VISIO QUARTA, cap. X
The Path of the Just
The just person who loves justice holds fast to upright paths, grows in strength and holiness through good works, and receives wisdom that discerns life-giving ways from deadly ones.
"The just person will hold to their way, and the pure in hands will grow stronger still."✦1 This is also clear to understanding in the following way: a person who loves justice will hold to the paths of uprightness by effort of strength, and one who is clean of filth will acquire holiness through good works, since by abstaining from evil and turning to all that pleases God, they may attain that life which has no end.2 For the just person receives wisdom, and wisdom consists in that rational power which knows what is life-giving and what is mortal, and teaches the right paths.3
The Blindness of the Flesh
Carnal desire blinds the heart and obscures pure knowledge, leaving a person helpless until suffering brings self-knowledge and awareness of dependence on God.
But the blinding of the heart that arises from the taste of the flesh obscures pure knowledge, since it tries to do whatever it wants according to its own will, as though it were able.45 And so it stays blind until it comes to feel both its own wound and its injuries, so that it may become displeased with itself, reckoning how it could stand if it had withdrawn from God.67
Strengthened as a Firmament
A person strengthened in God becomes like a firmament, called always to behold God and God's works, since the rational creature was made above all things to know and glorify God.
Because a person who is strengthened in God is like a kind of firmament, and ought to carefully consider God and God's works at all times — since, among all things, God made the rational creature especially for this: to know and to glorify him.
Read the original Latin
« Et tenebit justus viam suam, et mundus manibus addet fortitudinem . » Quod etiam sic intellectui patet: Homo qui justitiam diligit, itinera rectitudinis conatu fortitudinis tenebit, et qui a sordibus mundus existit, bonis operibus acquiret sanctitatem, cum se a malis abstinens, ad omne quod Deo placet se convertit, quatenus vitam illam quae sine fine est adipiscatur. Justus enim sapientiam capit, et sapientia in rationalitate illa est quae vitale et mortale scit et recta itinera docet. Obcaecatio autem cordis, quae ex gustu carnis exoritur, puram scientiam obnubilat, cum secundum voluntatem suam quaecunque vult, se facere posse tentat. Unde et tandiu caecatur quousque ipsam et vulnera sua sentiat, ita ut sibimetipsi displiceat, reputans quomodo stare possit si a Deo recesserit.
Quia homo instar firmamenti cujusdam in Deo roboratus, ipsum et opera ejus sedule semper considerare debeat, quoniam ad cognoscendum et glorificandum se inter omnia maxime rationalem creaturam fecit Deus.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Prov.20.28 — Steadfast love and faithfulness guard the king, and by steadfast love his throne is upheld.
Notes
- 1 ↩The quotation echoes Proverbs 20:28 (Vulgate): 'Et tenebit justus viam suam, et mundus manibus addet fortitudinem.' Final source resolution belongs to a later stage.
- 2 ↩'quatenus' rendered as 'so that…may' to capture the purpose/result force of the subjunctive clause.
- 3 ↩'rationalitas' rendered as 'rational power' to capture the faculty sense of the abstract noun.
- 4 ↩'obcaecatio' rendered as 'blinding' to capture the active sense of the noun rather than a static 'blindness.'
- 5 ↩'cum' rendered as 'since' (causal) rather than 'when' (temporal), as the context favors explaining why pure knowledge is obscured.
- 6 ↩'Unde et' rendered as 'And so' to capture the inferential force of 'unde' with the additive 'et.'
- 7 ↩'ita ut' rendered as 'so that' to express the result/purpose clause with the subjunctive 'displiceat.'
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