VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXXV
The Soul's Senses and the Light of Penitence
The soul perceives sin through senses like sight, smell, and taste, and penitence arises as its true illuminator, washing away faults through sighs and tears.
A human being also sees through the eyes, smells through the nose, and tastes through the mouth; just as, further, through the power of the sun and moon, certain rays are sometimes sent from the highest stars into the other constellations — stars that are present to them in service — so that one light may be kindled from another. The soul, indeed, when it sees evil and shameful deeds, is saddened, and when it has taken them in through an evil report as if through smell, it sighs, and when it has carried them out as if through taste together with the body, it makes the person pour out tears, and sends penitence into that one through knowledge, sighs through the report of sinners, but tears through the effect of their deeds. Penitence is truly the soul's illuminator, and within it sighs and tears are found, and it swiftly washes away faults in the person — that penitence in which sighs and tears are born, which are present to true penitence, just as also through the spirit of fortitude and the fear of God the other virtues, once aroused, effectively illuminate the faithful person.
Strengthened by Fire and Dew
The faithful are strengthened by the fire of the Holy Spirit and the dew of compunction, yet weakened by spiritual sloth and negligence.
Because just as the head and upper body are held up by the chin through the clouds, and just as bones in a person are hardened by fire and the marrow is congealed by cold, and in the world the earth is cultivated through summer and winter for bearing fruit, so also the minds of the faithful are strengthened by the fire of the Holy Spirit and the dew of compunction for every good, while they are weakened by the sloth of torpor and negligence.123
Read the original Latin
Homo quoque per oculos videt, per nasum odorat et per os gustat; sicut etiam per vim solis et lunae a summis stellis, quae ipsis cum ministerio adsunt, quidam radii aliquando in caetera sidera mittuntur, ita ut alterum lumen ab altero excitetur. Anima quippe, cum prava et turpia opera videt, tristatur, et cum ea per malum rumorem quasi per odorem intellexerit, suspirat, atque cum ea quasi per gustum cum corpore perfecerit, hominem lacrymas effundere facit, illique poenitentiam immittit per scientiam, suspiria per rumorem peccatorum, lacrymas autem per effectum eorum. Illuminatrix vero animae poenitentia est, et in ipsa suspiria et lacrymae sunt, et velociter culpas in homine diluit, in qua suspiria et lacrymae generantur, quae verae poenitentiae adsunt, quemadmodum etiam per spiritum fortitudinis et timoris Dei caeterae virtutes excitatae fidelem hominem efficaciter illuminant.
Quod sicut mento caput et superiora per nubes sustentantur, sicut etiam ossa in homine per ignem durantur, et per frigus medullae coagulantur, et in mundo terra per aestatem et hiemem ad fructificandum excolitur, ita et mentes fidelium igne Spiritus sancti et rore compunctionis ad quaelibet bona corroborantur, et inertia torporis et negligentiae debilitantur.
Notes
- 1 ↩Mento is rendered as 'chin' (ablative of mentum) following the gloss and its pairing with caput ('head'), though it could alternatively be read as 'mind' (mente from mens). Theologically, the chin supporting the head through clouds is unusual; the sense may be that lesser things sustain greater, fitting the vision's symbolic logic.
- 2 ↩Durantur is rendered 'hardened' following the gloss, though it could also be read as 'endure' from duro. The parallel with 'congealed' (coagulantur) favors a transformative sense — fire hardening bones as cold congeals marrow.
- 3 ↩The final clause's subject ('the minds of the faithful') is supplied from mentes earlier in the sentence; the passive debilitantur has no explicit subject in its clause, creating a long-distance anaphora.
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