VISIO QUARTA, cap. LVII
The Soul as the Air Between Heaven and Earth
The soul is likened to the air that mediates between heaven and earth, quickening the body and enabling a person to understand their Creator.
And in the space between the throat and the navel, air is designated, which descends from the clouds all the way to the earth and, by its natural power, tempers the creatures of the earth. The soul, then — a living spark and rational breath constituted by divine power — penetrates the entire body by quickening it, encircles it with love, moves it toward every task, and, even though it arose in the taste of sins, compels it to work along with itself.1 For the soul, descending from the height of heaven to earthly things, enables the person it brings to life to understand that they were created by God, and it is itself likened to the air that is seen midway between heaven and earth, because through it a person works good in what is above and evil in what is below.
The Soul's Tempering Work in the Body
Just as air tempers the earth, the soul tempers the body through grief, compunction, fear of God, and tribulation, recalling it to the straight path of good works.
For this air passes through all the regions of the earth by tempering them, so that where it is dry it makes it moist, where it is rich it binds it with heat, where it is watery it dries it out, where it is hard it softens it; and it does this down to the very depth of its midpoint, and to both heat and cold it turns it over like a plow, and with proper tempering it makes it fruitful. In the same way, when the soul perceives that its body has dried up from all the greenness of the virtues, it turns to grief and mourning, and it drives its body through the knowledge of reason and through the spirit of compunction to sighs and tears, because it recognizes that its works are wicked, and so it makes the parched body grow green again through the moisture of divine grace.2 But if a person has presumed to undertake greater things than they can accomplish by their own strength, the soul, drawing them back again to the measure of their ability, arranges their works more wisely; and if they had been living in forgetfulness of God as though in safety, it empties them out, terrified by the fear of God, from forgetfulness of God.3 When, however, a person who, seeking a strange god, has been led into the hardness of unbelief is so disturbed by the soul with such great tribulations that they can have no hope of salvation and no joy at all, through this very sorrow the soul, by its own admonition, draws them toward the better part and makes them sigh toward the true God.4 So therefore the body is recalled through the soul — which is a living spark and life from God — to the hope of pardon and to discerning and pursuing each right work, and, leaving behind the error of duplicity, it is led into the straight path of good works, just as water flows in its course through the right channel, and so afterward, by living well in the fear of God, it becomes strong.
The Soul's Fruitfulness and the Body's Senses
The soul strengthens the person in faith and patience, makes them fruitful in good works, and governs the body's senses and intellect through blood, sweat, and moisture.
The gentlest heat, too, mingles its own moisture with the gentle cold and sends it into the earth, making the earth fruitful in trees, in herbs, and in grains, so that all these things may grow green through that same moisture. In the same way, the soul strengthens a person in the most gentle heat of faith and in the most enduring patience to bear every wrong, and sets before herself works to be fled from—the things she had not done well by her living before, and through which she was not allowed to help him.5 So too she makes the person fruitful in good works and grow green in holy virtues. The same air also sometimes sends snowy cold over the earth, which covers the whole of it, and through which it warms for sprouting; and from this the earth brings forth its own cold, until it is prepared inwardly by sprouting for its fruitful task, and so then brings greenness as fruit to everything that sprouts. For the soul tempers the person against the taste of their own works, which compel them to go round and round like a mill, since the soul itself is what makes the blood—through which a person receives sense and intellect—flow.6 The soul itself also makes the flesh emit sweat, and through its heat a person has sensation, and through its moisture—which is cold and damp—the person has intellect, and so every fruit of that person's works consists in sensuality and in intellect.
Rising on Wings of Contemplation
As birds are carried up by the air, so the person who follows the soul's desires flies through contemplation and is fed on the sweetness of Scripture.
From the air, birds are carried up into flight, and even some fish in the waters are nourished so that they can live without food for some time; and in this way man, following not the desires of the flesh but those of the soul, will fly through contemplation and be fed on the sweetness of the Scriptures.
