VISIO TERTIA, cap. XVIII
When the Body's Floods Drown the Soul
Excessive humors flooding the body become a mirror for disordered thoughts that inflame the soul with feverish vanity, cloud its understanding, and leave it sick with gluttony and impurity.
But sometimes the aforementioned humors flood the chest of a person with excessive moisture, and they moisten his liver with that dampness, from which very many and varied thoughts arise in that same person, so that he thinks himself now far too wise, now far too foolish; and from there those same humors, ascending to the brain, infect it, and descending to the stomach, they generate fevers in it, and so that person remains ill for a long time. In these things it is also shown that if a person's diverse thoughts, having laid aside their ferocity, spread themselves in softness, ease, and slippery vanity, they strive to suffocate justice in him with that feverishness. Hence, even when they arise in him in this way, they now lift him up as if into wisdom, now cast him down as if into foolishness, and confounding his knowledge, they instill gluttony in him, so that his soul, entangled by these evils as if by a lingering sickness, often suffers a dangerous oppression. They also sometimes touch the little veins of the ears with an excess of phlegm, and those same veins infect the veins of the lungs with that phlegm so that the person coughs and can barely breathe, and that same excess of phlegm, passing from the veins of the lungs to the veins of the heart, puts it in pain, and that pain, going to the side of that same person, excites pleurisy, and shakes him so much that he seems to have the falling sickness during the waning of the moon. These things also signify that sometimes diverse thoughts create such an uproar in a person that they so confound the hearing of his very soul that he can neither understand the good nor gather himself together, but he holds it as something to be coughed up in disgust. They also disturb his heart through madness in this way, so that it can receive no peace for the benefit of his soul, but, wavering this way and that in uprightness, he walks as if dying, because the light of uprightness is already clouded over for him. With an excessive flooding they also stir the entrails in a person's navel, and thus they ascend to his brain, often making him frenzied, and they shake the veins in his loins, and they also touch melancholy in him, so that he is disturbed in this way, and becomes sorrowful without discretion, since with an immoderate disturbance of slippery outpouring, the thoughts move desire in him according to his pleasure. They also tear apart his knowledge, so that it grows foul in wicked deeds, and they make him as if insane, and unchaste in impurity; sorrow also, when it cannot fulfill the desire of his flesh, darkens him.
Leprous Desire and the Rot of Indulgence
Unwholesome humors spreading through the body figure unclean thoughts that drag a person into lust, destroy abstinence, and heap up the stench of sin before God.
Sometimes, too, these same humors, through an unwholesome moistening, touch the veins of a person's kidneys, and those veins, once disturbed in this way, then infect the veins of that person's calves and the rest of the veins throughout his body with an excessive flood; and so the same person, when he has overindulged at that time in excessive food and drink, they sometimes inflict a thick leprosy upon him, because his flesh grows bloated. Through this it is shown that sometimes unclean thoughts, joined with slippery desire, touch a person and drag him toward shameful softness, and they drive away the strong abstinence that ought to subdue his flesh, and they gently lead him on into the greed that kindles the flames of lust; and so, like the rottenness of the leprosy of sinners, they infect the one who does not resist the pleasure of his own body. For whoever does not afflict his own flesh through fitting abstinence but feeds it with vices and desires is heaping up the fatness of sins for himself, and so he makes himself stink with filth before God.
The Tempered Body and the Song of Songs
A closing question points forward to the spiritual meaning of balanced humors and the testimony of the Song of Songs for inner progress.
What progress in your inner thoughts might also be signified by those same humors in the human body when they are evenly balanced and temperate, along with the testimony of the Song of Songs that harmonizes with this in its own interpretation.✦
Read the original Latin
Sed aliquando praefati humores in pectore hominis supramodum humiditate inundant, illique jecur ejus humiditate ista humectant, unde quamplurimae et variae cogitationes in eodem homine insurgunt, ita ut se nunc nimis sapientem, nunc nimis stultum esse putet; et inde idem humores ad cerebrum ascendentes illud inficiunt, atque ad stomachum descendunt, febresque in eo generant, sicque homo ille diu infirmatur. In his quoque ostenditur, quia si diversae cogitationes hominis feritate deposita, mollitie, et facilitate lubricaque vanitate se diffundunt, justitiam in illo fevitate ista suffocare nituntur. Unde et cum in eo sic insurgunt, eum nunc velut in sapientia attollunt, nunc quasi in stultitia deprimunt, scientiamque illius confundentes, voracitatem illi immittunt, ita ut anima illius his malis velut diuturno languore irretita, multoties periculosam oppressionem patiatur. Venulas quoque aurium cum superfluitate flegmatis, interdum tangunt, illaeque venas pulmonis cum eodem flegmate ita inficiunt, ut homo tussiat, et vix suspirare possit, et eadem superfluitas flegmatis de venis pulmonis ad venas cordis transiens, illud in dolorem ponat, dolorque iste ad latus ejusdem hominis vadens, pleurisim excitet, eumque ita concutiat, quasi caducum morbum in defectu lunae habeat. Haec etiam designant, quod aliquando variae cogitationes tantam tumultuationem in eodem homine faciunt, ut auditum animae ipsius ita confundant, quatenus nec bonum intelligere, nec in se colligere valeat, sed illud quasi tussiendo pro fastidio habeat. Cor etiam ejus per amentiam hoc modo conturbant, ut nullam quietem ad utilitatem animae suae recipere possit, sed ut hac et illac in rectitudine titubans, quasi moribundus incedat, quia lumen rectitudinis illi jam obnubilatur. Superflua etiam inundatione viscera in umbilico hominis movent, atque sic ad cerebrum illius ascendunt, eumque freneticum multoties faciunt, venasque in lumbis illius concutiunt, melancoliam quoque in ipso tangunt, ita ut ille hoc modo conturbetur, tristisque sine discretione efficiatur, quoniam immoderata etiam perturbatione lubricae effusionis cogitationes in illo concupiscentiam ad libitum suum movent. Scientiam quoque ipsius, ut in pravis actibus sordescat discindunt, eumque quasi vesanum, et in impudicitia incontinentem reddunt; tristitia quoque, cum voluptatem carnis suae perficere non potest, ipsum obfuscat.
Interdum quoque iidem humores in inconvenienti humectatione venas renum hominis tangunt, illaeque sic commotae, venas surarum illius, et caeteras venas corporis ipsius superflua inundatione inficiunt, et sic etiam idem homo superfluis cibis, et potibus tunc superabundaverit, pinguem lepram illi aliquando inferunt, quoniam carnes ejus ingrossescunt. Per quod demonstratur quoniam aliquando cogitationes immunda et lubrica voluptate hominem tangunt, et ad turpem mollitiem trahunt, fortemque abstinentiam, quae carnem illius domare deberet, ab eo depellunt, et in voracitatem, quae libidinis flammas accendit, ipsum molliter inducunt; unde et velut lepra putredine peccatorum illum inficiunt, qui voluptati corporis sui non resistit. Nam qui carnem suam per congruentem abstinentiam non macerat, sed eam cum vitiis et concupiscentiis nutrit, pinguedinem peccatorum sibimet accumulat, et sic coram Deo se in sordibus fetere facit.
Quid etiam profectus in interioribus cogitationum significent iidem humores in corpore hominis aequaliter et temperati, et testimonium de Canticis canticorum ad hoc consonans cum expositione sua.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Song.1.10 — Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of beads.
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