PRIMA VISIO, cap. X
Light, Fall, and the Gift of Humanity
God's creative light brings forth angels, some of whom fall, and then God raises humanity to fill the place of the lost angels.
For when God said, "Let there be light," rational light arose — that is, the angels: both those who stood firm with him in truth and those who, without any light, fell into outer darkness because they denied that God was the true light which, before all ages and without beginning, existed in brightness, and because they wanted to make someone like themselves who could not be.✦ Then God brought forth another life, one clothed in a body — namely, the human being — and gave that person both the place and the glory of the lost angels, so that in the praise of God this human would accomplish what that angel refused to do.
Faces Turned Toward the Rising Light
Those who serve God in the world are revealed, and their faces turn toward the east as a sign of turning to holy conduct.
In the face of this human being are revealed those who, though bodily devoted to the world, yet serve God continually in spirit — and because they are held back in the world by worldly concerns, they do not forget the things of the spirit in their service to God. And these faces are turned toward the east, because both spiritual people and worldly people who wish to serve God and preserve their souls in life ought to turn themselves toward the rising of holy conduct and blessedness.
Gathering the Predestined by Love
God gathers the predestined in love and instructs them through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
That God, gathering to himself those he has predestined in the strength of his love, should instruct them through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit's gifts about whatever they need to know.
Read the original Latin
Nam quando Deus dixit: Fiat lux, rationalis lux exorta est, scilicet angeli, tam illi qui cum eo in veritate perstiterunt quam illi qui in tenebras exteriores sine omni luce ceciderunt, quoniam verum lumen quod ante aevum absque initio in claritate erat, Deum esse negaverunt, et quia quemdam quod esse non potuit, illi similem facere voluerunt. Tunc Deus aliam vitam, quam corpore texit, exsurgere fecit, quod homo est, cui et locum et gloriam perditi angeli dedit, quatenus iste in laude Dei perficeret quod ille facere noluit. In facie autem ista hominis illi demonstrantur, qui saeculo corporaliter dediti, spiritu tamen Deo continue serviunt, nec propter hoc quod in saeculo saeculariter detinentur, ea quae spiritus sunt in famulatu Dei obliviscuntur. Et facies istae ad orientem versae sunt, quia et spiritales et saeculares, qui Deo famulari animasque suas in vita conservare desiderant, ad ortum sanctae conversationis et beatitudinis se convertere debent.
Quod Deus in fortitudine charitatis suae praedestinatos ad se colligens, infusione munerum Spiritus sancti eos de quibusque necessariis erudiat.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.1.3 — And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
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