VISIO QUINTA, cap. XXII
The First Light and the Apostles' Mission
God's creative word that brought light into being is echoed when the Holy Spirit fills the apostles, making them one burning light of truth for the world.
God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.✦ Through the Holy Spirit God spoke to the apostles, saying: "Be a burning light, teaching truth in the name of the Holy Trinity."1 Filled at once with the Holy Spirit, they opened the enclosure in which they had been shut in, and became one light, shining into the world with their teachings.✦
Dividing Light from Darkness
God saw that the light was good and separated it from darkness, naming them Day and Night.
"And God saw the light, that it was good, and he divided the light from the darkness.✦ He called the light Day, and the darkness Night.✦
The Apostles as One Day for the World
The apostles are the one Day whose light, shining through the Son's preaching, endures from Abel's morning to Christ's evening and on to the end of the age.
"God saw that they — the light — would be useful to the world, and he divided the light (that is, the apostles) from the darkness (namely, the unbelief of unbelievers), and he called that light one Day, which through his Word (who is his Son) shines on the world by speaking to them in the flesh through their preaching; and the darkness too (that is, the unbelief of the unbelievers) he called Night. "And there was evening, and there was morning: one day.✦ When the unbelief of unbelievers began, as it were, to decline toward evenings, this came to pass in the evening with its passing, and the morning of the first light — that is, the beginning of the faithful's faith — was one day, because there is one faith through which the one God is believed, since its first rising in Abel was consummated in a good end in Christ; and therefore in the evening the Son of God was felt and touched with the work of salvation, and this one day endures to the end of the world, because Abel was as it were the morning, and the Son of God as it were the evening of that day.✦2
A New Angle on the Same Vision
The vision turns to a fresh interpretive approach.
And again, in another way:
The Creation Story as a Mirror of the Soul
The events of Genesis about the first day are to be understood morally within the composite nature of the human person, soul and body alike.
How these same things that are written in Genesis about the creation of heaven and earth, or about the work of the first day, are to be understood in the life of a human being, made up of the diverse natures of soul and body, in a moral sense.✦
Read the original Latin
« Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux, et facta est lux. » Locutus est Deus per Spiritum sanctum apostolis dicens: « Estote ardens lumen, veritatem in nomine sanctae Trinitatis docentes. » Qui statim Spiritu sancto accensi, clausuram in qua inclusi erant aperientes, lumen unum facti sunt, in mundum cum doctrinis suis ita fulgentes. « Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona, et divisit lucem a tenebris. Appellavitque lucem diem, et tenebras noctem. » Vidit Deus quoniam ipsi lumen utile mundo essent, et divisit lumen, id est apostolos, a tenebris, scilicet ab infidelitate incredulorum, et appellavit lumen istud diem unum, qui per Verbum suum, quod Filius ejus est, eis in carne loquens, mundo in praedicatione eorum lucet; tenebras quoque, scilicet infidelitatem infidelium, appellavit noctem. « Factumque est vespere et mane dies unus. » Infidelitate incredulorum quasi ad vesperas se declinare incipiente, factum est hoc vespere cum transitu suo, et mane primae lucis, id est initium fidei fidelium dies unus, quod unica fides est, per quam unus Deus creditur, quia primus ortus in Abel, bono fine in Christo consummatus est, et ideo vespere Filium Dei cum opere salvationis sensit et tetigit, quod usque in finem mundi dies unus perseverat, quia Abel quasi mane et Filius Dei quasi vesperum diei fuit.
Et iterum alio modo:
Quomodo haec eadem quae de creatione coeli et terrae, vel de opere primi diei in Genesi scripta sunt, in conversatione hominis ex diversis naturis animae et corporis constantis juxta moralem sensum accipienda sunt.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.1.3 — And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
- ↩Acts.2.3-Acts.2.4 — And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed, and it sat upon each one of them. Acts.2.4 — And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
- ↩Gen.1.4 — And God saw the light, that it was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
- ↩Gen.1.5 — And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning: the first day.
- ↩Gen.1.5 — And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning: the first day.
- ↩Gen.1.5 — And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening, and there was morning: the first day.
- ↩Gen.1.1-Gen.1.3 — In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Gen.1.2 — And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Gen.1.3 — And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Notes
- 1 ↩The participle ardens is grammatically singular while the addressees (vos/plural) are plural; the sense is "be burning ones as a light," rendered here as "be a burning light" to preserve the collective apostolic image.
- 2 ↩The allegorical framework maps salvation history onto the Genesis day structure: Abel as morning (origin of faith), Christ as evening (consummation), and the age of the Church as one continuous day. The Latin is dense and the syntax compressed; the translation follows the most plausible allegorical reading.
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