VISIO QUARTA, cap. XLVI
Rain and the Soul's Quickening
Just as rain descends to fructify the earth, the God-sent soul descends to give life and raise up the mortal body.
But the hairs hanging down from the head show the drops of rain, which descend singly through the clouds, and by watering the whole earth through its greenness lead it to fruitfulness. In the same way, the soul that God sends into the mortal and failing body of an infant gives it life by its own powers and raises it up.
The Garment of Innocence
In its natural simplicity, the soul is clothed in innocence, driving off vice like storms and yielding virtues like gentle rain.
Moreover, when it still persists in its natural simplicity, the soul is greatly adorned, clothed as it were in a kind of elegant garment of innocence, because it drives off every vice — which are like storms — producing the fruitfulness of all virtues, in the manner of the earth that brings forth its own fruit by sprouting through gentle rain.1
Humility and Chastity Crowned
Innocence reigns through chastity and humility, and their union in a person resounds in heavenly praises and earthly virtue.
For innocence is a queen, clothed in a golden garment through which chastity is signified, whose virtues are multiplied like rain, and the head of that same chastity is humility. These two virtues, joined together in a person, cause heaven to resound with praises and fill the earth with examples of holy virtues.
Fertility and Sterility of Soul
The strength or loss of hair signifies either the fertility or sterility of both outward fruits in the earth and inward virtues in the soul.
This is why some people's hair keeps its strength and isn't uprooted, while on other heads it weakens and falls out through baldness—and by these signs both fertility and sterility are shown, both of fruits outwardly in the earth and of virtues inwardly in the soul.
Read the original Latin
Sed crines de capite dependentes guttas pluviarum ostendunt, quae per nubes singulariter descendunt, et totam terram rigando per viriditatem ad fructuositatem perducunt. Similiter anima, quae in mortale et deficiens corpus infantis a Deo mittitur, illud viribus suis vivificando suscitat. Ipso quoque in naturali simplicitate adhuc persistente, anima quasi quadam eleganti veste innocentiae induta valde decoratur, quia quaeque vitia, quae ut tempestates sunt, depellit, fructuositatem omnium virtutum producens, in modum terrae quae per suavem pluviam fructum suum germinando profert. Innocentia enim regina est circumamicta aurea veste, per quam castitas intelligitur, cujus virtutes sicut pluvia multiplicantur, et ejusdem castitatis caput humilitas est. Hae duae virtutes sibi in homine sociatae coelum laudibus resonare faciunt, et terram exemplis sanctarum virtutum replent.
Unde fiat quod in quorumdam hominum capitibus capilli fortitudinem suam tenentes non eradicentur, et in quorumdam capitibus infirmati per calvitiem defluant, et quod secundum ista tam fertilitas quam sterilitas, et fructuum in terra exterius, et virtutum in anima interius denotetur.
Notes
- 1 ↩The ut clause is rendered as comparative ('which are like storms') following the difficulty note, though a result-clause reading ('so that they become storms') is also possible.
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