VISIO TERTIA, cap. XIV
The Body's Warning Against Rash Zeal
Just as hasty exertion strains the body's veins and brings exhaustion, so undisciplined pursuit of virtue bends a person toward weariness, presumption, and despair.
But when a person sometimes runs hastily, or makes his way by walking, the tendons beneath the knees and the small veins in the knees that are stretched beyond measure press against the veins in the calves, which are interconnected like a net and very numerous; and so, in fatigue, as they return to the liver's veins, they cause those veins to press against the brain's veins, and in this way they send the whole body into exhaustion. For even when a person sometimes seizes the path of uprightness without discernment, the immoderation of its tenor bends him toward every kind of inconvenience, and also leads his abstinence into an unjust manner of knowledge, so that when he immoderately refrains from what is permitted, he falls into weariness in other virtues; and when he thinks he can return to justice and possesses superabundant knowledge, he prepares for himself the snare of exhaustion, because through this incongruous abstinence he makes light of the rashness of audacity and presumption, and doubts whether he can persevere in this way at all—and so he crashes into the snare of despair.
The Liver's Warmth and True Abstinence
Indiscriminate abstinence inflames concupiscence rather than calming it, but abstinence rooted in God draws desire into the fire of justice and shatters it.
The veins of the kidneys, however, reach the left calf more than the right, because the right calf is strengthened by the warmth of the liver—that is, just as the tenor of concupiscence, when abstinence is incongruous and indiscriminate, is increased more than it is diminished by it, since it is neither according to God nor for God's sake; for abstinence that operates with discernment is strengthened by the power of justice. To the veins of the kidneys, then, the veins of the right calf also ascend, and their veins press against the liver's veins; and the liver warms the kidneys as they lie in the fat that comes from the humors, so that pleasure is quickly extended—both brought in and drawn out—and just as quickly ceases, because when the liver gives warmth to a person, he is playful and cheerful, since the abstinence that is true in God also passes through the tenor of concupiscence, draws it to the judgment of justice, and shatters it there, to the point that it perishes utterly.
Justice Burns Away Filth and Yields Joy
Justice consumes the residue of evil with the Holy Spirit's fire, turning former pleasure into compunction, so the justified sinner reaps joy.
But justice, reducing to nothing what lay in the fat of filth, burns it with the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that the evils that were in it are stretched out into compunction and bitterness—although they had previously shown some pleasure in themselves, however brief—because the sinner who has been justified will harvest his reward in joy.✦
Corrupted Humors and the Soul's Affliction
When the body's humors are corrupted, disease follows and the soul is likewise afflicted according to what those corruptions signify.
So when the phlegm and humors in a person are sometimes corrupted, the result is that the person himself falls into a disease in the body — either a wasting sickness or other infirmities — and by these evils the soul too is commonly afflicted, according to what those corruptions signify.12
Read the original Latin
Sed cum homo interdum festinanter currit, seu incedendo iter facit, nervi qui sub genibus existunt, venulaeque quae in genibus sunt supramodum distentae, venas in suris quae ut rete sibi connexae et plurimae sunt, tangunt, et sic in fatigatione ad venas jecoris redeuntes, illas cerebri venas tangere faciunt, et hoc modo totum corpus in fatigationem mittunt. Quoniam et cum homo interdum viam rectitudinis indiscrete arripit, immoderatio tenoris hujus illum ad quaeque inconvenientia flectens, abstinentiam quoque in ipso in injustum modum scientiae ducit, ita ut cum ille a licitis se immoderate abstinet, in aliis virtutibus taedium incurrit; et cum se ad justitiam redire, et superabundantem scientiam habere putat, laqueum fatigationis sibi paret, quia per hanc incongruentem abstinentiam audaciae et praesumptionis temeritatem parvipendens, se hoc modo perseverare posse solummodo dubitat, sicque in laqueum desperationis corruit. Venae autem renum suram sinistram illi subvenientes magis tangunt quam dextram, quia sura dextra a calore jecoris confortatur, ita videlicet sicut et tenor concupiscentiae per abstinentiam cum incongrua et indiscreta est magis augmentatur, quam per eam minuatur, quoniam nec secundum Deum, nec propter Deum est, quia abstinentia quae cum discretione operatur, virtute justitiae roboratur. Ad venas quoque renum, atque illorum venae surae dextrae ascendunt, illarumque venae jecoris venas tangunt, et jecur renes in pinguedine, quae ex humoribus est, jacentes calefacit, ita ut extendatur velociter delectationem inducentes et educentes, citoque cessantes, quia cum jecur homini calorem dat, ille joculatur et laetus est, quoniam et tenorem concupiscentiae abstinentia quae in Deo vera est, transit, illamque ad judicium justitiae pertrahit, et ibidem discutit, quatenus omnino pereat. Sed justitia ipsam quae in pinguedine sordium jacebat ad nihilum ducens, igne Spiritus sancti comburit, ita ut mala quae in ea fuerunt, ad contritionem et ad amaritudinem extendantur, cum prius delectationem quamvis brevem in se ostenderent, quia homo peccator justificatus in gaudio mercedem metet.
Quibus de causis flegmate et humoribus interdum in homine corruptis, ipse homo in corpore vel caducum morbum vel alias infirmitates incurrat, et quibus malis secundum horum significantias in anima plerumque corripiatur.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.126.5 — Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin is a relative clause of result (quibus...corruptis, ipse homo...incurrat): the corrupted humors are both the physical cause of bodily illness and, through their moral-spiritual 'significationes', a source of affliction to the soul.
- 2 ↩'Significantias' (medieval Latin) rendered 'what those corruptions signify' to preserve the idea that the physical corruptions carry a spiritual meaning, not merely a medical one.
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