The Great Catholic Monarch and Angelic Pontiff Prophecies: !? St. Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109 AD)

ST. ANSELM OF CANTERBURY (1033-1109 AD) also called Anselm of Aosta after his birthplace and Anselm of Bec after his monastery, was an Italian Benedictine monk, abbot, philosopher and theologian of the Catholic Church, who held the office of archbishop of Canterbury from 1093 to 1109. After his death, he was canonized a saint. His feast day is 21 April.

Beginning at Bec, Anselm composed dialogues and treatises with a rational and philosophical approach, sometimes causing him to be credited as the founder of Scholasticism, although he received lack of recognition in this field in his own time. He was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Clement XI in 1720.

STATUS: Great Monarch Prophecies: MISATTRIBUTION

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In several books and on the internet the following few lines can be found regarding a Great Monarch prophecy that was supposed to have been written by St. Anselm of Canterbury:

“Certain doctors truly say that one of the kings of the Frankish (French) Empire shall possess it in its entirety, which king shall live in the last time and shall be the greatest and last of kings. Who after he shall have happily governed his kingdom, shall come to Jerusalem and lay down his sceptre and crown on Mount Olivet. He shall be the last and consummate Emperor of the Roman and Christian Empire. And immediately thereupon according to the sentence of Paul, they say Antichrist will come…”

“The Last Judgement will be preceded by the imposter Antichrist, (i.e meaning the Antichrist will come just before the Last Judgement) who will try to deceive men in four ways: By a false exposition of Scripture, wherein he will try to prove that he is the Messiah promised by the Law. By working miracles. (i.e. false miracles) By handing out gifts. By inflicting punishments.

“Antichrist will rule the world from Jerusalem, which he will make into a magnificent city."

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Unfortunately, it is not a prophecy made by St. Anselm. After additional research and website digging, I have discovered it was actually a re-wording or Monk Adso's famous prophecy and was attributed to St. Augustine as well. So two prophetic sources have to be relocated to the 'suspect' list.

How I discovered this:

Robert Wilkinson notes that a biblical scholar named Guy Lefévre de la Boderie (1541-1598) makes mention of the prophecy attributed St. Augustine, that a Frankish King would establish his empire and lay his crown and sceptre down on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Wilkinson says Guy quoted this from Augustine's 'De Antichristo'. (1) However, there is no such work by Augustine, and, there is no such prophecies on his writings about the Antichrist in his famous 'City of God'.

(2) Digging further, I discovered that there are three medieval manuscripts listed on the Oxford University medieval manuscript catalogue entitled 'De Antichristo', and it was one of the versions of the work on the Antichrist by the Monk Adso of Montier-en-Der, (also known as Adso Deruensis) that circulated widely in England: one manuscript from the 14^th century was misattributed to St. Anselm of Canterbury, while two from the 15^th century were misattributed to him and St. Augustine. One of the manuscripts were also written at St. Augustine's at Canterbury, which probably lent a false support to the claim it was a manuscript by St. Augustine.