VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXV
The Brain and the Sun: Cosmic and Bodily Parallels
The moist brain is cooled and sustained by the body's heat just as the fiery spheres sustain the sun, and the body's inner moisture rises to the brain and flows back to replenish the limbs.
And since the brain is moist and smooth, it has a coolness, and all the veins and every limb of the body supply heat to it; in the same way, the higher fiery spheres also assist the sun — which sometimes sends dew and rain down to the earth — by supplying it with fire, so that it doesn't fail in its heat. But also, because it is moistened by moisture and strengthened by heat, it sustains and governs the whole body, just as moisture and heat together make the whole earth bring forth fruit. For from the heart, the lungs, the liver, and all the inward parts of a person, moisture rises up to the brain and fills it; and once the brain is filled by their moisture, some of that same moisture flows back down to the remaining inner parts and hurries to replenish them.
The Soul Filled with Dew and Fire
The soul draws forth tears of compunction and heavenly desires through righteousness and virtue, and when filled with the Holy Spirit's dew and warmth it subjects the flesh to God's service and is fortified by patience against all hardship.
In the same way, the knowledge of the soul draws forth the moisture of tears when sins grow cold within it, and the firmness of righteousness along with other good works brings the heat of heavenly desires to it, just as strength also — which pours the moisture of holiness into every faithful person — is joined by the rest of the virtues coming to its aid. And when the soul is in this way poured full with the dew and warmth of the Holy Spirit, it subjects the flesh to itself and compels it to serve God along with it. From good thoughts, then, and right confessions, from the benefit of justice and the fullness of inner desires, the vigor of holiness reaches toward the knowledge of the soul and so strengthens it that, through that same vigor, the whole person is fortified against every hardship by the great protections of patience, so as not to be shaken by the various vices from then on.
The Soul's Ascent and Descent
As the stars minister to the sun, the body's inward parts supply strength to the soul for its duties, yet the soul, though it animates the whole body, often submits unwillingly to the flesh's pleasure.
For just as the higher stars minister fire to the sun, so all the inward parts of a person supply strength to the soul for its duties, and while the soul, neglecting sins, rises upward with reason to accomplish justice; but when it then senses that the body is in decline, it comes down to it so that it won't fail. The soul, you see, is the living breath that stirs the whole body of the person, yet many times it submits to the pleasure of the flesh against its own will.
Sun and Moon: The Soul and the Flesh
The soul that persists in good is like the sun, the flesh in its appetites like the moon; through moisture the flesh takes pleasure in sin and through heat the soul grieves in penance, and because the soul is immortal while the flesh is mortal, every deed arises from their conflict.
And wanting to persist in the good, it is like the sun, while the flesh, remaining in its own appetites, is like the moon; hence when it falls away by sinning, just as the moon suffers a loss, but yet the same soul, against the will of the flesh, raises itself upward like the sun time and again, and so the person rises again through its lament, in this manner, just as the moon is rekindled by the sun. Therefore through its moisture the flesh takes pleasure in sins, and through its heat it grieves by doing penance, because moisture comes from the flesh, and heat from the soul; and through these two every deed—namely, evil and good—is accomplished, just as through them the strength of the earth sprouts all things, both the useless and the useful. For this condition indeed exists in a person, namely that the flesh takes pleasure in sins, and the soul is afflicted by them, so that by flesh and soul all a person's deeds are accomplished, since the evils that please the flesh displease the soul, because the flesh is mortal, while the soul is immortal, and the soul lives without the flesh, but the flesh cannot live without the soul.
The Fiery Soul Ordering the Body
The rational soul dwells in the heart with wisdom and prudence, arranging all things like a head of household; being fiery, it warms and unifies the body's pathways, and like moisture rising to the brain and descending again, it draws the body's duties upward to God and condescends to the body so that nothing is done in offense to God.
The soul is indeed a rational breath, and in the dwelling of the heart is its wisdom, by which it calculates and arranges all things, just as a head of household arranges all his affairs in his own house, and from this it also has prudence, by which it rightly establishes all useful things for its vessel, just as the heart is covered by the lung, and from this it also gathers discernment to itself, dividing all things justly, so that even a person's inward parts are rightly and discreetly joined to themselves. For the soul is fiery, and so it warms all the pathways it assigns to the heart, and fuses them into one, holding them together so that they are not torn apart from one another, and filling them so that nothing is lacking to any of them, and thus also with wisdom it prudently arranges all the duties of the body in its thoughts; also ascending to God by faith in a good and holy intention, since it recognizes that it has been sent by him. For just as moisture rises from the lower parts of the body to the brain, so too the soul, with a holy longing for knowing God, draws all the duties of a person's body upward, and as the same moisture descends again, filling the lower parts of the body, so also the soul condescends to the body, so that its duties are not performed in offense to God.
Purging the Body and the Soul
Just as the brain and intestines must be drained when overloaded, and as air and earth purge themselves in autumn, so the lustful flesh is dried out by sweating and the soul is cleansed by the hard work of repentance.
