VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXXXII
The Body as a House of Earth, Stone, and Wood
Human flesh, bones, and marrow are likened to earth, stones, and trees, and each person builds a life-structure from these materials.
The earth is established with stones and trees, and according to it humanity was made, since our flesh is like the earth; our bones, however, are without marrow's moisture, like stones; but our bones with marrow are like trees. And so a person builds their own structure from the earth, from stones, and from wood, according to themselves.
The Soul as Firmament and the Garden of Works
The soul acts as the body's firmament, making the person a flourishing garden through good works or an unfruitful wasteland through sin.
The soul, whose desires are opposed to the flesh and which is the firmament of the whole body, pours its strength into it and carries out and completes every work together with the person; and the person themselves becomes a flourishing garden in which the Lord feeds his gaze according to the soul's desire by doing good works; but when they act according to the will of the flesh, before God's eyes they are like the sun suffering an eclipse — they do not shine. For a person who has done good works is compared to a garden filled with all good fruit, like the earth that is established and adorned with stones and trees; but when through the hardness of sins they have done wicked works, they are unfruitful before God, like barren earth that bears no fruit.
Flesh, Bones, and the Knowledge of Good and Evil
The flesh's tender knowledge and the bones' hardened knowledge symbolize good and evil, which form the soul's deepest depths and teach humility.
For the flesh of a person with its good knowledge — which yields fruitful tenderness — and its bones with wicked knowledge — which hardens itself against God — signify this; and the bones that are without marrow in it point to that person's evil works. But the soul working in a person according to God is, just as God himself established heaven in the full joy of heavenly things and gave the earth to people to dwell on, so the soul works with the person in joy at good works, which are heavenly, and in the grief of sorrow at evil works, which are earthly. So the knowledge of good and evil are the innermost depths of the soul, by which it teaches a person humility — the material of all virtues — and which so tightly binds a person in their own strength within sins that they can never complete those depths in joy.
The Soul's Governance and the Body-Soul Union
The soul directs all works within a person as an architect plans a house, and body and soul, though different by nature, must sustain and instruct one another in obedience to the Creator.
And just as a person foresees all the structures of a house they want to build according to their own will, so the soul itself arranges all works in a person according to its ability. So too, just as the air holds the earth placed in its midst, sustaining and containing it on every side with equal measure, so the body and the soul, joined together by God — though they differ greatly by nature — ought to sustain and instruct one another patiently as they carry out the commands of their Creator together.
Read the original Latin
Terra etiam cum lapidibus et arboribus firmata est, et secundum illam homo factus est, quia caro ejus ut terra est; ossa autem ipsius sine succo medullae, ut lapides sunt; ossa vero cum medulla velut arbores existunt. Unde et homo aedificium suum secundum se ex terra, ex lapidibus et ex lignis componit. Anima quoque, cui desideria carnis contraria sunt, et quae firmamentum totius corporis est, illud viribus suis infundens, omnia opera cum homine operatur et perficit, ipseque homo floridus hortus, in quo Dominus oculos suos pascit secundum desiderium animae, operando efficitur; cum autem secundum voluntatem carnis operatur, coram oculis Dei sicut sol cum eclipsim patitur non lucet. Homo enim qui bona opera fecerit, pomerio omnium bonorum fructuum repleto assimilatur, sicut terra quae lapidibus et arboribus firmatur et ornatur; cum autem per duritiam peccatorum mala opera perpetraverit, sicut dura terra quae sine fructu est coram Deo infructuosus existit. Caro namque hominis bonam scientiam, quae fructiferam mollitiem habet, et ossa malam scientiam, quae contra Deum se indurat, significant; ossa autem quae sine medulla in eo sunt, mala opera ipsius designant. Anima vero secundum Deum in homine operans est, quoniam, sicut ipse coelum in pleno gaudio coelestibus constituit, et ut terram hominibus ad habitandum dedit, sic anima in gaudio cum homine bona opera, quae coelestia sunt, et in querela tristitiae mala opera quae terrena sunt operatur. Scientia itaque boni et mali viscera animae sunt, quibus hominem humilitatem, quae materia omnium virtutum est, docet, et quae hominem in viribus suis in peccatis ita constringit, ut illa in gaudio nunquam perficere possit. Et sicut homo omnia aedificia domus quam aedificare vult secundum voluntatem suam praevidet, sic ipsa omnia opera in homine secundum quod potest disponit.
Item quod sicut aer terram in medio sui aequali undique mensura positam sustentat et continet, ita corpus et anima a Deo conjuncta, licet natura plurimum distent, in faciendis communiter praeceptis Creatoris sui patienter se invicem sustentare et instruere debeant.
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