SOURCE: Mews, C. J. “St. Anselm and Roscelin: Some Texts and Their Implications.” Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age 58 (1992): 55-98.

In the following excerpt, Mews concentrates on the text and arguments of Anselm's Epistola de Incarnatione Verbi, a polemical treatise aimed against Roscelin of Compiègne's conception of the Trinity.

The solid reputation of St Anselm as thinker and saint could scarcely be more different from the few hazy details commonly remembered about Roscelin of Compiègne.¹ Was not St Anselm a deeply spiritual monk determined to explain his religious faith in terms of reason rather than of written authority? The contrast is often drawn between a saint who was also a sophisticated intellectual and a secular minded logician like Roscelin of Compiègne, whose attempt to apply secular reasoning to the doctrine of the Trinity resulted in nothing short of heresy. Was he not...