Proslogion

At the urgent request of certain brothers, I published a short work as an example of meditating on the rational basis of faith, written in the person of someone who investigates, by silently reasoning with himself, things he does not know. Considering that it was woven together from a chain of many arguments, I began to ask myself whether perhaps a single argument could be found that needed nothing but itself to prove itself, and that would suffice on its own to establish that God truly exists; that he is the supreme good, needing nothing else, whom all things need in order to exist and to be well; and whatever else we believe about the divine substance.

I often turned my thought to this, and eagerly. At times it seemed to me that what I was looking for could already be grasped; at times it escaped my mind’s eye altogether. At last, in despair, I decided to give it up, as the search for something that could not be found. But when I wanted to shut the thought out of myself completely, so that it would not occupy my mind in vain and keep it from other things in which I could make progress, then, the more I refused it and fended it off, the more it began to press itself on me with a kind of insistence. So one day, when I was worn out from resisting its insistence so fiercely, in the very clash of my thoughts what I had despaired of offered itself, so that I eagerly embraced the thought I had been anxiously driving away.

Judging, then, that what I rejoiced to have found would please some reader if it were written down, I wrote the short work that follows, on this and on certain other matters, in the person of one who is trying to raise his mind to contemplate God and who seeks to understand what he believes. I judged that neither this work nor the one I mentioned above deserved to be called a book, or to have its author’s name set at its head; and yet I thought they should not be sent out without some title by which they might, in a way, invite whoever came upon them to read them. So I gave each its own title: the first was to be called An Example of Meditation on the Rational Basis of Faith, and the second Faith Seeking Understanding.

Come now, little man, flee your occupations for a little while; hide yourself for a moment from your turbulent thoughts. Cast off your heavy cares now, and put aside your wearying distractions. Make a little room for God, and rest a little in him. “Enter the inner room” of your mind; shut out everything except God and whatever helps you seek him, and “with the door closed” seek him. Speak now, my whole “heart”; speak now to God: “I seek your face; your face, Lord, I long for.”note

Come then now, Lord my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here, where shall I seek you, absent? But if you are everywhere, why do I not see you present? Surely you dwell in “light inaccessible.” And where is light inaccessible? Or how shall I approach light inaccessible? Or who will lead me and bring me into it, so that I may see you in it? And then, by what signs, under what appearance, shall I seek you? I have never seen you, Lord my God; I do not know your face. What shall he do, most high Lord, what shall this far-off exile of yours do? What shall your servant do, anxious with love for you and “cast far from your face”? He pants to see you, and your face is too far from him. He longs to approach you, and your dwelling is inaccessible.note

O wretched lot of man, now that he has lost what he was made for! O that hard and dreadful fall! Alas, what he lost and what he found; what departed and what remained! He lost the blessedness for which he was made, and found the misery for which he was not made. That departed without which nothing is happy, and that remained which in itself is nothing but wretched. “Man ate then the bread of angels,” for which he now hungers; now he eats “the bread of sorrows,” which then he did not know. Alas, the common mourning of mankind, the universal lament of the children of Adam! He belched with fullness; we sigh with hunger. He had plenty; we beg. He held it happily and deserted it wretchedly; we lack it unhappily and long for it miserably—and alas, we remain empty! Why did he not keep for us, when he easily could, what we so grievously lack?note

But alas, wretch that I am, one of the other wretched children of Eve, far removed from God! What did I set out to do, what have I achieved? Where was I heading, where have I come to? What was I reaching for, and what am I sighing among? “I sought good things, and behold, turmoil!” I was heading toward God, and I stumbled over myself. I sought rest in my inner privacy, and “I found trouble and sorrow” in my depths. I wanted to laugh for joy of mind, and I am forced “to roar with the groaning of my heart.” Gladness was hoped for, and behold, what makes my sighs come thicker!

