VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. V
From Paradise to Fratricide
Humanity falls from the living light of eternity into mutability, and the first generations corrupt their rational nature through bestiality, losing the wings of contemplation under the serpent's ancient hatred.
God placed human beings in the land of the living, which isn't illuminated by the sphere of the sun, but is suffused with the living light of eternity; yet after transgressing the divine commandment, they were sent back again into the land of mutability. He himself had two sons: one sacrificed to God; the other, killing his brother, became guilty of death — and yet the one who sacrificed to God and heard God's voice was slain. And from this a great lamentation arose. For in that first creation, human beings had such great strength and power that they could overcome even the fiercest beasts. So they often enjoyed sporting with them, and the beasts themselves, fearing human beings and restraining their own ferocity, were subjected to them; yet even so, they didn't change their own nature because of it. But human beings, changing the beautiful form of their own rationality, mingled with beasts; and whatever was born from this — if it was more like a human being than a brute animal, they hated and neglected it; but if it had more the form of a brute animal than of a human being, it was embraced with the kiss of love. The ways of these same human beings were then of two kinds: now according to cattle, just as the leopard and the bear are according to the ways of humans and beasts; and so they didn't have the most beautiful wings of rationality, by which they might yearn toward God with right faith and hope, because on account of the aforementioned sins those same wings had failed within them. This ancient serpent suggested to them that the glory of their rationality might perish — that glory which it tore at with great hatred in the human being.✦
The Devil's Counsel and the Corruption of the First Age
The devil schemes to overcome humanity in its very formation, seducing the first age into idolatrous materialism, while a remnant who remember Adam's testimony flee to the mountains seeking their Creator.
The devil was saying to himself, 'What is this that the Most High has done?' That certainly agrees with my counsel more than with his own. Therefore I will overcome him in his very formation. And so people in the first age, defiled by the serpent's venom according to the taste of their earthly vessel and not according to the breath of the soul, were active and wanted to know nothing beyond what they could see of what was formed, saying, 'What good is the wind to me, since it is not formed and does not speak to me?' Whatever speaks to me and whatever runs to me, that I will hold onto! For a certain great devilish art breathed life into large animals, and through them said to people, 'I am the one who created you.' And in this way it suggested to people that they might be defiled through those creatures, so that the sound of the voice of reason, by which they ought to praise God, might be overthrown in them, lest they praise God — just as the devil himself did not wish to, nor seeks to wish to. But a few who had heard Adam, who had told them how he was formed by God, how he had been placed in a place of delight, and how he had afterward departed from there — tasting their own human nature and not mingling with beasts, as God established them — lived rightly and soberly in that same nature. And because of the trouble and burden of the common people, who were being defiled in this way, as was said, they fled to the high mountains, and there they were so strengthened by the breath of the soul that they were not free to sin, but always sighed, saying, 'Where shall we seek the one who created us?'
Mockery, Mystery, and the Flood
The corrupted peoples mock the faithful for worshipping the invisible God and are deceived by Noah's ark, yet God speaks through mystical wonders and ultimately destroys the world with the flood, foreshadowing final judgment by fire.
And so they were being misled by the peoples already mentioned, who were saying: "What is it that these people worship — something their own eyes cannot see, something their own hands cannot touch?" But Noah's building deceived them as well.1 And God was speaking to them through their own mystical wonders, just as he also spoke to Abel, the son of the first man.23 Because God, unwilling to endure the iniquities and crimes of the people of that age, destroyed the entire human race and all living creatures with the waters of the flood, except for those the ark had enclosed; and concerning the change in the sun, the moon, the stars, and the earth from the qualities they had before the flood; and that at the end of the world, fire will consume the earth with a depth as great as the height of the waters by whose pouring in it was penetrated.✦4
Read the original Latin
Et Deus hominem in terra viventium posuit, quae per sphaeram solis non illuminatur; sed quae vivente luce aeternitatis perfunditur; sed ille divinum praeceptum transgressus, iterum in terram mutabilitatis missus est. Ipse autem duos filios generavit, quorum alter Deo immolavit, alter vero fratrem occidens, reus mortis factus est, et qui Deo immolavit, et vocem Dei audivit, interemptus est. Unde et planctus magnus exortus est. Nam in illa prima creatione homines tantae fortitudinis, tantarumque virium erant, ut etiam fortissimas bestias superarent. Unde ut cum illis jocularentur multoties delectati sunt, ipsaeque bestiae homines timentes, ferocitatemque suam cohibentes, illis subjiciebantur; sed tamen ob hoc naturam suam non mutabant. Homines autem pulchram formam rationalitatis suae mutantes, bestiis se admiscebant, et quod sic generabatur, si homini magis quam bruto animali assimilaretur, illud odio habentes negligebant, si vero magis formam bruti animalis quam formam hominis haberet, osculo dilectionis amplectebantur. Mores quoque eorumdem hominum in duobus modis tunc erant, scilicet nunc secundum pecora, quemadmodum leopardus et ursus secundum mores hominum et bestiarum sunt; ideoque etiam pulcherrimas pennas rationalitatis non habebant, quibus ad Deum recta fide et spe anhelarent, quoniam propter praedicta peccata eaedem pennae in ipsis defecerant. Istud antiquus serpens eis suggessit quatenus gloria rationalitatis eorum periret, quam in homine magno odio laniabat.
