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← Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works)/Book 2 · Liber Divinorum Operum — Pars 2
Chapter 42LDO.2.42

VISIO QUINTA, cap. XLII

The Waters Bring Forth Life

Hildegard interprets God's command that the waters bring forth living creatures as the Holy Spirit's work of producing contemplative virtues and souls that rise above earthly life like birds in flight.

"God also said: Let the waters bring forth creeping things with living souls, and birds fly above the earth under the firmament of heaven."✦ . This is what you should consider: God, in the prompting of the Holy Spirit, speaks so that spiritual gifts may be built up in people's minds, and so that those who restrain themselves in the matters already mentioned may be pulled free from worldly anxieties; and so that those people who are like the waters may produce every kind of virtue that moves and lives — that is, souls alive in the contemplative life — and that the virtues which fly may, out of love for God, rise far above the ordinary standard of this world's life, just as good soil brings forth an abundant harvest from the seed that has been sown in it, so that my servant Isaiah says: "Who are these who fly like clouds, and like doves to their windows?"✦12 Here is what you should consider: Who are these people who, turning away from earthly things, deny themselves, press forward with their minds toward heavenly things, and with the simplicity of doves reflect on themselves and so look toward God? Oh, how great is their reward with God, when they do not cast him aside but worship him with all devotion! For God had foreknown his work before all creation, and he created heaven and earth, and between these two he established the rest of creation, just as was necessary for that same creation. For in the water he signified spiritual things, and in the earth bodily things. Whatever is unclean is cleansed in water, just as the body lives from the soul, and just as a person handles bodily things yet cannot touch the soul — but knows that it is by the soul that he lives, and yet does not know what the soul is or what its nature is. In this regard, knowledge of the soul is weak, and the earth with its greenness is sustained by the water, which it also carries and by which it is soaked through.3 And God appointed certain creatures for the strength of his created work — that is, of the human person — since a person works with them, and so God also marked them in creation. But what capacity a person has to carry out the soul's longings, which never run dry, and whose sighs fly up to heaven on the wind of the soul itself — this is beyond creation's mark.4

The Soul's Ascent and Inner Struggle

The soul ascends toward God in desire yet suffers both from the flesh's resistance and from the pain of heavenly longing, requiring discernment and right measure in bodily discipline.

For whoever ascends is seeking the one they might ascend to. So too the soul, with its desires, knocks so that God might give it the strength to act; and because God approves of this, he grants the soul what it asks of him. But when it has descended, then it works the desires of the flesh according to what its taste longs for. And so it is afflicted in two ways: first, that it may suffer punishments from the flesh when it ascends toward God; and second, that it may feel great affliction through the knowledge of heavenly desire when it has fulfilled the desire of the flesh. Therefore God also distinguishes creatures for man—one visible, and the other invisible—just as the body is visible and the soul invisible, so that through this union too he might choose what is good. But the body is fed through creatures, and the soul moves the taste of the flesh toward eating, and through its sighs it strives for this—lest the body be suffocated by an excess of food so that it cannot sigh. For in this mixed work the soul acts so that the body is fed with its breath in the right manner of foods, since if it is fed excessively, the soul's strength melts away. But if suitable foods are withdrawn from it through too much abstinence, the proud devil exalts the person as if he were about to ascend into heaven, so as to make him fall through pride. Therefore God hates drunkenness in this way, and condemns irrational abstinence, and so the faithful person should impose a right measure on himself in both. And all the aforementioned virtues ought to exist under discretion, as if under the firmament of heaven, so that it may rule them in this way—lest on account of favor or elation of mind they ascend higher than they can bear, nor also in the repetition of worldly things fall more deeply than that constitution which they have received from God can sustain.

Virtues Born of the Holy Spirit

God creates great virtues such as chastity and continence through the Holy Spirit, and these living virtues follow the Lamb, imitate Christ, and are blessed and multiplied by God.

"And God created the great sea creatures, and every living, moving soul that the waters brought forth into their kinds, and every winged creature according to its kind."✦ God creates great virtues in humans — namely, bodily integrity and continence — through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, drawing them away from all the pomp and pleasures of the flesh with a desire that burns for the love of God, so that in the midst of carnal delight they trample themselves as though dead, and he strengthens all the living powers of the soul, which persist in an unstable life, so that they are not stained by the marriages of human nature. And these are the living virtues that follow the Lamb, who was never stained by any stain of iniquity, and are movable toward better things when they desist from the business of marriage, to which secular anxiety is present. These too are the illustrious virtues produced among those peoples with a diverse variety of kinds: one is chastity, another is continence; to which the other virtues adhere, which ascend toward higher things like a palm tree in the multitude of its offspring. "And God saw that it was good, and he blessed them, saying: 'Increase and multiply and fill the waters of the sea, and let the birds be multiplied over the earth' (ibid.)."✦ "God saw that these virtues were very good, because he is delighted in them with great sweetness, when the virtues themselves touch the Word of God by imitating it." Because God created man to do good, but he himself, bringing down good, worked evil; God willed that his Word should become man, who in his goodness would bring forth more fully all the justice that Adam had left behind.✦ And therefore also that people, together with the Son of God himself, brings forth the examples that the holy divinity shows in him; and so those virtues are blessed, because they arose in him.

