VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXI
The Soul's Inner Chamber
The human chest mirrors the air's fullness, and within it the soul discerns, examines, and purifies thoughts and works through fiery compunction.
The chest of a human being, however, displays the fullness and perfection of the same air, since just as the chest holds the heart and the liver and the lung and the other inner organs of the belly within itself, so also that air contains within itself the heat, dryness, and moisture of the breezes. In this same way, the soul in the chest of a human being, by considering the thoughts of any useful or useless cause and as if by writing them down, discerns them, and arranges how a rational human being ought to act on that very cause. The soul itself also gathers together whatever works of a person are soft because they please the flesh, or hard because they are contrary to it, and shows them within itself to be examined. Through this also — that it is fiery — it dries up the allurements of the flesh with its own heat; and with these dried up, it arouses groaning with the moisture of tears in it, through which the soul, by working all good things, adorns its own works. For the soul hates the delight of the flesh, and because it is airy, showing the flesh its own evil works and the wounds of the storms of diabolic suggestion, it provokes the person to recognize what kind of things his own works are — just as the heart also, with all its appendages, strengthens the person, who moistens all things with his breath.
The Alternation of Struggle and Consolation
Just as bodily organs and the cycles of day and night alternate, a person's life oscillates between the torment of vices and the brightness of virtues.
Because just as the heart is quickened by the liver, the lungs, and the other intestines that cling to one another, and just as the cycle of day and night, and the air of calm and storms are varied by turns, so too a person's life, caught between the struggles of flesh and soul, is at one time tormented by the whirl of vices, at another time gladdened by the brightness of virtues.
Read the original Latin
Pectus autem hominis plenitudinem et perfectionem ejusdem aeris ostendit, quoniam, ut pectus cor et jecur ac pulmonem, et caetera interiora ventris in se retinet, sic et aer iste calorem, siccitatem et humiditatem aurarum in se comprehendit. Tali modo et anima in pectore hominis cogitationes cujuslibet utilis vel inutilis causae considerando et velut scribendo discernit, et qualiter homo rationalis ipsam causam operari debeat disponit. Ipsa quoque anima quaelibet opera hominis sive mollia sint, eo quod carni placeant, sive dura, quia ei contraria sunt, congregat, et in se discutienda demonstrat. Per hoc etiam quod ignea est, calore suo illecebras carnis exsiccat; quibus desiccatis gemitum cum humiditate lacrymarum in eo suscitat, per quas anima omnia bona operando opera sua exornat. Anima enim delectationem carnis odit, et per hoc quod aerea, est carni suae mala opera et vulnera tempestatum diabolicae suggestionis ostendens, hominem ad cognoscendum opera sua qualia sint provocat, velut etiam cor cum omnibus appendiciis suis hominem confortat, qui anhelitu suo omnia humectat.
Quia sicut cor jecore, pulmone et caeteris cohaerentibus sibi intestinis vegetatur, et sicut tempus diei et noctis, et aer tranquillitatis et tempestatum vicissitudinibus variatur, sic et vita hominis inter carnis et animae certamina modo vitiorum turbine qualitur, modo virtutum claritate laetatur.
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