VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXI
The Soul as the Body's Firmament
The soul governs the body as the firmament governs the earth, quickening it with life and moisture, so that works born of the soul are good while works of the flesh are evil.
And the whole human body is joined to its head, just as the earth clings to the firmament with all its extensions; and a person as a whole is governed through the sensuality of the head, just as each function of the earth is fulfilled through the firmament. In the same way, the experience of heavenly and earthly things is present to the soul, and rationality, by which it perceives heavenly and earthly things, is fixed within it. For just as the word of God passed through all things by creating them, so the soul passes through the whole body, working along with it. The soul is also the greenness of the flesh, because the human body grows and advances through it, just as the earth is fruitful through moisture; and the same soul is the moisture of the body, because it keeps it from drying out, just as rain pours upon the earth. For if the moisture of rains descends in a right and orderly way, and not excessively, it makes the earth sprout; but if it flows down in a disorderly fashion, it chokes and destroys it along with its young growth. From the soul, certain powers proceed, giving life to the human body, just as moisture proceeds from water; and so the soul delights to work along with the body. So if a person works according to the desire of the soul, all their works turn out good; if on the other hand according to the flesh, they will be evil. For the flesh exudes moisture through the soul, since the breath of the soul moves the flesh, as its nature demands; and a person, from the breath of the soul, has desire directed toward each thing.
The Rational Soul's Judgment
The rational soul ascends to heavenly discernment, gathering all human works to itself, yet within the same person both holy longing and the taste for sin spring up like useful and useless plants.
For the soul ascends to heavenly things, and by perceiving it recognizes how it should judge any works according to their merits; and just as the whole body is governed through the body's sensuality, so the rational soul gathers all the works of a person's members to itself, considering that they can act according to its own desires, and in this way the members of a person are like the moisture that makes the earth sprout, because it is diffused through the whole body of a person, just as moisture is diffused through the whole earth.1 And just as the earth sprouts both useful and useless things, so a person has both a sigh upward and a taste for sin within themselves.
The Senses, the Planets, and the Gifts
The soul, present in the five senses and mapped to the seven planetary intervals from brain to forehead, is called to exercise body and soul through the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit.
On the intervals and the vicarious cooperation of the seven planets, and how the same planets are to be marked off by equal measure through seven places from the top of the human brain down to the base of the forehead, and how, in keeping with this, the soul — subsisting in its five senses through the body — ought to exercise itself and its body according to the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit with good affections and good works.
Read the original Latin
Et totum corpus hominis capiti suo adjunctum est, sicut et terra cum omnibus appendiciis suis firmamento adhaeret; atque homo per sensualitatem capitis totus regitur, quemadmodum et per firmamentum quaeque officia terrae complentur. Ita etiam eodem modo experientia coelestium et terrestrium animae adest, et rationalitas, qua coelestia et terrestria sentit, ipsi infixa est. Nam et sicut verbum Dei omnia pertransivit creando, ita et anima totum corpus pertransit cum ipso operando. Anima quoque viriditas carnis est, quoniam corpus hominis per illam crescit et proficit, quemadmodum terra per humiditatem fructifera est; et etiam eadem anima humiditas corporis est, quia illud humectat ne arescat, sicut imber terram infundit. Si enim humiditas imbrium recte et ordinate et non superflue descendat, eam germinare facit; si autem inordinate defluat, illam suffocando cum germine suo destruit. Ab anima quippe vires quaedam corpus hominis vivificando procedunt, quemadmodum humiditas ab aqua, quapropter et anima cum corpore delectatur operari. Quod si homo secundum desiderium animae operatur, omnia opera ejus bona fiunt, si vero secundum carnem, mala erunt. Caro namque humiditatem per animam exsudat, quoniam spiramen animae carnem movet, secundum quod natura ipsius expostulat; homoque ex spiramine animae desiderium ad quaeque habet.
Nam anima ad coelestia ascendit, et sentiendo cognoscit qualiter quaelibet opera secundum merita ipsorum judicet; et ut per sensualitatem corporis totum corpus regitur, sic et rationalis anima omnia opera membrorum hominis ad se colligit, considerando quod secundum desideria sua operari possint, et hoc modo membra hominis quemadmodum humiditas terram germinare facit, quia per totum corpus hominis, sicut humiditas per totam terram diffusa est. Et ut terra utilia et inutilia germinat, ita et homo suspirium sursum, et gustum peccati in se habet.
De intervallis et vicaria cooperatione septem planetarum, et quomodo a summitate humani cerebri usque ad imum frontis per septem loca aequali mensura iidem planetae disterminandi sint; et qualiter juxta haec anima se et corpus suum quinque subsistens sensibus secundum septem dona sancti Spiritus bonis et affectibus et operibus exercere debeat.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin syntax at 'et hoc modo membra hominis quemadmodum humiditas terram germinare facit' is elliptical and slightly disjointed, likely comparing the soul's pervasive influence on the body's members to moisture's influence on the earth. The translation preserves the comparative force while smoothing the connection.
Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works) companion
Don't stop at Day 30
All 317 chapters live in the free Chosen Portion app, paced for daily reading
Hildegard's practice of daily attention to God's work in creation becomes a paced daily devotional through all ten visions in the Chosen Portion app
- One vision passage a day, readable in under 10 minutes
- The complete Book of Divine Works plus Hildegard's other major works, free
- Progress tracking so a 317-chapter classic actually gets finished