VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXIX
The Sun, the Dark North, and the Light That Darkness Cannot Grasp
The sun's course and the empty northern quarter reveal how God orders creation so that light and darkness, good and evil, are known in contrast, and this same pattern of light and shadow is signified in the human person.
And as was said before, the whole body of a person is held together through the powers of the brain, just as the upper and lower regions are strengthened through the sun. For the sun shines into the upper and lower regions and encircles the whole firmament, except the northern quarter. For when God strengthened the whole earth with its creatures, he left one place empty, so that the creature might know what the brightness of God is and what it is like, since light is honored through darkness, and the dark part serves the bright part, while the empty place exists because Lucifer chose it when he wanted to be made equal to his Lord. The sun also rises in the east, and at midday in its heat it grows stronger and stronger; but after midday it declines toward the setting, and so it completes its course all the way to morning. And because it does not advance toward the northern quarter, therefore cold is on the earth in the morning and around evening. But I, who exist without beginning, am fire, through whom all luminaries are kindled: I am the light that covers the darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend the light. Therefore light does not mix itself with darkness, nor can darkness cross over to the light. For just as a person, established by God in good knowledge, which is the light of truth, so also in bad knowledge, which holds an empty place in which there is no establishment of merits or rewards, declines toward evil, so too in a person heaven and earth, light and darkness are signified.
Fortitude, Rationality, and the Soul's Inner Motion
Knowledge governs human works through the spirit of fortitude, which begins and ends in good and shuns evil, while the soul's rationality illumines all deeds even as bodily taste and desire drive the person like a wheel.
Through knowledge, then, all human works are governed, so that through the spirit of fortitude the other virtues are also sustained—because the same spirit thrives in both spiritual matters and worldly affairs, and defends a person from the snares of the ancient serpent, who, empty of every happiness, makes the brightness of God known, so that through evil the good may be recognized, since a servant ought to be subject to his lord. For fortitude, being strong in the inception and practice of good works, after their completion avoids evils in that state, and so returns to its beginning, and does not desire evil—because just as in the beginning, so in the end of perversity, the heat of the Holy Spirit is not present, but torpor and negligence drag a person toward harmful things. But that which is without beginning—this light exists, which kindles all shining things and drives away all the adversities of darkness, since it cannot be destroyed by them. And just as a faithful person is governed by God, and a perverse one is alienated from him, so too in a person the various elements are distinctly ordered. The soul too appears like a fire, but rationality in it is as a light, and by rationality—which is bright—it is suffused in this way, just as the world is illuminated by the sun, because through rationality it foresees and knows all the works that are worked in a person. A person certainly has taste and desire within themselves, and through these two the blood in their veins is moved along with the heat of the marrows; and so the same person works, just as a wheel completes its course when it is driven to run—since the body, having taste and desire, drives the soul this way and that, so that according to those same impulses she often directs her steps many times over.
Sunrise and Storm: Hidden and Restored Light
The rising, setting, and storm-hidden sun is posed as a sign of how divine light appears and withdraws in human acts.
What the rising or setting of the sun might signify in human acts, and why it is now hidden by clouds or the excess of storms and does not appear, but now, these having been cleared away, restores its light to the earth.
Read the original Latin
Et sicut praefatum est, per vires cerebri totum corpus hominis retinetur, quemadmodum et per solem superiora et inferiora roborantur. Sol namque in superiora et subteriora lucet, totumque firmamentum, excepta plaga aquilonis, circuit. Cum enim Deus totam terram cum creaturis roboravit, unum locum vacuum dimisit, quatenus creatura cognosceret quae et qualis claritas Dei esset, quoniam per tenebras lux honoratur, et lucidae parti tenebrosa pars ministrat, vacuus locus existens, quia Lucifer illum elegit quando Domino suo aequari voluit. Sol quoque in oriente oritur, et in meridie in ardore suo magis et magis fortior est; sed post meridiem in occasum se declinat, et sic cursum suum usque in mane perficit. Et quia in partem aquilonis non procedit, ideo in mane et circa vesperam frigiditas in terra est. Ego autem qui sine initio sum ignis sum, per quem omnia luminaria accenduntur, lux quae tenebras obtegit, nec tenebrae lucem comprehendere valent. Itaque lux tenebris se non admiscet, nec tenebrae ad lucem transire possunt. Sicut enim homo in bona scientia, quae lumen veritatis existit, a Deo constitutus est, et ut in mala scientia, quae vacuum locum habet in quo nulla constitutio meritorum aut praemiorum est, ad malum declinat, sic etiam in homine coelum et terra, lux et tenebrae signantur.
Per scientiam utique omnia opera hominis reguntur, ut etiam per spiritum fortitudinis caeterae virtutes continentur, quia idem spiritus et in spiritalibus et in saecularibus causis viget, hominemque ab insidiis antiqui serpentis defendit, qui vacuus ab omni felicitate, claritatem Dei demonstrat, ut per malum id quod bonum est cognoscatur, quoniam servus domino suo subjectus esse debet. Fortitudo enim incoeptione et in actione bonorum operum robusta existens, post completionem eorum in illo mala devitat, et sic ad initium suum recurrit, nec malum appetit, quia tam in initio quam in fine perversitatis calor Spiritus sancti non adest, sed torpor et negligentia hominem ad nociva pertrahens. Sed ille qui sine principio est lumen hoc existit, quod omnia lucentia incendit, et omnes adversitates tenebrarum depellit quoniam ab ipsis exterminari non valet. Et ut fidelis homo a Deo regitur, et sicut perversus ab eo alienatur, ita et in homine quaelibet elementa ordinate distincta sunt. Anima quoque velut ignis apparet, sed rationalitas in ipsa quasi lumen est, et rationalitate quae lucida est, hoc modo perfunditur, quemadmodum mundus sole illuminatur, quia per rationalitatem omnia opera quae in homine operatur, praevidet et cognoscit. Homo quippe gustum et desiderium in se habet, atque per haec duo sanguis in venis ipsius cum calore medullarum movetur; et sic idem homo operatur, quemadmodum rota cursum suum peragit, cum ad currendum impellitur, quoniam corpus gustum et desiderium habens animam hac et illuc impellit, ita ut secundum eosdem impulsus illa gressus suos multoties dirigat.
Quid significet in actibus hominis ortus vel occasus solis, et quid nunc nubibus vel nimietate tempestatum occultatus non apparet, nunc his abstersis lumen suum terris restituit.
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