VISIO QUINTA, cap. XXIX
Discretion as the Firmament of the Virtues
Discretion does not work directly among the virtues but serves as their support, just as the firmament sustains and orders the creatures set in motion around it.
But that the words "and saw that it was good" are not said here means this: the role of discretion among the other virtues is not to work directly, but to serve the other virtues — just as the firmament, which is the support of those creatures that are set in motion around it, holds the other working creatures in service to them by its very existence, creatures that are called workers on account of their service to humanity, since through it each of their works is carried out day and night. And just as the same firmament, by sustaining everything set upon it, gives each thing its place, so discretion works through its task in such a way that the other virtues, which are called "workers" from their work, are not themselves workers, but only a support for the other virtues.
The Literal Sense of the Third Day
The gathering of the waters and the completion of the third day are to be understood according to the literal sense of Scripture.
How the passage that says, 'Let the waters be gathered together,' is to be understood in its literal sense, up to the point where it says, 'And there was evening and morning, the third day.'✦✦
Read the original Latin
Quod autem hic dictum non est, « et vidit Deus quod esset bonum , » hoc est quod discretio officium aliarum virtutum est, non operando, sed caeteris virtutibus ministrando, ut etiam firmamentum, quod sustentaculum illorum est per quae volvitur, alias operantes creaturas ipsis obsequium existendo continet, quae propter servitium hominis operariae nominantur, quoniam per illud singula opera sua die ac nocte operantur. Et ut etiam idem firmamentum unumquodque quod ei impositum est sustentans, illi locum dat, ita discretio per opus, ut caeterae virtutes quae ab opere operatrices nominatae sunt, operatrix non est, sed tantum aliarum virtutum sustentaculum.
Quomodo quod scriptum est, « Congregentur aquae » usque ad id « factum est vespere et mane dies tertius » secundum litteram competenter intelligendum sit.
Scripture echoes
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