VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXXVII
The Navel of the Body and the Breath of the Soul
The navel governs bodily nourishment and casts waste downward, mirroring how heat, cold, and moisture govern the body's lower regions.
The navel, along with the fleshy vessels of the heart, liver, and lungs, and of all the internal organs, arises to aid in a person's nourishment; it moves the whole breath of the soul, just as the air strengthens all the forces of the earth by blowing through them. This same navel, reaching down to the loins, is like the earth, which constantly sends out muddy and watery filth into the swamps; and because the heat, cold, and moisture of a person, by which he is governed, lie hidden in the navel, the food and drink by which a person is sustained in flesh and blood flow down from there to the lower regions and are cast out like mud.
The Soul's Hardness and Softness
The soul exists as both hard and soft like the earth, and is brought to grief through the taste of the flesh when a person has not consented to it.
For a person who, through the powers of the soul, works alongside every creature according to God, also exists as both hard and soft according to the nature of the earth, of which one part is soft and the other hard; in this softness, the soul is brought to grief through the taste of the flesh, when that same person, overcome by these things, has not consented to it.1
The Soul Present in Every Work
The soul passes through all a person's works, yet is covered by the body's deeds like a worm in mud and overcome like a fish on a hook.
For just as the air strengthens all creatures so that they may grow, and the navel arises with the fleshy vessels to aid in digesting food, so the soul passes through all a person's works with its own powers, containing and completing them. The soul itself is also covered by the body's works, just as a worm is covered by the little shelter it makes out of mud; and just as mud is moved by worms that are sometimes unseen, so a person is moved toward sordid deeds by the invisible soul. And although it draws all a person's works to itself, just as a hook draws a fish, yet it is so overcome by the body that it is in no way able to resist it.
The Soul's Knowledge of Its Own Sins
The soul knows its sins are written within it and sends out sighs of grief, as sins extend into it like the navel extending to the loins.
For the sins it was forced to commit through the body, it also knows that it must be punished and brought to judicial torments, because all things seem written within it, as it were. Therefore, as long as it remains in the body, it sends out sighs of grief, because just as the navel extends to the loins, so sins extend into it; and even when they are sent out into punishments, it is like a person's food being discharged into the mud, and like the earth sending out muddy filth.2
The Soul's Greening in Virtue and Its Rest in God
The soul grows green ascending from virtue to virtue in imitation of the Son of God, and after death rests in God's presence awaiting the resurrection of the body.
For just as the earth and a person flourish — the earth through summer, a person through youth — and then again the earth through winter, and that person through old age, dry up and wither, so too the soul, remaining in the body and compelling it to serve itself, grows green by ascending from virtue to virtue in good works and in the examples of the Son of God; and afterward, led out of the body as if adorned with precious stones, and awaiting with eager longing the reception of the body in which it had labored, rests in the presence of God.34
Read the original Latin
Umbilicus quoque cum carnalibus fistulis cordis, jecoris et pulmonis, omniumque viscerum, in auxilium refectionis hominis surgit, quae omnia spiramen animae movet, quemadmodum aer cunctas vires terrae perflando confortat. Idem etiam umbilicus usque ad finem lumborum quasi terra quae semper quasdam lutulentas et aquosas immunditias in paludibus emittit, et, quia calor, frigus, humiditasque hominis, quibus ille regitur, in umbilico latent, et cibus ac potus, quibus homo in carne et sanguine vegetatur, ibi ad inferiora defluentes, velut lutum ejiciuntur. Homo namque, qui per vires animae cum omni creatura secundum Deum operatur, etiam secundum naturam terrae, cujus pars altera mollis, altera dura est, durus et mollis existit, in cujus mollitie per gustum carnis anima contristatur, cum idem homo per illa superatus, ei non consenserit. Sicut enim aer omnes creaturas ad crescendum confortat, et ut umbilicus cum carnalibus fistulis in auxilium ciborum surgit, sic anima omnia opera hominis viribus suis pertransit, continet et perficit. Ipsa etiam operibus corporis, sicut vermis tabernaculo suo quod ex luto facit, tegitur; et sicut per vermes, qui interdum non videntur, lutum movetur, sic homo per invisibilem animam ad sordida opera movetur. Et licet ipsa omnia opera hominis, quemadmodum hamus piscem, ad se trahat, tamen per corpus ita superatur, ut ei nullo modo resistere valeat. Pro peccatis quoque quae per corpus coacta operatur se puniendam et ad judicialia tormenta adducendam cognoscit, quoniam omnia in ipsa quasi scripta videntur. Quapropter quandiu ipsa in corpore manserit, suspiria doloris emittit, quia ut umbilicus ad lumbos extenditur, sic peccata in ipsam extenduntur; et etiam cum ipsa in poenas emittuntur, sicut esca hominis in luto emittitur, et ut terra lutulentas immunditias emittit.
Quia sicut terra et homo, illa per aestatem, hic per juventutem virent et florescunt, itemque illa per hiemem, iste per senectutem arent et marcescunt, sic et anima manens in corpore, et illud sibi servire compellens, de virtute in virtutem ascendendo in bonis operibus et exemplis Filii Dei virescit, et postmodum educta de corpore velut pretiosis ornata lapidibus, et receptionem corporis in quo laborarat inhianter exspectans coram Deo requiescit.
Notes
- 1 ↩The syntax 'cum... non consenserit' is ambiguous. It may mean 'whenever the person, overcome by fleshly impulses, does not consent to the soul's grief,' or 'although the person, overcome, did not consent to the flesh.' The translation preserves the conditional 'when... has not consented to it' to reflect the tension between fleshly overcoming and spiritual consent.
- 2 ↩The subject of 'emittuntur' (are sent out/discharged) is ambiguous. It could refer to the sins being sent into punishments, or to the souls being sent into punishments. The translation 'when they are sent out' preserves the plural ambiguity of the Latin.
- 3 ↩The image of the soul 'compelling the body to serve itself' (illud sibi servire compellens) is rendered plainly; the visionary-theological context of the Liber Divinorum Operum governs the sense of soul over body.
- 4 ↩laborarat is a syncopated perfect form (= laboraverat); translated as 'had labored'. inhianter is a rare form, tentatively rendered 'with eager longing'.
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