Scivias

And suddenly I grasped the meaning of the exposition of the books—that is, of the Psalter, the Gospels and the other catholic volumes of both the Old and the New Testament. I did not, however, know how to interpret the words of their text, nor how to divide the syllables, nor did I have any knowledge of cases or tenses. But from girlhood—that is, from the time I was five years old—up to the present, I had felt in myself, in a wonderful way, the power of mysteries, of secret and marvelous visions, as I still do. Yet I revealed this to no one, except a few religious people who were living the same way of life as I was. In the meantime, until the time when God by his grace willed it to be revealed, I kept it suppressed in quiet silence.

As for the visions I saw: I did not perceive them in dreams, nor asleep, nor in delirium, nor with the bodily eyes or ears of the outer self, nor in hidden places. I received them awake, alert, with a pure mind, with the eyes and ears of the inner self, in open places, according to the will of God. How this can be is hard for a fleshly human being to search out. But when the bounds of girlhood were past and I had reached the age of full strength I mentioned, I heard a voice from heaven saying: I am the living light, who illuminates what is dark. This human being, whom I willed and whom I struck in a wonderful way as it pleased me, I have placed among great wonders, beyond the measure of the people of old who saw many secrets in me. But I have laid her low on the ground, so that she might not lift herself up in any arrogance of mind.

The world, too, found in her no joy, no delight, no activity in the things that belong to it. For I drew her away from stubborn boldness, so that she was full of fear and anxious in her labors. She suffered in the marrow and in the veins of her flesh. Her mind and senses were constrained, and she endured much bodily suffering, so that no sense of security dwelt in her, and in all her affairs she judged herself to be at fault. For I hedged in the ruins of her heart, so that her mind would not exalt itself through pride or vainglory, but would feel fear and pain in all these things rather than joy or wantonness. So, in my love, she searched in her mind for where she might find someone who was running the way of salvation.

And she found someone and loved him, recognizing that he was a faithful man and like herself in some part of the labor that strives toward me. Holding him close, she strove together with him in all these things with heavenly zeal, so that my hidden wonders might be revealed. And this same human being did not exalt herself above herself, but with many sighs bowed toward the one she had found, in an ascent of humility and with the intention of good will. You, then, O human, who receive these things not in the turmoil of deception but in the purity of simplicity, and who are directed toward the revealing of hidden things: write what you see and hear.note

And I spoke and wrote these things not according to the invention of my own heart or of any human being, but as I saw, heard and perceived them in the heavens through the secret mysteries of God. And again I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: “Cry out, then, and write thus.”

In the mountain itself there could be seen what seemed to be a great many little windows, in which appeared what looked like human heads, some pale and some white. And behold, the one who sat on the mountain cried out in a very strong and piercing voice, saying: O fragile human, dust of the dust of the earth, and ash of ash, cry out and speak of the entrance into incorruptible salvation. Do this so that those may be taught who see the marrow of the Scriptures but will neither speak nor preach it, because they are lukewarm and sluggish in keeping the justice of God. Unlock for them the enclosure of mysteries, which they, being timid, hide in a hidden field without fruit. Spread yourself out, then, into a fountain of abundance, and overflow with mystical teaching, so that those who want you to be held in contempt because of Eve’s transgression may be shaken by the flood of your watering.note

For you receive the keenness of this depth not from a human being, but from above, from the Judge on high who is to be feared, where this serenity will shine strongly in glorious light among the shining ones. Arise, therefore, cry out and speak the things that are revealed to you by the very strong power of divine help. For he who rules all his creation with power and kindness floods with the glory of heavenly illumination those who fear him and serve him with sweet love in a spirit of humility, and he leads those who persevere in the way of righteousness to the joys of eternal vision.

They received a fiery brilliance and so gained a most serene radiance. For when Lucifer with his followers tried to rebel against the Creator on high, these spirits, filled with zeal for God at the fall of Lucifer and of those who consented with him, put on the vigilance of divine love, while the others fell into the blindness of ignorance by which they refused to know God. How so? At the devil’s fall, very great praise arose among those angelic spirits who persevered with God in uprightness. For, their sight enlightened, they recognized clearly that God remains unmoved in his power, without any change of any mutability, so that no warrior will ever be able to overcome him. And so, burning in his love and persevering in uprightness, they scorned every dwelling place of injustice.note

And when, puffed up with pride, he wanted to accomplish what he had planned, the zeal of the Lord stretched out and cast him down, with all his company, in fiery blackness, so that they were made dark, the opposite of the serenity they had had.

And so, because God does not let them have what they want, they are worn down by pain on every side and rage among people in the frenzy of their madness, burning to possess what God does not allow them to devour. And when they withdraw from God in this way, they are likened only to useless things, so that they would want to do nothing good either toward God or toward human beings; and they are cut off from the grain of life in the foreseeing eye of God’s gaze. For this reason those who are scattered in the lukewarm taste of wicked rumor are handed over to such crushing, since they do not receive the coming rain of the Holy Spirit.

In this way the angels will rejoice over you, because you have withdrawn from the devil and run to God. Through good deeds you now know him better than you knew him before, when you were the laughingstock of the ancient seducer.

Because he knew that the woman’s softness would be more easily conquered than the man’s strength. He also saw that Adam burned so fiercely with love for Eve that, if he conquered Eve, Adam would do whatever she told him. So the devil cast her and the human form out of that region. By his deception, the ancient seducer drove Eve and Adam from the seat of blessedness and thrust them down into the darkness of ruin. How so? He seduced Eve first, so that she would coax Adam into giving his consent. She could lead Adam to disobedience more readily than any other creature, because she had been made from his rib. For this reason a woman brings a man down more quickly when he does not shrink from her and readily takes up her words.

And behold, by the secret design of the Creator on high, that form gave the movement of living motion. A fiery sphere with no features of a human body took possession of the heart of that form, touched its brain, and poured itself through all its limbs. Then that human form, brought to life in this way, came forth from the woman’s womb, and it changed its color according to the movements the sphere had within it. And I saw many whirlwinds assail one such sphere dwelling in a human body and bend it down to the earth. But it regained its strength, raised itself up bravely, and bravely resisted them, and with groaning it lamented thus:

There I was captured and robbed of my eyes and of the joy of knowledge, my garment torn to pieces, and so I was driven from my inheritance. I was led into a foreign place that lacks all beauty and honor, and there I was subjected to the worst slavery.

Oh, what eye could look upon my wounds? And what nostrils could bear this foul stench? Or what hands will anoint them with oil? Ah! Who will show mercy to my pain? Let heaven hear my cry, then, and let the earth tremble at my grief, and let everything that lives bend down in pity toward my captivity. For the bitterest pain presses on me, since I am a stranger without consolation and without help. Oh, who will comfort me, since even my mother has forsaken me because I strayed from the way of salvation? Who will help me but God? When I remember you, O mother Zion, in whom I should have dwelt, I look upon the bitterest slavery to which I am subjected. And when I call to mind every kind of music that is in you, I attend to my wounds.note

But when I also remember the joy and gladness of your glory, then I loathe the poisons with which I am infected. Oh, where shall I turn? And where shall I flee? My pain is beyond counting, for if I persist in these evils, I shall be the companion of those with whom I lived shamefully in the land of Babylon. And where are you, O my mother Zion? Alas for me, that I so unhappily withdrew from you! If I did not know you, I would bear my pain more lightly. But now I will flee my most wicked companions, for unhappy Babylon has set me on a leaden scale and crushed me under enormous beams, so that I can scarcely breathe. And when I pour out my tears and my groans to you, O my mother, unhappy Babylon sends forth such a roar of rushing waters that you do not heed my voice.note

So with great care I will seek narrow ways by which I may escape my most wicked companions and my unhappy captivity. When I had said this, I slipped away along a narrow path and hid myself in a little hollow facing north, weeping most bitterly because I had lost my mother. There I considered all my pain and all my wounds, and, weeping and weeping, I shed such floods of tears that all the pain and all the bruising of my wounds was drenched and soaked by them. And behold, the sweetest fragrance, like a gentle breeze sent from my mother, filled my nostrils. Oh, how many groans and how many tears I poured out then, when I felt that small consolation near! And I cried out so loudly, weeping abundantly for joy, that even the mountain in whose hollow I had hidden was shaken by it.

And I said: “O mother, O mother Zion, what will become of me at last? And where is your noble daughter now? Oh, how long, how long am I to be without your motherly sweetness, you who had gently nourished me with many delights?” And I took such delight in these tears that it was as if I were seeing my mother. But my enemies heard my cries and said: “Where is she whom until now we have kept in our company at our will, who until now has done all that we willed? Look, now she is calling on the dwellers of heaven. So let us rouse all our arts and guard her with such zeal and such care that she can never escape us, since we had already made her wholly subject to us. If we do this, she will follow us again.” But I secretly left the hollow in which I had hidden, longing to go to some height where my enemies could not find me.

But they set against me a sea of such seething heat that I could in no way wade across it. There was a bridge there too, but so small and narrow that I could not cross by it either. At the far end of that sea there appeared a range of mountains with peaks so sharp that I felt no path could be found there either. And I said: “Oh, what shall I do now, wretched as I am? Just now I felt a little of my mother’s sweetness, and so I thought she wished to lead me back to her. But ah! Will she abandon me again? Ah! Where shall I turn? For if I now fall back into my former captivity, I shall be more of a laughingstock to my enemies than before, because I wailed faithfully to my mother and felt a little of the sweetness of her gentleness, and now I have been abandoned by her again.”

Yet through the sweetness I had felt coming from my mother, I still had such strength that I turned to the east and began once more to attempt the narrowest paths. But those paths were so hedged with thorns and thistles and other such obstacles that I could scarcely set a foot in them. Still, at last, with the greatest labor and sweat, I barely made my way through them, and that labor brought on such exhaustion that I could scarcely breathe. So at last, utterly weary, I came out onto the summit of the mountain in which I had hidden before, and I bent down toward its valley. As I was about to descend, asps, scorpions, dragons, and other such serpents rushed at me together and hissed at me. Terrified, I let out loud wails, saying: “O mother, where are you?

“I would grieve more lightly if I had not felt the sweetness of your visit before, since now I shall fall again into the captivity in which I had long lain. Where, then, is your help now?” Then I heard my mother’s voice saying to me:

Toward the south I built a tower of squared stones, in which I hung red shields, and in its windows I placed trumpets made of ivory. In the middle of that tower I poured out honey, and from it, with other spices, I made a precious ointment, so that a very great fragrance spread from it through the whole circuit of the tabernacle. Toward the west I set no work, because that side was turned toward the world. Meanwhile, as I was busy with this labor, my enemies seized their quivers and attacked my tabernacle with their arrows. But I was so intent on the work I was doing that I paid no attention to their madness until the doors of the tabernacle were full of arrows. Yet none of the arrows damaged the door or could pierce the steel of the tabernacle, and so I could not be harmed by them either.