Diabolus enim intra se dicebat: « Quid est hoc quod Altus fecit? Illud quippe consilio meo plus quam suo consentit. Quapropter in plasmatione ipsius eum superabo. » Sic homines in primo saeculo per spumam serpentis polluti secundum gustum terreni vasis sui, et non secundum spiramen animae operabantur, nec quidquam cognoscere volebant praeter quod formatum videbant dicentes: « Quid prodest mihi ventus, qui nec formatus est, nec mihi loquitur? Quod mihi loquitur, et quod mihi accurrit, illud tenebo! Nam diabolica ars quaedam magna animalia insufflavit, atque per illa hominibus dicebat: « Ego sum qui vos creavi. » Et hoc modo suggessit hominibus ut per illa polluerentur, quatenus sonum vocis rationalitatis quo Deum laudare deberent, in eis everterent, ne Deum laudarent, sicut nec ipse voluit, nec velle quaerit. Quidam autem pauci qui protoplastum audierant, qui ipsis retulerat quomodo a Deo formatus et quomodo in locum voluptatis positus fuisset, et quomodo inde exiisset, naturam suam humanam gustantes, nec se pecoribus commiscentes, ut Deus eos constituit, in eadem natura sua recte et sobrie vivebant, atque propter molestiam et gravedinem communis plebis, quae hoc modo, ut praedictum est, polluebatur, ad altos montes fugiebant, ibique ex spiramine animae ita confortabantur, ut eos peccare non liberet: sed semper suspirabant dicentes: « Ubi quaeremus illum qui nos creavit?
» Unde a praedictis populis deludebantur dicentibus: « Quid est quod isti colunt, quod nec oculis suis vident, nec manibus palpant? » Sed et aedificium Noe deludebant. Et Deus istis in mysticis miraculis suis loquebatur, sicut etiam Abel filio primi hominis locutus est.
Quia Deus iniquitates et crimina hominum aevi illius non sufferens, omne genus humanum et cuncta viventia exceptis his quae arca concluserat aquis diluvii exterminaverit; et de mutatione solis, lunae, siderum et terrae ab eis qualitatibus quas ante diluvium habuerant; et quod in fine mundi tanta terram profunditate ignis consumpturus sit quanta altitudine aquarum infusione penetrata est.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Rev.12.9 — And the great dragon was thrown down—the ancient serpent, the one called the Devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
- ↩2Pet.3.10-2Pet.3.12 — But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a rushing roar, and the elements, being burned up, will be dissolved, and the earth and the works in it will be found. 2Pet.3.11 — Since all these things are to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be, living in holy conduct and godliness? 2Pet.3.12 — waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved by fire and the elements will melt with fervent heat
Notes
- 1 ↩aedificium Noe: the referent is ambiguous between Noah's Ark (the structure) and the narrative account of Noah's building. Rendered as 'Noah's building' to preserve the ambiguity; the Ark is clearly the intended sense in context.
- 2 ↩mysticis miraculis suis: 'mystical wonders' preserves the sense of divinely wrought signs that carry hidden meaning. The referent is likely the wonders surrounding the Flood narrative or the Ark's construction.
- 3 ↩Abel filio primi hominis: Abel is identified as 'son of the first man' (Adam). The claim that God spoke to Abel is not directly from Genesis but from the visionary context of this passage.
- 4 ↩The Latin 'infusione' (pouring in/infusion) and 'penetrata est' (was penetrated) describe the floodwaters reaching the earth's depths. The rendering preserves the physical and cosmic imagery of the source.
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