VISIO QUARTA, cap. LXXXVIII
The Iron-Like Earth Beneath
The earth's hard, iron-like inner layer withstands floods, rivers, and the sun's heat, serving as a resilient foundation.
For the hard outer layer of the earth has another layer beneath it, something like iron, which becomes as hard as steel through its own toughness, so that it can be neither shattered nor softened by any flood of waters rushing in around it. And when a person gives in to the pleasure of the flesh, the soul in its spiritual nature says: 'O, the misery of tasting the flesh's softness — I torment it, and I am tormented by it!' So a person soon groans in their sins, saying: 'O woe is me, that I was born to face such great sins — sins I cannot overcome on my own!' And as soon as the soul perceives this grief, it draws the person to itself, punishing them in their sins more than before, and makes them sorrowful on account of their sins, because the soul's strength has withered within them. Afterward, then, a person who lives according to the soul's nature brings it to light through the mortification of carnal desires, so as to find it in heavenly longing. So too the soul overcomes the person in whom it does not find a hardened heart, just as the hard, iron-like earth holds up the soft ground in its power; and that same soul strengthens them with the firmness of faith, as if with steel, so they do not fail under the surrounding evils of habitual sins. This part of the hard, iron-like earth has hills with rocks, and rivers flowing from the east divided into four parts — yet they cannot split it apart; they do move it at times, but they never wound it. This motion comes from the excessive heat of the sun on that side of the sky where the sun rises; and if the earth beneath were not iron-like or something like steel, the whole of it would be split apart by this intense heat.
The Soul's War Against Pride
The humble soul resists human pride, warns against self-exaltation, and strengthens the person through holy works of humility, just as the iron-like earth is upheld by hills and rocks.
From the other side of the firmament too, where the sun sets, it would be shattered by excessive cold. For these regions of the earth are uninhabitable, both from the immoderate heat of the sun and from immoderate cold. And so the soul that is humble by nature always fights against human pride, and says to it: 'Why do you climb to such a height, as though you had created yourself?' For if through yourself you want to be or to act, you will fall like the first angel. It also knows God, by whom it was made a spiritual being, and perceives and understands that nothing is like it; therefore it hates pride, which is without joy, and wants to exist by itself and obey no one. Therefore it also says to the proud mind of its own body: 'Everything you seek is vain and deceptive, and what you call honor is blasphemy; and when you think you can climb without the help of God and of others, you will fall. But a person often sighs out of sorrow of soul, and turning away from all works of pride, climbs into the height of the holy works of humility, through which, in the midst of sinners, that person is held and strengthened just as hard ground is held and strengthened by hills and rocks. And then a person works good and holy deeds with the elements in another way, as it were coming back to life, so as not to be mocked before God and others as though condemned by the wounds of death — just as that same ground is not torn apart by the four rivers in their force.
The Storm of Sin and Penance
The soul stirs the person through sin and penance like a storm, yet sustains him by grace so he does not fall into despair, even amid tearful exile.
But the soul, which is windy, stirs every creature through the heart and veins in a person while it works with the sins that are troublesome and contrary to it; and it often makes him weep after the joy of sins, and turns their security into great confusion.1 A person also often falls into great weakness, since all his inner parts do not have what they want to complete the straight path; and so the soul is like a storm in a person with sins, and also afflicts him with penance; and as much as it suffered in sins, so much it makes him suffer in penance. The soul itself also sustains a person in all the fervor of sinning and repenting—just as iron and steel earth sustains the soft—so that he doesn't fail, because it is the vital power of the body, which never allows its sins to be done with joy, and which so often afflicts him in sins that it scarcely hopes to rise from them.2 But the soul rouses him again through this, and comforts him to trust that he must be freed by the grace of God, lest he fall into the dispersion of despair—which the earth that is not broken by the excessive cold of the west also signifies. For the earth that is uninhabitable because of excessive cold and heat signifies that a person, who inhabits a small place of habitable earth as a stranger because of Adam's expulsion, can never have security among the battles and wars of sins and penance, since in a tearful exile he cannot see the full joy of the heavenly homeland, except for what he reaches toward from afar in the shadow of faith.✦ Hence, when he sees that he has no security, he says:
David's Lament Over Failing Days
The chapter closes by introducing David's words in Psalm 101, mourning the swiftness of life and human frailty.
The words of David in Psalm 101, deploring the swiftness of his own days and his own failing.