When they perceived this, they sent forth a great flood of waters to overthrow me and my tabernacle, but in this malice of theirs they achieved nothing. So I boldly mocked them, saying: “The craftsman who built this tabernacle was wiser and stronger than you. So gather up your arrows and lay them down, for from now on they will win you no victory over me for your will. Look—what wounds do they show? With much pain and toil I have fought many battles against you when you wanted to hand me over to death. Yet you could not, because I was armed with the strongest weapons, and I brandished sharp swords against you and defended myself vigorously from you. Withdraw, then, withdraw, for you will not be able to hold me any longer.”

When I have a prosperous life in the works of my tabernacle, the devil’s persuasion meets me, ensnaring me in everything and lifting me so high on the breath of pride that I often say: “I want to act according to the appetite of the powers of my earth, for in my tabernacle I understand all works.” But I am so hindered by its desire that I do not discern my works until I feel cruel wounds within me. Oh, what lamentation I utter then! And I say: “O God, did you not create me? Look, vile earth oppresses me.” And so do I take flight in it? How so? When my tabernacle has carnal desire, then, because I take pleasure in the deed, I carry out that deed with it.

But reason, which flourishes in me together with knowledge, shows me that I was created by God. In this reason I also perceive that Adam, when he had transgressed the divine command, hid himself in fear. So I too, in fear, hide myself from the face of God when I feel that my works in my tabernacle are contrary to God. But when I weigh them on the leaden scale of sin, I despise all the works that burn with carnal desires. Alas for me, wandering as I am! How shall I hold out in these dangers? And when the devil’s persuasion attacks me, saying, “Is this good, which you do not know, nor see, nor are able to do?”—what will happen then? And when it says again, “What you know, and understand, and are able to do—why do you abandon it?”—what shall I do then? Full of pain I will answer: Ah, wretched me!

For through Adam harmful poisons were breathed into me, when he transgressed the divine command and, cast out onto the earth, joined fleshly tabernacles together. In the taste he tasted in the apple through disobedience, a harmful sweetness thrusts itself into blood and flesh and so produces the pollution of vices. Hence I feel the sin of the flesh in me, and I neglect the most pure God, because I have been made drunk through guilt. But I must not follow what the taste of my tabernacle holds. For because Adam was created pure and simple by God when he first appeared, I fear God, knowing that through him I was created pure and simple. But now, through the evil habit of vices, I am turned to restlessness. Oh, in all these things I am a stranger and a wanderer!

But again I doubt within myself whether this comes from the gift of the Holy Spirit or not, and I say: “This is useless.” And then I want to fly above the clouds. How so? I want to climb above my understanding and to begin things I cannot finish. But when I attempt this, I stir up the deepest sadness in myself. So I complete no work, either on the heights of holiness or on the plain of good will. Instead I feel within me the unrest of doubt, despair, grief and the oppression of all things. And when the devil’s persuasion unsettles me in this way—oh, what calamity then overwhelms me! For all the evils that are or can be, in reproach, in cursing, in the mortification of body and soul, in foul words against the purity, salvation and loftiness that are in God—all these come upon me, wretched as I am.

From this, too, this wickedness rises up against me: all happiness and every good, in human beings as well as in God, becomes burdensome and heavy to me, setting death before me rather than life. Ah! How wretched is the struggle that forces itself on me like this, from toil to toil, from sorrow to sorrow, from division to division, taking all happiness away from me!

But when, by God’s gift, I remember the things that God has created, then amid these oppressions I answer these diabolical persuasions in this way: “I will not yield to the frailty of earth, but will wage the fiercest wars.” How so? When my tabernacle wants to do works of injustice, I will defend myself by crushing marrow, blood and flesh in the wisdom of patience, as a strong lion defends himself, and as a serpent hides in its cave to escape the deathblow. For I must neither take in the devil’s arrows nor carry out the will of the flesh. How so?

oh, who will help me then, since the ancient serpent, who wanted to be above all and fell into death, is trying to throw me down? Then I say in grief: “Where is my king and my God? What good can I do without God? Nothing.” And so I look to God, who gave me life, and I run to that most blessed Virgin who crushed the pride of the ancient cave. So, having become a most solid stone in God’s building, I can no longer be overcome by the most ravenous wolf, who was strangled by the hook of divinity. And so I come to know the sweetest good—that is, humility in the height of God, and the remembrance, among all, of the humility of the most blessed Virgin—and I sense the sweetness of unfailing balsam. And so, rejoicing in God’s sweetness as if I were amid the fragrance of all spices, I cast down the other vices too with the mighty strength of humility.note

And I heard a living voice saying to them: “Let it be led from place to place according to its works.” And again I heard a voice from heaven saying to me: “The blessed and ineffable Trinity revealed itself to the world when the Father sent into the world his Only-Begotten, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin. He did so in order that human beings, born in great diversity and bound by many sins, might be brought back through him to the way of truth; and that, released from the bonds of their bodily mass and carrying good and holy works with them, they might attain the joys of the heavenly inheritance.”

In it there also appears another radiance, like the dawn, holding within itself the brightness of a purple brilliance. For the knowledge of God also shows this: that the Only-Begotten of the Father, taking flesh from the Virgin, deigned to shed his blood in the pure whiteness of faith for the salvation of humankind. In this knowledge of God both good and evil are shown, since it is clouded by no obscurity in anything. But you, O human, say: “What will a human being do, since God has foreknown everything that person will do?” To which I reply:

But you will fall just as he fell, who set a lie against the truth. For he loved the lie, and so, wrapped in death, he plunged into the abyss. Therefore, O human, pay attention. You do not look upon the love with which God set you free, nor notice how many good things God constantly bestows on you, nor consider how he calls you back from death; and so you often fall into sins, where you love death more than life. But if you then at last recall to mind the Scriptures and the teachings that your ancient and faithful fathers set before you—that you must avoid evil and do good—and if you then say from the depths of your heart, “I have sinned grievously; therefore I must return with fitting repentance to my Father, who created me,” then your Father receives you kindly, takes you back into his bosom and embraces you with tender arms.note

Now, however, you scorn to know the blessedness that God has set before you, and you refuse to hear or to do God’s justice. If it were possible, would you call God’s judgment unjust rather than just? Had you not been redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, you would lie lost in perdition. But God’s judgment is true and just. So, O human, what profit do you gain by tearing yourself to pieces over my judgment? In the choir of angels and in my chosen vineyard rises the praise of those who praise and say: “Glory to you, O Lord, who are just and true.” My judgment is not contradicted by them, since they are just. But what did it profit the devil to set himself against me?note

When he saw that he had great brightness, he wanted to exalt himself above all, and a countless host of proud spirits consented to him. Divine power, in the zeal of its justice, cast them all down together with him. In the same way all are cast down who, persisting in evil, try to set God’s justice aside, since they labor to pervert the highest good into the perversity of wickedness. Therefore God has in no way established what is unjust; rather, he has ordered all things rightly in the equity of his goodness.

Part of it, too, is mixed with corruption, and from it bitter cheeses are made. For that seed, badly brought forth in the weakness of its mixing and uselessly blended, produces ill-formed people, who often have bitterness, hardship and oppression of heart, so that they cannot raise their minds to higher things. Yet many of them become useful. They suffer many storms and disquiets, both in their hearts and in their behavior, but they come through as victors; for if they gave in to their disquiet, they would make themselves lukewarm and useless. So God helps them by restraining them, and leads them to the way of salvation,

But I, who am cast down by no malice, also often make these people live, though miserably, in another respect: living in them, I draw their breath of life upward away from earthly things, so that it does not perish in them. At times I also afflict with blows, through much infirmity in the toil of their life, those who in pride long to climb to a height harmful to their minds, thinking that no one can cast them down. And I, who am present everywhere, sometimes raise them upward in this way to true health, so that they are not consumed in deceptive dangers by deceptive vanities. But in all this there is no human being and no other creature that can turn aside such works of mine by its own cunning or insolent power; for there is no one who can resist my will and my justice.

Then something like a fiery sphere, having none of the outlines of a human body, takes possession of the heart of that form. For the soul, burning in the fire of profound knowledge, discerns various things within the circuit of its comprehension. It does not have the form of human limbs, since it is neither bodily nor perishable as the human body is. It strengthens the human heart, which, being as it were the foundation of the body, rules the whole body and, like the firmament of heaven, holds together what is below and covers what is above. It also touches the human brain, since in its powers it savors not only earthly but also heavenly things, when it knows God wisely. And it pours itself through all the limbs of the human being, since it gives vigor to the marrow, the veins and all the limbs of the whole body, just as a tree imparts sap and greenness from its root to all its branches.note

Then that human form, brought to life in this way, comes out of the woman’s womb, and it changes its color according to the movements that the sphere has within that human form. For after a human being has received the vital spirit in the mother’s womb and so been born, and has set its activity in motion according to the works that the soul performs with the body, its merits also come about according to these works; for it clothes itself in brightness from good deeds and in darkness from evil ones.

Then, in that fire and heat, the same flame stretched itself out toward a small clod of muddy earth lying at the bottom of the air. It warmed the clod so that it made it flesh and blood, and it breathed on it so that it became a living soul. When this was done, the luminous fire, through that same flame burning ardently with a gentle breath, offered the human a pure white flower, hanging in the flame as dew hangs on grass. The human sensed its scent with his nostrils, but he did not taste it with his mouth or touch it with his hands. And so he turned away and fell into the thickest darkness, from which he could not lift himself up. And that darkness grew, spreading more and more through that air.note

Then three great stars appeared in that darkness, joined to one another in their brilliance. After them came many others, small as well as great, shining with abundant radiance, and then a very great star, beaming with wondrous brightness and directing its brilliance toward the flame I have described. And on the earth there also appeared a brilliance like the dawn, into which the flame above was wondrously poured, yet without being separated from the luminous fire described above. And in that brilliance of the dawn a supreme will was kindled. When I wished to consider the kindling of this will more closely, a secret seal was set upon me in this vision, and I heard a voice from on high saying to me: “You will not be able to see anything more of this mystery, except as is granted to you for the miracle of believing.”

And I saw a most splendid human being coming forth from that same brilliance of the dawn. He poured out his brightness on the darkness and was beaten back by it. Turning to the red of blood and the pallor of whiteness, he struck the darkness with such force that the human who lay in it, appearing at that touch, shone, and so rose up and came out. And so that splendid human who had come forth from the dawn, appearing in a brightness beyond what human tongue can express, made his way into the loftiest height of countless glory, where he shone magnificently in the fullness of every kind of abundance and fragrance.