And you, “O Lord, how long? How long, Lord, will you forget us? How long will you turn your face away from us?” When will you “look upon us and hear” us? When will you “enlighten” our “eyes” and “show” us “your face”? When will you give yourself back to us? Look upon us, Lord, hear us, enlighten us, show yourself to us. Give yourself back to us, so that it may be well with us—for without you it is so ill with us. Have pity on our toils and strivings toward you, for we can do nothing without you. Invite us, “help” us. I beg you, Lord, let me not sigh myself into despair, but breathe again in hope. I beg you, Lord, my heart is made bitter by its desolation; sweeten it with your consolation. I beg you, Lord, I began to seek you hungry; let me not leave off still fasting from you. Famished I came to you; let me not go away unfed. Poor I came to the rich, wretched to the merciful; let me not return empty and scorned.note

And surely that than which nothing greater can be thought cannot exist in the understanding alone. For if it exists even in the understanding alone, it can be thought to exist in reality as well, which is greater. If, then, that than which nothing greater can be thought exists in the understanding alone, the very thing than which nothing greater can be thought is something than which something greater can be thought. But surely this cannot be. Therefore there exists beyond doubt something than which nothing greater can be thought, both in the understanding and in reality.

And this is you, Lord our God. So truly, then, do you exist, Lord my God, that you cannot even be thought not to exist. And rightly so. For if some mind could think of something better than you, the creature would rise above the Creator and sit in judgment on the Creator, which is utterly absurd. Indeed, whatever else there is, apart from you alone, can be thought not to exist. You alone, then, of all things, have existence most truly, and therefore most fully of all; for whatever else exists does not exist so truly, and so has less existence. Why then “has the fool said in his heart: There is no God,” when it is so obvious to a rational mind that you exist most fully of all? Why, except that he is dull and a fool?

But how has he said in his heart what he could not think? Or how could he not think what he said in his heart, since saying in the heart and thinking are the same? If he truly—or rather, since he truly—both thought it, because he said it in his heart, and did not say it in his heart, because he could not think it, then there is more than one way in which something is said in the heart or thought. For a thing is thought in one way when the word signifying it is thought, and in another when what the thing itself is is understood. In the first way God can be thought not to exist, but in the second not at all. No one who understands what God is can think that God does not exist, even though he may say these words in his heart, either with no meaning at all or with some foreign meaning. For God is that than which nothing greater can be thought.

Thanks to you, good Lord, thanks to you, because what I first believed by your gift I now so understand by your illumination that, even if I did not want to believe that you exist, I could not fail to understand it.

What, then, are you, Lord God, you than whom nothing greater can be thought? What are you but that which, highest of all, alone existing through itself, made all other things from nothing? For whatever is not this is less than what can be thought; but this cannot be thought of you. What good, then, is lacking to the supreme good, through which every good exists? You are therefore just, truthful, blessed, and whatever it is better to be than not to be. For it is better to be just than not just, blessed than not blessed.

But since it is better to be able to perceive, omnipotent, merciful and impassible than not to be so, how are you able to perceive if you are not a body; or omnipotent if you cannot do all things; or at once merciful and impassible? For if only bodily things can perceive, since the senses are around a body and in a body, how are you able to perceive, since you are not a body but the supreme spirit, which is better than body?note

But if perceiving is nothing but knowing, or exists only for the sake of knowing—for whoever perceives knows according to the particular nature of each sense, as colors through sight and flavors through taste—then it is not inappropriate to say that whatever knows in some way perceives in some way. So, Lord, though you are not a body, you truly are supremely able to perceive in the sense that you supremely know all things, not in the way an animal knows through bodily sense.

But how are you omnipotent, too, if you cannot do all things? Or if you cannot be corrupted, or lie, or make the true false—such as making what has been done not to have been done—and many other things like these, how can you do all things?

Or is being able to do these things not power but powerlessness? For whoever can do these things can do what is not good for him and what he ought not to do. And the more he can do them, the more power adversity and wickedness have over him, and the less he has against them. So whoever can do things in this way can do them not by power but by powerlessness. For he is said to be able not because he himself is able, but because his powerlessness makes something else able to act on him; or else it is by some other manner of speaking, as many things are said improperly. For instance, we put “to be” for “not to be,” and “to do” for what is “not to do,” or for “to do nothing.” For we often say to someone who denies that something is so: “It is as you say it is”; though it would seem more proper to say: “It is not, as you say it is not.”

