VISIO QUINTA, cap. XXVIII
The Unheard Cry
Christ declares 'I don't know you' to those who know him but refuse to do righteous works, suppress their souls' longings, and never cry out to him in prayer.
"Amen, amen, I say to you: I don't know you."✦ This is how it's to be understood: I, who say this to you most surely—you who, drawn by the taste of the flesh according to your desires, are completely extinguished—'I don't know you,' because, though you know me, you don't reach out to me in a way that does the virtues of righteous works, the works I proposed for your true knowledge, nor do you ask me for them. You also hold back the longings of your own souls, forcing them toward this: that the will of the flesh may reach its goal, and that no help may be sought from me. For who can answer the one whose voice and words aren't heard? No one. You, for your part, direct no cry to me. And what gift will be given to the one who neither seeks nor asks for anything, but who flees from the gift with a mute voice? Truly, none.
Excluded from God's Eyes
Those who forget God through wicked works and earthly attachment are excluded from his sight, yet a good end in Christ surpasses any good beginning.
And so you ask nothing from me. For those who don't cry out to me with the soul's sighing, and don't attend to me with heart and mind — being forgetful of me, as though I had not given them knowledge, I don't know — and this especially because through wicked works they provoke me.1 For on account of the idleness of their own foolishness they don't look toward me, and the discernment of virtuous minds — which are kindled by the Holy Spirit — they reject because of their embrace of the flesh.2 And so they are excluded from my eyes. For they choose one thing but cast away another: they grasp the earth with its freshness, yet neglect heaven for the sake of their pleasures. They knock with voice alone — they wish to enter without effort — but therefore its gate will not be opened.3 For all virtues can be discerned through what is heavenly and through what is earthly, since man walks on the earth yet looks up to heaven, and in these two he must choose what he loves according to God and what he holds in hatred, so that in goodness he reaches toward heavenly things and turns himself away from evil.4 Thus indeed each person's beginning is said to be unknown to God, whose end even he himself doesn't approve.5 And just as in the end of the world — which is far more useful than its beginning — salvation arose in my Son, because in him beginning was destruction, but in him end was salvation proceeding onward; so also a good end is far more useful than a good beginning.6
The Second Light of Discernment
The second light of discernment is a good work, like the second day of creation, yet even this good work lacks the full praise of goodness.
In this way the second light of discernment is a good work, just as the second day is good. And so, even by moral standards, the work of the second can be said — since it is good — to lack the praise of goodness.7
Read the original Latin
« Amen, amen dico vobis, Nescio vos . » Hoc considerandum sic est: Ego qui sum certissime dico vobis, qui propter gustum carnis secundum concupiscentias vestras operantes, ex toto exstincti estis: « Nescio vos, » quia me cognoscendo ita non tangitis, ut virtutes justorum operum, quas bonae scientiae vestrae proposui, faciatis, nec eas a me petatis. Animae etiam vestrae suspiria sua prohibetis, illam ad hoc cogentes, ut voluntatem carnis perficiat, et nullum auxilium a me quaerat. Quis enim potest illi respondere, cujus vox et verba non audiuntur? Nullus. Vos enim nullum clamorem ad me dirigitis. Et quod donum illi dabitur, qui nec aliquid quaerit, nec postulat, sed qui muta voce donum fugit? Vere nullum.
Itaque vos a me nihil postulatis. Nam illos qui cum suspirio animae non clamant ad me, et me corde et mente non attendunt, utpote mei oblitos, quasi scientiam eis non dederim nescio, et ob hoc maxime quia per iniqua opera me irritant. Nam propter otiositatem fatuitatis suae ad me non respiciunt, et discretionem virtuosarum mentium quae de Spiritu sancto accenduntur propter amplexionem carnis repudiant. Unde et ab oculis meis exclusi sunt. Unum enim eligunt, at aliud abjiciunt, quia terram cum viriditate sua apprehendunt, et coelum propter voluptates suas negligunt, sola voce pulsant, sine opere ingredi volunt, sed idcirco porta ejus aperiri non poterit. Omnes namque virtutes per coelestia et per terrestria discerni possunt, quia homo in terra ambulat, et coelum suspicit, ac in his duabus eum eligere oportet, quid secundum Deum diligat, et quid odio habeat, ita ut in bono ad coelestia tendat, et a malo se avertat. Sic utique dicitur Deo ignotum uniuscujusque hominis initium, cujus etiam finem ipse non approbat. Et ut in fine mundi qui multo utilior initio ipsius est, salvatio in Filio meo surrexit, quia in ipso initio perditio, in ipso autem fine salvatio processit; ita etiam bonus finis multo utilior quam bonum initium est.
Tali modo discretio secunda lux boni operis, ut dies secundus est.
Quare etiam juxta moralitatem opus secundi dici, cum bonum sit, laude bonitatis careat.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Matt.25.12 — But he answered, 'Truly, I tell you, I do not know you.'
Notes
- 1 ↩The clause 'quasi scientiam eis non dederim nescio' is rendered to capture the sense of forgetfulness of God as a cause of spiritual ignorance; the Latin is compressed and the syntax is somewhat strained, but the intended meaning is that those who forget God act as though they never received knowledge from him.
- 2 ↩'amplexionem carnis' rendered as 'embrace of the flesh' to capture the sense of cleaving to bodily desire; the phrase carries a negative connotation of disordered attachment.
- 3 ↩'sola voce pulsant, sine opere ingredi volunt' — the contrast between knocking with mere words and willingness to enter without rendered work/effort is preserved. 'opus' here means concrete effort or deed, not 'work' in the modern labor sense.
- 4 ↩'per coelestia et per terrestria' — the spatial/prepositional language is rendered through 'what is heavenly / what is earthly' to capture the sense that virtues are tested and revealed in both realms of human experience.
- 5 ↩The sense of 'Deo ignotum ... initium' is rendered to convey that the beginning of a person's path is hidden from God's approval or knowledge in the sense meant here — the emphasis falls on God not endorsing the end of one whose beginning was unrighteous. The compressed Latin leaves some ambiguity about whether 'ignotum' means 'unknown' or 'disapproved'; the rendering preserves the negative divine judgment sense.
- 6 ↩'in ipso initio perditio, in ipso autem fine salvatio processit' — the sense is that in Christ the beginning (of his incarnation and earthly life) involved destruction/suffering, but in his end (resurrection and exaltation) salvation proceeded. The rendering captures this Christological movement from death to resurrection as the pattern for the spiritual life.
- 7 ↩The phrase 'opus secundi' is syntactically ambiguous: it could mean 'the work of the second [person/day/vision]' or 'the second work.' Given the preceding section's analogy linking discretio to the second day, 'the work of the second' (i.e., of the second day/person) is the more plausible reading in context.
Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works) companion
Don't stop at Day 30
All 317 chapters live in the free Chosen Portion app, paced for daily reading
Hildegard's practice of daily attention to God's work in creation becomes a paced daily devotional through all ten visions in the Chosen Portion app
- One vision passage a day, readable in under 10 minutes
- The complete Book of Divine Works plus Hildegard's other major works, free
- Progress tracking so a 317-chapter classic actually gets finished