And I heard a voice from that living fire saying to me: “You who are fragile earth, and, as one bearing the name of woman, untaught in all the learning of human teachers—that is, in reading letters with the understanding of the learned—but only touched by my light, which touches you inwardly with a burning like the blazing sun: cry out, tell, and write these mysteries of mine that you see and hear in mystical vision. So do not be timid, but say what you understand in the spirit, as I speak it through you. Then those will be put to shame who ought to show my people the way of uprightness, but who, out of the perversity of their ways, refuse to speak openly the justice they know. They are unwilling to refrain from their evil desires, which cling to them as though they were their masters, and which make them flee from the face of the Lord and blush to speak the truth.

“Therefore, O little one, you who are taught inwardly in your mind by mystical inspiration, although you are held down by the male sex because of the transgression of Eve, speak nevertheless the fiery work that is shown to you in most certain vision. For the living God, who created all things through his Word, has through that same Word made flesh brought back to faithful salvation the wretched human creature that had plunged itself into darkness.”

Heaven holds light; light, air; air, the birds; and the earth nourishes green things, green things fruit, and fruit animals. All of these bear witness that a most mighty hand set them in place—that is, the supreme might of the Ruler of all. In the capacity of his power he has so wrought all things that they lack nothing for their uses. And in the omnipotence of the same Maker lies the movement of all living and earthly creatures, such as the beasts that seek the earth among earthly things and do not have within them the rationality of God’s breath of life. In it too lies the stirring of the spirits that dwell in human flesh, in which there is rationality, discernment, and wisdom. How so? The soul goes round among earthly affairs, laboring in many different ways, as the habits of the flesh demand.

The spirit, however, raises itself up in two ways: either sighing, groaning, and longing for God, or seeking lordship, rule, and choice in various matters, as if by command; for it has discernment in its rationality. Hence the human being also contains within himself the likeness of heaven and earth. How so? He has a circle in which clarity, the breath of life, and rationality appear, as the lights are seen in the sky. He has a spirit that moves swiftly through every sense and motion, as the air holds the birds. He also has a receptacle for moisture, in which moisture is seen and sprouting and bringing forth appear, as on the earth there are green things, fruit-bearing things, and animals. What does this mean? O human, you are wholly present in every creature, and you forget your Creator. The creation subject to you obeys him as was ordained for it, and you transgress his commandments.

The human sensed its scent with his nostrils, but he did not taste it with his mouth or touch it with his hands. For he drew in the precept of the law with the understanding of wisdom, as if through his nostrils, but he did not fully take the force of its inner perfection into his mouth, nor did he fulfill it by the work of his hands in the fullness of blessedness. And so he turned away and fell into the thickest darkness, from which he could not lift himself up. For at the devil’s prompting he turned his back on the divine command and plunged into the abyss of death, because he did not seek God either in faith or in deeds. So, weighed down by sins, he could not rise to the true knowledge of God until the one came who obeyed his Father fully and without sin.

But that darkness grew, spreading more and more through that air. The power of death in the world kept increasing in the breadth of vices, as human knowledge moved into the variety of many vices and foul sins that arose through error.

This Son of God, living in the world without stain of sin, sent forth the most luminous teaching of blessedness and salvation into the darkness of unbelief. But he was rejected by an unbelieving people and led to his passion; he shed his rose-red blood and tasted the gloom of death in the body. By this he overcame the devil and freed from hell his elect, who had been held and laid low there, and by the touch of his redemption he mercifully led them back to their inheritance, which they had lost in Adam. When they came into their inheritance, drums and harps and all the concord of musicians were roused in countless beauty. For the human being who had lain in perdition, now raised up in blessedness, had escaped death, set free by power from on high,

And so his malice is sunk so deep that no medicine of restoration can make his sin worthy of salvation, the sin he impiously committed in the most contemptible pride. Therefore he will remain in enduring pain, like a woman in labor in the anguish of despair, who has lost hope that she can survive the opening of her womb. For this misery will always remain upon him: that he has been cast out of blessedness. The wisdom of children flees from him, because he does not come back to himself, as the prodigal son came back to himself and returned from his iniquity to his father. Therefore he will never have confidence in that crushing by which the children of salvation, through the death of the heavenly Son, crush the death of the most savage iniquity. The cunning serpent himself made that death boil up when he suggested to the first human being a deceit the human being had not known.note

But because the children of the Savior scorn the deadly poison of that suggestion and look to their salvation, I will free them from slavery to idols. From slavery, I say, to idols, which hold deceit in the power of perdition, and for which unbelievers exchange the honor due their Creator, entangling themselves in the devil’s snare and carrying out their works according to his will. And so I will redeem from the punishment of hell the souls of those who worship me, that is, the souls of the holy and the just. For no human being could be rescued from the devil’s chains, in which humanity was bound by the harshest death for transgressing God’s commandments, except through the redemption of the one who was to redeem his chosen with his own blood.

There, O death, I will slay you to utter destruction. That in which you think you live I will draw out of you, so that you will be called a useless corpse. For you will lie struck down in your mightiest strength, just as a body deserted by the soul is struck down entirely to its ruin. The fountain of living water will choke you, when blessed souls are mercifully caught up into heavenly blessedness through the new man, who will be innocent of the poisonous deception. Therefore, to your shame, I will also be your bite, O hell, when my power in its great strength strips from you the spoils you seized by fraud. So you too, O death, justly despoiled, will never again appear full of your riches, but pierced with wounds and lying struck down in foulness, you will bear your shame forever.

And the Father showed him, with his wounds laid bare, to the heavenly choirs, saying: “This is my beloved Son, whom I sent to die for the people.” Because of this, a joy beyond counting and beyond human understanding was renewed in them. For the blind forgetfulness in which God was unknown was so beaten down that human rationality, which had lain prostrate at the devil’s persuasion, was raised up to the knowledge of God. Through the highest blessedness the way of truth was shown to humanity, the way by which it was led back from death to life.note

And that radiant light pours through all of the glowing fire, and the glowing fire through all of the radiant light, and the radiant light and the glowing fire through the whole appearance of the human being, existing as one light in one power and might: this means that the Father, the Holy Spirit, and the Son are inseparable in the majesty of divinity. The Father is supreme equity, but not without the Son or the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is the kindler of the hearts of the faithful, but not without the Father and the Son; and the Son is the fullness of power, but not without the Father and the Holy Spirit. For the Father is not without the Son, nor the Son without the Father, nor the Father and the Son without the Holy Spirit, nor the Holy Spirit without them. These three persons exist as one God in the one entire divinity of majesty, and the unity of the divinity lives inseparably in these same three persons, because the divinity cannot be split; it always remains inviolable, without any changeableness. And the Father is made known through the Son, the Son through the coming into being of creatures, and the Holy Spirit through that same Son made flesh.

How so? The Father is the one who begot the Son before the ages; the Son is the one through whom all things were made by the Father at the beginning of creation; and the Holy Spirit is the one who appeared in the form of a dove at the baptism of the Son of God at the end of the ages.

In that God loved us, a salvation arose different from the one we had at our first origin, when we were heirs of innocence and holiness. For the Father on high showed his love in our dangers, when we had been placed under punishment: by heavenly power he sent his Word, alone in perfect holiness among the children of humankind, into the darkness of the ages. There that Word, working every good thing, by his gentleness led back to life those who had been cast down by the uncleanness of transgression and could not return to the holiness they had lost. What does this mean? For through that very fountain of life came the fatherly love of God’s embrace, which brought us up to life and was our helper in dangers. It is the deepest and sweetest brightness, teaching us repentance. How so?

God mercifully remembered his great work and his most precious pearl—the human being, I mean, whom he formed from the clay of the earth and into whom he breathed the breath of life. How so? He established life in repentance, whose power will never perish. For the cunning serpent deceived the human being by a proud assault, but God cast him down through repentance, which displays humility. The devil neither knew humility nor practiced it, for he did not know how to rise to the right path. So this salvation of love did not arise from us, for we neither knew how nor had the strength to love God unto salvation. It arose because the Creator and Lord of all so loved the world that for its salvation he sent his Son, the prince and Savior of the faithful, who washed and wiped our wounds. And from him the sweetest medicine exuded, from which all the good things of salvation flow.

What does this mean? Just as anyone who often draws the moist power of a stone into the body grows weak from it and falls ill, so too anyone who rashly wants to gaze upon the Father through the unsteadiness of their thoughts perishes in faith. And just as people make their dwelling in the tangible solidity of stone, defending themselves by it against their enemies, so too the Son of God, who is the true cornerstone, is the dwelling of the faithful people, protecting them from evil spirits. And just as glowing fire lights up dark places, burning whatever it settles upon, so too the Holy Spirit puts unbelief to flight, removing all the rust of iniquity. And as these three powers are in one stone, so too the true Trinity is in one deity.

But where there is neither radiant brightness nor inborn vigor nor fiery heat, no flame is seen there either. So too, where neither the Father nor the Son nor the Holy Spirit is worshiped, there God is not worthily revered. Therefore, just as these three powers are seen in one flame, so let the three persons be understood in the unity of divinity.

So, just as these three things are in one word, the Trinity on high is in unity on high. And so: in a stone, the moist power neither exists nor works without the tangible solidity and the fiery power, nor the tangible solidity without the moist power and the fiery vigor of the glowing fire, nor the vigor of the glowing fire without the moist power and the tangible solidity. In a flame, the radiant brightness neither exists nor works without the inborn vigor and the fiery heat, nor the inborn vigor without the radiant brightness and the fiery heat, nor the fiery heat without the radiant brightness and the inborn vigor. And in a word, the sound neither exists nor works without the power and the breath, nor the power without the sound and the breath, nor the breath without the sound and the power; they cling to one another indivisibly in their work. Just so, these three persons of the Trinity on high live inseparably in the majesty of divinity and are not divided from one another.

So, O human, understand one God in three persons. But in the foolishness of your mind you think that God is so powerless that he cannot truly subsist in three persons, but can exist only in one—when you see that not even a voice exists without three. What does this mean? God is surely, in three persons, the true and one God, the first and the last.

This Son is only-begotten in divinity, and he is equally only-begotten in virginity. As he is the only Son of the Father, so he is the only Son of his mother. For as the Father begot him alone before time began, so his virgin mother bore him alone in time, since she remained a virgin after giving birth. Therefore, O human, understand in these three persons your God, who created you in the strength of his divinity and who redeemed you from perdition.

