Monologium, on the Being of God71 Chapter LXXI. The soul that despises this being will be eternally miserable.

sant'Anselmo d'Aosta († 1109) · Monologion · 1075-1076

Chapter LXXI. The soul that despises this being will be eternally miserable.

From this it may be inferred, as a certain consequence, that the soul which despises the love of the supreme good will incur eternal misery. It might be said that it would be justly punished for such contempt if it lost existence or life, since it does not employ itself to the end for which it was created. But reason in no wise admits such a belief, namely, that after such great guilt it is condemned to be what it was before all its guilt.

For, before it existed, it could neither be guilty nor feel a penalty. If, then, the soul despising that end for which it was created, dies so as to feel nothing, or so as to be nothing at all, its condition will be the same when in the greatest guilt and when without all guilt; and the supremely wise Justice will not distinguish between what is capable of no good and wills no evil, and what is capable of the greatest good and wills the greatest evil.

But it is plain enough that this is a contradiction. Therefore, nothing can be more logical, and nothing ought to be believed more confidently than that the soul of man is so constituted that, if it scorns loving the supreme Being, it suffers eternal misery; that just as the loving soul shall rejoice in an eternal reward, so the soul despising that Being shall suffer eternal punishment; and as the former shall feel an immutable sufficiency, so the latter shall feel an inconsolable need.

Hinc utique consequenter colligitur, quod illa, quae summi boni amorem contemnit, aeternam miseriam incurret. Nam si dicitur quod pro tali contemptu sic justius puniatur, ut ipsum esse, vel vitam perdat; quia se non utitur ad id ad quod est facta; nullatenus hoc admittit ratio, ut, post tantam culpam, pro poena recipiat esse quod erat ante omnem culpam. Quippe antequam esset, nec culpam habere, nec poenam sentire poterat. Si ergo anima contemnens id ad quod facta est, sic moritur, ut nihil sentiat, aut ut omnino nihil sit; similiter se habebit, et in maxima culpa, et sine omni culpa; nec discernet summe sapiens justitia inter id quod nullum bonum potest, et nullum malum vult; et id quod maximum bonum potest, et maximum malum vult. At hoc satis patet quam inconveniens sit. Nihil igitur videri potest consequentius, et nihil credi debet certius, quam hominis animam sic esse factam, ut si contemnat amare summam essentiam, aeternam patiatur miseriam: ut sicut amans aeterno gaudebit praemio, ita contemnens aeterna poena doleat: et sicut illa sentiet immutabilem sufficientiam, ita ista sentiat inconsolabilem indigentiam.

Sidney Norton Deane (1878–1943), Chicago: Open Court, 1903. Fonte del testo digitale: English Wikisource transcription of the 1903 edition (each chapter checked against the OCR of the Internet Archive scan stanselmeproslog00anseuoft). Testo originale: Corpus Corporum (University of Zurich) TEI of the Patrologia Latina, via the CatholicCorpus mirror. Public domain in the US and Canada: published 1903; translator died 1943. Latin: Migne, PL 158 (1853), public domain.

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