VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. I
The Radiant Stone and Its Gateway
The seer beholds a great marble stone like a mountain with a gateway, flooded by a brilliant radiance, from which images of people appear like stars through a cloud, and a heavenly radiance both illuminates and draws them back to itself.
After this, in the eastern corner — that is, where the dawn will break — I was gazing at what seemed a marble stone, like a great, high, towering mountain, whole and undivided, in which only a gateway, cut out like that of a great city, was visible, and a certain brilliant radiance coming from the rising sun was flooding it entirely, and it did not extend beyond itself. And from that same stone, almost all the way to the other eastern end, which faced south, what seemed like images of people — that is, of boys, young men, and old men — were appearing like stars through a cloud, giving forth sound all the way to the west, like a sea when it's stirred by surging wind. A certain radiance coming from on high was also flooding them, surpassing all human beauty, with its own ray, and then it was drawing that ray back to itself again.
The Two Hybrid Guardians
Two hybrid figures stand near the eastern corner: one with a leopard's head and chest, human arms, and bear's hands, gazing north in a still stone tunic; the other with a human face, folded hands, hawk's feet, a four-colored wooden tunic, and a crosswise sword, gazing west.
Next to that aforementioned eastern end, however, two other images were standing close to each other, and the first of them had a head and chest like a leopard; its arms were like a person's, but its hands were like a bear's feet; I couldn't see any other form in it. Its stone tunic wasn't moving this way or that, but it was turning its gaze toward the north. But the other image, which was closer to the mentioned corner, had a human face and hands folded together, and it was showing hawk's feet. And it was clothed in what seemed like a wooden tunic, which appeared white from its top down to its navel, reddish from the navel to its loins, grayish from the loins to its knees, and murky from the knees to the tips of its feet. It was also holding a sword placed crosswise above its loins, and remaining motionless, it had turned its gaze toward the west.
The Heavenly Host and the Voice from Heaven
Countless images of people flow like a cloud across the southern region bearing crowns, palms, and musical instruments whose sweet sound thunders like clouds, after which a voice from heaven speaks to the seer.
Then, as it were, I saw countless other images of people streaming like a cloud through the air across the whole southern region: some bearing crowns as if of gold on their heads, others holding what looked like palms, greatly ornate, others as if flutes, others as if lyres, others as if organs, and the sound of these same instruments thundered sweet, just like the sweet sound of clouds. And again I heard a voice from heaven saying to me.
Read the original Latin
Post haec in angulo orientali, scilicet ubi oriens incipiet, quasi marmoreum lapidem sicut montem magnum, et altum, ac integrum aspiciebam, in quo tantum porta velut magnae civitatis excisa videbatur, quam splendor quidam lucidus ab ortu solis veniens totam perfundebat, nec ultra se extendebat. Et ab eodem lapide fere usque ad alterum orientalem finem qui versus austrum erat, quasi imagines hominum, videlicet puerorum, juvenum ac senum, quemadmodum stellae per nubem apparebant, sonum usque ad occidentem dantes, velut mare cum inundando per ventum movetur. Quos etiam quidam splendor de supernis veniens, omnemque pulchritudinem humanae aestimationis excedens, quodam radio suo perfundebat, quem iterum deinde ad se retrahebat. Juxta istum autem praefatum orientalem finem, aliae duae imagines sibi vicinae stabant, quarum altera, quae prior erat, caput et pectus quemadmodum leopardus habebat; brachia vero ut homo; sed manus ejus ursi pedibus assimilabantur; aliam autem formam in ea non videbam. Tunica autem lapidea induebatur, nec hac, nec illac movebatur, sed visum suum ad aquilonem retorquebat. Sed altera imago, quae praedicto angulo vicinior erat, faciem manusque hominis sibi invicem complicatas habebat, et pedes accipitris in se ostendebat. Et quasi tunica lignea induebatur, quae a summitate sua usque ad umbilicum illius apparebat candida, ab umbilico autem usque ad lumbos ejus subrubea, a lumbis vero usque ad genua ipsius subgrisea, et a genibus usque ad finem pedum illius turbida. Gladium quoque velut supra lumbos suos in transversum positum tenebat, atque immobilis permanens, aspectum suum ad occidentem verterat.
Deinde autem quasi alias innumerabiles hominum imagines per totam australem plagam sicut nubem in aere fluentes videbam, quarum alii in capitibus suis velut coronas aureas ferebant, alii ut palmas valde ornatas in manibus suis tenebant, alii ut fistulas, alii ut citharas, alii ut organa, sonusque eorumdem instrumentorum, quemadmodum dulcis sonus nubium intonabat. Et iterum vocem de coelo audivi dicentem ad me.
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