Prologus
The Origin of the Book of Questions
This prologue introduces the fifth book of Saint Bridget's revelations, which originated from a prayerful journey toward her castle.
This is the prologue to the fifth book of the Heavenly Revelations, known as the Book of Questions. This fifth book of Christ's Heavenly Revelations to Saint Bridget of Sweden is appropriately titled the Book of Questions because it is structured as a series of questions to which Christ the Lord provides marvelous answers. It was revealed to this same lady in a miraculous way, just as she herself and her confessors often testified by word of mouth. It happened once that while she was riding to her castle at Watzsteni, accompanied by several members of her household, she began to lift her heart to God in prayer along the way.
The Vision of the Heavenly Ladder
Bridget is caught up in ecstasy, witnessing a vision of Christ as Judge and a learned but deceitful man presenting questions before Him.
She was immediately caught up in spirit and went as if outside herself, alienated from the senses of the body, suspended in an ecstasy of mental contemplation. In the spirit, she saw a ladder fixed to the earth, with its top reaching the heavens. At the top in heaven, she saw the Lord Jesus Christ sitting on a magnificent throne like a judge passing judgment. The Virgin Mary stood at his feet, while an infinite army of angels and a vast multitude of saints surrounded the throne. In the middle of that same ladder, the aforementioned Lady Birgitta saw a certain religious man she knew, who was still alive in the body at that time, a man of great learning in the science of theology, but also full of deceit and diabolical malice.1 In his manner, he seemed far more like a devil than a humble religious, so impatient and restless did he appear. For that lady saw the thoughts and all the inner movements of that religious man's heart, and how he was laying them before Christ the Judge, who sat upon the throne, with a disordered and restless manner, in the form of questions, as follows below. At that time, Lady Birgitta also saw and heard in her spirit how Christ the Judge answered those questions with a most gentle and dignified manner, responding one by one, concisely, and with supreme wisdom; she also saw how our Lady, the Virgin Mary, sometimes spoke words to her, as this book will explain more fully later on.
The Preservation of Divine Wisdom
After being roused from her rapture, Bridget retains the entire book in her memory and records it for posterity.
But in that same instant, the lady had the entire book in her mind in one and the same revelation; as she was already approaching the castle, her attendants took hold of the horse's bridle and began to move her, effectively rousing her from that rapture. When she came back to herself, she was deeply saddened to be deprived of such great divine sweetness. This book of questions remained so effectively fixed in her heart and memory that it was as if it had been carved entirely into a marble tablet. She wrote it down immediately in her own language, and her confessor translated it into the literal language, just as he was accustomed to doing with other books of revelations.
Read the original Latin
Incipit prologus quinti libri celestium reuelacionum qui dicitur Liber questionum Incipit quintus liber celestium reuelacionum Christi ad beatam Birgittam de regno Suecie, qui Liber questionum merito intitulatur ex eo, quod processus eius est per modum questionum, ad quas Christus Dominus mirabiles dat soluciones.
Et reuelatus fuit eidem domine miro modo, sicut ipsa et confessores eius sepe oretenus testabantur.
Nam semel contigit, quod, cum ipsa quadam die equitaret in equo itinerando ad suum castrum Watzsteni pluribus familiaribus cum ea equitantibus sociata, tunc illa sic equitando per viam incepit orando ad Deum erigere mentem suam.
Que illico rapta fuit in spiritu et ibat quasi extra se alienata a sensibus corporis in extasi mentalis contemplacionis suspensa.
Videbat enim tunc in spiritu vnam scalam fixam in terram, cuius summitas celum tangebat. Et in summitate eius in celo videbat Dominum Ihesum Christum sedentem in throno mirabili velut iudicem iudicantem.
Ad cuius pedes stabat virgo Maria, in circuitu autem throni erat infinitus exercitus angelorum et multitudo copiosa sanctorum.
Et in medio eiusdem scale videbat predicta domina Birgitta religiosum quendam sibi notum adhuc corpore tunc viuentem magne litterature in sciencia theologie, plenum quoque dolo et malicia dyabolica.
Qui videbatur in gestu suo impacientissimo et inquieto magis dyabolus quam humilis religiosus.
Videbat namque tunc dicta domina cogitaciones et omnes affecciones internas cordis eiusdem religiosi et quomodo ipse illas propalabat Christo iudici in throno sedenti cum gestu inordinato et inquietissimo per modum questionum, vt infra sequitur.
Videbat eciam et audiebat tunc in spiritu ipsa domina Birgitta, qualiter Christus iudex ad illas questiones cum gestu mansuetissimo et honesto sigillatim et compendiose sapientissime respondebat et qualiter aliquando domina nostra virgo Maria aliqua verba eidem domine Birgitte loquebatur, vt seriosius liber iste inferius declarabit.
Postquam autem in eodem instanti dicta domina habuit in mente totum istum librum in vna et eadem reuelacione, accedente iam ipsa ad dictum castrum, tunc familiares eius accipientes frenum equi ceperunt eam mouere et quasi excitare ab illo raptu.
Que ad se reuersa nimis doluit ex eo, quod tunc priuabatur tanta diuina dulcedine.
Qui liber questionum ita effectualiter remansit tunc in corde et memoria eius infixus, ac si in tabula marmorea totus sculptus fuisset.
Ipsa vero statim scripsit eum in lingua sua, quem translatauit confessor eius in lingua litterali, prout alios libros reuelacionum translatare solitus erat.
Notes
- 1 ↩The Latin 'scale' (ladder) is used here in the context of a vision, likely representing a spiritual hierarchy or a path of ascent/descent.
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