Monologion: Chapter 53/Chapter 54
MONOLOGION
understanding of himself, and his memory and understanding of himself is as great as his essence—and this cannot be otherwise—, then his love is indeed as great as he himself is.
Chapter 53 That this love is the very same thing that the supreme spirit is, and yet together with the Father and the Son he is one spirit
But what can be equal to the supreme spirit other than the supreme spirit?
And so this love is the supreme spirit. Furthermore, even if no creature—that is, nothing other than the supreme spirit, who is the Father and the Son— ever existed, the Father and Son would nonetheless love both themselves and each other. And so it follows that this love is nothing other than what the Father and the Son are, namely, the supreme essence. Now since there cannot be more than one supreme essence, what is more necessary than that the Father and the Son and the love of each is one supreme essence? So this love is the supreme wisdom, the supreme truth, the supreme good, and whatever else can be said of the substance of the supreme spirit.
Chapter 54 That this love proceeds as a whole from the Father and as a whole from the Son, and yet he is only one love
We must carefully examine whether there are two loves, one proceeding from the Father and the other from the Son; whether there is one proceeding not as a whole from one but partly from the Father and partly from the Son; or whether there is neither more than one love, nor just one proceeding partly from each individually, but rather one and the same proceeding as a whole from each individually and from both at once. Now we can undoubtedly resolve this doubtful issue by noticing that he does not proceed from that in virtue of which the Father and the Son are more than one, but rather from that in virtue of which they are one. For the Father and the Son equally send forth so great a good, not from their relations, which are more than one (for the relation of Father is one thing and the relation of Son is another), but from their essence, which admits no plurality. Therefore, just as the Father individually is the supreme spirit and the Son individually is the supreme spirit, and the Father and the Son together are not two spirits but one, so also the whole love of the supreme spirit flows forth from the Father individually and from the Son individually, and what flows forth from the Father and the Son together is not two wholes, but one and the same whole.