Page:The Mediaeval Mind Vol 2.djvu/178

166 Anselm's diction, in spite of its frequent cloister rhetoric, has a simple and modern word-order. An account has already been given of his life and of his thoughts, so beautifully sky-blue, unpurpled with the crimson of human passion, which made the words of Augustine more veritably incandescent. The great African was the strongest individual influence upon Anselm's thought and language. But the latter's style has departed further from the classical sentence, and of itself indicates that the writer belongs neither to the patristic period nor to the Carolingian time, busied with its rearrangement of patristic thought. The following is from his Proslogion upon the existence of God. Through this discourse, Deity and the Soul are addressed in the second person after the manner of Augustine's Confessions.

"Excita nunc, anima mea, et erige totum intellectum tuum, et cogita quantum potes quale et quantum sit illud bonum (i.e. Deus). Si enim singula bona delectabilia sunt, cogita intente quam delectabile sit illud bonum quod continet jucunditatem 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 jucunda est salus facta, quam jucunda est salus quae fecit 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!"

In a more emotional passage Anselm arouses in his soul the terror of the Judgment. It is from a "Meditatio":