VISIO SECUNDA, cap. XXX
The Lord's Discipline and the Undisciplined Life
The Lord disciplines the speaker rather than abandoning them to death, and the undisciplined person lives without fear until pain overtakes them.
The Lord has been disciplining me, disciplining me, and did not hand me over to death. This is clear to the understanding: a person who is subject to chance and undisciplined often turns out to be, and is not timid, unless all their veins are being filled with pains.
Vanity, Fear, and the Fear of the Lord
Human vanity began with the devil's deception and brought sorrow, yet the fear of the Lord surpasses all other responses because it leads to true knowledge of God.
And so the devil first deceived the human being, when that person entered upon a great vanity, desiring to be what they ought not to be; and therefore a great sorrow with pain was also poured into them. For from labor a person has fear, but from vanity comes forgetfulness, and from transgression of the law comes foolish confidence. But the fear of the Lord surpasses all these, because through fear a person trembles before God, and truly knows that in many other things there is no real usefulness.
Fear, Love, and Confident Patience in Discipline
Fear prepares the way for love, and the one who seeks God in love endures divine discipline with patience, prudence, and the resolve to walk a straight path.
For fear goes ahead in a person, and afterward love embraces that person, where someone loves God, considering how they can please God, so as not to remember their own iniquity. But when a person seeks God in love, God often disciplines them with labors, so that they can confidently say: 'With his scourges, disciplining me, he disciplined me, the sinner, he who is the Lord of all; yet in that same discipline with which he scourges me, he did not hand me over to the death of infernal punishments, because I sought him in love, and I have confessed my sins to him, and in that same discipline I am patient and prudent, when I know that his judgments over my faults are right, and with two wings — namely, the knowledge of good and of evil — I strive to fly to him, so that with the right wing I may bring the left under me, in order that I may walk on a straight and level path.'
The Seven Planets on the Wheel
A transition noting the appearance of seven planets on the diverse circles of the visionary wheel at distinct intervals.
Concerning the seven planets on the different circles of the wheel of the image mentioned above, appearing at separate intervals.
Read the original Latin
« Castigans castigavit me Dominus, et morti non tradidit me. » Quod sic intellectui patet: Homo casualis et indisciplinatus multoties existit, nec timidus est, nisi omnes venae ipsius doloribus infundantur. Unde et diabolus primum hominem decepit, cum magnam vanitatem iniit, esse cupiens quod esse non debuit, et idcirco etiam magna tristitia cum dolore illi infusa est. Nam ex labore homo timorem habet, ex vanitate autem oblivionem, et ex praevaricatione legis stultam fiduciam. Sed omnia haec timor Domini excellit, quia homo per timorem coram Deo tremiscit, et quod in multis aliis nulla utilitas sit veraciter cognoscit. Timor enim in homine praecurrit, ac postea charitatem amplectitur, ubi homo Deum diligit, considerans quomodo eum placare possit, quatenus iniquitatis suae non recordetur, Sed cum homo Deum in amore quaerit, Deus illum saepe cum laboribus castigat, ita ut ille fiducialiter dicat: Flagellis suis castigans castigavit me peccatorem ille qui Dominus omnium est; sed tamen in eadem castigatione, qua me flagellat, morti infernalium poenarum non tradidit me, quia illum amando quaesivi, et peccata mea illi confessus sum, atque in ipsa patiens et prudens sum, quando judicia ejus super culpas meas recta cognosco, et cum duabus alis, scilicet scientiae boni et mali, ad illum volare studeo, ita ut cum dextra ala sinistram mihi subjiciam, quatenus recto et aequali tramite incedam.
De septem planetis in diversis circulis rotae supradictae imaginis distinctis intervallis apparentibus.
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