Monologion: Chapter 17
BASIC WRITINGS
justice"? Therefore, if someone asks,"What is this supreme nature you are discussing?" what truer answer could be given than "Justice"?
So we must see what is meant when that nature, which is justice itself, is said to be just. Now a human being cannot be justice, but he can have justice. Consequently, a just human being is not understood as existent justice but rather as having justice. Now the supreme nature cannot properly be said to have justice but rather to exist as justice.Therefore, when he is said to be just, he is properly understood as existent justice, not as having justice. Now if, when he is said to be existent justice, this does not express what sort of thing he is but rather what he is, it follows that when he is said to be just, this too does not express what sort of thing he is but what he is. Further, since to say of that supreme essence that he is just, is the same as to say that he is existent justice, and to say that he is existent justice is no different from saying that he is justice, there is no difference between saying that he is just and saying that he is justice.Therefore, when someone asks what he is,"Just" is no less fitting an answer than "Justice."
Now reason constrains the intellect to recognize that what we have discovered to be certain in the case of justice applies to all the things that are said of the supreme nature in a similar way. So whichever of them is said of him designates neither what sort of thing he is nor how great he is but rather what he is. Now it is clear that whatever good thing the supreme nature is, he is that supremely. And so he is the supreme essence, supreme life, supreme reason, supreme salvation, supreme justice, supreme wisdom, supreme truth, supreme goodness, supreme greatness, supreme beauty, supreme immortality, supreme incorruptibility, supreme immutability, supreme beatitude, supreme eternity, supreme power, supreme unity, which is none other than supremely being, supremely living, and other similar things.
Chapter 17 That he is simple* in such a way that all the things that can be said of his essence are one and the same thing in him, and none of them can be said substantially of him except with respect to what he is
What then? If that supreme nature is so many good things, will he not be composed of several* good things? Or are they in fact not several good things, but one good thing signified by several words? For every composite needs the things of which it is composed if it is to subsist, and it owes what it is to them, since whatever it is, it is through them, whereas those things are not through it what they are. And consequently a composite is absolutely not supreme. So then, if that nature is composed of several good things, all these features, which hold true of every composite, must apply to him.
But the whole necessity of truth, which became evident above, destroys and overwhelms such impious falsehood by a clear argument.Therefore, since that