his struggle and returned to his archdiocese in 1106.

In his last years, Anselm worked to reform the Church and continued his theological investigations – following the motto of “faith seeking understanding.”

After his death on 21 April 1109, his influence on the subsequent course of theology led Pope Clement XI to name him a Doctor of the Church in 1720.

He was canonized by Pope Alexander VI on 4 October 1494.

He is the patron saint of theologians and philosophers.

[preacherpollard]

The "God-Shaped Void" And Ontological Argument

Brent Pollard The debate between creationists and atheists is probably not new to you. This heated debate frequently takes the form of verbal duels, with each side trying to persuade onlookers to take their side. Unfortunately, these arguments rarely convince their opponents to change their minds. In most cases, they are speaking to an already confident audience. Since I hold a creationist…

[jamesgraybooksellerworld]

Three Pesudo-Augustine collections  1498, 1686, 1701.

Each contain the Meditations, Soliloquia, and Manuall The contents of these three volumes from three different centuries all contain the three ‘core’ pseudo-Augustine texts ,the two latin editions have texts by Pseudo-Bernardus, Petrus Damiani, Anselm of Canterbury, N. Laudensis, Pius II, Papst,  Maphaeus Vegius,Vincentius Ferrerius,Pseudo-Bernardus. The English edition has just the Meditations,…