De Triplici Habitaculo [Incertus]

ON THE THREE ABODES, ONE BOOK, BY AN UNKNOWN AUTHOR, BUT NOT AN UNLEARNED ONE. CHAPTER ONE. On the three abodes: the kingdom of God, the world, and hell. The goods of the kingdom of God, and the evils of hell. There are three abodes under the hand of almighty God: the highest, the lowest, and the middle. The highest is called the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven; the lowest is called hell; the middle is called the present world or the orb of the earth. The extremes are entirely contrary to each other, and joined by no fellowship. For what fellowship can there be of light to darkness, and of Christ to Belial (2 Cor. 6:15)? The middle, however, has some likeness to the extremes. Hence it has light and darkness, cold and heat, pain and health, joy and sorrow, hatred and love, good and evil, just and unjust, masters and servants, rule and subjection, hunger and satiety, death and life, and countless things of this kind. Of all these, one part bears the image of the kingdom of God, the other part of hell. For the mixture of both evil and good exists in this world; but in the kingdom of God there are no evil ones, but all are good; while in hell there are no good ones, but all are evil; and each place is supplied from the middle. For among the men of this world, some are raised up to heaven, others are dragged down to hell.

Indeed, like are joined to like, that is, the good to the good, and the evil to the evil; righteous men to righteous angels, and transgressor men to transgressor angels; servants of God to God, servants of the devil to the devil: the blessed are called to a kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of the world, the accursed are cast out into the eternal fire, which is prepared for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Now the goods of the heavenly kingdom no one clothed in flesh can speak, or think, or understand as they are: for they are far greater and better than are thought and understood; whence it is written, that the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9). For the kingdom of God is greater than any report, better than any praise, more innumerable than any knowledge, more excellent than any glory that is imagined. The evils of hell also no one can speak or think as they are: for they are far worse than are thought. Therefore the kingdom of God is full of light, and peace, and charity, and wisdom, and glory, and honor, and sweetness, and love, and melody, and joy, and everlasting blessedness, and of every ineffable good, which can neither be spoken nor thought.

But the place of hell is full of darkness, discord, hatred, folly, misery, ugliness, bitterness, offense, pain, burning, thirst, hunger, unquenchable fire, sadness, perpetual vengeance, and every unspeakable evil, which can neither be told nor conceived. The citizens of heaven are righteous men and angels, whose king is almighty God. On the contrary, the citizens of hell are impious men and demons, whose prince is the devil. The vision of holy men and angels, and above all of God Himself, satisfies the righteous. The vision of condemned men and demons, and above all of the devil himself, torments the impious and sinners. Nothing is desired in the kingdom of God that is not found; but in hell nothing is found that is desired. In the kingdom of God nothing is found except what pleases, delights, and satisfies; but on the contrary, in the lake of perpetual misery nothing is seen and nothing is felt except what displeases, what offends, what torments. In the eternal kingdom there was life without death, truth without error, happiness without disturbance. Every good abounds in the kingdom of God, and no evil; every evil abounds in the prison of the devil, and no good. No unworthy person is received into the kingdom of God; but no worthy person, no just person, is dragged to hell.

CHAPTER II. On the punishments of hell. The principal torments in hell are two: unbearable cold and the heat of unquenchable fire; whence in the Gospel it is read, "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt. 13:42; 22:43; 25:50). For weeping and liquefaction of the eyes arise from heat; but gnashing of teeth arises from cold. Hence also blessed Job says, "From the waters of snow they will pass to excessive heat" (Job 24:49). From these two hang innumerable kinds of punishments: namely, unbearable thirst, the punishment of hunger, the punishment of stench, the punishment of horror, the punishment of fear, the punishment of anguish, the punishment of darkness, the severity of torturers, the presence of demons, the ferocity of beasts, the cruelty of those who minister, the tearing apart of immortal worms, the worm of conscience, fiery tears, sighs, miseries, pain without remedy, chains without release, alternating death, punishment without end, the absence of Christ after the vision of him, which alone surpasses all the above-mentioned things, and is more intolerable than all punishments.

CHAPTER III. On those whom the eternity of punishment does not deter from worldly pleasure. The twofold punishment of hell. A hundred years are no portion of eternity. Woe, then, to those who perpetually deserve to undergo all these evils without end, for the sake of a pleasurable dream of a single hour: for such, and so great, is all the glory of this world, compared to eternal glory. It would have been better for them, as was said of the unhappy Judas, not to be born (Matt. 26:24), than to suffer the torments of hell because of their evil merits. What is more foolish, what more insane, than to be deceived and overcome by the shadow and image and likeness of true glory and true delight, true beauty, true comeliness, true honor, like children; and not to seek, not to desire, true glory itself? Who would choose an image of gold in water, neglecting the gold itself, and not immediately be thought a fool and a madman by all? Who would love the orb of the sun reflected in a mirror, or formed in any material, more than the sun itself, and not be laughed at by all? Thus is to be laughed at, indeed to be pitied, whoever loves, seeks, strives for the fleeting fragility of this world and the useless pleasure of the flesh, having despised eternal glory and neglected the ineffable joys of the heavenly kingdom. This is a bargain of the foolish, and of the wretched, and of those who do not have a sound heart, even if the torments of hell, which can neither be spoken nor thought, did not follow.

