Prologus
A Trembling Vision
The seer recounts a powerful vision received at age sixty-five and the long labor of writing it down.
And it happened in the sixth year, after I had labored for five years over remarkable and truly genuine visions, that a true vision of the unfailing light showed me — a man utterly ignorant of the wide variety of human characters — what the first year of these present visions had been about. When I was sixty-five years old, I saw a vision of such great mystery and power that I trembled completely, and because of my body's frailty I began to grow ill from it. I barely finished writing that vision down over the course of seven years.
A Voice from Heaven
A heavenly voice commissions the seer to write for the benefit of others, and the divine speaker claims foreordination of the work before the foundation of the world.
And so in the one hundred sixty-third year of the Lord's Incarnation, while the oppression of the apostolic see had not yet subsided, under Frederick, emperor of Roman dignity, a voice from heaven came to me, saying: 'O poor little form, you who are the daughter of many labors and have been tested by many grave bodily weaknesses, yet are steeped in the depth of the mysteries of God — entrust what you see with the inner eyes and perceive with the inner ears of your soul to stable Scripture, for the benefit of people, so that through these things they may come to know their Creator and not shrink from honoring him with fitting honor.' Therefore, write these things not according to your own heart, but according to my testimony — for I am the life without beginning and without end. They were not invented through you or premeditated through any other human being, but were foreordained by me before the foundation of the world. For just as I knew man himself before he was created, so I also foresaw whatever things would be necessary for him.
The Humble Hand Writes
The seer, a poor and weak form, takes up the pen and explains that all she writes comes only from heavenly mysteries, confirmed again by a heavenly voice.
I then — a poor and weak form — of whom I had spoken as that man in my earlier visions, whom I had secretly sought and found, and of whom I also made mention as that girl in the higher visions, beaten down by many infirmities — trembling, I turned my hand at last to write. For while I was doing this and looked up to the true and living light to see what I ought to write — because everything I had written from the beginning of my visions, or learned afterward while watching in heavenly mysteries with body and mind awake, I saw with the inner eyes of my spirit and heard with my inner ears, not in dreams, not in ecstasy (as I said in my earlier visions), and I have produced nothing from human sense as truth's witness — but only what I received in heavenly secrets. And again I heard a voice from heaven teaching me in this way, and it said: 'So then write according to me, in this manner.'
Read the original Latin
Et factum est in sexto anno postquam mirabiles verasque visiones, de quibus per quinquennium laboraveram, vera visio indeficientis luminis mihi homini diversitatem multiplicium morum quammaxime ignoranti demonstraverat, qui primus annus exordium praesentium visionum fuit, cum sexaginta quinque annorum essem tanti mysterii et fortitudinis visionem vidi, ut tota contremiscerem, et pro fragilitate corporis mei inde aegrotare inciperem. Quam visionem tandem per septem annos scribendo vix consummavi. Itaque in millesimo centesimo sexagesimo tertio Dominicae Incarnationis anno, pressura apostolicae sedis nondum sopita, sub Friderico Romanae dignitatis imperatore vox de coelo facta est ad me, dicens: O paupercula forma, quae es plurimorum laborum filia, multisque et gravibus corporis infirmitatibus excocta, sed tamen profunditate mysteriorum Dei perfusa, haec quae interioribus oculis vides, et interioribus auribus animae percipis, stabili scripturae ad utilitatem hominum commenda, quatenus et homines per ea Creatorem suum intelligant, eumque digno honore venerari non refugiant. Itaque scribe ista non secundum cor tuum, sed secundum testimonium meum, qui sine initio et fine vita sum, nec per te inventa, nec per alium hominem praemeditata, sed per me ante principium mundi praeordinata, quoniam ut ante creatum hominem ipsum praescivi, sic etiam illa quae ei necessaria sunt praevidi. Ego igitur paupercula et imbecillis forma, testificante homine illo, quem velut in prioribus visionibus meis praefata sum, occulte quaesieram, et inveneram, testificante etiam eadem puella, cujus in superioribus visionibus mentionem feci, quamplurimis infirmitatibus contrita, manus tandem ad scribendum tremebunda converti. Quod dum facerem sursum ad verum vivensque lumen aspexi quid scribere deberem, quoniam omnia quae a principio visionum mearum scripseram, vel quae postmodum sciebam, in coelestibus mysteriis vigilans corpore et mente, interioribus oculis spiritus mei vidi, interioribusque auribus audivi, et non in somnis, nec in exstasi, quemadmodum in prioribus visionibus meis praefata sum, nec quidquam de humano sensu veritate teste protuli, sed ea tantum quae in coelestibus secretis percepi. Iterumque vocem de coelo sic me docentem audivi, et dixit: Scribe ergo secundum me in modum hunc.
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