Contempt of the World and the Sixth Day

God's blessing that virtues increase and multiply is fulfilled in contempt for the world, and the chapter closes by turning to the sixth day's creation of animals and man in the image of Christ's humanity and the Godhead.

And then the power of God says: "May these virtues that have begun to imitate me through me grow, and may the offspring of good works be multiplied in them, and may they so fill the people who fluctuate in the instability of the flesh that, in them, stronger virtues from the force of divinity may appear than the human fragility of the flesh is; and thus, flying above the earth—that is, above humanity—may they be multiplied, so that the weakness of their flesh may be subjected to its strength."✦✦5 "And evening came, and morning came, the fifth day."✦ So, as has been said, a good end will be brought about in God, with the beginning of the fifth virtue, which is contempt for the world, just like the fifth day. How the account of the work of the sixth day — the bringing forth of the beasts of burden and the creeping things of the earth, and the formation of man — is to be understood according to the letter, and how man is made, according to the body, in the image of the humanity of the Son of God (whom he had foreknown from eternity as about to take on flesh from the Virgin), and, according to the soul, through knowledge or imitation of the good, in the likeness of the Godhead.✦✦

Read the original Latin

« Dixit etiam Deus: Producant aquae reptile animae viventis, et volatile super terram sub firmamento coeli. . » Hoc considerandum sic est: Deus in admonitione Spiritus sancti dicit, ut spiritalia dona in mentibus hominum aedificentur, et in praedictis causis se constringentes, a saecularibus curis removeantur; et ut homines isti qui aquae sunt, omne reptile virtutum producant, id est animas in contemplativa vita viventes, et etiam volantes virtutes commune praeceptum saecularis vitae excellentes, ut propter amorem Dei supra constitutam justitiam seminis sui superabundanter ascendant, sicut bonus ager qui de semine quod in se seminatum est, superabundantem fructum profert, ut servus meus Isaias dicit: « Qui sunt hi qui ut nubes volant, et quasi columbae ad fenestras suas . » Hoc considerandum sic est: Qui sunt isti qui terrena respuentes, se ipsos abnegant, et mentibus suis ad coelestia properant et velut columbina simplicitate semetipsos considerant, et sic Deum aspiciunt. O quam magna merces eorum apud Deum est, cum illum retrorsum non abjiciunt, sed ipsum omni devotione colunt? Deus enim opus suum ante omnem creaturam praesciverat, et coelum et terram creavit, atque inter haec duo reliquam creaturam constituit, quemadmodum eidem creaturae necessarium fuit. Nam in aqua spiritalia, et in terra corporalia significavit; omneque quod immundum est, in aqua mundatur, sicut etiam corpus ex anima vivit, et ut homo corporalia tangit, quamvis animam tangere non possit, sed ab ipsa se vivere scit, et tamen quae et qualis sit ignorat; atque in hoc scientia ipsius debilis est, terraque cum viriditate sua per aquam subsistit, quam etiam portat, et ex ipsa perfunditur. Et Deus quasdam creaturas ad fortitudinem facti operis sui, id est hominis constituit, quoniam homo cum ipsis operatur, et ideo etiam in creaturis signavit, sed quantam possibilitatem homo desideria animae operari habeat, quae nunquam deficit, et cujus suspiria per ventositatem ipsius ad coelum volat.

Quicunque enim ascendit, ille quaerit ad quem ascendat. Sic etiam anima cum desideriis suis pulsat, quatenus ei Deus virtutem ad operandum det; et quia Deus eam in hoc approbat, ipsi concedit quae ab eo postulat, sed cum ipsa descenderit, tunc concupiscentias carnis secundum quod gustus illius cupit operatur. Unde et sic duobus modis affligitur, ita scilicet ut supplicia de carne patiatur cum ad Deum ascendit, et multam afflictionem per scientiam coelestis desiderii habeat, cum concupiscentiam carnis perfecerit. Quopropter etiam Deus homini creaturam discernit, alteram, videlicet visibilem, et alteram invisibilem, quemadmodum et corpus visibile est, et anima invisibilis, ut per hanc quoque conjunctionem quod bonum est eligat. Corpus autem per creaturas pascitur, animaque gustum carnis ad edendum movet, atque per suspiria sua ad hoc tendit, ne ex superfluitate ciborum corpus ita suffocetur, ut suspirare non possit. In hoc namque commisto opere anima ita operatur, ut corpus in spiramine suo cibis recto modo pascatur, quoniam si illud supramodum pascitur, vires animae dilabuntur; si autem congrui cibi per nimiam abstinentiam illi subtrahuntur, superbus diabolus hominem ita extollit, velut in coelum ascensurus sit, quatenus illum sic per superbiam ruere faciat. Itaque Deus hoc modo crapulam odit, atque irrationabilem abstinentiam reprobat, ideoque fidelis homo in utroque justum modum sibi imponat. Et omnes praedictae virtutes sub discretione quasi sub firmamento coeli esse debent, ut ipsa eas ita regat, ne propter favorem aut elationem mentis altius ascendant quam ferre possint, nec etiam in iteratione saecularium rerum profundius cadant quam illa constitutio quam a Deo acceperint habeat.

