Reprint of the original, first published in 1872.

Mostly written between 1070 and 1080, before he became Archbishop of Canterbury, the prayers and meditations of Anselm of Aosta created a tradition of intimate, intensely personal devotional works written in subtle and theologically daring prose. While the Prayer to God is based on the Lord's Prayer, the Prayer to Christ is inspired by ardent private emotion and other prayers invest saints with individual attributes, with John the Baptist as the friend, Peter as the shepherd and Mary Magdalene as the forgiving lover, among many others. The meditations include a searching exploration of the state of the soul and a lament on the loss of purity, and the Proslogion discusses the mysteries of faith. With their bright imagery, beautiful language and highly original thought, the works of Anselm have secured a lasting place in both religious and secular literature.

The See of Canterbury, in a period of hardly more than one hundred years, was held by three of the greatest Saints of England—St. Anselm, St. Thomas, and St. Edmund. These three, wonderful in their perfection, each distinct from the other, and in the gifts which constituted that perfection, had all one task, which was to vindicate the liberty and purity of the Church by suffering, by exile, and, though only one received the martyr’s crown, by the sacrifice of a martyr’s will. Yet how variously the Holy Ghost ripened and formed them! St. Anselm’s chief perfection was the illumination of the speculative intellect by the gifts of science and understanding: that of St. Thomas the elevation and grandeur of the will by fortitude and holy fear: that of St. Edmund the sanctification of the practical intellect by the gifts of counsel and of wisdom. Aeterna Press

How does an understanding of the non-human lead us to a greater understanding of the incarnation? Are non-human animals morally relevant within Christian theology and ethics? Is there a human ethical responsibility towards non-human animals? In Animals, Theology and the Incarnation, Kris Hiuser argues that if we are called to represent both God to creation, and creation to God, then this has considerable bearing on understanding what it means to be human, as well as informing human action towards non-human creatures.

Focuses on one of the most attractive features of late medieval manuscript illumination: the portrait of the book owner at prayer within the pages of her prayer-book.

New readings of Anselm’s speculative and spiritual writings brought in light of questions and thinkers from Augustine to today.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1872.