Read the original Latin
Sed et in spatio quod est inter finem gutturis et umbilicum aer designatur, qui de nubibus usque ad terram descendit, et naturali virtute sua creaturas terrarum temperat. Anima nempe quae vivens scintilla et rationale spiraculum ex divina potentia consistit, totum corpus vegetando penetrat, ejusque amore circuit, illud ad quodlibet opus movens, et licet in gustu peccatorum exortum sit, secum operari compellit. Anima enim ab altitudine coeli ad terrena descendens, hominem quem vivificat, sed a Deo creatum esse intelligere facit, ipsaque aeri, qui inter coelum et terram medius videtur, assimilatur, quoniam homo per ipsam in superioribus bonum et in infimis malum operatur. Nam aer iste omnia loca terrae temperando pertransit, ita ut eam ubi arida est humidam faciat, ubi pinguis est, cum calore constringat, ubi aquosa est, exsiccet, ubi dura est, emolliat; atque hoc usque ad medietatem profunditatis ipsius facit, ad calorem quoque, et ad frigus quasi aratro eam evertit, rectaque temperie eam fructiferam reddit. In hunc quoque modum cum anima corpus suum ab omni viriditate virtutum aridum senserit, in moerorem et luctum convertitur, et corpus suum per scientiam rationalitatis et per spiritum compunctionis ad suspiria et lacrymas impellit, quia opera ejus prava esse cognoscit, et ita aridum corpus suum per humorem divinae gratiae revirescere facit. Sed si homo majora quam perficere possit, de viribus suis praesumendo, operari tentaverit, anima ipsum ad mensuram possibilitatis suae rursus retrahens, opera ipsius melius disponit; et si in oblivione Dei quasi in securitate tunc vivit, timore Dei perterritum ab oblivione Dei evacuat. Cum autem homo qui alienum Deum quaerendo in duritiam infidelitatis ducitur, tantis tribulationibus ab anima perturbetur ut nec spem salutis, nec ullum gaudium habere possit, per hanc tristitiam ipsa admonitione sua eum ad meliorem partem trahens ad Deum verum suspirare facit. Sic igitur corpus per animam, quae vivens scintilla et vita ex Deo est, ad spem veniae et quaelibet opera discernenda et sequenda revocatur, et relicto errore duplicitatis, in rectum iter bonorum operum ducitur, ut etiam aqua cursu suo in recto meatu fluit, et sic postea bene vivendo in timore Dei fortis efficitur.
Suavissimus quoque calor cum leni frigore ipsius humiditatem terrae immittit, eamque fructiferam in arboribus, in herbis et in granis facit, ita ut omnia haec per eamdem humiditatem virescant. Similiter anima in suavissimo calore fidei, et in fortissima patientia ad tolerandas omnes injurias hominem confortat, et opera quae non bene vivendo prius operatus est, et in quibus eum praestare non licebat, fugienda sibi proponit. Sic quoque eum in bonis operibus fructiferum et in sanctis virtutibus virescere facit. Niveum etiam frigus idem aer aliquando super terram mittit, quod ipsam totam obtegit, et per quod ad germinandum calefit, unde et illa ex se frigus suum educit, quousque ad fructiferum officium suum germinando interius praeparetur, ac sic deinde viriditatem fructui cunctorum germinantium infert. Anima namque hominem a gustu operum suorum, quibus eum velut molendinum circuire cogit, temperat, quoniam ipsa aer ille est qui sanguinem, per quem homo sensum et intellectum capit, fluere facit. Ipsa etiam carnem sudorem emittere facit, per cujus calorem homo sensum, et per cujus humorem, qui frigidus et humidus est, intellectum habet, et ideo omnis fructus operum ejus in sensualitate et in intellectu constat.
Quod ex aere et aves ad volandum subvehantur, et etiam quidam pisces in aquis ita ut aliquandiu sine pastu vivant nutriantur; et quod in hunc modum homo non carnis, sed animae desideria sequens, et per contemplationem volet, et Scripturarum suavitate pascatur.
Notes
- 1 ↩'gustu peccatorum' rendered as 'the taste of sins' — the phrase carries sensory and experiential force; alternative: 'the craving for sin' if the gustatory metaphor is read as desire rather than experience.
- 2 ↩'compunctionis' rendered as 'compunction' per lexeme policy; the term carries a specific devotional sense of sorrow pierced by grace, not generic guilt.
- 3 ↩'evacuat' rendered as 'empties them out' — the sense is that the soul purges the person of godless security; alternative: 'drains them of' or 'dislodges from.'
- 4 ↩'alienum Deum' rendered as 'a strange god' — carries the sense of a false or foreign deity; alternative: 'another god.'
- 5 ↩The Latin is compressed: 'opera quae non bene vivendo prius operatus est' is rendered as things she had not done well by her living before, preserving the sense of prior misdeeds done through disordered living; the exact nuance of 'operatus est' as 'performed' vs. 'wrought' is context-dependent.
- 6 ↩The metaphor of the soul as the air that makes blood flow is unusual; 'ipsa aer ille est' is rendered 'the soul itself is what makes the blood flow,' preserving the identification of soul with air and the causal role in circulation.
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