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Chapter 15LDO.3.15

VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. IX

The Age from Noah to the Incarnation

God's saving work from Noah through the incarnation is traced, showing how the Word took on the world as a garment so that repentant humanity could be restored to God.

And so this time after the flood extends from Noah up to my Son becoming incarnate, who turns those who believe in him to spiritual understanding, where another time also advanced to life—not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. For in Noah I showed many miracles, just as also in the first appearance in Adam I accomplished very many miracles, since, just as in Adam I foresaw all the men who were going to be born, so also in Noah I prefigured the new age that was going to rise. For from that offspring the mightiest and swiftest prophets arose, who, sharpening their tongues, boldly brought forth the things they saw in the Holy Spirit—namely, that God was going to send his Word, which was in him before eternity, into the world. And this was thus incarnate so that the whole world might marvel at it, and at this miracle of their tongues they swiftly crossed the world, affirming that the Beautiful One was going to come to the lands as the Son of Man.✦ But rationality also dictates, and the work is carried out according to the dictate, because if the dictate did not proceed, the work would not follow. For God dictated the world and man in his Word. For the Word, which is without beginning, dictated a certain work, from which he put on the world as a garment for himself, so that when man had sinned, if he confessed God, he might draw him back to himself with that same garment; and therefore, if the same Word had not put on this garment, man would not have been saved, just as the lost angel will not be saved. And how could it be that God would not have the power to restore to his place the one who had departed from him, when he confessed him repentant?

Prophecy Veiled and Revealed in Figures

God breathed forth prophecy shrouded in signs, giving Noah the ark, Abraham circumcision, and Moses the law to confound demonic lust and trample the devil through sacred figures.

For just as it pleased almighty God to make man, so it also pleased him to redeem the one who trusts in him.1 Therefore he secretly breathed out prophecy and sent it forth shrouded, until he might complete his work; but before he had brought it to its full advance, he revealed himself through preceding signs.23 For he showed Noah the ark, gave Abraham circumcision, but taught Moses the law, so that the stirring of lust—which moves like a serpent's tongue—might be confounded through these figures; and as the devil had deceived man through animals, before the Holy One of saints might come, through animals in God's ceremonies that same devil might be trampled down.45

The Ancient Serpent and the North Wind

The devil, like a destructive north wind, invades souls through suggestion, persuading them to trust their own power rather than God, and so cuts off the soul's breath toward God.

And these three signs — sacrifice, circumcision, and the law — preceded the Son of God, and he himself chose to suffer and bring them to fulfillment in himself, according to the words inspired by the prophets, who spoke both of God and of all the evils of the north, because as long as the ancient serpent chooses to fight against God, just as it also fought against him in heaven, it invades people, persuading them both to set themselves against God and to worship what they can touch and handle with their eyes and hands as God, just as it showed them with Baal and other idols. But just as no one can grasp God, and no one can bring his work to its final goal, so the devil, too, cannot know a person unless that person first pants toward him through his suggestion, and then he rejoices greatly in his own wickedness that he can defeat God's work by deceiving them in this way. For when he sees that a person is able to act, but does not yet know what that person wants to do, and when he understands that the person is panting toward God — so that they place their own works in God, because through him they were created — then at once he approaches them with his suggestion, saying: 'Since you have the power to do whatever you want, why do you seek your work from another?' And what will it harm you that you do the works you are able to do, when the one you call your Creator did his own work just as he chose? And so by suggesting this, he deceives them. So the north wind designates this suggestion and persuasion, because just as that wind destroys and overturns an entire house, so this diabolical blast leads a person's upright senses into forgetfulness, so that they forget God's inspiration and are no longer able to sigh toward God. It cuts off the very breath of the soul that ought to pant toward God, and instead sets the soul ablaze toward the sins it can commit through the body. For in the blast of this foul suggestion, he trusts that he can draw even the souls of reasoning people to himself, just as a worm lying in the mud breeds other worms from the filth of its own corruption.

Idols, Sacrifice, and the Fulfillment in Christ

Through idolatry the unclean spirit led peoples astray, yet God used the ark, circumcision, and the law to bring justice, wound death, and point toward the self-offering of Christ, the true Sun, in whom the law found its fulfillment and hidden truth was revealed.