But how are you at once merciful and impassible? For if you are impassible, you do not feel compassion; if you do not feel compassion, your heart is not made wretched by compassion for the wretched—which is what it is to be merciful. But if you are not merciful, where do the wretched find such consolation?note

How, then, are you both merciful and not merciful, Lord, unless it is that you are merciful with respect to us and not with respect to yourself? You are so according to our experience, and not according to yours. For when you look upon us in our wretchedness, we feel the effect of mercy, but you do not feel the emotion. So you are merciful because in your mercy you save us and spare those who sin against you; and you are not merciful because you are touched by no compassion for wretchedness.

But how do you spare the wicked if you are wholly just and supremely just? For how does one who is wholly and supremely just do something that is not just? Or what justice is it to give everlasting life to one who deserves eternal death? How, then, good God, good to the good and to the wicked, how is it that you save the wicked, if this is not just—and do you do anything that is not just?

Or is it because your goodness is incomprehensible that this lies hidden in the “inaccessible light in which you dwell”? Truly, in the highest and most secret depth of your goodness lies hidden the spring from which the river of your mercy flows. For though you are wholly and supremely just, you are nonetheless kind even to the wicked, precisely because you are wholly and supremely good. For you would be less good if you were kind to no wicked person. One who is good to both the good and the wicked is better than one who is good only to the good. And one who is good to the wicked both in punishing and in sparing is better than one who is good only in punishing. That is why you are merciful: because you are wholly and supremely good. And while it may perhaps be seen why you repay good to the good and evil to the wicked, it is certainly altogether to be wondered at why you, wholly just and needing nothing, grant good things to the wicked and to those guilty before you.

For although it is hard to understand how your mercy is not separated from your justice, we must nonetheless believe that what overflows from goodness is in no way opposed to justice—for goodness is nothing without justice—but truly agrees with justice. Indeed, if you are merciful because you are supremely good, and you are not supremely good except because you are supremely just, then truly you are merciful precisely because you are supremely just.

Help me, just and merciful God, whose light I seek; help me to understand what I am saying. Truly, then, you are merciful for this reason: because you are just.

Is your mercy, then, born of your justice? Do you, then, spare the wicked out of justice? If so, Lord, if so, teach me how it is. Is it because it is just that you should be so good that you cannot be understood to be better, and should work so powerfully that you cannot be thought more powerful? For what is more just than this? And this would certainly not be the case if you were good only in repaying and not in sparing, and if you made good people only out of those who are not good, and not also out of the wicked. In this way, then, it is just that you spare the wicked and make good people out of the wicked. Finally, what is not done justly ought not to be done; and what ought not to be done is done unjustly. If, then, you have mercy on the wicked unjustly, you ought not to have mercy; and if you ought not to have mercy, you have mercy unjustly.

But it is just that you punish the wicked. For what is more just than that the good receive good and the wicked evil? How, then, is it both just that you punish the wicked and just that you spare the wicked?

Or do you justly punish the wicked in one way and justly spare the wicked in another? When you punish the wicked, it is just, because it fits their deserts; but when you spare the wicked, it is just, not because it fits their deserts but because it befits your goodness. For in sparing the wicked you are just with respect to yourself and not with respect to us, just as you are merciful with respect to us and not with respect to yourself. For in saving us, whom you might justly destroy, just as you are merciful not because you feel emotion but because we feel the effect, so you are just not because you give us what we are owed but because you do what befits you, the supremely good. In this way, then, without contradiction, you justly punish and justly spare.

But is it not also just with respect to yourself, Lord, that you punish the wicked? It is indeed just that you should be so just that you cannot be thought more just. And this you would by no means be if you repaid good to the good but not evil to the wicked. For one who repays both the good and the wicked their deserts is more just than one who repays only the good. It is just, therefore, with respect to you, just and kind God, both when you punish and when you spare. Truly, then, “all the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth,” and yet “the Lord is just in all his ways.” And certainly without contradiction: for those whom you will to punish, it is not just that they be saved; and those whom you will to spare, it is not just that they be condemned. For that alone is just which you will, and that is not just which you do not will.note

So, then, you are truly able to perceive, omnipotent, merciful and impassible, just as you are living, wise, good, blessed, eternal, and indeed whatever it is better to be than not to be.

