VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXIII
The Sun's Sustaining Power
The human brain reflects the sun's life-giving power, which brings vitality to the earth but also poses a danger when its fiery course is prolonged.
The human brain, too, organized in three cells and not extending further, lying open to moisture and offering sensuality and vigor to the whole body, displays the powers of the sun — which sweeps across the eastern, southern, and western regions but avoids the northern, and often sends the earth's vitality through the gentle sweetness of dew and rains, and by its own power strengthens all the creatures of the whole world by moderating them. When the sun makes its course along the length of days, there is greater danger from its fire on earth than when it turns aside, as if hiding its face.
The Sun's Hidden Work
Like a hen warming her chicks, the sun works beneath the earth at night to sustain creation, mirroring the rhythm of human labor and rest.
For when it turns aside and the stars meet it, and they sustain it with air, it descends, as it were, under the footstool of the Lord's feet, and there remains in its own state, and rules all things that are under the earth, just as a hen warms her chicks; and then, ascending through the bright day over the earth, it strengthens all things that are above it, just as a hen also rouses her chicks from the eggs. And a person works in the day and sleeps at night, so that the sun works in the two ways mentioned above — above the earth and beneath it — since it shines above the earth in the day, and at night, with its descent, the earth above is darkened.
Soul and Moon
Just as the moon is rekindled by the sun, the soul sustains the flesh and alternates between the light of fortitude and the darkness of fleshly desire.
But just as, through the powers of the soul, human flesh revives in its failing, since the soul itself sustains its flesh and blood so that it does not fail, so also the moon is kindled from the fire of the sun whenever it wanes. In the same way, then, the soul, ruling its own body with its strength and worshipping God as one in the Trinity, seems to make that same planet imitate now a certain day, now a night in turn — at one time strengthened and lifted high by the spirit of fortitude, which the sun signifies, it shines with the light of the saints' works; at another, it acts by yielding to the desires of the flesh.
Read the original Latin
Cerebrum quoque hominis, in tribus cellulis constans, nec plures habens, humiditati etiam subjacens, omnique corpori sensualitatem viriditatemque praebens, vires solis demonstrat, qui orientalem et australem occidentalemque plagam perlustrat, septentrionalem autem devitat, atque terrae viriditatem per bonam suavitatem roris, et pluviarum multoties immittit, et creaturas totius orbis virtute sua temperando confortat, quia etiam cerebrum in fortitudine calvariae continetur, ut etiam vires solis ardore superioris lucidi ignis roborantur. Cum autem sol cursum suum in longitudine dierum facit, majus periculum ab igne suo in terra est, quam cum se declinat, quasi faciem suam abscondat. Nam cum se declinat, atque cum sideribus ipsi occurrunt, eumque cum aere sustentant, sed ipse hoc modo sub scabellum pedum Domini descendens, ibi in statu suo permanet, et omnia quae subtus terram sunt regit, quemadmodum gallina pullos suos fovet, ac deinde per laetum diem super terram ascendens, cuncta quae super illam sunt confortat, velut etiam gallina pullos suos de ovis provocat. Et homo in die operatur, et in nocte dormit, ut sol praedictis duobus modis super terram et subtus terra operatur, dum in die super terram lucet, et in nocte cum descensu illius terra superius obtenebratur. Sed et sicut per vires animae caro hominis in defectu suo reviviscit, quoniam ipsa carnem et sanguinem illius sustinet ne deficiat, ita etiam de igne solis luna accenditur quoties deficit.
Quod eodem modo anima viribus suis et corpus suum regens, et Deum in Trinitate unum colens, eumdem planetam quasi imitando quamdam vel diem, vel noctem vicissim facere videtur, dum modo spiritu fortitudinis, quem sol significat roborata, et sublimata sanctorum luce operum refulget, modo concupiscentiis carnis succumbens operatur.
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