Anselm on Forgiveness, Patience, and Free Will

Anselm says some seemingly harsh things about forgiveness, for example, that God cannot simply forgive the wrong done at the Fall. I argue that the harshness is only apparent. God cannot simply forgive sin because that would not be best for mankind. Divine forgiveness must be understood in light of the importance Anselm places on human freedom and the virtue of patience. I look at divine forgiveness in Cur Deus Homo and the first sin in De casu diaboli to explain Anselm's view on why God prefers process to immediate change, in hopes of bringing some new, Anselmian, insight to an old theme.