A child grows from its first birth to full stature and then remains at the full age of life. Leaving behind the wanton ways of foolish youth, the grown person now considers only, with great care and concern, what must be done in his affairs. He never did this while foolish youth was seething with inconstancy. Let the faithful person do the same. Let him leave childish ways behind and climb to the summit of the virtues, persevering in their strength. Let him abandon the arrogance of his desire, which sprouts in the madness of the vices, and in his distress let him anxiously ponder what is useful for him, now that he has turned away from the childishness of boyish ways. Therefore, O human, embrace your God in this way in the strength of your vigor, before the hour comes for the purging of your works. Then all things will be made manifest and nothing will be left hidden, when the times come that will never fail in their duration.

Do not murmur with your human mind and say of these times, “They do not please me, and I do not understand whether they will bring prosperity or misery.” For the human mind is always doubtful about this. Even when it does good works, it is anxious whether they please God or not, and when it commits evil, it fears for the salvation that forgiveness brings. But let whoever sees with watchful eyes and hears with attentive ears offer the kiss of embrace to my mystical words, which flow from me, the Living One.

So, too, when a priest clothed in sacred vestments approached that altar to celebrate the divine sacraments, I saw a great serene light suddenly come from heaven with an attendance of angels and shine all around that altar. It remained there until the sacrament was completed and the priest withdrew from the altar. When the Gospel of peace had been read there and the offering that was to be consecrated had been placed on the altar, the priest sang the praise of almighty God, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,” and so began the mysteries of the ineffable sacraments. Then suddenly, as heaven opened, a fiery flash of inestimable brightness came down upon that offering and suffused it entirely with its brightness, as the light of the sun illumines anything it pierces with its rays.note

And while it irradiated the offering in this way, it lifted it invisibly up to the secret places of heaven and sent it back down again onto the altar, as a person draws breath in and lets it out again. So the offering was made true flesh and true blood, although in human sight it appeared as bread and as wine. As I watched this, at once the signs of the nativity, passion and burial, and also of the resurrection and ascension of our Savior, the Only-Begotten of God, appeared as if in a mirror, just as they were accomplished in him when the Son of God was in the world.

But when the priest sang the song of the innocent Lamb, “Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world,” and prepared to receive holy communion, the fiery flash withdrew into heaven. When heaven had closed, I heard a voice from it saying: “Eat and drink the body and blood of my Son to abolish the transgression of Eve, so that you may be restored to your rightful inheritance.” And as the rest of the people also came to the priest to receive this sacrament, I perceived five kinds among them. Some were bright in body and fiery in soul. Others seemed pale in body and dark in soul. Some were shaggy in body and filthy in soul, drenched in much uncleanness of human pollution. Some were hedged about in body with the sharpest thorns and appeared leprous in soul.note

Others seemed bloody in body and foul in soul, like a rotting corpse. And as some of all these received the same sacraments, some were suffused as if with a fiery radiance, while others were darkened as if by a dark cloud. After the sacraments were completed, as the priest withdrew from the altar, the serene light that had come from heaven and shone all around the altar, as I said, was drawn back up to the secret places on high. And again I heard a voice from the heights of heaven saying to me:

When blood flowed from the wounded side of my Son, the salvation of souls at once arose. For the glory from which the devil was expelled with his followers was given to humankind when my Only-Begotten underwent death on the cross in time, despoiled hell, and led faithful souls to heaven. So, too, faith began to grow and be strengthened in his disciples and in those who sincerely followed them, so that they might become heirs of the heavenly kingdom.

Therefore that figure, drenched by the blood that flowed from his side and rose upward, was joined to him in a happy betrothal by the will of the Father on high. For the strength of the passion of the Son of God flooded forth ardently and rose wondrously to the height of the heavenly mysteries, as the scent of fine spices spreads upward. By it the Church was strengthened in the shining white heirs of the eternal kingdom and faithfully joined to the Only-Begotten of God by the ordinance of the Father on high. How so? A bride, subject to her bridegroom in the service of submission and obedience, receives from him the gift of fruitfulness, with the love of their covenant, for the procreation of children, so that she may bring them to her inheritance. So also the Church, joined to the Son of God in the office of humility and love, receives from him the regeneration of the spirit and water, together with the salvation of souls, for the restoration of life, and sends those souls on to the heights.

Therefore she was also nobly endowed with his flesh and blood. For the Only-Begotten of God himself bestowed his body and blood in surpassing glory on his faithful, who are both the Church and the Church’s children, so that through him they might possess life in the city on high. How so?

Therefore, too, through the generosity of his heart, he did not walk in the wavering paths of the evil spirits, who abandoned truth and seized upon falsehood. How so? They wanted to divide truth by falsehood. How so? They wanted to overthrow the Ancient of Days, who existed before the time of days and hours, and they longed to make the ancient serpent, who did not exist before the time of times, his partner. But this could not be, nor should it be, for God is one. That is why the devil is a liar. For he withdrew from God, deserting life and finding death. And so, too, God did not stand in the way in which sinners plant their steps. He rejected the way of Adam and did not love his sin, but cast him out of paradise when he had been seduced by the devil.note

Nor did he reign in the power of that iniquity in which the whole human race is entangled in death, sitting in the shadow of death, when the human race proudly abandons truth. What does this mean? God did not resist either the devil’s presumption or human negligence with his power in such a way as to cast them down by his strength. How so? Suppose there were two fighters, and one far surpassed the other in strength. Surely the stronger would display against the weaker greater feats of combat, as far as he was able, so as to confound him and force him into submission, and he would not want to yield to him in anything. But God did not do so. He resisted the work of iniquity through his supreme goodness, by sending his Son into the world, who in his body, with the greatest humility, led his lost sheep back to heaven. How so?

The blood that came out of his body, as soon as it flowed from his open wounds, appeared in the secret places of heaven and asked that the salvation of souls be sent forth. How so? All creation shows in the Son of God that through his passion and death the perdition of humankind has been restored to life. How so? The Only-Begotten of God, who is life, offered himself to the passion on the altar of the cross for the redemption of the human race. There, too, as you perceived with true hearing a voice resounding from the secret places on high, he chose the Church as his bride, so that she might be a mother for the restoration of salvation to the believing peoples—namely, so that she might send them on to heaven without stain through spiritual regeneration.

As the flesh of my Only-Begotten arose in the undefiled womb of the Virgin Mary and was afterward handed over for human salvation, so also now his flesh, multiplied in the incorrupt integrity of the Church, is often given for the sanctification of the faithful. For as a goldsmith at one time melts his gold in the fire and fuses it, and at another divides what he has fused, so I, the Father, at one time glorify the flesh and blood of my Son in the offering through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, and at another distribute it, once glorified, to faithful people for their salvation.

The Church, through the voice of the priest, asks again for her dowry, which is the body and the shed blood of my Son, so that she may be fit for a blessed childbearing in the salvation of souls; for through the shedding of this precious blood she has also gained increase in a great multitude of peoples. Then I, who am the unfailing light, irradiate that place of sanctification in my holiness, in honor of the body and blood of my Only-Begotten.

For in another way—that is, in your salvation—I will restore to you the cycles of those vanities which the locust of forgetfulness devoured through the unbelief of ignorance, when wickedness first arose in the children of Adam. They held the fruitfulness of my justice in forgetfulness, just as a person forgets the food he needed once he has passed it into his stomach. In their impiety they tore my justice to pieces, just as the locust gnaws away the fruit. How so?

Where the locust of negligence carries off the usefulness of good fruits through sloth of mind, there the grub of foulness also wallows in the dregs of uncleanness. For people of this kind wallow in the filth of unbelief in idols and other similar schisms, in diabolical consultations and magic arts, in scrutinizing the creatures of the Creator, in the chance happenings of human affairs, and in the vilest foulness of murders and fornications. They feed on these things just as the grub is nourished on mud. How so? Where the grub of baseness loves the stench of filth, there too the rust of bitterness eats away the metals of faithful radiance. For those people, standing opposed to God’s justice, labor to darken it, just as rust usually takes away the beauty of metals. How so? Where the rust of corrosiveness taints the brilliance of good deeds, there too the caterpillar of harmful action spoils the green plants of great usefulness.

For such people, through the malice of their wickedness, cast away from themselves the brightest virtues—such as simplicity, chastity and strong constancy—which the Holy Spirit makes to shine in all the greenness of blessedness. So they try to destroy them, just as the caterpillar diminishes the usefulness of plants. And in all these things my very great strength is made plain, which by the greatness of its power overcame the assaults of the devil when I sent it among you for your salvation. How so? I, the Father, sent my Son into the world, born bodily of the Virgin, so that through him I might redeem you from the perdition of death. So I would dwell in you and you in me, since my Son, as he went to his passion, also gave you his flesh to eat and his blood to drink.

Therefore you will devoutly eat this sacrament for your salvation and feed on it happily. So, through the oil of my mercy, you will be filled after the hunger of the soul’s perdition. For my Son also brought the medicine for your wounds in repentance, and the bride of my Son is adorned with all justice and truth. Therefore you will faithfully praise my name—I who, being one God in the true Trinity, govern you and show my wonders in you, rescuing you unshakably from the power of the devil. And so my people, whom I willed to lead out so wondrously from the jaws of hell, shall not be put to shame by the shame of death in the eternity to come.

What does this mean? The bride of my Son offers the offering of bread and wine on my altar with the most devout intention. How so? Through the hand of the priest, in faithful remembrance, she reminds me to give her the flesh and blood of my Son in that same offering. How so? Because the sufferings of my Only-Begotten always appear in the secret places of heaven, that offering is so united to my Son in my burning heat, in deepest wonder, that it becomes his flesh and blood in most true certainty. By this the Church is strengthened with most blessed vigor.

So the offering is sent back, made true flesh and true blood, although in the sight of human beings it appears as bread and wine. For as God is true, without illusion, so the height of that sacrament is a firm height that no one can cast down, for it is true flesh and blood without deception. Just as the soul truly thrives in flesh and blood while a person lives in the body, so too this mystery is in the bread and wine wherever it is honored in true celebration. And it appears to human beings in this way because, just as the blind human eye cannot see God perfectly, so a human being cannot gaze upon these mysteries with bodily sight. For as one person sees another’s body and not his spirit, so a person can perceive the appearance of bread and wine, but not these sacraments themselves. What does this mean?

