VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. VIII
The Second Image: A Body Marked by the Law
The second image in the vision is described in detail, its body parts and colors mapping the spiritual decline of the era under the Mosaic law from the flood to the coming of Christ.
But the second image, which is closer to the aforementioned corner, has the face and hands of a man folded together, yet it shows the feet of a hawk within itself, signifying that time after the flood when the law governed human conduct, reaching onward to that limit where the strictness of that same law was faltering, a time when the purpose and deeds of those people were directed more toward earthly things than toward spiritual ones, without effort, and in which, as they advanced, they established harshness and not gentleness, because the law spared no one, but punished the offender severely. And it is clothed as if in a tunic of wood, because that aforementioned time had drawn to itself the old law, neglecting spiritual fruits. That part of it from its summit down to its navel appears bright, because the time before Noah — who knew his Creator and understood that he was a man — and who first began the building of holiness and offered sacrifices to God, shone bright, as it were, up to Abraham, who was like a navel of strength, arose, because through the floodwaters people had been so terrified that afterward, for some time, they gathered the fear of God back to themselves through uprightness. From its navel down to its loins it is reddish, signifying the time from Abraham to Moses when it burned with circumcision, because just as the dawn goes before the sun, so through the sign of circumcision — by which he crushed sensuality — Abraham preceded the humanity of the Son of God. From its loins down to its knees it is grayish, showing that the time from Moses the lawgiver to the Babylonian exile was marked by the harshness and severity of the law according to the flesh, and that it began there to bend toward many vanities. And from its knees down to the tips of its feet it is murky, signifying the time that stretches from the Babylonian exile to the end of that same law, where the Son of God came, who fulfilled it entirely in himself. That time appeared murky in negligence and sluggishness, because that same law, already then regarded as a disgrace and esteemed as worth nothing, like turbulent water, was tending toward its own downfall according to the flesh. For those who at that time appeared to be under the law refused to know the rising sun of justice, but said they wished to look only at the letters written on the tablets, and affirmed that nothing else was to be understood in them.
Judgment, Circumcision, and the Dragon's Fury
God pronounces judgment on the lawless, foretells the people's future anguish, interprets the sword of circumcision over the image's loins, and records the ancient serpent's rage against those saved from the flood.
So I, who judge all things justly, have now sent certain peoples against those who used to trust in themselves, doing as they pleased, to seize them and scatter them into distant lands—my judgments that I had stretched over them in Egypt and in other places. In this hardness of unbelief they will last until the ancient serpent turns his eye toward a certain wandering and ruined man, whom the hidden God will strike down so that neither angel nor human will know the blow, and then that same people under the law will look back to me with great anguish, mourning and grieving that they were deceived for so long. But as long as people are to remain in this passing age, it remains unknown to both angels and humans. And the aforementioned image holds a sword placed crosswise over its loins, because it shows that circumcision was like a passing through the flesh, yet from the navel of life to the loins a person sins through their impulses, when the mind moves those impulses toward sin. And it also declares God's judgments, which hold pure justice: that God pours out the blood of the one who divides the members of the man, even the slayer, and crushes the one who turns away from him into other evils, when he has been judged by a just examination. And remaining unmoved, it turns its gaze toward the west, because the people who lived at the time when the old law was in force didn't stir themselves toward spiritual understanding, though they knew the fall of the ancient serpent and saw many dangers; yet they kept the salvation of their souls in torpor and neglect. For the fiery dragon, seeing that God had saved certain people whom the flood of waters had not devoured, breathed out great fury within himself in a rage, saying: 'I will rouse all my arts and set them down one by one, so that I may deceive those whom the flood didn't overwhelm with certain obstacles, and so bring them under my power again.' »
Summary of the Vision's Mysteries
A concluding summary gathers the meanings of sacrifices, circumcision, the law, prophetic preaching, the necessity of the Incarnation, the devil's deceptions, and God's steadfast help.
