VISIO QUINTA, cap. XVIII
The Beginning in the Son
God creates all things through his Word, the eternal Beginning, who enters the world through the Virgin and becomes the source of every justice that truly saves.
"In the beginning God created heaven and earth."✦ This should be considered as follows: In the beginning of time that was beginning, when God through his Word was creating all things, he created heaven and earth — that is, the first matter, in which every heavenly and earthly creature that would go forth through the Word of God lay hidden.✦ Similarly, God acted in the creation of the Church before he built it. He began, beginning in the beginning — that is, in his Son — whom he sent into the world through the virgin's golden gate, within the enclosure of her chastity. Through him all things — namely, heaven and earth — were created, as John the evangelist, the beloved of God, says, and in the same way every justice, heavenly and earthly, has been accomplished in him.✦ And how is he the beginning, who was born in the Father before the ages? Before the ages he was born in the Father spiritually, not carnally; but incarnate, he exists as the beginning of all justice, because every justice that the ancient saints possessed before his birth did not live in salvation, nor did it lead man back into it. That justice, indeed, which arose in him — namely, baptism and the Gospel, and believing in one God in the name of the holy Trinity — this is what leads man back into paradise.
Christ the Origin of the Church
As Adam began perdition, Christ begins salvation and the building of the Church, prefigured in prophetic shadow until he appears in flesh and the Spirit's regeneration is fully revealed.
For this reason he himself is the beginning of salvation in his own work, just as Adam was the beginning of perdition in his own work. And just as he himself is the Word that brought forth every creature — because all things were made through him — so too in his humanity he is the origin of all the building up of the holy Church. How? He himself, in the preaching of the prophets who foretold that he would come, was like a shadow — just as, from Abel right up to the birth of the Son of God himself, every justice that was a shadow of the Church, which arose from the side of Christ in his blood. This justice, through the regeneration of the Spirit and of water — which never existed before, except insofar as John the Baptist proclaimed it in the shadow of baptism, in its own form — then appeared in full, since Christ himself, who before his birth had been foretold by the prophets as it were in shadow, appeared as a man in the flesh, as the Psalmist David says in my Spirit:12
The Spring of Truth and Teaching
David's words in the first psalm are opened to reveal the Incarnation of the Son of God and the fruitful teaching that springs forth for the whole world.
The words of David the prophet in the first psalm, and how they may be understood concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God and the fertility of the fruitfulness of his teaching, [the spring/truth] of the whole world.
Read the original Latin
« In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram . » Hoc considerandum sic est: In principio incipientis temporis, cum Deus per Verbum suum omnia crearet, creavit coelum et terram, id est primam materiam, in qua omnis coelestis et terrestris creatura per Verbum Dei processura latuit. Similiter Deus in creatione Ecclesiae fecit, antequam eam construeret. Ipse incoepit, incipiens in principio, id est in Filio suo, quem per auream portam virginis, in clausura pudicitiae ejus, in mundum misit. Per ipsum omnia, scilicet coelum et terra creata sunt, sicut Joannes evangelista dilectus Dei dicit, atque eodem modo omnis justitia coelestis et terrestris in ipso facta est. Et quomodo est ipse principium, qui ante saecula in Patre natus est? Ante saecula in Patre spiritaliter non carnaliter natus est; ipse autem incarnatus initium omnis justitiae existit, quia quaeque justitia, quam antiqui sancti ante nativitatem ejus habuerunt, in salvatione non vixit, neque hominem in eam reduxit. Illa vero justitia, quae in eo surrexit, scilicet baptismus et Evangelium, et unum Deum in nomine sanctae Trinitatis credere, ipsa hominem in paradisum reducit.
Quapropter ipse principium salvationis in opere suo est, ut Adam initium perditionis in opere suo fuit. Et quemadmodum ipse Verbum illud est, quod omnem creaturam produxit, quia omnia per ipsum facta sunt, sic etiam in humanitate sua principium omnis aedificationis sanctae Ecclesiae est. Quomodo? Ipse in praedicatione prophetarum, qui eum venturum esse praedixerunt, quasi umbra erat, velut etiam ab Abel usque ad nativitatem ipsius Filii Dei, quaeque justitia umbra Ecclesiae fuit, quae de latere Christi in sanguine ejus orta est. Quae per regenerationem spiritus et aquae, quae nunquam ante fuit nisi quantum Joannes Baptista in umbra baptismi pronuntiavit, in forma sua tunc pleniter apparuit, quoniam ipse Christus, qui ante nativitatem suam quasi umbra a prophetis praedictus erat, homo in carne apparuit, ut Psalmista David in Spiritu meo dicit:
Verba David prophetae in psalmo primo, et quomodo intelligantur, de Incarnatione Filii Dei et fertilitate fructificationis doctrinae ejus ver omnem mundum.
Scripture echoes
Notes
- 1 ↩The phrase 'regenerationem spiritus et aquae' combines Spirit and water in language evoking both baptismal theology and Johannine new birth; 'regeneration' is retained as the medieval theological term.
- 2 ↩The closing 'ut Psalmista David in Spiritu meo dicit' introduces a psalm quotation whose specific source is deferred for resolution.
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