The brightness that appeared over the body of the Son of God as it lay buried in the tomb, raising him from the sleep of death, also shines on the altar over the sacrament of the body and blood of my Only-Begotten. It covers it in the sight of human beings, so that they cannot see its holiness except in the appearance of bread and wine, as that offering was placed on the altar. In the same way the divinity that was in the Son of God was so veiled from human beings by his humanity that they could see him only as a man, as he lived among them as a man, yet without sin. What does this mean? I who created all things receive that offering kindly when it is offered to me by the Church through the priest’s hand. For as the Divinity showed its wonders in the Virgin’s womb, so too it reveals its secrets in this offering. How so?

Because the flesh and blood of the Son of God are made manifest. How so? While that offering is drawn up invisibly by the power of God, as if in a single instant, and sent back again, it is so warmed in the heat of the divine majesty that it becomes the flesh and blood of the Only-Begotten of God.

In this sapphire, however, is denoted the divinity that is in my Son, who is the cornerstone, gentle and humble. For he did not take root from the root of human flesh that comes from man and woman, but was wondrously made flesh in my heat from the most gentle Virgin. Hence his flesh and blood must also be believed to be sweet and pleasant to receive.

The human spirit, which is invisible, receives invisibly this sacrament, which is invisible in this offering; and the human body, which is visible, receives visibly this offering, which is visible in the sacrament. Yet they are one sacrament, just as God and man are one Christ, and as the rational soul and mortal flesh in a human being are one human being. For whoever looks to me with right faith receives this sacrament faithfully for his own sanctification when he takes it. What does this mean? My Son was wondrously born of the wholly untouched Virgin, whose flesh never seethed with the pleasure of lust, but remained always intact. For the vessel of that Virgin was most pure, and in it I willed my Only-Begotten to be made flesh.

Therefore I did not allow the vessel of that most gentle Virgin to melt away in the heat of passion, for in it my Son wondrously took on a human body.

Hence this sacrament is whole and entire, being both invisible and visible, just as my Only-Begotten is whole and entire: invisible according to his divinity, and visible according to his humanity as he dwelt in the world.

What my Son suffered in the world for love of humankind appears before my eyes. For the birth, passion and burial, the resurrection and ascension of my Only-Begotten killed the death of the human race. Hence they shine before me in heaven, for I have not forgotten them; until the end of the world they will appear before me like the dawn, in great brightness.

But you who are merciful, do not punish us according to our wickedness, but release us from our transgression according to your mercy. For we too, who are transgressors, though we have much malice in us, nevertheless forgive our debtors from our hearts the injury they have done us, out of fear and love of our Savior. How so? There are those who ought to love us because we are human beings, yet trouble us in many ways, and so do not love you but neglect your commandments. We do not pursue them according to the malice they have shown us, but, looking to your just judgment, we refrain as far as we can from avenging ourselves on them. So may you too, O God, be gracious to us, for you are just and good.

So listen, O human: as long as you need help, and as long as you can help other people, so long will the passion of my Son appear before me in mercy. And so long too will his flesh and blood be consecrated on the altar to be received by believers, for their salvation and the cleansing of their wrongdoings. For when my Only-Begotten was in the world in the body, his body was sustained by wheat and wine as nourishment for his flesh and blood. Hence now too his flesh and blood are consecrated on the altar in the offering of wheat and wine, so that faithful people may be refreshed by it in soul and body. For my Son wondrously redeemed humankind from the perdition of Adam, and now too he mercifully absolves people from the daily evil into which they often slip.

For in the consecration of this offering there appears whatever my Son suffered bodily in his flesh for the redemption of humankind, and I do not wish to hide this. For I draw his elect up to heavenly things, so that through them his body may be brought to completion in those members.

And you receive this same sacrament in true certainty through divine power, yet in such a way that it does not appear visibly to you—although at times, in great need, it has been shown to my elect when they were in great distress over this. All these things I do for love of humankind and for its benefit. Every creature is subject to my commandments; but you, O human, are always rebellious toward me. So you are blind and deaf, and yet you cannot rebel against me. Do I not do what pleases me while you do not see it? You do not see with your eyes or hear with your ears in the flesh how I send a person’s soul into the body, and how I take it out of the body; but your soul will understand me when it has left its mortal body.

In the same way I give you my Son’s flesh to eat and his blood to drink, and I accomplish this by my power, O human, while you do not see it.

From the shining one seated on the throne there stretched out a great circle, golden like the dawn (its breadth I could in no way grasp). It circled from the east to the north, then to the west and to the south, and so bent back to the east, to the shining one himself, and it had no end at all. That circle stood at such a height from the earth that I could not grasp it. From itself it gave off a most terrible radiance, the color of stone, of steel and of fire. On every side, across its whole breadth, this radiance extended upward into the height of heaven and downward into the depth of the abyss, so that I was not able to see any end to it.

Then I also saw a great star of exceeding radiance and beauty coming forth from the secret place of the one seated on the throne, and with it a great multitude of gleaming sparks. All of them were led out with that star toward the south. They looked at the one seated on the throne as if at a stranger, and turning away from him, they gazed greedily toward the north rather than wishing to look at him. But at once, in that very turning away of their gaze, they were all extinguished and so turned into the blackness of coals. And behold, a whirlwind arose from them. It immediately hurled them from the south, behind the one seated on the throne, to the north, and cast them headlong into the abyss, so that I could no longer see any of them. And the great radiance that had been taken from them I saw suddenly return, at the moment of their extinction, to the one seated on the throne.

And I heard the one who sat on the throne saying to me: “Write what you see and hear.” And I answered from the inner knowledge of that vision: “I beg you, my Lord, give me understanding, so that I may set forth these mysteries in words that can be told. Do not forsake me, but strengthen me in the dawn of your justice, in which your Son was made manifest. Grant me to know how I can and how I ought to set forth the divine counsel that was ordained in the ancient counsel. This is how you willed your Son to become incarnate, so that he would become a human being in time. You willed this before all creation, in your simplicity and in the fire of the dove, that is, of the Holy Spirit. Your Son, rising wondrously like the shining form of the sun, would then truly be clothed with humanity at the very beginning of virginity, taking on human form for the sake of humankind.”

And again I heard him saying to me: “O how beautiful are your eyes in the divine telling, while the dawn rises there in the divine counsel!” And again I answered from the inner knowledge of that vision: “In the bosom of my mind I appear to myself like the ash of ashen decay and like the dust of instability. So I sit trembling in the shadow like a feather. But do not blot me out from the land of the living as a stranger. I labor with great sweat in this vision, and because of the baseness of my foolish senses, which are mine in the flesh, I often count myself in the least and lowliest place. I am not worthy to be called a human being, for I am greatly afraid and do not dare to tell your mysteries. O good and gentle Father, teach me what your will is and what I ought to set forth.

“O you Father to be feared, and O you most sweet, and O you full of all grace, do not forsake me, but keep me in your mercy.” And again I heard the same one saying to me: “Now speak as you have been taught. I want you to speak, though you are ash. Speak the revelation of the bread that is the Son of God. He is life in fiery love, raising up every dead one in soul and body and releasing dissolute sins in serene brightness. He himself is the beginning of the awakening of holiness in a human being, before it is awakened within that person. Therefore the magnificent, glorious and incomprehensible God gave a great safeguard, sending his Son into the chastity of virginity. That virginity could have no variety of stains by which it might be weakened.

“There could not and ought not to be any pollution of the flesh in the Virgin’s mind. For the slayer and destroyer that is the death of the human race was deceived, unknowing, as if in sleep, when the Son of God came in great silence into the dawn, that is, into a humble girl. Death went forth as though secure, not knowing the life that the sweet Virgin carried, for her virginity was hidden from it. The Virgin herself was poor in earthly wealth, because the divine majesty willed to find her so. Now write thus of the true knowledge of the Creator in his goodness.”

You see it wholly entire, of immense breadth and height, and the color of iron. This means that this firm and great greatness of the fear of the Lord must be held most firmly. For God is to be feared by all creation in complete integrity, so that he may be known to be the one true God, since there is none besides him and none like him. In him is immense breadth, for he is incomprehensible in all things and above all things. And in him is height, for no one can comprehend the holy divinity or reach it with the height of their understanding, since it is above all things. Its likeness to the color of iron means that it is burdensome and hard for human minds to fear God. This is very heavy for the softness of fragile ash, because the human creature is rebellious against him.

These are surrounded by the many ornaments of those who rise among them. Like precious stones are the great persons who are the martyrs and the virgins of holiness. Like pearls are the innocent and the penitent, the children of redemption. With these the clay is richly adorned, since in the human body there shine such great virtues, virtues that shine in God in all brightness. For he who established the breath of life and the life of human beings looked upon himself. How so? He did so with redemption, when in his predestination he foreknew that his Son would become incarnate, so that in his body every stained variety of crimes would be wiped away.

So he also sees the souls that will be justified, while they are still in their bodies, after a multitude of excessive sins. He sees the souls that will grow used to walking in God’s justice after their many errors. He sees how they stand firm in God, how they cease from their great forgetfulness, and how they turn back from each vice that wounded them when they fell into mortal sins. Many peoples have risen from the wandering ways in which they walked, full of wounds and stricken with the worst of blows, and have been restored from the death of foul crimes. Just as these souls see that, so too many come who are so gravely wounded in the bitterness of the sharp pain of sin that they grow utterly weary of the habit of evil ways in which they sinned beyond measure. They can no longer draw breath amid the waves to do the deadly work of adultery and murder and the excess of every evil.

A person who comes back to himself from the fall into sin, through the admonition of the Holy Spirit, says: “I want to arise from unbearable sins, which I can in no way endure, and from grave guilt. I will turn back in the remembrance of my mind, lamenting and grieving over my sins. So I will come to my father, who is my father because he created me, and I will say to him: ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, that is, against the heavenly work that I am. You formed me by your will, and you touched me in that very creation in such a way that I too ought to have been heavenly in my deeds. But I bound myself up with the foulest works, and I sinned before you as well, for I have forsaken human nature in myself. How so?

“‘In many abominations. Therefore I am guilty, both to my own perdition and against your majesty. I am not worthy to be called your son, for through the wickedness of my heart I have led your creature in me into a way other than the one in which you established me. But now make me your servant, redeemed at the price of the blood of your Son. You gave him as so great a price that death can never repay it with any recompense. That price sets sinners free through the repentance that arose in the passion of your Son. I lost the rightful inheritance of sons in Adam, who was created a son and was justly stripped of the glory of happiness. But now repentance must redeem human sins with the blood of your Son.’”

This must be said by those who repeat the fall of Adam and afterward return through repentance, and so reach salvation. They remember that they have heard many admonitions, told from the Scriptures and about the torment and the blood of their Redeemer. They recall with groans that they transgressed even as they heard. By that hearing they ought to have learned eagerly how to keep the word of God, but they neglected his law, which had been set for them to keep. In the ordinance of the commandment they refused to consider what they ought to do or what they ought to leave undone for the fear of the Lord. Yet they come to the truth, remembering what they heard or knew from God. Before, they had been so blinded that they wholly refused to know his justice, and so they would not incline themselves to set it above their sins. Instead they spurned it, cast the word of God behind them and rejected his law.

