Monologion: Chapter 34/Chapter 35
BASIC WRITINGS
in a similar sense at all, since he is not a likeness of creation but rather its paradigmatic essence.46 It follows, therefore, that he does not utter creation by a word of creation. So if he does not utter creation by a word of creation, by whose word does he utter creation? For what he utters, he utters by a word, and a word is the word (that is, the likeness) of something. Now if he utters nothing other than himself and creation, he cannot utter anything except by his own Word or by a word of creation. Therefore, if he utters nothing by a word of creation, whatever he utters, he utters by his own Word.Therefore, he utters both himself and whatever he made by one and the same Word.
Chapter 34 How he can be seen to utter creation by his own Word But how can such different things—namely, the creating and the created essence—be uttered by one Word, especially since that Word is coeternal with him who utters it, whereas creation is not coeternal with him? Perhaps it is because he is himself the supreme wisdom and the supreme reason, in which all created things exist.For any work that is made according to a craft always— not only when it is made, but even before it is made and after it is destroyed— exists in that craft as nothing other than the craft itself. Therefore, when that supreme spirit utters himself, he utters all created things. For before they were made, and once they have already been made, and when they are destroyed or in any way changed, they always exist in him, not as what they are in themselves, but as what he himself is. For in themselves they are a changeable essence created according to an unchangeable reason; in him, however, they are that first essence and first truth of existing, and the more they are in any way like him, the more truly and excellently do they exist. And so in this way it can reasonably be asserted that when the supreme spirit utters himself, he also, by one and the same Word, utters whatever was made.
Chapter 35 That whatever was made is life and truth in his Word and knowledge Now since it has been established that his Word is consubstantial with him and exactly like him, it follows necessarily that all the things that exist in him exist in his Word in just the same way. So whatever was made—whether it is living
46 See the argument of Chapter 31 for this distinction.