VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXXIV
The Soul's Knowledge of Sin and Repentance
The soul's rational power reveals sin and trains a person toward repentance, yet even the deepest repentance cannot fully grasp the weight of eternal salvation.
The soul, in its rational capacity, also reveals which sins are present and what their character is, and it demonstrates the manner of sinning and of repenting. For it is from the soul's own powers that a person is trained toward repentance, when with every zeal he afflicts his own sins through repentance, as rain extinguishes fire; yet even so, measured against eternal glory and its ineffable recompense, he will scarcely be able to grasp how one who is to be saved could truly weigh that salvation. For even if repentance that surpasses all naming were lifted above the sand and above the waters of the sea, it could scarcely take into account the salvation of its own joy before the ineffable glory of eternal life.
The Struggle of the Flesh and the Soul's Twofold Knowledge
The soul knows good and evil, rewarding and punishing, so that a person is as day in good works and as night in evil ones.
And oh, where is the person who does not satisfy the desires of his own flesh, turning away from sins? For the rational knowledge of the soul consists in two modes: it knows the good and perceives the evil, establishing reward with the good and punishment with the evil. And these are the duties of the soul through which it is often present to the body, working according to what the body demands. So too a person is as the day in good things, and as the night in evil things.
True Penance Illuminates and Cleanses the Soul
Just as the senses strengthen a person and the stars illuminate the sky, so the soul is illuminated by true penance and quickly washed clean from sins by sighs and tears.
Because just as a person is strengthened by the eyes and the other senses, and the sky is illuminated by the sun, the moon, and the stars, with their light coming to aid it as a kind of substitute, so too the soul is illuminated by the works of true penance, and is quickly washed clean from sins by sighs or by tears.12
Read the original Latin
Anima quoque in rationalitate ostendit quae et qualia peccata sint, modumque peccandi et poenitendi demonstrat. Ex viribus enim animae homo ad poenitentiam imbuitur, cum omni studio peccata sua per poenitentiam affligit, velut pluvia ignem exstinguit; sed tamen, ad comparationem aeternae gloriae et ineffabilis retributionis, vix considerare poterit quomodo salvandus sit. Nam si poenitentia nominis supra arenam et supra aquas maris esset, salvationem tamen gaudii sui pro ineffabili gloria aeternae vitae vix considerare posset. Et o ubi invenitur iste qui concupiscentias carnis suae non impleat, a peccatis declinando? Scientia namque rationalis animae in duobus modis est, quia bonum cognoscit, et malum sentit, bono scilicet praemium, et malo poenam constituens; atque haec officia animae sunt, quibus corpori adest multoties operando, secundum quod illud expostulat. Unde et homo ut dies est in bonis, et ut nox in malis.
Quia sicut homo oculis et caeteris sensibus confortatur, et coelum sole, luna et stellis, vicaria sibi luce subvenientibus, illustratur, ita et anima verae operibus poenitentiae illuminetur, et suspiriis vel lacrymis cito a peccatis diluatur.
Notes
- 1 ↩The adjective 'verae' is morphologically ambiguous: it could modify 'animae' as a genitive ('of the true soul') or 'poenitentiae' as a genitive/dative ('of true penance'). The translation follows the more natural reading 'true penance' (verae poenitentiae), which fits the penitential context of the surrounding sections.
- 2 ↩'vicaria sibi luce' is rendered 'with their light coming to aid it as a kind of substitute' — capturing the sense that the stars lend a borrowed, derivative light to the sky, just as the senses lend borrowed strength to the person. The simile's precise metaphysical force is open to interpretation.
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