VISIO SEPTIMA, cap. II
The Great Price of Humanity's Ransom
God ordained humanity to replace the fallen angels and ransomed it through wondrous messages in both Testaments.
After the army of lost angels fell, God ordained humanity to the glory they had lost; but when humanity too fell, he ransomed it at the great price of a blessed deliverance, with many and wondrous messages by which he might call it back to life — in the Old Testament through promises made again and again, and in the New Testament as well, through the many miracles of that deliverance performed for its liberation.
The Mountain of God's Steadfastness
A great mountain of marble in the eastern corner signifies God as an unchanging rock, with a gateway filled by divine splendor representing His will open to all good.
So in the eastern corner — that is, where the rising begins — you see something like a marble stone, a great and lofty mountain, whole and complete, signifying that from the beginning of creation, when the world was made, God stood as a most mighty rock, powerful and exalted in the wholeness of his steadfastness, holding no changeableness within himself. In this place alone a gateway, as it were of a great city, appears cut from the rock, which, from the rising of the sun, a certain bright splendor coming fills entirely and does not extend beyond itself, because the will of God — like a gateway open to every good — is touched by the ordering of the most pure divinity, which does not go beyond what has been ordained, since God's will and ordering fit together in this way, that neither surpasses the other.
Cleansing and Renewal Through Judgment
God cleansed humanity through the flood and renewed the world in Noah with righteous judgment.
For God, in the place that the ancient serpent destroyed, ordained humanity with the kind goodness of his will, and when it wavered in its perversity, he cleansed it with the waters of the flood, and renewed the world in Noah with righteous judgment.
Prophecy's Voice from Adam to the End of Time
Images of people on the mountain represent prophecy, which began in Adam, shines through darkness across all generations, and dwells in humanity like a soul in a body, guiding the lost back to uprightness.
And from that same stone, almost to the other eastern end that faces south, there appear, as it were, images of people — namely, of boys, young men, and old men — just as stars appear through a cloud, giving sound all the way to the west, as a sea stirred by wind surges forward, because from divine power, up to the point where the old law appeared with its severity, reaching its limit with the burning heat of justice and the coming of truth, prophecy began in the first work of God, that is, in Adam. This prophecy, passing from generation to generation through the different ages of humanity, shone like a light through darkness, and its sound will not cease until the end of the world, giving voice to meanings of every kind, and it is filled with diverse mysteries through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. For prophecy in a human being is like a soul in a body: just as a soul is sheltered within the body and through it the body is governed, so prophecy, coming from the Spirit of God — who surpasses all creation — is invisible, and through it the crooked places are broken down, and those who stray are brought back to the path of uprightness, just as also through my inspiration David my servant speaks, saying:
David's Good Word and the Generations of Christ
The opening of Psalm 44 pertains to every generation of Christ and calls for deeper understanding.
David's words from the opening of Psalm 44 — 'My heart has poured forth a good word' — speak to the same reality and to every generation of Christ, and to how they are to be understood.✦
Read the original Latin
Postquam exercitus perditorum angelorum cecidit, Deus hominem in gloriam illorum quam perdiderant ordinavit; sed eo etiam corruente, ipsum magno pretio beatae ereptionis redemit, multis et admirandis nuntiis quibus eum ad vitam revocaret, in Veteri Testamento multoties promissis; in Novo quoque Testamento quamplurimis per liberationem illius miraculis perpetratis. Quapropter in angulo orientali, scilicet ubi oriens incipit, quasi marmoreum lapidem sicut montem magnum et altum ac integrum aspicis, qui designat quod a principio creaturarum, cum mundus creatus est, Deus firmissima petra potens et excelsus in integritate stabilitatis exstitit nullam mutabilitatem in se habens. In quo tantum porta velut magnae civitatis excisa videtur, quam ab ortu solis lucidus splendor quidam veniens, totam perfundit, nec ultra se extendit, quia voluntas Dei quemadmodum porta ad quaelibet bona patens, purissimae divinitatis ordinatione tangitur, quae supra id quod ordinatum est non procedit, quoniam voluntas et ordinatio Dei hoc modo sibi conveniunt, ut neutra aliam transcendat. Nam Deus in locum quem antiquus serpens perdidit, pia bonitate voluntatis suae hominem ordinavit, ipsumque in perversa vacillantem, aquis diluvii expiavit, et mundum in Noe justa examinatione renovavit. Unde et ab eodem lapide fere usque ad alterum orientalem finem qui versus austrum est, quasi imagines hominum, videlicet puerorum, juvenum ac senum, quemadmodum stellae per nubem apparent, sonum usque ad occidentem dantes, velut mare inundando per ventum movetur, quoniam a divina fortitudine usque ubi vetus lex cum severitate apparens, finem ardore justitiae et veritatis veniente accepit, prophetia in primo opere Dei, videlicet in Adam incepit. Quae ita a generatione in generationem per diversas aetates hominum, ut lumen per tenebras, lucebat, nec a sono suo usque ad terminum mundi cessabit, voces multimodarum significationum proferendo, cum inspiratione Spiritus sancti, diversis mysteriis imbuitur. Prophetia enim in homine velut anima in corpore est, quia sicut anima in corpore obumbrata est, et ut per eam corpus regitur, ita et prophetia a Spiritu Dei veniens, qui omni creaturae praeeminet, invisibile est, atque per eam quaeque declivia corripiuntur, et ad viam rectitudinis deviantes reducuntur, sicut etiam inspiratione mea David servus meus loquitur dicens:
Verba David ex primo versu Psalmi XLIV, id est, « Eructavit cor meum verbum bonum » ad idem et ad utramque Christi generationem pertinentia, et quomodo intelligenda sint.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Ps.44.2;Ps.46.1 — God, we have heard with our own ears—our ancestors told us what you did in their days, in days of old. Ps.46.1 — To the choirmaster. Of the Sons of Korah. According to Alamoth. A song.
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