Concerning the meanings of sacrifices and of circumcision and of the law, which through prophecy among the forefathers preceded the incarnate Son of God, and concerning the preaching of the prophets, and that man could not be saved unless the Word became flesh, and concerning the suggestions of the devil, by which he deceives people by mocking them, and concerning the kinds of divine help by which God always resists him.✦1
Read the original Latin
Sed altera imago, quae praedicto angulo vicinior est, faciem manusque hominis sibi invicem complicatas habet, sed pedes accipitris in se ostendit, designans tempus illud quod post diluvium sub lege in moribus hominum erat, ita usque ad terminum illum procedens, ubi tam austeritas ejusdem legis claudicabat, in quo intentio et opera eorumdem hominum ad carnalia magis quam ad spiritalia spectantium, absque labore vacabant, in quo etiam gradiendo, acerbitatem et non lenitatem sanciebant, quoniam lex nulli pepercit, sed delinquentem acriter punivit. Et quasi tunica lignea induitur, quia praefatum tempus veterem legem spiritales fructus negligentem sibi attraxerat. Quae a summitate sua usque ad umbilicum illius apparet candida, quoniam tempus quod ante Noe fuit, qui Creatorem suum cognovit, et se hominem esse scivit, et aedificium sanctitatis primum incepit, et oblationes Deo obtulit, quasi candidum usque ad Abraham, qui velut umbilicus fortitudinis erat, surrexit, quia per voraginem aquarum homines in tantum exterriti fuerant, ut deinde per aliqua tempora timorem Dei per rectitudinem ad se colligerent. Ab umbilico autem usque ad lumbos ejus subrubea est, significans tempus quod ab Abraham usque ad Moysen in circumcisione ardens se extendit, quoniam ut aurora solem praevenit, sic Abraham per signum circumcisionis, in qua luxuriam contrivit, humanitatem Filii Dei praecessit. A lumbis vero usque ad genua ipsius subgrisea est, ostendens quod tempus illud quod a Moyse legislatore, usque ad Babylonicam transmigrationem fuit, in duritia et asperitate legis, secundum carnem processit, quod et ibi ad multas vanitates incurvari coepit. Et a genibus usque ad finem pedum illius turbida est, significans tempus quod a Babylonica transmigratione usque ad exterminium ejusdem legis se extendit, ubi Filius Dei venit, qui ipsam in semetipso totam complevit. Quod scilicet tempus turbidum in negligentia et in torpore apparuit, quia eadem lex, jam tunc pro dedecore computata, et quasi turbulenta aqua pro nihilo habita, ad casum suum carnaliter tendebat. Nam qui eo tempore sub lege esse videbantur, solem justitiae orientem scire nolebant, sed solas litteras in tabulis scriptas se inspicere velle dicebant, nec aliud quidquam in eis intelligendum esse affirmabant.
Unde ego qui omnia juste dijudico, judicia mea quae in Aegypto et in aliis locis super eos extenderam, quando in se ipsis confidebant, faciendo quod volebant, nunc super eos quosdam populos misi, qui eos caperent, et in regiones longinquas dividerent. In hac autem duritia infidelitatis tandiu durabunt, quousque antiquus serpens in quodam errante et perdito homine oculum suum movebit, quem occulta divinitas ita occidet, ut ictum illum nec angelus nec homo noverit, et tunc idem legalis populus cum magnis aerumnis ad me respiciet, lugens et plangens quod tandiu deceptus sit. Sed quandiu homines deinde in transitorio saeculo permansuri sint, angelo et homini ignotum est. Et praedicta imago gladium velut supra lumbos suos in transversum positum tenet, quoniam circumcisione velut in carnali transitu se habuisse demonstrat, ubi tamen ab umbilico vitalium usque ad lumbos homo per motionem eorum peccat, cum mens hominis ea ad peccandum movet. Et etiam judicia Dei puram justitiam habentia declarat, ita scilicet quod Deus super illum qui membra hominis dividit, sanguinem ejusdem occisoris fundit, et etiam illum qui se ab eo in aliis malis avertit, justo examine dijudicatum conterit. Atque immobilis permanens aspectum suum ad occidentem vertit, quoniam homines qui in eodem tempore fuerunt, cum vetus lex vigebat, ad spiritalem intelligentiam se non movebant, casum quidem antiqui serpentis scientes, multaque pericula videntes; sed tamen animarum suarum salutem in torpore et in negligentia habentes. Nam igneus draco videns quod Deus quosdam servaverat, quos inundatio aquarum non devoraverat, magnam iram per flatum suum emisit, intra se furibunde dicens: « Omnes artes meas excitabo, illasque sigillatim excribrabo, quatenus istos quos diluvium non submersit, in aliquibus impedimentis decipiam, et sic eos iterum mihi subjugabo. »
De significationibus hostiarum et circumcisionis et legis quae per prophetiam in Patribus incarnandum Dei Filium praecesserunt, et de praedicatione prophetarum, et quod homo salvari non posset nisi Verbum caro fieret, et de suggestionibus diaboli, quibus homines illudendo decipit, et de modis subventionum quibus semper Deus resistit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩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.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin is a single extended heading-like sentence listing topics covered in the vision: the foreshadowing of Christ in Old Testament sacrifices, circumcision, and the law; the prophets' preaching; the necessity of the Incarnation for salvation; the devil's deceptive suggestions; and the ways God provides opposing help. The grammar is compressed and the syntax is loose in places, so the rendering stays close to the surface structure while keeping it readable.
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