SR
Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works)/Book 1 · Liber Divinorum Operum — Pars 1
Chapter 150LDO.1.150

VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXVII

The Body's Inner Fire and the Soul's Wind

The warming cooperation of the heart, liver, and lung in digestion is likened to the rational, fiery soul sending out understanding with the wind, as fire needs wind to send forth its flame.

But the heart also warms the belly, and the liver strengthens it, and the lung moistens it, so that it may preserve the reception of foods right through to their excretion, just as the air described above leads the greenness, heat, and moisture of all sprouting fruits right to their maturity. So too the soul, which is rational and fiery, sends out rationality with the wind — just as a burning fire does not send out its own flame without wind.

Discerning Good, Evil, and God's Zeal

The soul's rationality discerns what pleases God and perceives His zeal consuming sin, introducing words of David to be received with discernment.

In the surrounding circle of the knowledge of good and evil as well, with rationality, through which it knows what pleases God, or through which it also discerns that God burns up the evil custom of sinners in his zeal, as it is written: Words of David on the same subject, and that they are to be received with discernment.

Read the original Latin

Sed cor ventrem etiam calefecit, jecurque eum confirmat, et pulmo humectat, ita ut ille receptionem ciborum usque ad egestionem conservet, sicut et supra demonstratus aer viriditatem, calorem et humiditatem omnium germinantium fructuum usque ad maturitatem ipsorum perducit. Sic etiam anima, quae rationalis et ignea est, rationalitatem cum vento, sicut et ardens ignis flammam suam sine vento non emittit. In circumeunte quoque circulo scientiae boni et mali, cum rationalitate, per quam cognoscit quid Deo placeat vel discernit per quam etiam intelligit quod Deus malam consuetudinem peccatorum in zelo suo comburit, sicut scriptum est:

Verba David ad idem pertinentia, et quod sensu accipienda sint.

Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works) companion

Don't stop at Day 30

All 317 chapters live in the free Chosen Portion app, paced for daily reading

Hildegard's practice of daily attention to God's work in creation becomes a paced daily devotional through all ten visions in the Chosen Portion app

  • One vision passage a day, readable in under 10 minutes
  • The complete Book of Divine Works plus Hildegard's other major works, free
  • Progress tracking so a 317-chapter classic actually gets finished
Chosen Portion — Daily Prayer (free iOS app)