VISIO QUARTA, cap. L
The Soul Pervading the Body
The soul, poured into the body by the Spirit of God, pervades it entirely with holy virtues and sweet devotion, just as winds fill the firmament.
And yet the soul is poured out through the whole body, just as the windiness of those same winds runs through the whole firmament. For the soul that is sent into the body through the Spirit of God pervades it entirely with its own powers: and just as the breath of winds runs about in the firmament, so that soul makes a person love God most ardently and practice the most holy virtues that carry a honey-flowing sweetness, because the words of the Lord are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb to their mouth.12 And so the soul most diligently pervades the firmament — that is, its own body — with the incomparable adornment of virtues and the most sweet beauty of holy works.3
The Winds of the Soul
Just as limbs sustain the body, the winds assist one another in the firmament, revealing the spiritual significance of the soul's calm or turbulent movements.
For just as a person is guided and sustained by arms and legs, so the winds assist one another to strengthen the firmament, and what these things—or even the calm blowing or turbulent rushing of those same winds in the soul—may signify.
Read the original Latin
Sed et anima per totum corpus diffunditur, sicut et ventositas eorumdem ventorum per totum firmamentum discurrit. Anima enim, quae per Spiritum Dei in corpus missa est, viribus suis illud totum perfundit: et quemadmodum flatus ventorum in firmamento discurrunt, sic ipsa hominem Deum ardentissime diligere, et sanctissimas virtutes mellifluum saporem habentes operari facit, quia eloquia Domini super mel et favum ori ejus dulcescunt. Sicque anima firmamentum, scilicet corpus suum, incomparabili ornamento virtutum et suavissimo decore sanctorum operum diligentissime perfundit.
Quia sicut homo brachiis et cruribus regitur et sustentatur, ita et venti alii aliis in confortationem firmamenti subveniunt, et quid vel ista, vel etiam eorumdem ventorum placidus flatus, aut turbulentus discursus in anima figurent.
Notes
- 1 ↩The comparison between the soul's powers pervading the body and wind moving through the firmament is a cosmological analogy; 'ventositas' and 'ventorum' are rendered literally to preserve the source imagery.
- 2 ↩The clause 'eloquia Domini super mel et favum ori ejus dulcescunt' echoes Psalm 18:11 (Vulgate) / Psalm 19:10; final resolution deferred to scripture-allusion stage.
- 3 ↩The soul is figured as the firmament and the body as what it pervades; the analogy is preserved from the source.
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