VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. XV
The Son's Eternal Commission
The Son, coeternal with the Father, receives all things from the Father, completes the work of Incarnation entrusted from eternity, and is given power both to create in the heights and to restore what had perished below.
My Father has handed all things over to me. This sentence should be understood in this way: I, who am the Word and the Son of God, went forth from my Father, from whom all things were handed over to me — all things that he himself had predestined, bringing them forth into forms, just as words bring forth the thoughts that lie hidden in the heart. To him I again go, now that the work of my Incarnation has been completed — namely, the work that he entrusted to me in that same eternity in which I always remained with him, inseparably, before all ages — he who sent me to fill up the number he had established. And just as in the heights I received the power to create, so also in the lower parts of the world I received the power to restore what had been created and had perished. For in the true foreknowledge of God, all things lay hidden eternally as things yet to come, which afterward he created through his Word — that is, his Son — to whom he also entrusted the power to free and to rule the things he had created, and so all things were handed over to his Son, who before all ages was coeternal and consubstantial with the Father in the divine nature.
Christ Fulfills the Prophets and Cleanses Through Baptism
The obscure words of the prophets became intelligible through Christ's life and fulfillment of them, and through baptism in the faith of the Trinity both original and actual sins are washed away.
Because the words of the prophets before the Incarnation of the Lord were obscure and could not be understood; but Christ, living in the world according to them and fulfilling these things, has rendered them intelligible, and through the water of baptism both original and actual sins are washed away in the faith of the Trinity.
Read the original Latin
« Omnia tradita sunt mihi a Patre meo . » Hujus sententiae intellectus hoc modo accipiendus est: Ego qui Verbum et Filius Dei sum a Patre meo exivi, a quo mihi tradita sunt omnia quae ipse praedestinaverat, producens in formas, quemadmodum verba proferunt cogitationes quae in corde latent. Ad quem iterum vado Incarnationis meae dispensatione completa, opere scilicet quod mihi commisit in eadem aeternitate qua semper ante aevum cum ipso eram inseparabiliter manens, qui me propter numerum supplendum quem constituerat misit. Et sicut in excelsis creandi potestatem, sic etiam in inferioribus mundi partibus quod creatum perierat, ab eo reparandi potestatem accepi. In vera namque Dei praescientia omnia ut futura erant aeternaliter latuerunt, quae postea per Verbum suum; scilicet Filium suum creavit; cui etiam liberandi quae creaverat, ac regendi potestatem commisit, et sic omnia Filio suo tradita sunt, qui ante aevum in deitate Patri coaeternus erat, et consubstantialis.
Quia prophetarum verba ante Incarnationem Domini obscura et ignota intelligi non poterant; sed Christus secundum ea vivens in mundo, et haec adimplens intelligibilia reddiderit, et quod per aquam baptismi et originale et actualia peccata in fide Trinitatis abluantur.
Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of Divine Works) companion
Don't stop at Day 30
All 317 chapters live in the free Chosen Portion app, paced for daily reading
Hildegard's practice of daily attention to God's work in creation becomes a paced daily devotional through all ten visions in the Chosen Portion app
- One vision passage a day, readable in under 10 minutes
- The complete Book of Divine Works plus Hildegard's other major works, free
- Progress tracking so a 317-chapter classic actually gets finished