But certainly, whatever you are, you are through nothing other than yourself. You are, then, the very life by which you live, and the wisdom by which you are wise, and the very goodness by which you are good to the good and the wicked; and likewise with the rest.

But everything that is enclosed in any way by place or time is less than what no law of place or time constrains. Since, then, nothing is greater than you, no place or time contains you; you are everywhere and always. And since this can be said of you alone, you alone are unbounded and eternal. How, then, are other spirits also said to be unbounded and eternal?

And indeed you alone are eternal, because you alone of all things, just as you do not cease to be, so you do not begin to be. But how are you alone unbounded? Is it that a created spirit, compared with you, is bounded, but compared with a body is unbounded? For that is wholly bounded which, when it is wholly in one place, cannot at the same time be elsewhere; and this is seen only in bodily things. That is unbounded which is at the same time wholly everywhere; and this is understood of you alone. And that is at once bounded and unbounded which, when it is wholly in one place, can at the same time be wholly in another, but not everywhere; and this is known of created spirits. For if the soul were not whole in each of the limbs of its body, it would not perceive as a whole in each of them. So you, Lord, are uniquely unbounded and eternal, and yet other spirits too are unbounded and eternal.

Have you found, my soul, what you were looking for? You were seeking God, and you found him to be something highest of all, than which nothing better can be thought; and you found that this is life itself, light, wisdom, goodness, eternal blessedness and blessed eternity; and that this is everywhere and always. For if you have not found your God, how is he this which you have found, and which you have understood with such certain truth and true certainty? But if you have found him, why is it that you do not feel what you have found? Why does my soul not feel you, Lord God, if it has found you?

Or has it not found the one it found to be light and truth? For how did it understand this except by seeing light and truth? Or could it understand anything at all about you except through “your light and your truth”? If, then, it saw light and truth, it saw you. If it did not see you, it saw neither light nor truth. Or is what it saw both truth and light, and yet it has not yet seen you, because it saw you to some extent but did not see you “as you are”?

Lord my God, you who formed me and re-formed me, tell my longing soul what else you are than what it has seen, so that it may see clearly what it longs for. It strains to see more, and sees nothing beyond what it has seen but darkness—or rather, it does not see “darkness, of which there is none in you,” but it sees that it cannot see more because of its own darkness. Why is this, Lord, why is this? Is its eye darkened by its own weakness, or dazzled by your brilliance? Surely it is both darkened in itself and dazzled by you. Truly it is both dimmed by its own smallness and overwhelmed by your immensity. Truly it is both cramped by its own narrowness and overcome by your vastness. For how great is that light from which shines every truth that gives light to the rational mind!note

Truly, Lord, this is the “inaccessible light in which you dwell.” For truly there is nothing else that can pierce it so as to see you there fully. Truly, I do not see it because it is too much for me; and yet whatever I see, I see through it, as a weak eye sees what it sees by the light of the sun, which it cannot look at in the sun itself. My understanding cannot reach it. It shines too brightly; my understanding does not take it in, nor can the eye of my soul bear to gaze on it for long. It is dazzled by its brilliance, overcome by its vastness, overwhelmed by its immensity, bewildered by its fullness. O supreme and inaccessible light, O whole and blessed truth, how far you are from me, who am so near to you! How remote you are from my sight, while I am so present to yours! You are everywhere wholly present, and I do not see you.

You are still hidden, Lord, from my soul in your light and blessedness, and so it still turns about in its own darkness and misery. It looks around and does not see your beauty. It listens and does not hear your harmony. It smells and does not perceive your fragrance. It tastes and does not recognize your savor. It touches and does not feel your softness. For you have these things, Lord God, in yourself, in your own ineffable way, you who have given them to the things you created in their own perceptible way; but the senses of my soul have grown stiff, have grown numb, have been blocked up by the ancient sickness of sin.

