Monologion: Chapter 13/Chapter 14
BASIC WRITINGS
himself, and that whatever he made, he made it through his innermost utterance (whether by saying individual things by means of individual words, or instead by saying all things at once by means of one word),7 what could be seen to be any more necessary than this: the utterance of the supreme essence is nothing other than the supreme essence? And so I do not think we should carelessly neglect to consider this utterance. But before we can discuss it carefully, I think we must earnestly investigate certain properties of the supreme substance.8
Chapter 13 That, just as all things were made through the supreme essence, so also they remain in existence through him
Therefore, it has been established that whatever is not the same as the supreme nature was made through him. Now only an irrational mind could doubt that all created things remain and continue in existence, as long as they do exist, because they are sustained by the very same being who made them from nothing so that they exist in the first place. For by an exactly similar argument to the one that shows that all existing things exist through some one thing, and so he alone exists through himself and all other things exist through another— by a similar argument, I say, it can be proved that everything that remains in existence does so through some one thing, and so he alone remains in existence through himself and all other things remain in existence through another. Now since it can only be the case that created things remain in existence through another, and he who created them remains in existence through himself, it must be the case that, just as nothing was made except through the presence of the creating essence, so nothing remains in existence except through his conserving presence.
Chapter 14 That he exists in all things and through all things, and all things exist from him and through him and in him
If this is the case—or rather, since this is necessarily the case—it follows that where he does not exist, nothing exists. Therefore, he exists everywhere, both
7 In Chapter 30 Anselm resolves this question, maintaining that this utterance consists of one word, not of many words.
8 Anselm discusses the properties of the supreme substance in Chapters 13–28 and then resumes discussion of his utterance in Chapter 29.