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← Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works)/Book 2 · Liber Divinorum Operum — Pars 2
Chapter 23LDO.2.23

VISIO QUINTA, cap. XXIII

The Soul's First Creation and Fall

God's original creation of the human person in moral uprightness is contrasted with the fall into vanity and sin through the devil's counsel, using Genesis 1:1–2 as a framework for interior life.

In the beginning God created heaven and earth.✦ This is how you should understand it: When I, God, shape a person in the beginning of a kind of creation, forming upright moral character, I create in him a living knowledge of good and evil, in such a way that he avoids evil and imitates me, his Father, in what is good. To him I have given the discernment of good and evil, patterned after my own likeness, so that with that knowledge he might discern all creatures, and knowing them, might exercise authority over them after me.1 But the person himself, leaving me behind through the great vanity prompted by the devil, falls into the tearful labor of sins, because, born in the fragile nature of Adam, he abandons the joyful knowledge that would never have wounded him.2 Yet in his soul he has something that often yearns toward heavenly desires with right longings — this is like heaven within him. But in the flesh he has what always seeks earthly desires. And so, because of the fragility that arose in him from Adam, and because of the counsel of the devil, the deceiver, he can never be without the taint of sin — this is like earth.3 Now the earth was empty and void, and darkness was over the face of the abyss.✦ A person who can never be stable in character is a great emptiness, and like a shifting sea, always surging. But just as in the creation of the world, creature proceeded in orderly sequence from creature out of primary matter, so a person ought to ascend through good desires from virtue to virtue, as I established him in his first creation. As it is, through the devil's counsel he subverts good desires into great vanity — as was said before — and in that moral vanity he freely neglects good works.

The Abyss of Sin and the Spirit over the Waters

The sinner's bondage is described through the body-soul abyss imagery, and the Holy Spirit's movement over the waters is interpreted as the grace that produces tears and compunction before any good work, culminating in the creation of light.

That's why anyone entangled in dark deeds that lead to a depraved life is dominated by the body to such a degree that whoever commits sin becomes a slave to sin. The body is, as it were, the face of the abyss, while the soul is like the abyss itself: the body is visible and tangible, just as the face of the abyss is, but the soul is invisible and intangible, just as the abyss of the earth is. 'And the Spirit of God was moving over the waters.'✦ 'While a faithful person is entangled in sins, from time to time they sigh toward God.' How so? Out of the compunction that arises within them from the grace of the Holy Spirit, they bring forth the moisture of tears, because every good work ought to be preceded by heartfelt sighs. And just as in the first creation the waters were preferred before the other creatures by the breathing out of the Spirit of God, being joined to the Holy Spirit in a special significance, so also the Holy Spirit himself produces the moisture of tears from a person's heart before the beginning of good works. And God said: 'Let there be light,' and there was light.✦

Let There Be Light: Repentance and the Day of Salvation

The soul's rising from repentance into good works is presented as the interior fulfillment of God's creative word, with the division of light from darkness interpreted as God's merciful separation of good works from evil and the naming of the day of salvation.

God, in the admonition of the Holy Spirit, says: Now let the building up of good works take place after compunction of the heart in this man, and let the greenness of fruit be brought forth in him, so that light may be made in his soul. Then a person rises with the sadness of repentance into the light of good works. How so? Restoring himself with respect to the forbidden desires and pleasures of the flesh, and drawing away the evil to himself, he begins to work in that newness of light, which he did not recognize before, while he slept in the enticing desires of the flesh, and so at the outset his work may be bright. "And God saw the light, that it was good, and he divided the light from the darkness."✦ And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night.✦ When God, therefore, sees that man beginning to work good, and his house so shining, knowing and seeing the beginning of good in him, he looks upon him lovingly and embracingly. And in the same beginning he separates those bright works from the contagion of dark deeds, which pertains to torments, and this is the division: that God, seeing the good in that man, removes the evil from him, and he also names the bright works in himself the day of salvation, because in those good works he calls back souls to himself from the perdition that was in Adam, calling the contrary works the night of perdition, which raised itself up in the devil, the father of murder. "And there was evening and morning, one day."✦✦4

One Day of Conversion

The joining of the old evening of evil with the new morning of good works becomes a single day of spiritual strength, because compunction is the first strength of light.

So in that person, that evening custom of evil work, joined to the beginning of undertaking good works, becomes as it were one day of a single strength in the morning — because leaving evil behind, the person has joined himself to the good, since compunction is the first strength of light.✦56

A Glance Ahead: The Firmament and the Waters

A transitional note points forward to the literal and spiritual understanding of the firmament and the dividing of the waters, with a reference to Psalm 18.

How the things that are read about the establishment of the firmament and the dividing of the waters are to be understood according to the letter, and how the words of David from Psalm eighteen pertain to the same.

