PRIMA VISIO, cap. XVI
The Promise of Starlike Offspring
Just as Adam fathered the human race, Christ brings forth a spiritual people, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham that his offspring would be as countless as the stars.
And just as Adam is the father of the whole human race, so too through the Son of God — who was incarnate in a virgin nature — a spiritual people comes forth, who will ascend just as God promised Abraham through the angel, namely that his offspring would become like the stars of heaven, as it is written: Look up at heaven and count the stars, if you can.✦ And he said to him: So shall your offspring be.✦ Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.✦ Because this is clear to the understanding.
Examining the Secrets of God
The faithful are urged to examine God's hidden ways and consider the reward of those who shine before Him, even though bodily burdens hinder full spiritual perception.
You who worship and revere God with good will, examine the secrets of God, and consider the reward of the merits of those who shine before God day and night. If this is however possible for a man weighed down by bodily burden — because as long as a man savors the things of the flesh, he is not able to receive fully the things of the spirit. And by true showing it is said to him who labors to worship God in the upright sighing of his own heart.
The Heart's Seed Shining Like Stars
The seed sown in the good field by the Holy Spirit's grace will multiply and shine in blessed virtues like the stars of heaven.
In this way the seed of your heart will be multiplied and illuminated, which you sowed into the good field poured out by the grace of the Holy Spirit, which also before the highest God in the blessed virtues will rise up manifoldly and shine, just as the stars shine in the firmament.✦
Faith Counted as Righteousness
Whoever trusts God's promise with true faith directed upward, despising earthly things and loving truth without deceit, is counted righteous among God's children.
So then, whoever has put their full trust in God's promise, holding the high stature of true faith directed toward God, so that they look down on everything earthly and reach upward toward heavenly things — this person will be counted as righteous among the children of God, because they have loved truth and have harbored no deceit in their heart.✦✦12
Mary and the New Spiritual Generation
God chose the believing and obedient virgin Mary from Abraham's line to bear Christ, the founder of a new spiritual generation.
That God chose the virgin Mary from the line of Abraham — believing and obedient to him — from whom Christ, the founder and guide of a new, that is, a spiritual generation, was to be born in the flesh.3
Read the original Latin
Et quemadmodum Adam genitor omnis humani generis est, ita etiam per Filium Dei, qui in virginea natura incarnatus est, spiritalis populus processit, qui ita ascendet, ut Deus Abrahae per angelum repromisit, scilicet quod semen ejus sicut stellae coeli fieret, ut scriptum est: Suspice coelum, et numera stellas si potes. Et dixit ei: Sic erit semen tuum. Credidit Abraham Deo, et reputatum est illi ad justitiam . Quod sic intellectui patet. Tu qui bona voluntate Deum adoras et veneraris, inspice secreta Dei, et discute remunerationem meritorum illorum, qui ante Deum die ac nocte lucent. si hoc tamen possibile est homini corporali onere gravato, quia quandiu homo ea quae carnis sunt sapit, illa quae spiritus sunt ad plenum capere non valet. Et veraci ostensione dicitur illi qui Deum in recto suspirio cordis sui colere laborat. Hoc modo erit semen cordis tui multiplicatum et elucidatum, quod seminasti in bonum agrum gratia Spiritus sancti perfusum, quod etiam coram summo Deo in beatis virtutibus multipliciter exsurget et lucebit, quemadmodum stellae in firmamento clarescunt.
Quapropter quicunque fideliter crediderit divinae promissioni, celsitudinem verae fidei ad Deum habens, ita ut omnia terrena despiciat, et ad coelestia sursum tendat, computabitur justus inter filios Dei, quoniam veritatem dilexit, et quia dolum in corde suo non habuit.
Quod Deus de genere Abraham credentis et obedientis sibi virginem Mariam elegerit, de qua Christus institutor et rector novellae, id est spiritualis generationis, corporaliter nasceretur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.15.5;Gen.22.17 — And he brought him outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Gen.22.17 — because I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies;
- ↩Gen.15.5 — And he brought him outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."
- ↩Gen.15.6 — And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness.
- ↩Gen.15.5;Gen.22.17 — And he brought him outside and said, "Look now toward heaven, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And he said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Gen.22.17 — because I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore, and your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies;
- ↩Gen.15.6 — And he believed the LORD, and He counted it to him as righteousness.
- ↩John.1.47 — Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and said about him, "Look, a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit."
Notes
- 1 ↩The consecutive/result clause ita ut with subjunctive (despiciat, tendat) expresses the outworking of the faith just described; rendered as a result clause rather than a purpose clause to keep the logic flowing from what the believer already holds.
- 2 ↩celsitudo rendered 'high stature' rather than 'height' to capture the sense of an elevated quality of faith directed upward toward God, not merely an abstract summit.
- 3 ↩novellae ... spiritualis generationis: the Latin is compressed; 'novellae' may modify an implied 'generationis' or stand as a genitive noun. Rendered as 'a new, that is, a spiritual generation' to preserve both the explanatory 'id est' and the sense of a fresh spiritual lineage inaugurated by Christ's incarnation.
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