It was he who led people into these depraved and foul practices, in that they knelt before Baal and the other idols, from whose mouths the unclean spirit sounded and spoke, teaching them impure works. For from the beginning, generation after generation, peoples advanced whose dreadful minds, because of the taste of their own flesh, turned away from God. But as had been foretold, through the ark God brought forth justice; through circumcision—which was like steel—he wounded death, so that even the desire the serpent had blown into it was laid bare; and through the law, which he wrote with his own finger, he confounded it, turning it back: that the human being, whom he had made with his own finger, using the service of a human being—namely, the creature God had given him, coming beforehand—from which, taking clean animals, offered a sacrifice first to almighty God. What Abel began, the law completed in full, signifying that the person who offers a sacrifice from the animal by which he is fed should offer himself as a sacrifice to God. And just as the sun has the moon subject to it, both as it waxes and as it wanes, so too the Son of God, the true Sun, had the law within himself, which grew within him as he fulfilled it, and which reached its end within him as he offered himself to God the Father. And just as through his death an eclipse of the sun took place, which shone again across the whole world, so the same Son of God willed that the human being shine according to him, looking upon his death, and in considering it, what he ought to do. Just as a plow with draft animals overturns the earth, into which seed is sown, yielding great fruit by which people are fed, so too the people of the law held the written letters in God's precepts but were not satisfied by their fruit, because what was hidden in the letters they did not recognize. But the Son of God, through the seeds of his words, revealed to believers that, filled with his flesh and blood, they may have life, and this same truth, hidden in divine secrets, he made manifest through himself.

The Multitude of the Faithful

The innumerable faithful who strive through spiritual exercises and mortification of vices for God's honor receive diverse rewards according to their merits.

About the innumerable multitude of the faithful who, in diverse ways in this life—both in spiritual exercises and in the mortification of vices—strive courageously for the honor of God and their salvation, and who, by the gift of God, receive diverse rewards according to their merits.6

Read the original Latin

Itaque tempus hoc post diluvium a Noe usque ad Filium meum incarnatum se extendit, qui in se credentes ad spiritalem intellectum convertit, ubi et aliud tempus non secundum carnem, sed secundum spiritum ad vitam processit. In Noe enim multa miracula ostendi, sicut etiam in prima apparitione in Adam quamplurima miracula perfeci, quoniam ut in Adam omnes nascituros homines praevidi, ita etiam in Noe novum saeculum resurrecturum praesignavi. De germine namque isto fortissimi et velocissimi prophetae surrexerunt, qui linguam suam acuentes, ea quae in Spiritu sancto videbant, fiducialiter protulerunt, scilicet quia Deus Verbum suum, quod in ipso ante aevum fuit, in mundum missurus esset. Et hoc sic incarnatum est, ut totus mundus inde miretur, atque ad hoc miraculum linguae ipsorum velociter mundum transibant, cum speciosum pro filiis hominum ad terras venturum affirmarent. Sed et rationalitas dictat, et secundum dictatum opus exercetur, quia si dictatus non procederet, opus non subsequeretur. Mundum enim et hominem Deus in Verbo suo dictavit. Nam Verbum, quod sine initio est, opus quoddam dictavit, de quo mundum indumentum sibi induit, ut quando homo peccasset, si Deum confiteretur cum eodem indumento eum ad se retraheret; et ideo si idem Verbum indumentum hoc non induisset, homo non salvaretur, sicut nec perditus angelus salvabitur. Et unde esset hoc quod Deus non haberet possibilitatem illum loco suo restituere qui ab eo recesserat, cum eum poenitens confiteretur?

Quemadmodum enim omnipotenti Deo placuit ut hominem faceret, ita et ipsi placuit ut illum redimeret, qui in eum confidit. Quapropter prophetiam occulte exspiravit, et eam obumbratam misit, usque dum opus suum perficeret; sed antequam illud ad profectum duxisset, per praecurrentia signa ipsum demonstravit. Nam Noe arcam ostendit, Abrahae circumcisionem dedit, Moysen autem legem docuit, quatenus motio libidinis, quae sicut serpentis lingua movetur, per istos confunderetur; et ut diabolus per animalia hominem deceperat, antequam Sanctus sanctorum veniret, per animalia in caeremoniis Dei idem diabolus conculcaretur.

Et haec tria signa, videlicet hostia, circumcisio et lex, Filium Dei praecurrebant, eaque ipse pati et finiri in se voluit secundum verba inspirationis prophetarum, qui et de Deo et de omnibus malis aquilonis loquebantur, quia quandiu antiquus serpens contra Deum pugnare vult, sicut etiam in coelo contra eum pugnavit, homines invadit, eis suadendo ut et ipsi Deo se opponant, et illud quod oculis et manibus palpant pro Deo colant, quemadmodum in Baal et in aliis idolis eis ostendit. Sed ut Deum nemo comprehendere valet, nec opus ipsius quisquam ad finem perducere potest, ita nec diabolus hominem cognoscere valet, nisi prius per suggestionem ipsius homo ad eum anhelet, et tunc in nequitia sua multum gaudet, quod opus Dei sic deludendo vincat. Nam cum hominem operari posse scutit, necdum cognoscit quid ille operari velit, et cum eum ad Deum anhelare intellexerit, ita ut ipse opera sua in Deo ponat, quia per illum creatus est, mox suggestione sua ad ipsum accedit dicens: « Cum tu possibilitatem faciendi quae volueris habeas, quare opus tuum ab alieno quaeris? Et quid nocebit te, quod opera quae operari potes facis, cum ille quem creatorem tuum esse dicis, opus suum ut voluit, fecit? » Et sic suggerendo eum decipit. Ventus itaque aquilonis suggestionem et persuasionem istam designat, quia sicut ille domum totam destruit et evertit, ita et haec diabolica sufflatio rectos sensus hominis in hanc oblivionem ducit, ut inspirationis Dei obliviscatur, et ad Deum suspirare non possit. Spiramen quoque animae illius quod ad Deum anhelare deberet abscidit, atque ad peccata quae per corpus suum perpetrare potest ipsum accendit. In sufflatu etenim hujus fetidae suggestionis confidit quod animas etiam rationalium hominum ad se trahere possit, quemadmodum et vermis in luto jacens, ex suco immunditiae suae alios vermes procreat.

