SR
Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works)/Book 1 · Liber Divinorum Operum — Pars 1
Chapter 19LDO.1.19

VISIO SECUNDA, cap. II

God's Sustaining Hand Over Creation

God fills and fortifies all creation so that every creature serves and sustains humanity, revealing His providential care in the present vision.

And again I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: God, who for the glory of his name composed the world with its elements, established it with winds, and illuminating it with interwoven stars, also filled the remaining creatures, and man — surrounding and strengthening him with all these things — poured through everywhere with the greatest force, so that they would assist him in all things, share in his works, and so work alongside him, because without them man can neither live nor even subsist, just as is revealed to you in the present vision.

The Eternal Wheel of True Love

A wondrous wheel appears in the visionary image, recalling an earlier sign and revealing that true love — the form of the world — endures unchanged from creation to the end of the age.

For in the breast of the aforementioned image a wheel of a wondrous vision appears with its own signs, almost of this likeness, like that instrument which you had seen significantly, as it were, in the shape of an egg twenty-eight years before — how it was shown to you in your earlier visions, since without oblivion it exists in the knowledge of true love, which is the form of the world: God, indissolubly revolving, wondrous in its relation to human nature, so that it is consumed by no old age and increased by no novelty, but just as it was first created by God, so it will endure even to the end of the age.

The Undivided Fullness of God

The Divinity is whole and entire in foreknowledge and work, without beginning or end, and like a circle it infinitely comprehends and surpasses all things beyond division or limit.

For the Divinity is, as it were, whole and entire in its foreknowledge and in its work, and in no way divided, since it has neither beginning nor end, and can be comprehended by no one, because it is without time. And just as a circle comprehends the things that lie hidden within it, so holy Divinity infinitely comprehends and surpasses all things, because no one in its power could divide it, surpass it, or bring it to an end.

Why the World Appears as Egg and Wheel

The visionary asks why the sphere of the world is shown as an egg in Scivias and as a wheel in the present work.

So why is the sphere of the world set before you in the Scivias in the figure of an egg, and in this present work in the likeness of a wheel?

Read the original Latin

Et iterum audivi vocem de coelo mihi dicentem: Deus qui ad gloriam nominis sui mundum elementis compilavit, ventis confirmavit stellis innectens elucidavit, reliquis quoque creaturis replevit, hominem in eo omnibus his circumdans et muniens, maxima fortitudine ubique perfudit, quatenus ei in omnibus assisterent, operibusque ipsius interessent, ita ut cum illis operaretur, quia homo absque illis nec vivere, nec etiam subsistere potest, quemadmodum in praesenti visione tibi manifestatur. Nam in pectore praefatae imaginis rota mirificae visionis apparet cum signis suis hujus fere similitudinis, ut instrumentum illud quod ante viginti octo annos velut in figura ovi significative videras quomodo in prioribus visionibus tuis tibi ostensum est, quoniam absque oblivione in scientia verae charitatis quae Deus est forma mundi existit, insolubiliter volubilis, humanaeque naturae mirabilis, ita ut nec ulla vetustate consumatur, nec ulla novitate augeatur, sed ut a Deo primum creata est, sic usque ad finem saeculi perdurabit. Divinitas etenim in praescientia et in opere suo velut tota integra est, et nullo modo divisa, quoniam nec initium nec finem habet, nec ab ullo comprehendi potest, quia sine tempore est. Et sicut circulus ea, quae intra ipsum latent, comprehendit, ita sancta Divinitas infinite omnia comprehendit et superexcellit, quia ipsam in potentia sua nullus dividere, nec superare, nec ad finem perducere potuit.

Quare in libro Scivias sphaera mundi in figura ovi, et in isto in similitudine rotae ostensa, vel descripta sit.

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