And again, “behold, turmoil”! Behold, again grief and mourning confront one who seeks “joy and gladness”! My soul was already hoping for fullness, and behold, again it is overwhelmed by want! I was already reaching out to eat, and behold, I hunger more! I was trying to rise to the light of God, and I have fallen back into my own darkness. Indeed, not only have I fallen into it, but I feel myself wrapped up in it. I fell before “my mother conceived me.” Surely in it “I was conceived,” and wrapped in it I was born. Long ago, surely, we all fell in him “in whom we all sinned.” In him we all lost what he held easily and lost, to his harm and ours—what, when we want it, we do not know how to seek; when we seek it, we do not find; when we find it, it is not what we seek. Help me, “for your goodness’ sake, Lord.”note

What are you, Lord, what are you, what shall my heart understand you to be? Surely you are life, you are wisdom, you are truth, you are goodness, you are blessedness, you are eternity, and you are every true good. These are many things; my narrow understanding cannot see so many at once in a single glance, so as to delight in all of them at once. How, then, Lord, are you all these things? Are they parts of you, or rather is each of them the whole of what you are? For whatever is composed of parts is not altogether one, but in some way many and different from itself, and it can be broken up either in fact or in the understanding; and these things are foreign to you, than whom nothing better can be thought.

But if through your eternity you were and are and will be, and to have been is not to be going to be, and to be is not to have been or to be going to be, how is your eternity whole always? Or is it that nothing of your eternity passes away so as no longer to be, nor is anything of it future, as if it were not yet? So you did not exist yesterday, nor will you exist tomorrow; rather, yesterday and today and tomorrow you are. Or rather, you are neither yesterday nor today nor tomorrow, but you simply are, outside all time. For yesterday and today and tomorrow are nothing but in time; you, however, though nothing exists without you, are not in place or time, but all things are in you. For nothing contains you, but you contain all things.

You, then, fill and embrace all things; you are before and beyond all things. And you are before all things because “before they came to be, you are.” But how are you beyond all things? In what way are you beyond those things that will have no end?note

Is it because they can in no way exist without you, whereas you are in no way less even if they return to nothing? For in this way you are, in a sense, beyond them. Or is it also because they can be thought to have an end, but you cannot at all? For in this way they do have an end in a sense, but you in no sense. And surely what has no end in any sense is beyond what is ended in some sense. Or do you also surpass all things, even eternal ones, in this way: that your eternity and theirs is wholly present to you, while they do not yet have the part of their eternity that is to come, just as they no longer have the part that is past? For in this way you are always beyond them, since you are always present to yourself, or since that which they have not yet reached is always present to you.

Is this, then, “the age of the age,” or “the ages of ages”? For just as an age of time contains all temporal things, so your eternity contains even the ages of time themselves. It is an age because of its indivisible unity, and ages because of its endless immensity. And although you are so great, Lord, that all things are full of you and are in you, yet you are so without any spatial extent that there is neither middle nor half nor any part in you.note

You alone, then, Lord, are what you are, and you are who you are. For what is one thing as a whole and another in its parts, and has something changeable in it, is not altogether what it is. And what began from not being, and can be thought not to exist, and returns to not being unless it subsists through something else; and what has a past that it no longer is, and a future that it not yet is: that does not exist in the proper and absolute sense. But you are what you are, because whatever you are at any time or in any way, that you are wholly and always.note

And you are the one who exists properly and simply, for you have neither past nor future but only present being, and you cannot be thought ever not to exist. And you are life and light and wisdom and blessedness and eternity and many goods of this kind, and yet you are nothing but the one supreme good: you, wholly sufficient to yourself, needing nothing, whom all things need in order to exist and to be well.

This good is you, God the Father; this is your Word, that is, your Son. For there can be nothing other than what you are, nothing greater or less than you, in the Word by which you speak yourself; for your Word is true as you are truthful, and therefore it is Truth itself, just as you are, not other than you; and you are so simple that nothing can be born of you other than what you are. This same good is the Love that is one and common to you and your Son, that is, the Holy Spirit proceeding from both.

