Monologion: Chapter 48/Chapter 49
MONOLOGION
Chapter 48 That 'memory' signifies the Father just as 'understanding' signifies the Son; and how the Son is the understanding or wisdom of memory, as well as the memory of the Father and the memory of memory
But what are we to hold about memory? Are we to judge that the Son is the understanding of memory, or the memory of the Father, or the memory of memory? Indeed, since it cannot be denied that the supreme spirit remembers himself, nothing could be more appropriate than to use 'memory' to signify the Father, just as we use 'Word' to signify the Son; for it seems that a word is born from the memory, as is more clearly seen in the case of our own mind.
For since the human mind is not always thinking of itself, as it always remembers itself, it is clear that when it does think of itself, its word is born from its memory. Hence it is evident that if it were always thinking of itself, its word would always be born from its memory. For to think of a thing we remember is to utter it in our mind; the word of that thing, then, is that very thought, formed out of our memory after the likeness of the thing. And so from this we can quite clearly understand that his coeternal Word is born from the eternal memory of the supreme substance, who always utters himself, just as he always remembers himself.Therefore, just as the Word is fittingly understood to be an offspring, so the memory is quite appropriately called a parent.
Therefore, if the offspring that is born entirely from the supreme spirit alone is the offspring of his memory, nothing follows more logically than that he is his own memory. For it is not the case that by remembering himself he exists in his own memory as one thing exists in another, in the way that things in the memory of the human mind are not our memory itself. Rather, he remembers himself in such a way that he is his own memory.
And so it follows that just as the Son is the understanding or wisdom of the Father, so he is also the understanding or wisdom of the Father's memory.
Now whatever the Son is wise about or understands, he likewise also remembers. So the Son is the memory of the Father and the memory of memory, that is, the memory that remembers the Father, who is memory; just as he is also the wisdom of the Father and the wisdom of wisdom, that is, the wisdom that is wise concerning the Father, who is wisdom. And the Son is indeed memory born from memory, just as he is wisdom born from wisdom; but the Father is memory or wisdom born from no one.
Chapter 49 That the supreme spirit loves himself But behold! As I consider with delight the distinguishing characteristics and the common features of the Father and the Son, I find nothing that brings me