ABSTRACT

The title is usually taken simply to refer to the fact that this work is in the form of an address to God. In E109 Anselm asked Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons, to change the titles of the works he had sent him to Monologion (from Monoloquium de Ratione Fidei) and Proslogion (from Alloquium1), but chose not to explain his reasons for these changes or for his use of the Greek forms. A clue to what Anselm was doing in renaming the work from Alloquium to Proslogion is to be found in Anselm’s dialectical background. The term ‘proslogion’ appears in its Latinate form ‘proloquium’ in Augustine’s De Dialectica, IV.2 The meaning of the term in Augustine is ‘statement’ or ‘proposition’. Augustine uses the heading ‘de proloquiorum summa’ to refer to the conclusions of combinations of proloquia (i.e. it is the heading under which he places syllogisms). The term ‘proloquium’ derives from Stoic logic and, according to Aulus Gellius, was employed by Varro in his De Lingua Latina to translate the Greek term αξίωμα [axioma = proposition].3 Varro defined proloquium as a statement in which there is nothing lacking. Since Anselm did not explain this title further, it is impossible to confirm that he had the dialectical term ‘proloquium’ in mind. He would not have had firsthand knowledge of Stoic doctrine.4 However, his acquaintance with Augustine and almost certainly with Martianus Capella suggests that he was familiar with this usage.