VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXX
Hunger That Reveals and Ceases
Hunger reveals the flowers of fruit and ceases once satisfied, just as flowers fall when they have served their purpose.
Hunger, too, which demands food, reveals the flowers of fruit; but once the belly has been sated with fruits, hunger ceases — just as when fruits advance, flowers fall.
The Soul's God-Breath and Illuminating Fire
The soul, breathed from God and knowing good and evil, recognizes that God must be loved above all things, since she came forth from him as a spark from fire and makes human works flash like lightning.
The soul likewise, whose breath comes from God, and who, with knowledge of good and evil, always seeking truth, is the treasury of justice — she understands that God must be loved above all things in her own nature, because from him she went forth as a spark from fire, and she also makes the works of man flash forth like lightning bolts, since through her a person is illuminated as if by a spark.1
Sighs, Tears, and the Hunger for Justice
The soul makes a person sigh over worthless works done against God, afflicting him with hunger for divine justice until he repents and pours out tears.
She herself also makes a person sigh over his most worthless works, which he does against God alongside her, and she afflicts him, hungering within for God's justice, until, knowing his sins, he pours out tears with repentance for them.
Sated by Justice, Filled with Virtue
When a person tramples sin through repentance, the soul is sated with God's justice and, gathering the flowers of virtue through good works, no longer hungers as she once did in evil.
So when a person has trampled his sins underfoot by repenting in this way, the soul is sated with God's justice; but when afterward she has gathered to herself the flowers of the virtues with good works, filled with good works, she immediately no longer hungers as she previously suffered hunger grieving in evil works — since this hunger fails through the fruits of good works, just as when flowers fall away.2
Mutual Support of Stomach, World, and Soul
By these harmonies the stomach, the world, and the soul are strengthened in mutual support, and the passage points to the meaning of God's enduring law, summer's greenness, winter's barrenness, and the world's spaciousness.
Through these harmonies the stomach, the world, and the soul are strengthened in their mutual support of one another — and that God never intends for human beings to exist without the law of a commandment — and what the greenness of summer and the barrenness of winter, and the vast spaciousness of the world itself, signify within it.
Read the original Latin
Esuries quoque, quae cibum postulat, flores fructuum manifestat, sed cum fructibus venter saturatus fuerit, esuries cessat, velut cum fructus procedunt, flores corruunt. Anima similiter, quae spiraculum a Deo est, et cum scientia boni et mali veritatem semper quaerendo thesaurus justititiae existit, Deum super omnia diligendum esse in natura sua intelligit, quoniam ab eo sicut scintilla ab igne processit, et etiam opera hominis sicut scintillas fulminare facit, quia homo per eam quasi per scintillam illustratur. Ipsa etiam hominem pro vilissimis operibus suis, quae cum ipsa contra Deum operatur suspirare facit, eumque justitiam Dei in se esuriendo tandiu affligit, quousque peccata sua cognoscendo lacrymas cum poenitentia pro illis effundat. Cum igitur homo peccata sua hoc modo poenitendo conculcaverit, anima justitia Dei saturatur; sed cum postea flores virtutum cum bonis operibus ad se collegerit, ipsa bonis operibus repleta, statim non esurit, quae prius in malis operibus dolendo famem patiebatur, quoniam fames ista per fructus bonorum operum velut cum flores corruunt deficit.
Quibus congruentiis stomachus, mundus et anima sibi invicem confortantur, et quod Deus hominem sine praecepti lege nunquam esse velit; et quid in eo et aestatis viriditas, et hiemis ariditas, ipsiusque mundi capacitas ampla designent.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin plays on scintilla (spark) and fulminare (to flash with lightning): the soul both proceeds from God as a spark from fire and makes human works flash like lightning. The metaphor is dense; 'flash forth like lightning bolts' captures the force of fulminare, though the exact nuance is uncertain.
- 2 ↩The final clause (velut cum flores corruunt deficit) is compressed: 'it fails just as when flowers fall.' The antecedent of 'deficit' is ambiguous — likely 'fames ista' (this hunger), completing the analogy with s1. Rendered accordingly.
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