VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. XI
Sheltered in God's Embrace
The soul rejoices in God's protective shelter, clinging to the divine and held fast by God's right hand, finding freedom from sin through grace and sighing toward God in longing.
And in the shelter of your wings I will rejoice; my soul clings to you, your right hand holds me fast.✦ The meaning of this sentence is to be understood in this way: I will rejoice, O God, in the defense of your protections, when I have been set free from the weight of sins; and because my soul has longed to come after you in good works, therefore the power of your strength has gathered me as I drew deep sighs and cried out to you, so that from now on I may be safe from my enemies.
Fashioned by God's Hands
Humanity is God's handiwork, foreknown and purposefully created before the ancient days, clothed in flesh and girded with God's garment to restore the praise lost when the fallen angel departed the heavenly chorus.
For I am a work that your hands have made, since before the ancient days you had it in your plan to make me in this way, that every creature might be present to me; and when you created me, you gave me the power to work according to yourself, just as you yourself had made me — whence I am yours — and you clothed me with an unstained flesh, as was fitting for you who are my Creator, and so you spread wide the hem of your garment.✦ Therefore, when you moved the heavens with praises and surrounded them with the variety of every adornment in the encircling ring of angels — who cannot fully marvel at it, since they themselves gird about as if with the belt of praises — you made humankind in this way: because the one who refused heavenly glory had faded from that belt of praise, you girded humankind about and so strengthened us with your garment that from now on we might not fade away in praise.✦
The Marvel of the Incarnation
The angels marvel that God took mortal flesh from Adam to redeem the transgressor and restore the fellowship of brotherhood, since both angel and human are living beings made by the one Creator.
But the angels also marvel, because from mortal Adam you took on your garment — yet you did this so that the same transgressor might come back to life, and so that the divine brightness, which no amount of experiential probing can exhaust, might shine forth to the heavenly angel, saying: 'You are always before my face, and therefore you have no need of being called back, like the one who was found through my garment, since he had not wholly denied me when he was seduced by another.'✦ For when in my likeness he sought to become mortal, he had to be called back through the sufferings of my garment, so that the fellowship of your brotherhood might not perish in him — because, although I created you without flesh and him with flesh, I nevertheless made each of you a living being.
Divinity Revealed and Held
Hidden Divinity revealed herself to the unfallen angel, and she holds the fullness of God in her right hand so that those who look on her with the eye of faith will not perish, while those who lack faith fade from her sight.
In this way the hidden Divinity — who is wholly just, and who is seen perfectly by no one except to the extent she deigns to reveal herself — showed herself to the angel who had remained in the heavenly places without falling. For she holds this fullness in the embrace of her right hand, so that no one who looks upon her with the pupil of the eye of faith may perish — since those who do not look upon her with the eye of faith fade from her sight, just as the lost angel and those who consented to him perished.✦
God's Just Ordering of All Things
After creating all things, God ordered them well by appointing rewards for those who look toward him and judgment on those who refuse to look to him, as was foretold.
For when God had created all things, he also ordered all things well — namely, by appointing the rewards of good works for those who look toward him, while passing judgment on those who refuse to look to him, as was foretold.
The Word: Creator and Redeemer
Through the eternal Word born of the Father all things were created, and through that same Word made flesh in the Virgin humanity was redeemed.
For through the Word, born from the Father without beginning, all things were created, and through that same Word, made flesh in the Virgin, humanity was redeemed.1
Read the original Latin
« Et in velamento alarum tuarum exsultabo; adhaesit anima mea post te, me suscepit dextera tua. » Hujus sententiae intellectus hoc modo, accipiendus est: In defensione protectionum tuarum, o Deus, gaudebo, cum a gravedine peccatorum liberatus fuero; et quia desideravit anima mea in bonis operibus venire post te, idcirco me alta suspiria trahentem et ad te vociferantem collegit potentia fortitudinis tuae, quatenus amodo ab inimicis meis salvus sim. Nam ego opus sum quod operatus es, quoniam ante antiquitatem dierum in ordinatione tua habuisti, quod me hoc modo faceres, ut omnis creatura mihi adesset; et cum me creares, mihi secundum te operari dedisti, sicut etiam tu me feceras, unde tuus sum, carnemque immaculatam sicut te Creatorem decuit induisti, et sic fimbriam vestimenti tui dilatasti. Quapropter etiam cum laudibus coelum movisti, illudque cum varietate omnis ornatus in circumcinctione angelorum circumdedisti, qui ad plenum mirari non possunt, cum se velut in circumcinctione cinguli laudum circumdant, quod hominem sic fecisti, quia cingulo laudis illius qui coelestem gloriam recusavit, cum ab ipso evanuit, hominem circumcinxisti, eumque indumento tuo ita firmasti, ut amodo in laude non evanescat. Sed et angeli mirantur, quia de mortali Adam vestimentum tuum tulisti, quod tamen ideo fecisti, quatenus idem transgressor revivisceret, et ut divina claritas, quae nulla sciscitatione experimenti finiri potest, coelesti angelo claresceret dicens: « In conspectu meo semper es, et ideo revocatione non indiges, sicut ille qui per indumentum meum inventus es, quoniam ad plenum me non negaverat, cum per alium seductus fuerat. Cum enim similitudinem meam quaesivit mortalis factus est, unde et per cruciamenta indumenti mei revocandus erat, ne societas fraternitatis tuae in ipso periret, quia quamvis te sine carne, et eum cum carne creaverim, utrumque tamen virum feci. « Tali modo occulta Divinitas, quae tota justa est, et quae a nullo perfecte videtur, nisi quantum se ipsa revelare dignatur, angelo qui in coelestibus sine casu permanserat se ostendit. Ipsa namque in comprehensione dexterae suae plenitudinem hanc habet, ut nullus, qui cum pupilla oculi fidei ipsam inspicit pereat, quoniam illi qui eam oculo fidei non inspiciunt, ab aspectu ipsius evanescunt, sicut et perditus angelus et ei consentientes perierunt.
Cum enim Deus omnia creasset, omnia etiam bene ordinavit, illis videlicet praemia meritorum, qui ad eum aspiciunt; illos autem dijudicando, qui in eum respicere nolunt, ut praedictum est.
Quia per Verbum sine initio ex Patre ortum omnia creata, et per idem Verbum in Virgine carnem factum, homo redemptus sit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.63.7-Ps.63.8 — When I remember you on my bed, I meditate on you through the watches of the night." This appears to be the missing verse content and should not be folded into Ps.63.6. Ps.63.8 — For you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy." Keeps the causal "for" and removes duplication with the following verse.
- ↩Ps.139.13-Ps.139.15 — For you formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. Ps.139.14 — I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, and my soul knows it very well. Ps.139.15 — My bones were not hidden from you, when I was made in secret, woven together in the depths of the earth.
- ↩Isa.14.12 — How you have fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who laid low the nations!
- ↩Ps.139.7-Ps.139.8;Jer.23.24 — Where can I go from your Spirit? And where can I flee from your presence? Ps.139.8 — If I ascend to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. Jer.23.24 — Can a person hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the LORD.
- ↩Col.2.9 — For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,
Notes
- 1 ↩The participial predicates (ortum, creata, factum, redemptus) carry implied copulas; the final sit may function as an indirect question or result clause. The rendering treats the clause as a statement of accomplished fact: through the Word made flesh, humanity is redeemed.
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