CONIECTATIO, QUALE ET QUANTUM SIT HOC BONUM.
The Call to Consider This Good
The soul is roused to lift its whole mind to contemplate the nature and greatness of the supreme Good, which gathers the joy of all goods and utterly surpasses every created experience.
Rouse yourself now, my soul, and lift up your whole mind, and consider as best you can what kind of good, and how great, that good is. For if individual good things are delightful, consider carefully how delightful that good must be which holds the joy of all good things — not the kind we've experienced in created things, but as different as the Creator is from the creature.
From Created Goods to Their Source
A series of parallel reflections moves from created life, salvation, and wisdom to the far greater life, salvation, and wisdom of the Creator who made all things from nothing.
If created life is good, how good is the life that creates? If the salvation we've known is joyful, how joyful is the salvation that brings about all salvation? If wisdom is lovely in the knowledge of created things, how lovely is the wisdom that founded all things out of nothing?
The Joy of the Maker of All Joy
The meditation culminates by gathering all created pleasures into a single question about the incomparable pleasure found in the one who made them.
In short, if there are many and great pleasures in delightful things, what kind of pleasure, and how great, is in the one who made those very delights?
Read the original Latin
Excita nunc, anima mea, et erige totum intellectum toum, et cogita quantum poses, quale et quantum sit illud bonum. Si enim singula bona delectabilia sunt, cogita intente quam delectabile sit illud bonum, quod continet iucunditatem omnium bonorum; et non qualem in rebus creatis sumus experti sed tanto differentem quanto differt creator a creatura. Si enim bona est vita creata: quam bona est vita creatrix? Si iucunda est salus facta: quam iucunda est salus quae facit omnem salutem? Si amabilis est sapientia in cognitione rerum conditarum: quam amabilis est sapientia quae omnia condidit ex nihilo? Denique si multae et magnae delectationes sunt in rebus delectabilibus: qualis et quanta delectatio est in illo qui fecit ipsa delectabilia?
Proslogion (Address / Discourse on the Existence of God) companion
One chapter of historic wisdom, every day
Chosen Portion delivers works like the Proslogion as short daily readings with a prayer — free on iOS.
Anselm designed the Proslogion to be read slowly as prayer, and the Chosen Portion app serves it exactly that way — one short portion per day.
- Finish the entire Proslogion in 14 days at about 10 minutes a day
- Modern-English rendering of all 27 chapters, no Latin required
- Each reading paired with Anselm's own prayers so study ends in worship