Anselm of Canterbury
Anselm of Canterbury Born in Aosta, in the Alps, in 1033, Anselm entered the famous Benedictine monastery of Bec, in Normandy, where he became an admired master, and later became Archbishop of Canterbury, amid harsh conflicts with the English kings over the authority of the Church. He is called “the father of Scholasticism” for having inaugurated the systematic effort to use reason to penetrate the contents of faith. His motto sums up the whole medieval program: “fides quaerens intellectum” — faith seeking understanding. In the Proslogion he radicalizes it: “I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand” — a formula that gathers up the “crede ut intelligas” of Saint Augustine. ...