Wake up now, my soul, and raise up your whole understanding, and think as hard as you can what kind of good this is, and how great. For if particular goods are delightful, think intently how delightful that good is which contains the delight of all goods—and not such delight as we have experienced in created things, but as different from it as the Creator differs from the creature. For if created life is good, how good is the life that creates? If health that has been made is pleasant, how pleasant is the health that makes all health? If wisdom is lovable in the knowledge of things that have been created, how lovable is the wisdom that created all things from nothing? Finally, if there are many and great delights in delightful things, what kind of delight, and how great, is there in him who made those very delights?note

O, whoever enjoys this good—what will he have, and what will he not have! Surely whatever he wants will be, and what he does not want will not be. For there will be goods of body and soul such as “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man” conceived. Why, then, little man, do you wander through many things, seeking goods for your soul and your body? Love the one good in which all goods are, and it is enough. Desire the simple good that is every good, and it is sufficient. For what do you love, my flesh, what do you desire, my soul? It is there, it is there, whatever you love, whatever you desire.note

If beauty delights you: “the just will shine like the sun.” If speed, or strength, or a freedom of body that nothing can resist: “they will be like the angels of God,” for “it is sown a natural body, and it will rise a spiritual body”—in power, that is, not in nature. If a long and healthy life: there is healthy eternity and eternal health, for “the just will live for ever, and the salvation of the just is from the Lord.” If fullness: they will be filled “when the glory of God appears.” If drunkenness: “they will be drunk with the abundance of the house of God.” If melody: there the choirs of angels sing together to God without end. If any pleasure, not impure but pure: God “will give them drink from the torrent of his pleasure.”

If wisdom: the very wisdom of God will show itself to them. If friendship: they will love God more than themselves, and one another as themselves, and God will love them more than they love themselves; for they will love him, and themselves, and one another through him, and he will love himself and them through himself. If concord: they will all have one will, for they will have no will but the will of God alone. If power: they will be all-powerful in their own will, as God is in his. For just as God will be able to do what he wills through himself, so they will be able to do what they will through him; for just as they will want nothing but what he wants, so he will want whatever they want; and what he wants cannot fail to be.

But what kind of joy is there, and how great, where there is a good of such a kind and so great? Human heart, needy heart, heart that has known hardships—no, heart overwhelmed by hardships: how much would you rejoice if you abounded in all these things? Ask your innermost self whether it could contain its joy at so great a happiness of its own. But surely, if someone else whom you loved exactly as yourself had that same happiness, your joy would be doubled, for you would rejoice no less for him than for yourself. And if two or three or many more had it, you would rejoice as much for each of them as for yourself, if you loved each one as yourself. So in that perfect love of countless blessed angels and human beings, where no one will love another less than himself, each will rejoice for every other just as for himself.

My God and my Lord, my hope and the joy of my heart, tell my soul whether this is the joy of which you speak to us through your Son: “Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” For I have found a joy that is full, and more than full. When the heart is full, the mind full, the soul full, the whole person full of that joy, joy will still overflow beyond measure. So that joy will not enter wholly into those who rejoice; rather, those who rejoice will enter wholly into joy. Tell me, Lord, tell your servant inwardly, in his heart, whether this is the joy into which your servants will enter, those who will enter “into the joy of their Lord.” But surely that joy with which your chosen ones will rejoice is something “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the human heart.”note

I pray, God, that I may know you and love you, so that I may rejoice in you. And if I cannot do so fully in this life, may I at least advance day by day until that fullness comes. Let knowledge of you grow in me here, and there be made full; let love of you increase here, and there be full; so that here my joy may be great in hope, and there full in reality. Lord, through your Son you command us—no, you counsel us—to ask, and you promise that we will receive, “that our joy may be full.” I ask, Lord, for what you counsel through our “wonderful counselor”; may I receive what you promise through your truth, “that my joy may be full.” God of truth, I ask: may I receive, “that my joy may be full.” Meanwhile let my mind meditate on it, let my tongue speak of it. Let my heart love it, let my mouth talk of it.note

To one who doubts whether there is, or denies that there is, some nature of this kind, than which nothing greater can be thought, it is said that its existence is proved, first, from this: that the very person who denies or doubts it already has it in his understanding, since when he hears it spoken of he understands what is said; and next, that what he understands must exist not in the understanding alone but also in reality. And this is proved as follows: it is greater to exist in the understanding and in reality than in the understanding alone. And if that thing is in the understanding alone, then whatever also existed in reality would be greater than it; and so what is greater than all things would be less than something, and would not be greater than all—which is plainly a contradiction.