« Creavitque Deus cete grandia, et omnem animam viventem atque motabilem quam produxerant aquae in species suas, et omne volatile secundum genus suum . » Deus magnas virtutes, scilicet integritatem carnis et continentiam in hominibus per inspirationem Spiritus sancti creat, ipsis omnem pompam atque delicias carnis cum desiderio ardentis amoris Dei abstrahens, ita ut in delectatione carnali se ipsos tanquam mortui sint conculcent, et omnes virtutes viventis animae, quae instabili vita persistunt, ita in eis confirmat, ut de humanae naturae conjugiis non maculentur. Et hae sunt viventes virtutes quae Agnum sequuntur, qui nunquam ulla macula iniquitatis maculatus est, atque motabiles ad meliora, cum a negotio conjugii, cui saecularis sollicitudo adest, desistunt. Hae quoque illustres virtutes in populis istis diversa varietate specierum producuntur, quarum altera castitas, altera continentia est; quibus caeterae virtutes adhaerent, quae ad superiora quasi palma in multitudine generis sui ascendunt. « Et vidit Deus quod esset bonum, benedixitque eis dicens: Crescite et multiplicamini et replete aquas maris, avesque multiplicentur super terram (ibid). » Vidit Deus has virtutes valde bonas esse, quia in eis magna dulcedine delectatur, cum ipsae virtutes Verbum Dei illud imitando tangunt. Quia namque Deus hominem, ut bonum operaretur, creavit, sed ipse bonum deferens, malum operatus est, voluit Deus Verbum suum hominem fieri, qui in bonitate sua omnem justitiam quam Adam reliquerat plenius proferret. Et idcirco etiam populus iste cum ipso Filio Dei exempla ipsius profert, quae sancta divinitas in eo ostendit, ideoque virtutes istae benedictae, quia in ipso surrexerunt.

Et tunc virtus Deus dicit: Istae virtutes quae me imitari per me inceperunt, crescant, et genimina bonorum operum in eis multiplicentur, et homines qui in instabilitate carnis fluctuant ita repleant, ut in ipsis de vi divinitatis fortiores virtutes, quam humana fragilitas carnis sit, appareant, et sic volantes super terram, id est hominem, multiplicentur, ut infirmitas carnis earum fortitudini subjiciatur. « Et factus est vespere et mane dies quintus . » Ita, ut praedictum est, in Deo fiet bonus finis, cum initio quintae virtutis, quae contemptus mundi est ut dies quintus.

Quomodo historia quae de opere sexti diei in productione jumentorum et reptilium terrae et formatione hominis scripta est, ad litteram intelligenda sit, et quod homo secundum corpus ad imaginem humanitatis filii Dei, quam ab aeterno ex Virgine assumpturum praesciverat, et secundum animam per scientiam vel imitationem boni ad similitudinem divinitatis factus sit.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Gen.1.20 — And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens."
  2. ↩Isa.60.8 — Who are these that fly like a cloud, and like doves to their windows?
  3. ↩Gen.1.21 — And God created the great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
  4. ↩Gen.1.22 — And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth."
  5. ↩John.1.14 — And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
  6. ↩Gen.1.22 — And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth."
  7. ↩Gen.1.26 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
  8. ↩Gen.1.23 — And there was evening, and there was morning — the fifth day.
  9. ↩Gen.1.24-Gen.1.31 — And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creeping things, and wild animals of the earth, each according to its kind." And it was so. Gen.1.25 — And God made the living creatures of the earth according to their kinds, and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Gen.1.26 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." Gen.1.27 — So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Gen.1.28 — And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.' Gen.1.29 — And God said, "See, I have given you every seed-bearing plant that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit; they shall be yours for food." Gen.1.30 — And to every living creature of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creeps on the earth in which there is a living soul—every green plant for food. And it was so. Gen.1.31 — And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
  10. ↩Gen.1.26 — Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The Latin reads 'omne reptile virtutum' — 'every creeping thing of the virtues' — applying the language of Genesis 1:20 to the production of virtues. Rendered here as 'every kind of virtue that moves and lives' to capture the sense while preserving the scriptural echo.
  2. 2 ↩The closing quotation from Isaiah 60:8 is cut off mid-verse in the source; the full Vulgate reads 'Qui sunt isti qui ut nubes volant, et quasi columbae ad fenestras suas?'
  3. 3 ↩The analogy 'corpus ex anima vivit' (the body lives from the soul) is rendered literally; the sense is that the soul is the principle of life for the body, even though a person cannot fully grasp what the soul is.
  4. 4 ↩The final clause 'sed quantam possibilitatem… ad coelum volat' is compressed and somewhat difficult in the Latin. The rendering captures the contrast: God marked creatures for human use, but the soul's inner reach — its unceasing desires and sighs that rise to heaven — exceeds what any creature can signify.
  5. 5 ↩The rare form genimina is rendered as 'offspring' to capture its generative sense in this context.

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