Ipse namque homines in haec prava et fetentia opera perduxit, quod genua sua ad Baal et ad reliqua idola flexerunt, ex quorum ore immundus spiritus sonuit et loquebatur, incesta opera eos docens. In initio enim a generatione in generationem populi processerunt, quorum horribiles mentes propter gustum carnis suae a Deo recesserunt. Sed tamen, ut praedictum est, per arcam Deus justitiam protulit, per circumcisionem, quae velut chalybs erat, mortem vulneravit, ita ut etiam libido quam serpens exsufflaverat, per illam denudata sit; per legem vero, quam digito suo scripsit, illam confudit, hoc revolvens, quod hominem digito suo fecerat, ministerio hominis, scilicet creatura quam Deus illi dedit prius praecurrente, de qua homo munda animalia sumens, hostiam omnipotenti Deo primum obtulit. Quod autem Abel incoepit, hoc lex totum perfecit, significans quod homo qui hostiam de animali de quo alitur offert, se ipsum hostiam Deo offerat. Et ut sol lunam sibi subditam tam crescentem quam deficientem habet ita et Filius Dei verus Sol legem in se habuit, quae in ipso crevit, cum eam complevit, et quae in ipso finem accepit, cum se ipsum Deo Patri immolavit. Et ut per mortem ejus eclipsis solis facta est, qui iterum per totum mundum effulsit, sic idem Filius Dei voluit ut homo secundum ipsum luceat, mortem ejus inspiciendo, et in illa considerando quid facere debeat. Quemadmodum etiam aratrum cum jumentis terram evertit, in quam semen magnum fructum faciens seminatur de quo homines pascuntur, ita etiam scriptas litteras in praeceptis Dei legalis populus tenuit, sed fructu illorum saturatus non est, quia quod in litteris absconditum fuit non cognoscebat. Filius autem Dei per semina verborum suorum credentibus revelavit quod carne et sanguine ipsius saturati vitam habeant, et hoc idem in divinis secretis absconditum per seipsum manifestavit.

De innumerabili multitudine fidelium diversis modis in hac vita tam in exercitiis quam in mortificatione vitiorum pro honore Dei et sua salute viriliter obcertantium et diversa pro meritis praemia munere Dei percipientium.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.44.3 — For it was not by their own sword that they took the land, nor did their own arm save them; but it was your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The dative reference of 'ipsi' is uncertain in the gloss; it is taken here as referring to God (the one pleased to redeem), which fits the parallel structure and the broader context of divine initiative.
  2. 2 ↩The sense of 'exspiravit' (he breathed out) is uncertain in the gloss; it is rendered here as 'breathed out' in the sense of emitting or sending forth prophecy, though the precise nuance is unclear. 'Obumbratam' (shaded/shrouded) is rendered as 'shrouded' to convey the veiled, anticipatory character of prophecy before its fulfillment.
  3. 3 ↩The construction 'usque dum opus suum perficeret; sed antequam illud ad profectum duxisset' involves some redundancy; the sense is that prophecy was sent veiled until the work's completion, but before its full realization, the one who would fulfill it was already made known through anticipatory signs.
  4. 4 ↩The reference of 'Sanctus sanctorum' (Holy One of saints) is uncertain in the gloss; it is rendered here as a Christological title, consistent with the surrounding context of the vision's focus on the incarnation, though the precise sense could also refer to a prefigurement of the saints' holiness.
  5. 5 ↩The 'quatenus' clause is syntactically complex: it expresses purpose — that the motion of disordered desire (figured as serpentine) might be confounded through the covenantal signs given to Noah, Abraham, and Moses. The parallel 'et ut... conculcaretur' mirrors this purpose structure, showing how the same means (animal figures) that the devil used to deceive become the means of his defeat in God's ordered ceremonies.
  6. 6 ↩The rare form 'obcertantium' is rendered as 'strive courageously', combining the competitive sense of 'certo' (to contend/strive) with the intensive 'ob-' to capture the resolute, active struggle implied by the adverb 'viriliter' (courageously/manfully).

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