VISIO QUARTA, cap. XV
The Soul's Sovereign Ascent
The soul rules the body from its crown, using the senses as steps to ascend into knowledge and either love or hatred of creation.
The top of the head, then, signifies the beginning of the soul's work: with reason running all around it, the soul arranges and orders the whole work of a human being, and the soul itself stands like a crown, discerning within the human body what the body demands and desires, and by means of those four steps — ascending and descending, which are sight, hearing, smell, and taste — it carries out its work, and through these it also understands and perceives created things, while its fleshly vessel reaches out with the soul itself toward the creatures, drawing them to itself according to its own will. With every creature, too, as it grows — like air carrying out all the body's desires — the soul flies, and in the knowledge of the names of creatures according to the body it is lifted up, whether into love or into hatred of them.
The Body's Symmetry and Snare
The equal proportions of the human body mirror the firmament and discern good and evil, yet through bodily taste the soul becomes ensnared and breathless.
For the length of a human being's height and the breadth of his arms and hands, extended equally from the chest, are equal — just as the firmament, too, has equal length and breadth — because it is through the measure of a human being's length and breadth, which are equal in him, that the knowledge of good and evil is understood: what is good it knows in what is useful, and what is evil, in what is useless. For through taste — the taste of flesh and blood and the other members — the soul is ensnared, just as a wild beast is captured by a hunter, so that the soul can scarcely catch its breath before the body has satisfied its desires, and afterward the body makes the soul sigh along with it, over and over again.
The Divine Likeness
Both the firmament and humankind bear a profound likeness to their Maker, revealing God's design within the human soul.
Because in its formation the firmament and humankind both received a great likeness from their Maker, God — and what is shown through this in the soul of the human person itself.
Read the original Latin
Summitas namque capitis incoeptionem operis animae designat, quae cum circumeunte rationalitate omne opus hominis disponit et ordinat, et ipsa anima ut vertex existens, ea in corpore hominis discernit, quae corpus postulat et desiderat, illaque operatur quatuor gradus ascendendo et descendendo, qui sunt visus, auditus, odoratus et gustus, in quibus etiam creaturas intelligit et sentit, atque carneum vas ejus cum ipsa ad creaturas se extendit, illas secundum velle suum sibi attrahens. Cum omni etiam crescente creatura, velut aer in omnibus desideriis corporis ea perficiendo volat, atque in cognitione nominum creaturarum secundum corpus, seu in amorem, seu in odium illorum elevatur. Nam longitudo staturae hominis latitudoque ipsius, brachiis et manibus aequaliter a pectore extensis, aequales sunt, quemadmodum etiam firmamentum aequalem longitudinem et latitudinem habet, quia etiam per mensuram longitudinis et latitudinis hominis, quae in ipso aequales sunt, scientia boni et mali intelligitur, quae in utilitate bonum, in inutilitate vero malum scit. Per gustum enim carnis et sanguinis caeterorum membrorum anima irretitur, sicut et per venatorem bestia capitur, ita ut anima vix suspirare possit, antequam corpus concupiscentias suas perficiat, et postmodum corpus multoties secum suspirare facit.
Quod in constitutione sua firmamentum et homo multam similitudinem ab opifice suo Deo acceperunt, et quid per hoc in anima ipsius hominis demonstretur.
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