VISIO QUARTA, cap. XCI
The Soul's Earthly Fortress
The soul is likened to the round, iron-like earth, flying out through the senses, giving angels cause to praise God, and standing as a warrior against the flesh and the devil's deceits.
For the surface of the earth below is rounded just as it is above, and it stands as though made of iron against the waters that press in and flow around it. The soul too, hidden within the body, reaches out into all the body's senses through thinking, speaking, and working, and in line with these things it engages with every creature in a person, since other spirits exist only to praise God and do not work at all.1 For a person whose works give the angels reason to wonder at God while praising him is both heavenly and earthly, and so is gloriously praised in heaven while filling the whole earth by working; and in this way the power of that soul is likened to the roundness of the earth, which circles through the body and through all the works of a person, and works both according to the nature of the flesh and according to its own second nature.2 So the power of the soul is like steel, through which all tools are sharpened and strengthened, because it overcomes by fighting off the desires of the flesh that enter its own nature, so that a person may not perish, and so that the soul itself may not be suffocated by the weight of sins; it stands forth as a warrior against every deceit of the devil.3
The Body's Hidden Curves
The bends of the human limbs mirror the curves of ocean and river, and signify the impulses of desire and the joining of flesh and soul.
Because the bends — both equal and unequal — that are found in a human being from the thigh through the knee and ankle to the end of the largest joint of the foot, and from the binding of the hand to the tip of the middle finger, could signify the curves and reflections of the ocean and rivers in the world, and in a human being could designate the impulses and surges of desires, and the manifold joinings of the natures, the oppositions of flesh and soul.
Read the original Latin
Nam superficies terrae subtus quemadmodum supra rotunda existit, ipsaque ad intrantes et circumfluentes aquas quasi ferrea est. Anima quoque quae in corpore latitat, et in omnes sensus corporis cogitando, loquendo et operando volat, secundum ista cum omni creatura in homine operatur, cum alii spiritus laus Dei tantum sint, nec operentur. Homo enim de cujus operibus angeli Deum laudando mirantur, coelestis et terrestris est, unde in coelo gloriose laudatur, et totam terram operando replet, et ita vis animae ipsius rotunditati terrae assimilatur, quae in corpore et in omnibus operibus hominis circuit, et etiam secundum naturam carnis, et secundam naturam suam operatur. Vis itaque animae ut chalybs est, per quem omnia ferramenta acuuntur et firmantur, quoniam ipsa desideria carnis quae naturam ipsius intrant pugnando superat, ne homo pereat, ipsaque ne pondere peccatorum suffocetur, contra omnem fallaciam diaboli bellatrix existit.
Quod flexurae, tam aequales quam dispares, quae in homine a femore per genu et talum usque ad finem majoris articuli pedis, et a vinctura manus usque ad extremum medii digiti inveniuntur, in mundo oceani et fluminum incurvationes et reflexiones significent, et in homine impetus, et aestus libidinum, et multiplices compaginationes naturarum, carnis et animae oppositiones designent.
Notes
- 1 ↩The contrast between the soul's active engagement through the senses and other spirits existing solely for praise is left as the Latin presents it; the precise sense of 'other spirits' is not clarified here.
- 2 ↩The phrase 'secundam naturam suam' is rendered as 'its own second nature'; the precise theological sense is left open here.
- 3 ↩Bellatrix is rendered 'warrior' to capture the martial sense of the Latin; the rare form is noted.
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