VISIO QUARTA, cap. XXXVII
The Senses as Windows of the Soul
The five senses guide and reveal human knowledge, yet inner understanding remains hidden from physical sight.
But through the sight of the eyes, through hearing, smell, the rationality of the mouth, and touch, the senses are both guided and recognized — so much so that it can be known either what they are or how they are — just as through the sun, the moon, and the stars the entire structure of the sky is guided and illuminated. A human being sees through the eyes what they knowingly recognize with wisdom, and through hearing, smell, and taste they take in those same things. What a person gathers into their breast, they know through knowledge — but they do not see it through the eyes.
The Serpent's Hidden Deceit
The devil's deception of Eve arose from hidden craftiness, spreading like a corrupting mist that obscures wisdom and yields no true joy.
For the serpent's deceit was hidden, and it revealed itself when it first questioned Eve about what she did not know, and deceived her, because she herself was without deceit. This beginning arose in the first original sin through the deception of the devil, and it is like a mist rising from harmful air, covering the whole earth so that the pure light of day cannot be seen, and it corrodes the works of wisdom as if by plotting against them. In the same way, deceit has no pleasantness, no joy, and is at rest in no part.
Intention Directs the Senses
A person's senses follow their intention, yet the heart's hidden thoughts remain unknown to others.
These things also signify that each of a person's senses turns aside toward their intention, just as virtues hasten toward their correction, when this has been asked of God. For where a person's intention leads them, there they also direct their senses; yet as long as the thoughts of their heart remain hidden, they are unknown.
Eve's Unrecognized Ruin
Eve did not perceive the devil's craftiness, and from that hidden deceit the whole world was overturned into evil.
So too Eve, when she was deceived by the devil, didn't recognize his craftiness, because he had covered himself over so completely that his deceit couldn't be seen by the first parent. And from there he overturned the whole world into evil, because there was nothing good in him.
Steadfastness Under Changing Skies
The moon's changing courses, signified by the eyebrows' protection of the eyes, call souls to steadfastness in God's fear amid prosperity and adversity.
That the eyebrows, given as a protection for the eyes, represent the phases of the moon, subject to its monthly waxing and waning, and that in this regard the steadfastness and security of souls must be preserved through prosperity and adversity in the fear of God.
Read the original Latin
Sed et per visum oculorum, auditus, odoratus rationalitasque oris et tactus reguntur et cognoscuntur, sic utique ut sciatur vel quid sint, vel quomodo sint, sicut et per solem ac lunam et per stellas omnis constitutio firmamenti regitur et illuminatur. Homo enim per oculos videt, quae cum sapientia cognoscit, eademque per auditum, odoratum et per gustum capit. Quae autem in pectore sua congregat, ea per scientiam scit, sed ea per oculos non videt. Nam et serpentinus dolus occultus erat, qui se tunc manifestavit, cum Evam primo interrogavit quod illa nesciebat, eamque decepit, quoniam ipsa sine dolo fuit. Istud initium in primo originali peccato per deceptionem diaboli exortum est, ipsumque est quasi nebula quae de nocivo aere surgit, totam terram obtegens, ne purus dies inspici possit, et quae opera sapientiae quasi designando corrodit. Sic quoque dolus nec jocunditatem, nec gaudium habet, nec in ulla parte in quiete est. Haec etiam designant, quod ad intentionem hominis quilibet sensus ipsius declinat, sicut et virtutes ad correctionem ipsius festinant, cum hoc a Deo poposcerit. Quo enim intentio hominis eum ducit, illuc quoque et sensus suos dirigit, sed tamen cogitationes cordis ipsius quandiu in occulto manent nesciuntur.
Sic etiam nec Eva cum a diabolo decepta est, calliditatem illius novit, quoniam ille se totum ita obtexerat, ut dolus ipsius a primo parente videri non posset. Unde et omnem mundum in malo evertit, quia nihil boni in se habuit.
Quod supercilia ad munimentum oculis data itinera lunae designent, menstruis crementis et detrimentis obnoxia, et quod secundum hoc animae inter prospera et adversa in timore Dei constantia et securitas tenendae sint.
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