VISIO NONA, cap. IV
The Six Wings of Love and Contemplation
The six wings of the image are interpreted as the works of charity, the mysteries of God, the Old and New Testaments, and the boundless power of God, each pair revealing a dimension of divine love and heavenly contemplation.
But it also has six wings, which stand for the six days' works in which a person, calling on God, praises God and obtains God's help for themselves; two of these wings rise upward from the shoulders and, curving back toward each other, join together, covering the glory already mentioned, and showing the love of God and of neighbor, while lifting themselves upward through the strength of good works, and setting aside harshness, they bend down to the needs of their neighbors.✦ They also encompass the mysteries of God's hidden things, since these same wings also make manifest the heavenly army of the spirits on high, whom God has placed before his own face, making them mirrors of his wonders as they gaze upon his face — a face that no splendor of praise and no limit can ever bring to an end.✦ With two wings, however, reaching downward from the aforementioned shoulders all the way to the top of the head already spoken of, the Old and New Testaments are signified, which carry the strength of God's precepts and, bending back toward the ancient design, extend forward, since in the Old Testament the prophets foretold the Son of God, whom in the New the children of the Church received through the devotion of faith. It also declares the power of God, which has the ability to create and to do whatever it wills, just as a bird flies outward in height, in breadth, and in depth with its wings spread wide, since God has established all the secrets of heaven on a straight path, so that their splendor never ceases and they never reach an end in his truth, just as truth has no shadow of falsehood.
The Lower Wings: This Age and the Age to Come
The lowest pair of wings signifies the present passing age and the future unending life, heralded by terrors and portents at the end of the world.
By two wings, however, descending from the loins of this same image all the way to the soles of its feet and spreading a little as if for flight, the present age and the future are shown, where in the present generation passes away and another succeeds, and in the future the stability of unfailing life will arrive, when around the end of the world it will be made manifest, with terrors and many portents heralding that same end as if flying ahead of it.✦
Divine Protection at the Loins
At the loins the devil tempts through fleshly desire, but divine protection grants chastity, and Christ's virginal nature crushed the serpent's work of lust.
And at the loins the gluttonous throat of the devil inflicts the taste of sins and of fleshly desires, where food descends and is emitted, and where the lust of the flesh grows in sins; but divine protection defends them and grants them chastity along with the uplift of good works. For God later restrained the defiling acts that arose through the serpent's tongue in the first human beings, by means of one man who, with the powerful wings of a virgin nature, crushed the work of lust in people's minds against the claims of the flesh.✦✦
The Mystery of Fish-Wings and the Hidden Incarnation
The image's body is covered with small fish-wings rather than bird-wings, signifying how the Son of God entered the world in flesh unknown to the devil and endured great sufferings by the Father's will.
What does this mean — that the same image appears covered over its whole body with the small wings of fish and not the wings of birds; and that the Son of God entered the world through flesh without the devil knowing it; and to what end the Father willed him to endure such great sufferings?
Read the original Latin
Sed et sex alas habet, quae sex dierum opera sunt, in quibus homo Deum invocando laudat, et seipsum adjutorio Dei procurat; quarum duae ab humeris sursum ascendentes, et se recurvantes ad invicem se conjungunt, praedictamque claritatem tegunt, quae dilectionem Dei et proximi ostendentes, et se per fortitudinem bonorum operum sursum erigentes, rigore deposito, necessitati proximorum condescendunt. Mysteria etiam arcanorum Dei comprehendunt, quoniam et eaedem alae etiam coelestem militiam supernorum spirituum manifestant, quos Deus ad vultum suum posuit, eos specula miraculorum suorum constituens, cum vultum ipsius inspiciunt, quem tamen nulla celebritate laudis, nec ullo termino ad finem perducere valent. Duabus autem alis a praefatis humeris usque ad verticem supradicti capitis deorsum se extendentibus, vetus et novum testamentum significatur, quae fortitudinem praeceptorum Dei portant, et se ad antiquum consilium declinando extendunt, cum in veteri testamento prophetae Filium Dei praedixerunt, quem in novo filii Ecclesiae per devotionem fidei susceperunt. Ipse etiam potestatem Dei declarat, quae possibilitatem creandi et faciendi qui vult habet, quemadmodum et avis expansis alis suis in altitudinem, in latitudinem et in profunditatem volat, quoniam et Deus omnia coelestia secreta in recto itinere constituit, ita ut eorum splendor nunquam cesset, et in veritate ipsius nunquam finem habeant, sicut nec veritas umbram falsitatis habet. Alis vero duabus a lumbis ejusdem imaginis usque ad talum pedum ipsius descendentibus, et se aliquantulum quasi ad volandum expandentibus, praesens saeculum et futurum ostenditur, ubi in praesenti generatio praeterit et alia succedit, et ubi in futuro stabilitas indeficientis vitae adveniet, cum circa finem mundi idipsum manifestabitur, terroribus et prodigiis quamplurimis eumdem finem velut volando praecurrentibus. Et lumbis ingluvies gutturis diabolici gustum peccatorum et carnalium desideriorum immittit, ubi cibi descendunt et emittuntur, et ubi carnis concupiscentia in peccatis crescit; sed divina protectio eos defendit, et castitatem cum erectione bonorum operum ipsis tribuit. Nam Deus incestos actus qui per motum linguae serpentis in primis hominibus surrexerunt, postea per hominem unum constrinxit, qui potentibus alis virgineae naturae, officium luxuriae in mentibus hominum contra carnis jura contrivit.
Quid significet quod haec eadem imago toto corpore pennulis piscium et non pennis volucrum velata videtur; et quod Dei Filius, diabolo nesciente, mundum per carnem intraverit, et ad quid Pater illum tantas passiones sustinere voluerit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Isa.6.2 — Seraphim were standing above him; each one had six wings: with two each covered his face, with two each covered his feet, and with two each would fly.
- ↩Matt.18.10 — See that you do not despise one of these little ones; for I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father who is in heaven.
- ↩Matt.24.29;Luke.21.25-Luke.21.26 — But immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Luke.21.25 — There will be signs in the sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, Luke.21.26 — People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
- ↩Gen.3.1-Gen.3.6 — Now the serpent was more crafty than any other animal that the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?" Gen.3.2 — And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, Gen.3.3 — but of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, God said, 'You shall not eat from it, and you shall not touch it, lest you die.' Gen.3.4 — But the serpent said to the woman, 'You will not certainly die.' Gen.3.5 — for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Gen.3.6 — And the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and the tree was desirable to make one wise. She took of its fruit and ate, and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
- ↩Isa.7.14;Matt.1.23 — Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: Look, the young woman will conceive and bear a son, and she will call his name Immanuel. Matt.1.23 — "Look, the virgin will conceive and bear a son, and they will call his name Immanuel," which means, "God with us."
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