VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXIII
The Soul as Stomach of the Spirit
The soul ruminates on a person's works, preserves them in memory, and serves as a writing tablet through which thoughts prepare all that the body does, just as the stomach receives and holds what sustains the body.
And just as food is sent through the throat into the stomach — food that has first been crushed by the mill of the teeth — and just as a person's chest, by thinking and knowing, moderates everything that belongs to the human being, and as the stomach holds and encloses a person's inward parts, so too the aforementioned air sends its green vital forces into fruit, and thus preserves the things that are in the world for a person's salvation. In the same way, the soul ruminates on all a person's works and entrusts them to memory, so that it leaves none of them unexamined — just as food is sent into the stomach through the throat, and just as food is ground down by the teeth, so the soul, with its breath, writes a person's works by discerning them, and gathers this writing through its thoughts, so that a person may know what kind of works his are — works he may continually examine, as though they were certain forms of things within his own thoughts, in which they take shape. A person therefore cannot forget his works, because in his thoughts they are preserved like the inward parts enclosed in the stomach, and he himself lives through the soul in all his works, since the soul itself is airy. Thoughts, together with knowledge, in a person's breast serve as a kind of service to all that person's works, since by anticipating they prepare the way — just as the left hand serves the right, and winter serves summer, because winter preserves everything that summer brings forth. The soul too is a service of the thoughts, and the thoughts are for the soul like a writing tablet on which it writes, since the soul itself refines all a person's works with them, and, as it were by writing, prepares for whatever it is driven to do through the body.
Tears Over Fleshly Desire
When the flesh pursues evil, the soul grieves in compunction and recalls those sins with tearful sighs, preserving them so the sinner may be saved.
For when a person does evil works according to the desire of the flesh, still, from the soul's strength, he sometimes sheds tears in compunction, because the evil works of the flesh displease the soul — even though, in their agreement, the flesh, subjected to them, serves them many times over. The soul itself also calls back to memory the very evil works a person committed through the pleasures of the flesh, with a tearful sigh as though writing them down for itself, and just as winter preserves the fruits of summer within itself, so the soul carefully sets before the sinning person a sigh by which he may be saved, holding it within itself.
The Weakness of Fleshly Delight
The breasts signify both the outward abundance of air and the inward desires of the heart, and fleshly delight has no strength against the powers of the soul, just as a woman is soft compared to a man.
This means that the swellings of flesh that stand out on the breast and are called breasts signify both the outward abundance of the air and the inward desires of a person clinging to the heart; and because just as a woman, compared to a man, is soft and weak, so too the delight of the flesh has no strength against the powers of the soul.1
Read the original Latin
Et quemadmodum per guttur cibi ventri immittuntur, qui per molendinum dentium prius confringuntur, et ut pectus hominis cogitando et cognoscendo omnia quae hominis sunt temperat, et sicut venter viscera hominis continet et claudit, ita et praedictus aer virentes vires in fructus mittit, et sic ea quae in mundo sunt, ad salutem hominis conservat. Eodem modo anima omnia opera hominis ruminat et memoriae commendat, ita ut nullum illorum indiscussum relinquat, velut esca ventri per guttur immittitur, et sicut esca dentibus conteritur, sic anima cum spiramine suo opera hominis discernendo scribit, et hanc scripturam per cogitationes colligit, ut homo opera sua qualia sint cognoscat, quae ipse velut aliquas formas rerum in cogitationibus suis in quibus formantur jugiter inspiciat. Homo igitur operum suorum non potest oblivisci, quia in cogitationibus suis sicut viscera in ventre clausa servantur, ipseque in omnibus operibus suis per animam viret, quoniam ipsa aerea est. Cogitationes quoque cum scientia in pectore hominis quasi famulatus omnium operum illius sunt, quoniam ea praeveniendo praeparant, sicut sinistra dexterae famulatur, quia et hiems aestati servit, quoniam omnia conservat quae aestas profert. Etiam anima servitium cogitationum est, et cogitationes sicut pugillaris in quo scribitur animae sunt, quoniam ipsa omnia opera hominis cum illis limat, et quasi scribendo ad id ad quod per corpus cogitur praeparat. Cum enim homo mala opera secundum desiderium carnis operatur, tamen ex virtute animae interdum compunctus lacrymas fundit, quia mala opera carnis animae displicent, quamvis in consensu eorum carnis subjecta multoties famuletur. Ipsa quoque mala opera quae homo per delectationes carnis commisit, lacrymabili suspirio quasi scribendo ipsi in memoriam revocat, et sicut hiems fructus aestatis in se conservat, sic anima delinquenti homini suspirium quo salvetur in se diligenter proponit
Quod tumores carnium qui in pectore eminent et ubera vocantur, et exterius aeris ubertatem et interius hominis desideria cordi inhaerentia significent; et quia sicut mulier viro comparata mollis est et infirma est, ita et delectatio carnis ad vires animae nullam fortitudinem habeat.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'ad vires animae nullam fortitudinem habeat' is syntactically ambiguous: it can mean the flesh's delight 'has no strength against the powers of the soul' or 'brings no strength to the powers of the soul'. The comparative 'sicut... ita' (just as... so too) and the contrast with the woman's weakness favor the adversative sense ('against').
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