Many of these will abound in good works, so that they are never satisfied. It is not enough for them to feast in the house of God by celebrating the divine office and by doing his justice in abundance. They are always weeping, and they remember in sorrow the evils they committed in times past, when they practiced unlawful deeds and passed over the lawful things of God’s law.note

Therefore humankind appears in the inner secret place of the Godhead in its own form, which neither the angels nor any other creature have. For my Only-Begotten took on human form in virginal flesh for the redemption of the human race. He will also carry the ewes with young in his body. How so? My Son carries human beings in his blood, so that they are saved through his five wounds. Whatever they have sinned through their five senses will be wiped away by the highest justice after repentance. He himself carried them in this way: he became incarnate, he suffered five wounds on the cross, he died and was buried, and he rose from the dead. He also stretched out his hand to them when he drew them back to himself. How so?

My Son took on humanity for those who thought they had perished forever because of Adam’s fall. My Only-Begotten also conquered death, so that it could no longer rule over them. So he knows them in the power of his glory, as they are to come into the cleansing of repentance. You see them appear in the bosom of the Father, and this means that the Son of Man is made complete with his members in the secret place of the Father. How so? When the world is completed, then the elect of Christ, who are his members, will also be made complete. O how beautiful he is,

But let people know that the beauty of his flesh was no greater than what the ordering of deep wisdom established for the human form. For the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God in three persons, does not delight in beauty of the flesh, but in the great humility with which the Son of God clothed himself in humanity. In the form of the Son of Man, however, there was no blemish, such as sometimes disfigures a person with a troubled face through irregularity of the body. This lies in the judgment of God: namely, when a person’s limbs are misshapen and not rightly ordered, as with the infirm, which is not according to the nature of formation in the human body but according to the judgment of God. Strong nature shows itself in right formation, but weak nature slips away into an irregular formation contrary to the proper form; and this was not to be in my Son as man.

For the inner love of his heart toward humankind is such that he sent his Son to the shame of the cross, like a gentle lamb carried off to be slain as a sacrifice. So my Son, having taken on humanity, carried back on his shoulder the lost sheep that he had snatched from the jaws of the wolf, bearing it in great pain when he deigned to die for his sheep. Among these people there are many surrounded with ornaments, adorned with the precious finery of the virtues. They are the martyrs, the virgins, the innocent, the penitent and those who are subject to their teachers, as has already been said; and those who make themselves aware of their offenses and torment themselves over them in an unconquerable struggle, denying in themselves what they are. Here it must not be said who they are, or where the elect are; for all of them have been counted.

Who is there who can look into the deep wisdom of the Most High, and into the discernment of his knowledge, to see whom he holds in the number of those to be saved? His judgments are incomprehensible to all human beings. You must run, for the kingdom of God is prepared for you. For according to the zeal of the faithful who work the justice of God, who have been washed in baptism and are known in faith, so shall their reward be.

You can by no means comprehend the circumference of this glory. For there is no measure of his power or of his works, nor is there any measure of any goodness or power that is, or was, or is to be in any creature by which it could be measured—only this: that God is beyond reckoning and beyond comprehension in his power, and unconquered and wondrous in his work.

What does this mean? When, through the supreme power, the work of God has been accomplished among human beings in this world according to the time ordained beforehand by God, then the circuit of the world itself will also be fulfilled. Brought to completion at the end of time, on the last day, all the works of God will shine out in his elect, while the one seated on the throne has no end. For God is perfect in his power and in his work: he was and is and will remain without any beginning of any time in his divinity, so that it is not that he was, but that he is.

God is also like stone for humankind, for he is true and just without any change: as stone cannot be turned to softness, so he undergoes no change. And he is like steel, for in his power he passes through all things without any change of place or time, because he is God, existing above all things. He is also like fire, for he kindles, sets ablaze and illuminates all things without any change brought by succeeding time and its newness, because he is God.

As for the fact that all those brought forth with that star toward the south gazed upon the one seated on the throne as though at a stranger, and, turning away from him, gaped toward the north rather than wishing to look at him: this means that Lucifer and his whole company, though created in the burning goodness of God, stood there wretchedly, as it were askance—that is, in pride, scorning the one who reigns in heaven. For all of them, as they arose in creation, tasted from the beginning the impiety that turned toward perdition. They looked at God not because they wished to know him in his goodness, but because they wished to raise themselves above him as above a stranger; turning away from knowledge of him in burning arrogance, they strove more toward their own fall than they desired to know God in his glory.

But that all of them, in the very turning away of their gaze, were at once extinguished and turned black as coals means this: when they proudly scorned to know God, Lucifer himself, with all his followers, was in his malice extinguished from the brilliance of the clear radiance with which he had been clothed by divine power. He destroyed in himself the inner beauty that he should have used for good, and stretched himself out to swallow down impiety; and so he was extinguished from eternal brightness and fell into eternal perdition. That is why they were all turned black as the coals of a fire gone out: with their leader, the devil, they were stripped of the brightness of their radiance and so extinguished in the darkness of perdition, lacking all the glory of blessedness, as a coal lacks all the light of a fiery spark.

As for the whirlwind that arose from them and at once hurled them from the south, behind the one seated on the throne, to the north, plunging them into the abyss so that you could no longer see any of them: this means that a mighty blast of impiety rose up in those angels of iniquity when they wanted to prevail over God and crush him through pride. That blast was blown out into the bitterest blackness of perdition, and it hurled them back from the south—that is, from the good—into forgetfulness of God, who rules all things, as it were toward the northern region. So where they wished to be proudly exalted, there, confounded, they found their fall; because of their pride they were hurled into the abyss of eternal death, which is their perdition, so that they are no longer seen in any brightness,

O fool, who in your pride raised yourself up against me! I, who have neither beginning nor end, will cause the fire of my indignation to be kindled in you in my zeal. By it I will burn up in you all your greenness, with which you wished to begin a work, trusting in false vigor, in yourself rather than in me—for in your foolish knowledge you chose to exist according to your pride. And I will burn up in you all that dryness of your sin and of the other lost ones, when you suggest to human beings, who are ashes, the sin that is dry of good; for your suggestion will receive no salvation in you, but will become eternal fire in you. No reward of salvation remains for you, nor for those who follow your example.

And that burning of punishments will not be quenched in its torments, but will burn up headlong pride, as it were in the face of the lust for the show of honor that you conceived the wish to have in yourself—you who have been cast out of all your glory, rising, that is, from the south in burning and brightest light, and falling into the darkness of the north, that is, of hell. And every human being will see this: the elect and the reprobate will both know Gehenna—the elect because they have escaped it, the reprobate because they will remain with it in torment—knowing that I, the Lord almighty, kindled it in requital for your evils, O devil, and that it will not be quenched, either in your evils or in those of your followers.note

And so the perdition of diabolical pride cast Satan and his angels into the outer darkness of eternal torments, without any consolation of light, so that no place was found for him in the eternal light. And you, O fragile human, trembling and astonished, could see nothing more of them. As Ezekiel too, in my spirit, says to the king of Tyre under a mystical meaning: “All who see you among the nations shall be astonished at you. You have come to nothing, and you shall not be forever.” That is to say:note

All the upright of heart who see you, O devil, drunk with vices among those nations that embrace you in transgression of God’s law, will wither in astonishment at your filth—at how, by your suggestion, you defile the temple in God’s building, which is the human being. And therefore you have come to nothing through your pride, in which you fell from all the glory of salvation; for you are no vigor at all, in no happiness, nor will you be found to have any glory any longer in the eternity of the heavenly ones, for you are put to shame among them forever, without end. … ought. Therefore you who do these things presumptuously and cruelly, by killing, kill in yourself the blessed understanding of royal prophecy; for your soul ought to provide itself with pure knowledge—faithfully, that is, in the simplicity that is fitting—and to believe in God.note

Then God, in the zeal of his purest justice, which has no stain of iniquity, summoning him through the most upright unity of the judgment of his judgments, gives the command, saying: “Hurry and strike him down from the good knowledge he had, so that he may not rest in any happiness of his mind; for he has given me no rest in my heart.” And so the stroke of the Lord’s zeal strikes him, so that not a single little spark of any eye remains to him for seeing—that is, for knowing—God. And so he dies to the justice of life-giving consolation, unable to govern himself.

Then God says to him: “Let your bloody crime, by which you lift yourself up to those heights you cannot behold, be upon your mind, which you unjustly raise against me. Let that evil trample you down into a low place from which you cannot lift yourself to the right measure of the proposition of faith—you who refused to walk in right footsteps and sought a great schism in your own mind. For let your mouth be bereft of the words of wisdom, since it has spoken against your salvation, when you deceitfully probed the secret and incomprehensible divinity, presuming to know what is not to be known and rashly saying within yourself, ‘I know well what God is.’ By that rashness you killed your inner salvation, since you would not believe in God with caution, but proudly raised yourself against him.”

But let whoever has keen ears of inner understanding pant for these words in burning love of my mirror and write them in the conscience of his soul.

This shadowy pillar stood in the building at the very place where, high above in the heavenly mysteries before God, I had earlier seen that great, square radiance of most brilliant whiteness. That radiance signified the secret of the Creator on high and had been revealed to me in the deepest mystery. Within it another radiance also shone, like the dawn, which held in itself, high up, an airy brightness of purple light. Through it the mystery of the incarnate Son of God had been shown to me in a mystical revelation. In this pillar there was a way up like a ladder, from its base to its top. On it I saw all the virtues of God descending and ascending, laden with stones, going to their work and intent with eager zeal on completing it. And I heard the shining One who sat on the throne say: “These are God’s mightiest workers.”note

Among these virtues I saw seven in particular, and I studied their forms and their dress with the greatest care. This is how they were alike: like the other virtues mentioned above, all of them were clothed as it were in garments of silk. All of them went bareheaded, with white hair, and without cloaks—except the first, whose head was veiled in the manner of a woman and who was clothed in what seemed to be a chasuble, translucent as crystal; and except the second, who had black hair; and except the third, who seemed unlike a human form. The first, the fourth and the fifth were dressed in white tunics. All wore white shoes, except the third, who, as was said, did not appear in human shape, and except the fourth, who was shod in crystal shoes that shone wonderfully. And these were the differences among them.note

He is in hell. So let us all rise and draw near to the true light, and let us build the greatest and strongest towers in every region, so that when the last day comes we may bring in abundant fruit, in spiritual things and in bodily things alike. And when “the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,” then we too shall bring our work to completion, on earth and in heaven. O most foul Lucifer, what good did your sudden recklessness do you? In your first radiance, when you were created by God, you wanted, raving and running wild, to trample me down and cast me out of heaven. But you fell into the abyss, and I remained in heaven, and afterward I came down to earth in the incarnate Son of God. Through me the multitude of the faithful has been made complete, armed with a thousand just and good arts—arts you would long ago have gladly torn from them, if you could.note

O Humility, you who raise up to the stars those who are trampled and crushed like the earth! O Humility, most glorious queen of the virtues, how strong and unconquerable a protection you are to your own everywhere! No one who loves you with a pure heart falls. Just so, I too, together with you, am a most useful and much-desired defense to my own. For I am very slender and fine, and I seek out the tiniest openings in those who cherish me, and pass through them most keenly.

