De tribus libris.
The Three Books
Honorius distinguishes three books: the human-made book of corruptible works, the created book of God's visible and invisible wisdom, and the eternal book of life that God begot from himself, in which the predestined are written forever.
There are three books. The first is the one a person makes from something; the second is the one God created from nothing; the third is the one God begot as God from himself as God. The first is a person's work, and it's corruptible; the second is God's work, which never ceases to be, and in this visible work the invisible wisdom of the Creator is visibly written; the third is not God's work, but the wisdom through which God made all his works, which he begot rather than made, and in which he had all things prescribed from eternity according to the decree of providence and predestination, which he was going to make. And this is the book of life, in which whatever has once been written will never be blotted out, and all who have deserved to reach even to its sight will live forever.✦
Read the original Latin
Tres sunt libri. Primus est quem facit homo de aliquo; secundus, quem creavit Deus de nihilo; tertius quem Deus genuit Deum de se Deo. Primus est opus hominis corruptibile; secundus est opus Dei, quod nunquam desinit esse, in quo opere visibili invisibilis sapientia Creatoris visibiliter scripta est; tertius est non opus Dei, sed sapientia, per quam fecit omnia opera sua Deus, quam genuit non fecit, in qua ab aeterno cuncta, quae facturus erat secundum sententiam providentiae et praedestinationis praescripta habuit. Et hic est liber vitae, in quo quidquid semel scriptum fuerit, nunquam abolebitur, et omnes, qui meruerint pervenire usque ad ejus inspectionem, vivent in aeternum.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rev.3.5 — The one who conquers will thus be clothed in white garments, and I will not erase his name from the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.
De Arca Noe Morali et Mystica (On the Moral and Mystical Ark of Noah) companion
Keep the ark under construction
Hugh's method only works with daily practice — the Chosen Portion app gives you a short, structured devotional every morning, free.
Hugh's daily discipline of ordered meditation continues in Chosen Portion, which serves one structured devotional portion each day so the mind returns to the same interior work Hugh prescribed.
- A 10-minute structured meditation delivered each morning
- Progress through classic texts like Hugh's in small daily portions
- Build a 30-day streak of ordered prayer instead of improvised moments