Thursday, April 21, 2016

St. Anselm's Dying Words

Today is the feast of St. Anselm of Canterbury. His associate and biographer Eadmer relates his deathbed scene. It was Palm Sunday, and one of those clustered around Anselm's bed remarked that it looked as if the archbishop would be celebrating Easter with God, Anselm replied,
"Well, if that's what God wants I'll gladly obey him, but if he prefers to let me stay here long enough to solve the problem of the origin of the soul (which I've been thinking about a great deal lately) I would gratefully accept that opportunity, because I doubt if anyone else is going to solve it once I'm gone."
There is something marvelously scholastic about that remark, almost as good as the deathbed of St. Macrina the Younger, who spent her dying hours debating Platonic philosophy with her brother.

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