A radiance of the purest white surrounded her on every side, so that I could see her nowhere except in front, from her head down to her feet. Her arms, hands and feet were shadowed to my sight. And the radiance that surrounded her was full of eyes everywhere and wholly alive. It spread this way and that, as a cloud tends to drift apart, so that it made itself now wider, now narrower. And this figure cried out to the world in a loud voice, saying to humankind:

Then and there a struggle begins over whether what I give will be brought to completion or not. How so? I want it understood like this. Suppose I admonish a person in such a way that he begins to groan and weep over his sins. His will may then yield to the admonition I have given him; for a person perceives in his senses the change in his soul, as he lifts his eyes to see, his ears to hear, his mouth to speak, his hands to touch and his feet to walk, according to the desire within his soul. If, then, the will has accepted my admonition, it at once rises up, presses down the senses and overcomes them, so that the senses learn things unknown to their habit. How so? They change, because, whatever they may be, they must follow, unwilling, the will that is above them.

For they are subject to it in service. Since they are lower than it, they will follow it whether they want to or not. For I give the good at the beginning, and I warm it in the mind, and I give the will the work to accomplish. I do this by admonition, by exhortation and by the warmth of the gift of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration. But if the will resists these gifts, then the things I have mentioned are reduced to nothing. So at the very time when a person is able to receive, in the blaze of the gifts, the signs of the message that arises from me, let him hasten toward it; and let the will come all the more quickly in good things, and accomplish this work in brightness.

For a human being has knowledge of good and evil so that in all his works he may understand God all the better, by avoiding evil and doing good. In this way he worships God with fear and embraces him in perfect love. How so? That is to say, if he opens the inner eyes of the spirit to the good, and if in the outer self he refuses and casts away the evil he could have done. For this reason, too, earthly creation is placed under his power, so that he may understand and love God all the more, and thereby carry out the work of his knowledge with understanding, through which he may fear and love the Almighty, who assigned him the great honor of being served by so many creatures.

For these reasons, then, a human being pours out what he knowingly grasps in his understanding: discernment among creatures, so that he knows which are to be loved and which hated, which are useful and which useless; and further, that all his works are then enclosed in the faith by which he understands God, so that they please both God and his angels. Sometimes, too, I touch a person in his soul and admonish him to begin to work righteousness and avoid evil. But he scorns me and thinks he can do whatever he pleases. He sets himself a time for repentance, putting it off until his body falls in with him in the simplicity of cold old age, and until, because of his age, he is too weary to sin any more. Then I admonish him again and urge him toward the good, and to resist his own impulses.

When he neglects me, he is often brought, through the many adversities he suffers—in his wealth and in other such things—to the point where he must do good as if unwillingly and against himself. And in so embittered a mind he takes little pleasure in fulfilling what he had earlier planned to accomplish in prosperous times. Back then it seemed to him that nothing adverse could harm him, for he had resolved within himself to do those things at whatever time he pleased. If this person receives me with hesitation, I still do not want to abandon him; for though he has received me in this way, he has not utterly despised me. So I have not labored in vain in him.

For it does not weary me to touch festering wounds, surrounded by the gnawing worms of countless vices, by the stench of evil report and disgrace, and by the sickness of long-standing iniquity of sins. Nor will I disdain to handle them gently at the time when I begin to draw out the consuming livid matter of malice—that is, when I look upon those wounds and touch them with the gentle warmth of the Holy Spirit’s inspiration.

But often such pain grows chronic through long festering, so that the sin begins to burn hot in the person’s soul. The wounds of sin then break out in pain, and they become a clotted mass of this uncleanness, like a lump and heap rising up from a great filth of worms and from the festering of tangled mud, out of which spring the deadly poisons of scorpions, snakes, frogs and other such venomous vermin. And then they harden like stone, into such hardness that no one thinks of breaking it. These are the unbearable burdens of crimes in those people who are weighed down by the heavier burdens. What then of this? Then, indeed, people cannot trust, because of their unbelief, that it is possible for this person to turn to God from his iniquity, because they see him as, so to speak, the devil’s food.

Yet I do not want to abandon that person. I want to stand for him in the struggle with my intervening help and combat. There I first begin gently to touch, as it were, the stony hardness of that sin, since it is, as it were, hard for it to be broken amid so great a stench of horrible crimes. These crimes are for him the causes of great filth and wickedness already described; they are like a rotting corpse and the devil’s food, which the devil has most certainly swallowed into his belly. How so? Scripture says of the Son of God: “My food is to do the will of my Father.” Conversely, the devil’s food is to drag a person down into death, and through it he breathes such poisons, as was said, upon those who consent to him in their will and turn aside after him. And this is the devil’s very desire and constant pursuit, for from this filth all evil springs.note

But many of these people do understand me. How so? When I first touch them, such a person says within himself: “What is the matter with me? I know no good, nor do I know how to think of any.” And again, not knowing, he sighs and says: “Alas, sinner that I am!” But he feels nothing more, for he is weighed down by the mass of his sins, and the darkness of iniquity has thrown him into confusion. Then I touch his wounds again. And because he had been admonished by me before, he now understands me better, and, looking into himself, he says again: “Woe is me! What shall I do? I do not know, nor can I work out what will become of me because of my many sins. Ah! Where shall I turn, or to whom shall I hurry for help, so that I may cover and blot out in repentance the foul crimes within me?”

So he looks into himself again with the same struggle he once had in his eagerness to sin, and he turns to true repentance with the same desire with which he used to pursue his sins. And because that person has thus awoken, through my admonition, from the sleep of death that he had chosen in place of life, he no longer wants to sin in thought, word or deed, which he had once given over so ardently to crime. Instead, with the greatest zeal, he raises himself to me in the strongest repentance. Therefore I at once receive him wholly, and from then on I let him go as if free, so that he will no longer suffer grave assault from the desires I have described—as my dearest sons endure, whom I admonish through manifold misery by the fiery arrows of the devil’s persuasions—for he then has no need of these.

For he will always grieve over his past sins, so that, angry even with himself, he repents so bitterly that he thinks himself unworthy even to be called a human being. This is victory amid the stench of the filth of those people whom I will not cast away, because after their sins they have at last sought me. For to those who do not spurn me but accept my admonition and seek me devoutly, I am ready to do whatever they wish. But those who scorn me and cast me away are dead, and I do not know them.

They flee good admonition like a worm that goes into the earth, hiding itself from all the beauty of this world. So too do these most wicked people, fleeing the commandments of God and defiling themselves in the dregs in which they roll themselves toward death, when they hide in their malice and will not come out from the stench of wickedness into the light. Those who are like this do not belong to me. For I do not want to be divided this way and that in the pollution of mud. How so? I want to be with those who understand me through pure repentance; there I even join myself to human corruptibility, for I want to cleanse it.

But those who will not receive me I cast away from me, not wanting to be with them. For I have no part with them, since they are on the side of foolish ignorance and will not understand me, and since I do not want to be in a work that belongs to the cementing of hardened perversity, which leads to death. And those who spurn me in this way imitate the lost angel, who, when he could see God, would not look upon him so as to acknowledge him humbly. And so he suddenly fled all heavenly glory and fell into death, when he wanted to be made like God in equal honor. These people despise me because they do the work of evil, as the unlawful desires of the flesh demand in their pleasures. And because they despise me, they do the evil they want. They scorn God, and so they also neglect his commandment.

So, very often, in my indignation, they are allowed to do whatever they wish to the full measure of their minds. The life of eternal happiness flees from them as though they were nothing, and often they also fail both in the prosperity of the present life and in that of the life to come, because they are hard and unmoved toward the happiness of the good. For I abandon the stubborn sinner who persists in his evil deeds. But I give life to the one who looks into himself and, in fear of me, turns from his sins to me with pure repentance. For I am a pillar of firm stability, and I never abandon the one who seeks me. Whoever takes hold of me and joins himself to me closely and faithfully will never fall into perdition.

But there is the one who lets me slip from his mind and in his pride raises himself above me. That is, he trusts in himself more than in me, and so scorns to put his confidence in me, because he counts the grace of God as nothing, for in his mind I am even a gust of whirlwind. He holds me carelessly in mockery, and proudly, with arrogance, in despair. This is not because of the weight of the sins he has committed. Out of pride he mocks me, saying, “What is the grace of God?” Him I will cast down and kill, and I will not raise him up to be among my chosen, because he is dead to eternal happiness.

Then there are those who have no confidence that they can rise again from the graver faults of their sins, and so cast away almighty God and his grace. They despair, that is, in excessive sadness, as though they could not be saved from the enormity of their crimes. They fail, thrown away from me, and fall bitterly into death, dying in hell in the deeper torment of eternal death.

For as soon as they feel my touch they hurry to me, like a deer to a spring of water. But I often leave them, so that it seems to them as if they were without help. I do this so that the outer person in them may not be puffed up with pride. Then they weep and mourn, thinking that I have taken offense at them. In this way I search out their faith. Yet I hold them with a strong hand, taking pride away from them and not letting them know what they are in the hidden good that is in them, because I want to produce manifold fruit in them while their souls grieve and their hearts are wounded with sorrows.note

For I often allow the persuasions of the devil to invade them with fiery arrows, from the unclean blast of the burning fire of the spirit of fornication, and these wound their bodies in the weakness of their frail nature. I allow this so that in this way they may be imbued so strongly with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that they also become outstanding heralds, ablaze in the virtues. For they will be tested like gold in the furnace. That is, they will be tested by mockery and contempt, so that they will be counted as nothing. Very often robbers will strip them of their property, and through the hostility of the people they will be torn apart in their adversities, like lambs by wolves. Yet when the wolf scatters and disperses the sheep, they still do not die. In the same way these people do not die the death of the soul. Instead they live all the more, purified by adversity.

