VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. XVII
The Darkness of Unbelief
God's just judgment places darkness and night upon evildoers, and unbelievers rush headlong into eternal destruction.
"You set darkness, and night came to be, and in it all the beasts of the forest will roam." The meaning of this sentence should be taken in this way: O God and ruler, who justly dispose all things, you placed the darkness of punishments by your upright judgment for the vengeance of the evildoers, and concerning them night has also been raised up, meaning the destruction of the reprobate, because while the unbelieving are in the darkness of unbelief, they bring on themselves the darkness of death. And so then they rush headlong into eternal destruction, and in that very night, lacking the light of faith, all who are savage in their tyranny and barren in unbelief pass through, because while they do not put aside their unbelief and do not run to you, God, through the grace of baptism, they will go into oblivion as though they had never been.
The Faithful Pass Through Darkness
The faithful one renounces unbelief and bestial ways, turning to life through the washing of baptism and the Holy Spirit.
But the faithful one is the one who, having put aside the darkness of unbelief and having put to flight the night of eternal damnation, passes through all bestial ways and fruitless actions, turning himself to the life that the one who is life brought to the devil also renouncing, and in the washing of baptism cleansing himself. For the Son of God proclaimed to his disciples that a person must be reborn in water, otherwise they would not be raised into heaven unless first they were cleansed from sins through water and the Holy Spirit, because when a person, sent from father into mother and begotten from her, is sown, in baptism he receives the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and so also becomes a partaker of holiness; but the unbelieving one is cast out from holiness and is sent into places of punishment.
A Devout Reception
The faithful are urged to receive these words with devoted affection, for they have been published for their profit.
Let these words, however, be received by the faithful with a devoted affection of heart, because through him who is first and last they have been published for the profit of believers.
Read the original Latin
« Posuisti tenebras, et facta est nox, in ipsa pertransibunt omnes bestiae silvae. » Hujus sententiae intellectus hoc modo accipiendus est: O Deus et rector, qui omnia juste dispensas, tu posuisti recto judicio tuo tenebras poenarum ad vindictam malorum, de quibus etiam erecta est nox, quod perditio est reproborum, quia dum increduli in tenebris infidelitatis sunt, tenebras mortis incurrunt. Et sic deinde aeternaliter in perditionem ruunt, et in ipsa nocte fidei luce carente pertranseunt omnes qui feroces sunt in tyrannide, et infructuosi in incredulitate, quoniam dum infidelitatem non deponunt, et ad te Deum per gratiam baptismi non currunt, quasi nunquam fuerint, in oblivionem ibunt. Sed fidelis ille est qui, deposita tenebrositate incredulitatis, et fugata nocte aeternae damnationis, pertransit universos mores bestiales, atque infructuosas actiones, se ad vitam convertens, quam ille qui vita est attulit, diabolo quoque renuntians, et in lavacro baptismi se mundans. Filius enim Dei discipulis suis hominem in aqua regenerandum esse evangelizavit, alioquin in coelum non levaretur, nisi prius per aquam et Spiritum sanctum a peccatis mundaretur, quia cum homo seminatur ex patre in matrem missus, et ex ea generatus, in baptismo inspirationem Spiritus sancti recipit, et sic etiam particeps sanctitatis fit; infidelis autem a sanctitate projicitur, et in poenalia loca mittitur. Verba autem haec fideles devoto cordis affectu percipiant, quoniam per illum qui primus et novissimus est, ad utilitatem credentium edita sunt.
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