Read the original Latin
Nam tenerae parti terrae dura et velut ferrea pars altera terrae, subjuncta est, quae in duritia sua, quemadmodum chalybinea fit, perdurat, ita ut nec confringi, nec emolliri ulla inundatione circa eum concurrentium aquarum possit. Homo quoque cum delectationem carnis amplectitur, anima in spiritali natura sua dicit: « O vae mollitiei gustus carnis, quam ego affligo, et a qua affligor! » Unde homo in peccatis suis mox ingemit dicens: « O vae mihi, quod ad tanta peccata, quae in me superare non possum, natus sum! » Et mox ut anima moerorem istum senserit, hominem plus quam prius in peccatis puniendo ad se trahit, et eum propter peccata sua tristem reddit, quoniam vires animae in ipso aruerunt. Postea namque homo secundum naturam animae operando, ipsam in mortificatione carnalium desideriorum prodit, quatenus eam in coelesti desiderio inveniat. Sic quoque anima hominis in quo obdurationem cordis non invenit, superat, quemadmodum dura et quasi ferrea terra mollem in potestate sua sustentat; ipsaque anima fortitudine fidei quasi chalybe eum firmat, ne per circumeuntia mala consuetorum peccatorum deficiat. Pars itaque haec durae et velut ferreae terrae colles cum rupibus habet, et flumina quae in oriente in quatuor partes divisa fluunt, eam scindere non praevalent, sed eam interdum movent, nec tamen vulnerant. Motio autem ista ex nimio aestu solis ab illa parte firmamenti fit, ubi sol ascendit, et si terra subterius, ut ferrea seu quasi chalybinea non esset, ex nimio aestu hoc tota scinderetur.
Ab altera quoque parte firmamenti ubi sol occidit ex nimio etiam frigore rumperetur. Nam et ex immoderato fervore solis et ex immoderato frigore istae partes terrae inhabitabiles sunt. Proinde et anima, quae humilis naturae est, contra superbiam hominis semper pugnat, eique dicit: « Quare in tantam altitudinem, quasi te ipsum creaveris, ascendis? Si enim per te ipsum esse vel operari desideras, ut primus angelus cades. » Ipsa etiam Deum, a quo ipsa spiritalis essentia facta est, scit, et sentit, et quod ei nullus similis est intelligit, ideo superbiam quae sine gaudio est, et per seipsam esse et nulli obedire vult, odit. Unde etiam superbae menti corporis sui dicit: « Omnia quae quaeris vana et fallacia sunt, et quae tu honorem nominas, haec blasphemia sunt; et cum te ascendere putas sine adjutorio Dei et hominum, cades. » Sed homo ex moerore animae saepe suspirat, et ab omnibus operibus superbia declinando, in altitudinem sanctorum operum humilitatis ascendit, per quam ipse in medio peccatorum, quemadmodum dura terra collibus et rupibus tenetur et firmatur. Et tunc homo bona et sancta opera cum elementis in alio modo quasi reviviscendo operatur, ne quasi vulneribus mortis condemnatus, coram Deo et hominibus derideatur, sicut etiam eadem terra de quatuor fluminibus in viribus suis non disrumpitur.
Anima autem, quae ventosa est, omnem creaturam per cor et venas in homine, dum peccata quae sibi molesta et contraria sunt cum eo operatur, movet; ipsumque post gaudium peccatorum saepe plorare facit, et post securitatem eorum in magnam confusionem convertit. Homo etiam magnam infirmitatem multoties incurrit, cum omnia interiora viscera sua rectum iter perficiendo, quae vult non habet; sicque anima quasi tempestas in homine cum peccatis, et etiam cum poenitentia ipsum affligendo est; et quantum ipsa in peccatis doluit, tantum eum in poenitentia dolere facit. Ipsa quoque anima in omni fervore peccandi et poenitendi hominem, quemadmodum ferrea et chalybinea terra mollem, sustentat ne deficiat, quia ipsa vitalis virtus corporis est, quod nunquam cum gaudio peccata sua operari permittit, quodque in peccatis ita saepe affligit, ut ab illis se surgere vix speret. Anima vero per hoc eum iterum excitat, et ut per gratiam Dei se liberandum confidat, ne in dispersionem desperationis decidat consolatur, quod etiam terra quae ex nimio frigore occidentis non rumpitur significat. Terra enim quae pro nimio frigore et aestu inhabitabilis est, designat quod homo, qui propter expulsionem Adae parvum locum habitabilis terrae ut peregrinus inhabitat, inter praelia et bella peccatorum et poenitentiae nunquam securitatem habere possit, quoniam in lacrymabili exsilio plenum gaudium coelestis patriae videre non potest, nisi quod illuc a longe in umbra fidei tendit. Unde cum nullam securitatem se habere videt dicit:
Verba David in psalmo CI velocitatem dierum suorum et defectum suum deplorantis.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Heb.11.13-Heb.11.14 — By faith these all died, not having received the promises, but having seen them from afar and having greeted them, and having confessed that they are strangers and exiles on the earth. Heb.11.14 — For those who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
Notes
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