Just as the brain and intestines, when they're overloaded with fluid, need to be drained and cleansed, so too in autumn the air and the earth seem to purge themselves — the air through long, clotted filaments, the earth through foul, dirty foam in certain places — and in the same way the flesh, lustful, is proven to be dried out by its sweating, while the soul is proven to be cleansed by the hard work of repentance.123
Read the original Latin
Et quoniam cerebrum humidum est et lene, frigus habet, omnes venae cunctaque membra corporis calorem ei subministrant, sic etiam soli, qui interdum rorem et pluviam ad terras descendere facit, omnia superiora in igne lucentia ne in calore deficiant ignem subministrando ei assistunt. Sed et quia humore humectatur, caloreque confortatur, totum corpus sustentat et regit, quemadmodum humor et calor conjuncti omnem terram germinare faciunt. De corde enim et pulmone, et jecore, et de omnibus visceribus hominis, humiditas ad cerebrum ascendit, illudque adimplet; et cerebro humiditate istorum adimpleto, de eadem humiditate aliquid ad reliqua interiora descendit, eaque replere festinat. Similiter scientia animae humiditatem lacrymarum educit, cum peccata in ipsa frigescunt, et tenor rectitudinis cum caeteris bonis operibus calorem supernorum desideriorum ei infert, velut etiam fortitudini, quae humectationem sanctitatis cuilibet fideli homini immittit, reliquae virtutes in adjutorio subveniunt. Et cum tali modo anima rore et calore sancti Spiritus infunditur, carnem sibi subjicit, eamque Deo secum servire cogit. De bonis itaque cogitationibus et rectis confessionibus de utilitate justitiae, atque plenitudine interiorum desideriorum vigor sanctitatis ad scientiam animae tendit, illamque ita confortat, ut etiam per eumdem virorem totus homo contra omnia adversa tantis tuitionibus patientiae muniatur, quatenus deinceps in diversa vitiorum moveri non possit. Sicut enim superiora sidera soli ignem ministrant, ita quoque omnia interiora hominis animae vires ad officia sua afferunt, et dum illa ad perficiendum justitiam peccata neglexerit, cum rationalitate sursum ascendit; sed cum deinde corpus in defectu esse senserit, illi condescendit ne deficiat. Ipsa namque vivens spiraculum est totum corpus hominis excitando, sed tamen delectationi carnis contra voluntatem suam multoties subjacet.
Et in bono persistere volens, velut sol est, caro autem in gustu suo permanens, quasi luna est; unde cum ipsa peccando deficit, quemadmodum luna detrimentum sentit, sed tamen eadem anima contra voluntatem carnis quasi sol se sursum saepius erigit, et ita homo per querelam ipsius, hoc modo resurgit, sicut et luna per solem reaccenditur. Per humiditatem itaque caro in peccatis delectatur, et per calorem poenitendo luget, quia humiditas ex carne, et calor ex anima est; atque per haec duo omne opus, scilicet malum et bonum, perficitur, quemadmodum et per ea fortitudo terrae omnia inutilia et utilia germinat. Condictus etenim iste in homine est, videlicet quia caro in peccatis delectatur, et anima in ipsis affligitur, ita ut carne et anima omnia opera hominis perficiantur, quoniam animae mala displicent, quae carni placent, quia caro mortalis est, anima vero immortalis, animaque absque carne vivit, earo autem sine anima vivere non potest. Anima nempe rationale spiramen est, atque in habitaculo cordis sapientia ipsius est, qua omnia computat, et disponit, velut paterfamilias in domo sua omnes res suas ordinat, atque inde etiam habet prudentiam, qua vasi suo cuncta utilia recte constituit, sicut et cor a pulmone tegitur, et ex hoc quoque discretionem ad se colligit, omnia juste dividendo, ut etiam viscera hominis recte et discrete sibi conjuncta sunt. Nam anima ignea est, unde et omnia itinera quae cordi deputat calefacit, et in unum coquit, insimul ea retinens, ne alia ab aliis disjungantur, eaque implens, ne ulli eorum quidquam desit, atque sic etiam cum sapientia in cogitationibus prudenter omnia officia corporis ordinat: in bona quoque et sancta intentione per fidem ad Deum ascendens, quoniam ab ipso se missam cognoscit. Sicut enim humiditas ab inferioribus corporis ad cerebrum ascendit, ita et anima cum sancto desiderio Deum cognoscendo omnia officia corporis hominis sursum trahit, et ut iterum eadem humiditas descendit, inferiora corporis implendo, sic etiam anima corpori condescendit, ne officia illius in offensione Dei operentur.
Quod sicut cerebrum et intestina dum humoribus redundant purgatione indigent, ita etiam aer et terra tempore autumni, ille per fila longa et coagulata, haec per spumam sordidam quibusdam locis purgari videantur, et quod eodem modo caro veneria exsudatione exsiccari, anima poenitentiae labore expiari comprobetur.
Notes
- 1 ↩veneria: sense uncertain in this theological context; rendered 'lustful' but could carry a more specific 'venereal' sense tied to sexual desire.
- 2 ↩expiari: form uncertain (possibly denominative from expiatio); rendered 'cleansed/atoned for' to capture the penitential sense.
- 3 ↩exsudatione/exsiccari: rare morphology, tentatively rendered as 'sweating out / dried up' in a purgative sense.
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