VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXVII
The Soul as a Tempered Fire
The soul, like the sun tempered by moist air, holds divine power and blessed longings, and reason within it acts as wind and fire, making the soul a rational breath from God that knows the good with joyful radiance.
So then, the vessel of the brain, which stretches forward with the brow toward the eyes, marks the higher fire beneath which the sun burns. This fire is mingled with the gentle moisture of watery air, and this same fluid is the sun's boundary point, by which it cannot pass beyond its own limit. And this fluid, rising through the purity of the clear air toward the sun, softens its heat so that it doesn't burn up everything on earth with its fierce intensity. In the same way, the soul, holding within itself knowledge and reason along with honest modesty and wholesome caution, shows forth the power of God, under which is the strength that breathes blessed longings into the minds of the faithful. And these same longings hold back the judgment of God's strength, so that it doesn't show itself with too much severity, and through true repentance they so temper the testing of that strength that they hand over a person's sins to forgetfulness whenever that person repents. But just as wind makes fire burn, so too does reason move and illuminate the human soul. For reason in the soul is like a wind, and like light in fire. And the soul is a breath sent from God into a human being, which is unfailing and rational. And just as fire wouldn't be fire without its heat, so the soul wouldn't be capable of understanding without reason, since every other creature, lacking reason, passes by like the wind, because it is not a blazing fire. For reason leads the soul with knowledge everywhere, considering things in a thousand ways, and coming to know what a person does. And so, whenever the soul itself understands the good in its knowledge, it does so with joy, like a burning sun, and it is heavenly.
The Soul's Bodily Refreshment
Because flesh cannot sustain heavenly intensity, the soul tempers the body with moderation, just as Christ refreshed his sinless body, and the soul's strength is torn when bodily appetites act without restraint.
Yet the soul can't remain always in this heavenly heat, because human flesh would fail. And so the soul brings refreshment to the body in some way, just as my Son, while living bodily in the world, at one moment prayed, at another labored, and then refreshed his body — and he did this without sin, because he was conceived without sin. Just as the boundary point holds the sun in place so it doesn't cross its limit, so the soul, by consenting to the body, tempers it so that it doesn't fail. And it does this in great purity, so that the human body isn't mocked by wicked deeds, and so that it isn't also cut off by too intense a heavenly focus — just as moisture tempers the sun so it isn't consumed. So the soul loves moderation in everything, and whenever a human body, without moderation, either eats or drinks or does anything else of the kind indiscreetly, the soul's strength is torn apart — because everything must be done with moderation, since a human being can't always dwell in heavenly things.
Heavenly Order and the Devil's Refusal
Just as right union of warmth and moisture brings forth every useful growth, so discernment orders all works of heaven and earth, yet the devil refused this moderation because it leads to heights and depths from which he cannot rise.
And just as the earth is scorched by excessive heat, and a sprout doesn't spring up usefully from unsuitable rain, but through the right union of warmth and moisture the earth produces every useful growth, so too through just moderation all the works of heaven and earth are distinguished, well ordered, and brought to completion. Those with whom heaven is illuminated have loved this discernment and still love it; but the devil refused to possess it, nor does he want to possess it, because it stretches either into too great a height or into too great a depth, from which, once fallen, it won't rise again.
The Black Fire of Inner Strife
As thickened blackness in the brain pours phlegm into the body and black fire in the second sphere brings lightning, so the soul corrupted by elation and the flesh by disordered desires wage varied struggles against each other.
Just as the blackness of the brain, when it's been thickened by heat and moisture, pours phlegm or lividness into the human body, so also the black fire that exists in the second sphere brings storm-charged lightning upon the world; and in this same way the soul corrupted by elation and the flesh corrupted by disordered desires, resisting one another, carry on varied struggles between them.
Read the original Latin
Vas itaque cerebri, quod cum fronte ad oculos extenditur, superiorem ignem notat, sub quo sol ardet, cujus ignis cum leni humiditate aquosi aeris permistus est, idemque humor punctum est solis, per quod ille terminum loci sui transire non potest; et humor iste per puritatem aetheris ad solem ascendens ardorem illius mitigat, ne ea quae in terra sunt nimio fervore suo consumat. Sic et anima scientiam et rationalitatem cum manifesta verecundia et salubri circumspectione in se habens, potentiam Dei ostendit, sub qua fortitudo illa est quae felicia suspiria mentibus fidelium hominum immittit; eademque suspiria judicium fortitudinis Dei retinent, ne in multa severitate se demonstret, atque per veram poenitentiam ejusdem fortitudinis examinationem ita deliniunt, ut peccata hominis quando ille poenitet oblivioni tradat. Sed et quemadmodum ventus ignem ardere facit, ita et rationalitas animam hominis movet et illuminat. Rationalitas enim in anima est quasi ventus, et quasi lumen in igne; et anima spiraculum est a Deo in homine missum, quod indeficiens et rationale est, et sicut ignis sine ardore ignis non esset, ita et anima sine rationalitate intelligibilis non esset, cum caetera creatura irrationalis velut ventus pertranseat, quia flammans ignis non est. Nam rationalitas animam cum scientia ubique ducit, mille modis ea considerando: et cognoscendo quae homo facit, unde etiam cum ipsa anima bonum in scientia sua intelligit, in gaudio sicut sol ardet, et coelestis est. Sed tamen in hoc ardore coelestium anima semper manere non potest, quoniam caro hominis deficeret, et ideo anima refrigerium in aliqua re corpori infert, quemadmodum Filius meus in mundo corporaliter manens modo oravit; modo laboravit, et deinde corpus suum recreavit, et hoc absque peccato fecit, quia sine peccato conceptus fuit. Quemadmodum etiam punctum solem retinet, ne metam suam transeat, sic et anima corpori consentiendo illud temperat, ne deficiat; et hoc in magna puritate facit, quatenus corpus hominis pravis operibus non derideatur, et ne etiam pro nimia coelesti intentione exterminetur, velut humiditas solem temperat ne consumatur. Anima itaque discretionem in omnibus amat, et ideo quoties corpus hominis absque discretione aut comedit, aut bibit, aut aliud quid tale indiscrete fecerit, vires animae scinduntur, quoniam omnia cum discretione agenda sunt, quia homo in coelestibus semper esse non potest.
Et ut per nimietatem aestus solis terra scinditur, et per incongruentem pluviam germen utiliter non exsurgit, sed per rectam conjunctionem caloris et humoris terra quaeque utilia germinat, ita etiam et per justam temperantiam omnia opera coelestium et terrestrium discrete et bene ordinantur et perficiuntur. Hanc autem discretionem illi cum quibus coelum illuminatum est dilexerunt, et adhuc diligunt; sed diabolus eam habere noluit, nec habere vult, quoniam vel in nimiam altitudinem, vel in nimiam profunditatem tendit, unde cadens non resurget.
Quod sicut nigredo cerebri calore et humore coagulata flegma vel livorem corpori hominis diffundit, sic et niger ignis, qui in secundo circulo est, tempestales et fulgura mundo inducat, et in hunc etiam modum anima elatione et caro concupiscentiis corrupta, diversa ad invicem altera alteri resistendo certamina habeant.
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