The reply might be made that this is said to be in my understanding already only because I understand what is said. But could I not equally be said to have in my understanding all sorts of false things, things that in no way at all exist in themselves, since, if someone spoke of them, I would understand whatever he said? Unless perhaps it is established that this thing is such that it cannot be held in thought in the way that any false or doubtful things can; and that is why I am not said to think of it when I hear it, or to have it in thought, but to understand it and have it in the understanding—namely, because I cannot think of it except by understanding, that is, by grasping with knowledge, that it actually exists.

Hence the example of the painter who already has in his understanding the picture he is going to make cannot fit this argument well enough. For that picture, before it is made, is held in the painter’s very art; and any such thing in an artist’s art is nothing other than a part of his own understanding. As St Augustine says, when a craftsman is going to make a chest in actual work, he first has it in his art. The chest that is made in the work is not life; the chest that is in the art is life, because the craftsman’s soul, in which all these things exist before they are brought forth, is alive. For why are these things life in the living soul of the craftsman, except that they are nothing other than the knowledge or understanding of that soul itself?note

Add to this the point made above: that this thing greater than all that can be thought, which is said to be nothing other than God himself, I can no more think of or have in my understanding when I hear of it, on the basis of a real thing known to me by species or genus, than I can God himself—whom for this very reason I can also think not to exist. For I neither know the reality that God is, nor can I infer it from some other similar thing, since you yourself maintain that it is such that nothing can be like it.

Next, it is proved to me that it necessarily exists not only in the understanding but also in reality, on the grounds that, unless it did, whatever exists in reality would be greater than it; and so it would not be greater than all, which it has already been proved to be in the understanding. To this I reply: if we must say that something is in the understanding which cannot even be thought on the basis of the reality of any thing, I do not deny that it is in mine in that sense. But since existence in reality can in no way follow from this, I do not yet grant it that existence at all, until it is proved to me by an unquestionable argument. For whoever says that this thing exists because otherwise what is greater than all will not be greater than all does not pay enough attention to whom he is speaking.

These are the replies the fool might make, for the time being, to the objections. When it is next asserted to him that this greater thing is such that it cannot fail to exist even in thought alone—and this again is proved from nothing other than the fact that otherwise it would not be greater than all—he could give this same reply and say: “When did I say that such a thing, that is, something greater than all, exists in reality, so that from this it should be proved to me that it exists in reality so truly that it cannot even be thought not to exist?” Therefore it must first be proved by some utterly certain argument that there is some superior nature, that is, one greater and better than all that exist, so that from this we can then prove all the other attributes that what is greater and better than all must not lack.

The rest of that little book is argued so truly, so brilliantly and splendidly, is so full of benefit, and so fragrant with a certain inward perfume of devout and holy feeling, that it should in no way be despised because of those points at the beginning which, though rightly felt, are less firmly argued. Rather, those points should be argued more robustly, and the whole received with great reverence and praise.

Since the one who criticizes me in these remarks is not that fool against whom I spoke in my little work, but someone who is no fool, and a Catholic, speaking on the fool’s behalf, it may be enough for me to reply to the Catholic.

You say—whoever you are who say that the fool can say these things—that something than which nothing greater can be thought is in the understanding only in the way that something is which cannot even be thought on the basis of the reality of any thing. And you say that what I claim—that that than which nothing greater can be thought exists also in reality because it is in the understanding—follows no more than that the lost island most certainly exists because someone who hears it described in words does not doubt that it is in his understanding. But I say: if that than which nothing greater can be thought is not understood or thought, and is not in the understanding or in thought, then surely either God is not that than which nothing greater can be thought, or he is not understood or thought, and is not in the understanding or in thought.

So I said in the argument you criticize that when the fool hears “that than which nothing greater can be thought” spoken, he understands what he hears. Surely anyone who does not understand it, if it is said in a language he knows, has either no understanding at all or an extremely dull one. Next I said that if it is understood, it is in the understanding. Or is what has been shown to exist necessarily in reality in no understanding at all? But you will say that even if it is in the understanding, this does not follow from its being understood. See how it does follow, from its being understood, that it is in the understanding. For just as what is thought is thought by thought, and what is thought by thought is in thought just as it is thought; so what is understood is understood by the understanding, and what is understood by the understanding is in the understanding just as it is understood. What could be plainer?