For a good tree is watered, pruned and dug around so that it may bear fruit, and caterpillars are removed from it so that they do not gnaw away its fruit. What does this mean? A good person should not be hard or ill-disposed toward the justice of God, but gentle and pliant toward every good. He should cut evil away from himself, consider himself by examining his deeds, and drive off the attacks of the enemies who harm him. And yet, even before a person feels me in his thoughts or his understanding perceives me within him, I am for him the head and root of fruitfulness, and the power and strength of a firm city built upon solid rock. So let every faithful person hear me saying to him: O human, is it fitting and proper that a rational human being should be without understanding, like an irrational beast that does nothing except what its appetite craves?

O wretched people, who do not want to know the great glory that God gave them in his own likeness! It cannot be as they wish, that they may freely, as if by hereditary right, do all the evil they desire, as though they possessed this from the nature of their body. They refuse to consider that they have this honor: that they are able to do good works. God has established all things justly in his ordering. And who can resist him? What does this mean? It means a comparison of this kind: could anyone, by any similar example, be likened to the ordering of God, either in wisdom or in discernment in the things that are his? And why is it that they refuse to take away from themselves the power that has been given to them, namely, that they can do both good and evil? How so?

When I admonish them with my touch, those who take hold of me as soon as they feel me present are able, with my help, to bring to completion the good work they desire. But those who despise me collapse into their own weakness and into evil. Yet wicked people try to excuse themselves by claiming that they cannot do good works. They do this so that the outer person in them may exercise its will in freedom. Now, O my dearest children, who are sweeter to me in fragrance than all spices, listen to me as I admonish you. While you have time to do good and evil, worship your God with sincere devotion.

O you, once more, my sweetest children, who rise like the dawn, you who ought to burn with love as the sun burns in its rays: run and hurry, my dearest ones, along the way of truth. That way is the light of the world, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who redeemed us with his blood at the end of the ages, so that after your passing you may come to him with joy. And again I heard the One who sat on the throne saying to me: Those who long for heavenly things must believe faithfully, and not examine obstinately, how the Son of God, sent into the world by the Father, was born of a virgin. For human perception is weighed down by a frail and mortal body and by the very heavy burden of sins. It will not be able to discern the secrets of God any further than the Holy Spirit reveals them to whomever he wills.

Yet the foundation has been laid there, because they are present to God, and because it already stands firm, laid through faith in the salvation they will have. So a person should have hope and trust in no one but God, not wavering about his mercy but trusting in him. This is the strongest foundation of the faithful soul.

And what does that radiance signify? It is great, that is, in signifying the mysteries of God. It has four corners, because many of those born in the four parts of the world will come to the knowledge of Christ. It is of exceptional whiteness, because no darkness can obscure the most luminous divinity. There the same secret of the supernal and glorious majesty is figuratively disclosed, in the great depth and mystery of the knowledge of the Creator of all, who created all things. No one came to the Creator’s aid in this, and no one opposed him in it by resisting, for he created those things only by the will of his goodness, through his Word.

So within it another radiance shines like the dawn, holding in itself, on high, the airy brightness of a crimson light. Through it the mystery of the incarnate Son of God was shown to you in a mystical revelation. For in the secret of the most high God the brightness of the dawn is declared, that is, of the Virgin Mary. She bore in her womb the Son of the heavenly and most high Father, who poured out his crimson blood, shining with the brightest light of salvation. In just this way this secret vision shows you the Incarnation of that same Son under a mystical overshadowing.

For, O you Angels, who guard the peoples, whose form shines in your face; and O you Archangels, who receive the souls of the just; and you Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Dominions and Thrones, who are counted in the fifth secret number; and O you Cherubim and Seraphim, seal of the secrets of God: praise be to you, who gaze into the little chamber of the ancient heart in the fountain. For you see the inner force of the Father, which breathes from his heart like a face. And likewise it said:note

For the spotless Lamb is the bridegroom, and his bride is spotless. And likewise it said:

Therefore: “Rejoice, daughter of Zion,” for God is restoring to you many whom the serpent wanted to cut away from you. They now shine in greater light than their condition had been before. For the living light says of them: I have made the twisted serpent stumble over his own temptation, which was not as complete as he supposed. Therefore I have sworn by myself that in these cases I have done ever more and more than was in them. O serpent, your joy would betray you, for I cut you off in your own temptation—something never found in your savagery, O foulest of deceivers.note

Therefore, O human, you see the brightest air, which signifies the radiance of the joy of the citizens on high. In it you hear, in all the meanings described above, a wondrously diverse kind of music. It sounds in the praises of the citizens of the joys on high, who persevere bravely in the way of truth, and in the laments of those called back to the praises of those same joys. For as the air encompasses and sustains the things beneath heaven, so, as you hear, in all the wonders of God shown to you before, a sweet and gentle symphony sounds in joy the marvels of the elect, who dwell in the city on high and persist in God with sweet devotion. And in laments it sounds the bowing down of those whom the ancient serpent tries to destroy, but whom divine power bravely leads into the fellowship of blessed joys:

it brings forth in them those mysteries that are unknown to human minds bent toward the earth. It also sounds in the exhortation of the virtues, who urge one another on for the salvation of peoples. The devil’s snares fight against these peoples, but the virtues themselves crush the snares, in such a way that faithful people at last pass from sins to the things on high through repentance. For there, in the minds of the faithful, the virtues resist for their redemption the vices by which they are wearied through the breath of the devil. When these vices have been overcome with mighty strength, people who had slipped into sins return to repentance at God’s bidding, as they search out and weep over their past deeds, and consider and guard against what is to come.

So you too, O human, who are a poor little creature, frail by nature, hear in the symphony the sound of the fiery ardor of virginal modesty in the embraces of the words of the flowering branch. You hear the sound of the keenness of the living lights shining in the city on high; the sound of the prophecy of deep sayings; the sound of the spreading of the apostolate’s wondrous words; the sound of the shedding of the blood of those who faithfully offered themselves; the sound of the priestly office of the mysteries; and the sound of the virginal rank of those who blossom in heavenly greenness. For his faithful creature resounds to the Creator on high with a voice of exultation and gladness, and gives him thanks again and again.

But you also hear a sound like the voice of a multitude, resounding in harmony in the laments of those called back to these same ranks. For symphony does not rejoice wholly in the unanimous exultation of those who persevere bravely on the way of uprightness. It also exults in the concord of raising up those who have fallen from the way of justice and at last have been lifted to true blessedness. For the good shepherd, too, carried back with joy to the flock the sheep that had been lost.

Again, as you hear, that sound, like the voice of a multitude, cries out in harmony. In it the virtues urge one another to help humankind and resist the opposing arts of the devil; the virtues overcome the vices, and people at last return to repentance through divine inspiration. For there is a sweet embrace in the virtues, which draw faithful people to true blessedness, but a dreadful heaping-up in the vices of the devil’s snares. This does not mean that the virtues fail to overcome the vices. Rather, the virtues weaken them utterly, and with the help of aid from on high they lead those who consent to them to eternal reward through true repentance, as has also been shown to you in the voices of their harmony.

And praise him with the psaltery of deep devotion and with the lyre of honey-sweet song. For when the trumpet sounds, the psaltery follows, and when the psaltery sings, the lyre follows. So too, when the blessed angels had persevered in the love of truth, and humankind was then created, the prophets arose with wondrous voices, and the apostles followed them with the sweetest words. And praise him with the timbrel of mortification and with the dance of exultation. For after the lyre comes the timbrel, and after the timbrel the dance exults. So too, as the apostles preached the words of salvation, the martyrs endured various tortures in their bodies for the honor of God, and from among them there afterward arose truthful teachers of the priestly office.

And praise him with the strings of human redemption and with the organ of divine protection. For while the dance exults, the voices of the strings and of the organ make themselves heard. So too, when the true teachers were showing the truth in the office of blessedness, virgins came forth who loved the Son of God as true man, as if on strings, and adored him as true God, as if on the organ, since they believed him to be true man and true God. What does this mean? When the Son of God took on flesh for the salvation of humankind, he did not lose the glory of his divinity. So the blessed virgins, choosing him as their bridegroom, embraced him with faithful devotion: as true man in betrothal, and as true God in chastity.

And praise him with well-sounding cymbals—that is, with those declarations that make a good sound in true joy, when people lying in the depths of sin, pierced with compunction by divine inspiration toward the heights above, lift themselves up out of the depths. And praise him with cymbals of jubilation—that is, with declarations of divine praise, where the mighty virtues, winning victory most bravely, crush the vices in people and, with strong desire, lead them as they persevere in good to the blessedness of true reward. Therefore let every spirit that has the good will to believe in God and to honor him praise the Lord—that is, him who is Lord of all. For it is right that whoever desires life should glorify him who is life.

He who winnows himself into the whirlwind, and who shares out fruits that give no refreshment. And how will my tabernacle be there? But my tabernacle is where the Holy Spirit pours out his watering. What does this mean? I am in the midst. How so? Whoever lays hold of me worthily will fall neither into height, nor into depth, nor into breadth. What does this mean? I am that love which blazing pride does not cast down, deep falls do not shatter, and the breadth of evils does not crush. Can I not build on the height of the footstool of the sun? The strong, who display their strength in the valleys, despise me; the dull cast me away in the roar of whirlwinds; the wise refuse my food—and so does anyone who builds himself a tower according to his own will. But I will confound them by means of the small and slight, as I cast down Goliath by a boy, and as I overcame Holofernes by Judith.note

So whoever rejects the mystical words of this book, I will bend my bow against him and pierce him with the arrows of my quiver. I will strike his crown from his head and make him like those who fell at Horeb when they murmured against me. And whoever utters his curses against this prophecy, the curse that Isaac uttered will come upon him. But whoever embraces it, holds it in his heart and brings it out onto level paths will be filled with the blessing of the dew of heaven. And whoever tastes it and sets it in his memory will become a mountain of myrrh and frankincense and of every spice, and a spreading-out of many blessings, ascending from blessing to blessing like Abraham. And the newly wed bride of the Lamb will join him to herself as a pillar in the sight of God, and the shadow of the Lord’s hand will protect him.note

But if anyone rashly hides these words of the finger of God, or diminishes them in his madness, or carries them off to a foreign place for the sake of some human notion and so mocks them, he will be reprobate, and the finger of God will crush him. Praise, then, praise God, O blessed hearts, in all these wonders that God established in the soft form of the beauty of the Most High, which he foresaw at the first appearing of the rib of that man whom God created from the clay. But let whoever has keen ears of inner understanding pant for these words in burning love of my mirror and write them in the conscience of his soul. Amen.