Read the original Latin

« In principio creavit Deus coelum et terram. » Hoc considerandum sic est: Dum ego Deus hominem quasi in principio cujusdam creationis in bonis moribus formo, viventem scientiam boni et mali in illo creo, ita videlicet ut malum devitet, et me Patrem suum in bono imitetur, qui discretionem boni et mali ad similitudinem meam ipsi dedi, ad hoc ut cum scientia illa omnes creaturas discernat, easque cognoscens potestatem super eas post me habeat. Sed ipse homo per magnam vanitatem diabolo suadente me dimittens, in lacrymabiles labores peccatorum cadit, quia in fragili natura Adae natus, laetam scientiam, quae eum nullatenus vulneraret, relinquit. Attamen in anima sua habet quod in rectis suspiriis ad coelestia desideria frequenter anhelat, quod quasi coelum est, in carne autem habens, quod terrena desideria semper requirit, quapropter de fragilitate quae sibi de Adam orta est, et de consilio insidiatoris diaboli, sine contagione peccati nunquam esse potest, quod quasi terra est. « Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebrae erant super faciem abyssi. » Homo qui in moribus suis nunquam stabilis esse potest, magna inanitas est, et quasi fluctuatio maris semper inundat. Sed sicut in creatione mundi creatura post creaturam de prima materia ordinate processit, ita homo deberet per bona desideria de virtute in virtutem ascendere, ut eum in prima creatione institui. Nunc autem per consilium diaboli bona desideria in magnam vanitatem ut praedictum est subvertit, et in ipsa vanitate morum a bonis operibus libenter vacat.

Quapropter tenebrosis factis quae ad pravos mores pertinent circumdatus est, qui supra corpus ita dominantur, ut qui facit peccatum servus sit peccati. Et corpus quasi facies abyssi, anima autem velut abyssus est, quia corpus visibile et palpabile sicut facies abyssi, anima vero invisibilis et impalpabilis sicut abyssus terrae existit. « Et Spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. » Dum homo fidelis in peccatis implicatur, ad Deum aliquando suspirat. Quomodo? Ex compunctione quae de gratia Spiritus sancti in ipso surgit, humores lacrymarum profert, quia omne bonum opus suspiria praecedere debent. Et sicut in prima creatione aquae prae aliis creaturis de exspiratione Spiritus Dei praelatae sunt, Spiritui sancto in significatione specialiter adjunctae, ita etiam ipse Spiritus sanctus ante incoeptionem bonorum operum humorem lacrymarum de corde hominis producit. Dixitque Deus: « Fiat lux, et facta est lux.

» Deus in admonitione Spiritus sancti dicit: Nunc aedificatio bonorum operum post compunctionem cordis in homine isto fiat, et viriditas fructus in eo producatur, unde lux in anima ipsius fiat. Tunc homo cum tristitia poenitentiae in luce bonorum operum surgit. Quomodo? De illicitis desideriis voluptatum carnis seipsum restaurans, malumque sibi abstrahens, incipit in illa novitate lucis operari, quam prius non agnovit, dum in illecebrosis desideriis carnis dormiret, et sic in initio opus ipsius lucidum sit. « Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona, et divisit lucem a tenebris. Appellavitque lucem diem, et tenebras noctem. » Cum ergo Deus hominem illum bonum operari incipientem, et domum ejus ita fulgentem viderit, sciens et videns initium boni in eo, amando et amplectendo eum inspicit. Et in eodem initio illa lucida opera a contagione tenebrosorum factorum quae ad tormenta pertinet separat, et hoc divisio illa est, quod Deus bonum in homine illo videns, malum ab eo removet, lucida quoque opera in se ipso diem salvationis nominat, quia in ipsis bonis operibus animas ad se de perditione, quae in Adam fuit revocat, contraria opera noctem perditionis vocans, quae se in diabolo patre homicidii erexit, « Factumque est vespere et mane dies unus.

» Sic in homine illo vespertina illa consuetudo mali operis cum initio incoeptionis bonorum operum, quasi in mane unius virtutis dies unus fit, quia relinquens malum, bono se adjunxit, eo quod compunctio prima virtus lucis sit.

Quomodo ea quae de constitutione firmamenti et divisione aquarum leguntur ad litteram intelligenda sint et verba David ex psalmo XVIII ad idem spectantia.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gen.1.1 — In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
  2. ↩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.
  3. ↩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.
  4. ↩Gen.1.3 — And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
  5. ↩Gen.1.4 — And God saw the light, that it was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.
  6. ↩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.
  7. ↩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.
  8. ↩John.8.44 — You are of your father the devil, and you desire to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks from his own, for he is a liar and the father of it.
  9. ↩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.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The Latin is a long periodic sentence; broken into readable English clauses while preserving the purpose clauses (ut...ut) and the connective force of ita videlicet ut.
  2. 2 ↩vanitas rendered as 'vanity' per lexeme policy; lacrymabiles rendered as 'tearful' to capture the emotional weight.
  3. 3 ↩The Latin is a single long sentence; rendered with readable punctuation while preserving the contrastive autem and the comparative quasi clauses.
  4. 4 ↩The phrase 'pater homicidii' (father of murder) applied to the devil echoes John 8:44; the contrast between the day of salvation and the night of perdition structures the whole sentence.
  5. 5 ↩The image plays on the Genesis pattern of evening-to-morning: the 'evening' habit of sin gives way to the 'morning' of a new life of good works. Virtus rendered 'strength' in the sense of moral power or vigor.
  6. 6 ↩Compunctio kept as 'compunction' per lexeme policy; here described as the 'first strength of light' — the piercing grace that begins interior illumination.

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