---
title: "Proslogium and Monologium"
author: "Anselm of Canterbury"
translator: "Sidney Norton Deane"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Mystics"
section: 45 of 60
url: https://scriptura.si/works/anselm-proslogium-and-monologium/45/
cite: "Anselm of Canterbury, tr. Sidney Norton Deane, Proslogium and Monologium, section 45. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/anselm-proslogium-and-monologium/45/"
---

# Proslogium and Monologium

*Anselm of Canterbury, tr. Sidney Norton Deane*

Faith seeking understanding, and that than which nothing greater can be thought.

## 45. Chapter XXIII.

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/anselm-proslogium-and-monologium/45/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/anselm-proslogium-and-monologium/45/#p-N

[¶0] What man took from God by his sin, which he has no power to repay.

[¶1] Anselm. What did man take from God, when he allowed himself to be overcome by the devil?

[¶2] Boso. Go on to mention, as you have begun, the evil things which can be added to those already shown for I am ignorant of them.

[¶3] Anselm. Did not man take from God whatever He had purposed to do for human nature?

[¶4] Boso. There is no denying that.

[¶5] Anselm. Listen to the voice of strict justice; and judge according to that whether man makes to God a real satisfaction for his sin, unless, by overcoming the devil, man restore to God what he took from God in allowing himself to be conquered by the devil; so that, as by this conquest over man the devil took what belonged to God, and God was the loser, so in man’s victory the devil may be despoiled, and God recover his right.

[¶6] Boso. Surely nothing can be more exactly or justly conceived.

[¶7] Anselm. Think you that supreme justice can violate this justice?

[¶8] Boso. I dare not think it.

[¶9] Anselm. Therefore man cannot and ought not by any means to receive from God what God designed to give him, unless he return to God everything which he took from him; so that, as by man God suffered loss, by man, also, He might recover His loss. But this cannot be effected except in this way: that, as in the fall of man all human nature was corrupted, and, as it were, tainted with sin, and God will not choose one of such a race to fill up the number in his heavenly kingdom; so, by man’s victory, as many men may be justified from sin as are needed to complete the number which man was made to fill. But a sinful man can by no means do this, for a sinner cannot justify a sinner.

[¶10] Boso. There is nothing more just or necessary; but, from all these things, the compassion of God and the hope of man seems to fail, as far as regards that happiness for which man was made.

[¶11] Anselm. Yet wait a little.

[¶12] Boso. Have you anything further?