You say that when it is said that this supreme thing cannot be thought not to exist, it would perhaps be better to say that its not existing, or even its being able not to exist, cannot be understood. But “cannot be thought” is rather what needed to be said. For if I had said that the thing itself cannot be understood not to exist, perhaps you yourself, who say that in the strict sense of that word false things cannot be understood, would object that nothing that exists can be understood not to exist, since it is false that what exists does not exist; and so it would not be peculiar to God that he cannot be understood not to exist. And if one of the things that most certainly exist can be understood not to exist, then other certain things can likewise be understood not to exist. But this objection certainly cannot be made about thinking, if the matter is considered carefully.

What the other objections are that you raise against me on behalf of the fool is easy to see even for someone of little wisdom, and so I had thought I should refrain from showing it. But since I hear that some who read them think they carry weight against me, I will say a few words about them. First, you often repeat that I say that what is greater than all is in the understanding, and that if it is in the understanding, it is also in reality, since otherwise what is greater than all would not be greater than all. Nowhere in anything I have said is such a proof to be found. For saying “greater than all” and saying “that than which nothing greater can be thought” do not have the same force for proving that what is spoken of exists in reality. For if someone says that that than which nothing greater can be thought is not something in reality, or can fail to exist, or can even be thought not to exist, he can easily be refuted.

You object that any false or doubtful things can equally be understood and be in the understanding, just like what I was speaking of. I wonder what you thought you were objecting against me here. I wanted to prove something that was in doubt, and for that it was enough, at first, to show that it is understood and is in the understanding in some way or other, so that it could then be considered whether it is in the understanding alone, like false things, or in reality as well, like true ones. For if false and doubtful things are understood and are in the understanding in this way—because, when they are spoken, the hearer understands what the speaker means—nothing prevents what I spoke of from being understood and being in the understanding.

Next, you say that it could hardly ever be believable that, once this has been spoken and heard, it cannot be thought not to exist in the way that even God can be thought not to exist. Let those who have acquired even a little skill in disputation and argument answer for me. Is it reasonable for someone to deny what he understands because it is said to be the same as something he denies because he does not understand it? Or if what is in some measure understood is sometimes denied, and it is the same as what is not understood at all, is not what is in doubt more easily proved from what is in some understanding than from what is in none? So it cannot be believable that anyone denies that than which nothing greater can be thought, which he understands in some measure when he hears it, on the grounds that he denies God, whose meaning he does not think of in any way.

As for your careful proof that that than which nothing greater can be thought is not like a picture not yet made in the painter’s understanding, it serves no purpose. For I did not bring in the picture planned in advance because I wanted to claim that the thing under discussion was like it, but only so that I could show that something is in the understanding which is not understood to exist. Again, you say that when you hear of that than which nothing greater can be thought, you cannot think of it or have it in your understanding on the basis of a real thing known to you by genus or species, since you neither know the thing itself nor can you come to know it from some other similar thing. But it is plain that the matter stands otherwise.

But even if it were true that that than which nothing greater can be thought cannot be thought or understood, it would still not be false that “that than which nothing greater can be thought” can be thought and understood. For just as nothing prevents us from saying “ineffable,” though what is called ineffable cannot be said; and just as “unthinkable” can be thought, though what is fittingly called unthinkable cannot be thought: so when “that than which nothing greater can be thought” is said, what is heard can without doubt be thought and understood, even if the thing itself than which nothing greater can be thought cannot be thought or understood.

I think I have shown that in the little book mentioned above I proved, by an argument not weak but quite necessary, that something than which nothing greater can be thought actually exists, and that this argument is not weakened by the strength of any objection. For the meaning of this phrase contains such force of proof in itself that what is said is, of necessity, by the very fact that it is understood or thought, both proved to exist in reality and proved to be whatever we ought to believe about the divine substance. For we believe of the divine substance whatever can be thought, without qualification, to be better to be than not to be. For example, it is better to be eternal than not eternal; good than not good; indeed goodness itself than not goodness itself. But that than which nothing greater can be thought cannot fail to be anything of this kind. Therefore that than which nothing greater can be thought must be whatever we ought to believe about the divine essence.