The punishment is twofold: to be absent from the kingdom of God, and to be always in hell, that is, to be condemned with the devil; to lose the presence of the angels, and to suffer always the terrible presence of demons. How much it ought to be shunned, avoided, and feared can in no way be expressed. Who, with sound mind, would choose a hundred years of punishment for the pleasures of a single day? And yet wretched men, devoid of all wisdom, following the pleasure of the flesh, do not avoid, do not escape intolerable punishments—not of a hundred years, not of a thousand, but of all ages without end—for the delights of forty or sixty years, or for any corruptible pleasure. However great the difference between one day and a hundred years, it is not so great, but there is a greater difference between forty, or sixty, or a hundred years and eternity, whether future in good or in evil. For one day is some portion, however very small, in the space of a hundred years; but the space of a hundred years is no portion in that eternity. For if, for example, it were the hundredth or thousandth part of eternity, then after a hundredfold or thousandfold of its space, eternity would cease to be; which reason does not permit of eternity, for if it were bounded in any way, at any time, it would not be eternity at all.

CHAPTER IV. From the broad way to the narrow way. The happiness of the blessed. Knowledge. Love of one's own lot. On the ineffable sweetness of the vision of God. Therefore one must resist carnal pleasure with fortitude, one must fight strongly against the deceptive flatteries of this world, and one must be vigilant against the manifold suggestions of Satan. The broad way of the world, which leads to death, must be avoided with all zeal; but the narrow way, which leads to life, must be approached and sought with all the heart's desire (Matthew 7:13-14). This narrow way is the way of abstinence, and of chastity and humility, and of all religion: which way Christ trod before us, by which way he passed into his kingdom. Let us also follow his footsteps, until after him we arrive by the same way at the royal city, in which he himself reigns. Concerning that city, whatever a man may say is like a drop from the sea, or like a spark from a fire. In that city, namely, the just will shine like the sun (Matthew 13:43), as the Lord says. There there will be the highest peace, the highest rest, no labor, no pain, no poverty, nor old age, no death, nor any night, no desire for food, no burning thirst; but the food and drink of all will be the vision of Christ and of the holy Trinity, and the contemplation with the pure eye of the heart of the divinity itself, and the constant reading, so to speak, of the book of life, that is, of eternal truth and supreme wisdom, and of the Word of God, which is the vision of Jesus Christ; where whatever now lies hidden from us will be more manifest.

Where the manifest reason will be clear, why this one was chosen and that one rejected; why this one was taken into the kingdom and that one reduced to servitude; why one dies in the womb, another in infancy, another in youth, another in old age; why one is poor, another rich; why the son of an adulteress is baptized, and sometimes the son of a lawful wife dies before baptism; why one who begins to live well sometimes ends badly, and one who begins badly often ends well. All these things and many of this kind will be plain and open in the book of life. In that same city, the reward of each will be the reward of all; and of all, through the charity of each, will be the reward of each. There the good of all will be manifest to all. There all will know each other's thoughts mutually. There no superior will be proud, no inferior envious. For how could one who loves all as himself be able to envy anyone, since no one envies himself? There no one will desire to be better or higher than he will be; because to be otherwise than he has merited would not be fitting; nor will he desire to be otherwise than he will be; because to be as he will be is beautiful, not only to himself, but also to the whole body of the celestial Church. For how indeed.

any limb in that body, if it is placed higher or lower than nature has established, makes the body monstrous and ugly; so likewise, if someone in the kingdom of God is ordered higher than the art and will of the almighty craftsman demands, he will produce ugliness, not only for himself, but for the whole assembly, in which he who will be the least will undoubtedly have greater glory than one who holds the whole world's kingdom, even if it were eternal. For it is very base to enjoy the elements, in comparison with enjoying and rejoicing in God Himself, and to be delighted by visible and corporeal things. For so great is the beauty of justice, so great the delight of eternal light, that is, of immutable truth and wisdom, that even if it were not permitted to remain in it longer than the space of a single day, for this reason alone countless years of this life, full of delights in the abundance of corporeal goods, would rightly and deservedly be despised. For it is not falsely or with little feeling that it is said, "For a single day in your courts is better than thousands" (Ps. 83:11).

Nothing is to be compared to the delight and joy that arises from invisible and incorporeal things, and from the fellowship of Angels and all the just, and from the certain knowledge and cognition of the divine nature itself, and from the face-to-face vision of God Himself. Whose beauty the Angels marvel at, by whose command the dead are raised, whose wisdom has no number (Ps. 146:5), whose kingdom knows no end, whose glory cannot be told; whose light so obscures the sun that in comparison the sun has no light; whose sweetness so surpasses honey that compared to it, honey is as the bitterest wormwood. Whose face, if all those shut up in the prison of hell were to see, they would feel no punishment, no pain, and no sadness; whose presence, if it were to appear in hell with its holy inhabitants, would immediately turn hell into a pleasant paradise. Without whose nod not even a leaf falls from a tree. Whose flame-vomiting eyes penetrate the depths of hell. Whose ear hears the silent voice of the heart, that is, thought. Whose eye no less hears than sees; whose ear no less sees than hears, because they are not body, but supreme wisdom and certain knowledge. Whose delights satiate without disgust: which, when they are found by the blessed, are yet always desired, and produce hunger and thirst without punishment, and delight with a burning desire always.

Whose secret wonders are always new and marvelous to those who see them; and they produce no less astonishment in the beholders when they first begin to be seen than after a thousand years and a thousand times a thousand. And although the Angels have been accustomed to see them from the beginning of the world, yet they admire them no less today than on the first day; otherwise, to whose knowledge past and future are not past and future, but present. CHAPTER V. All things are present to God without prejudice to human freedom. God's speech and praise. Existence before time. Light. True evil is worse than false. What the vision of God confers on the blessed. God's eternity. God's knowledge. Whence He will not see the day of judgment, and He did not see the first day of the world: but He sees both. Whose foreknowledge compels no one to sin, as many who err say. For if, they say, God foreknew that Adam would sin, he could not but sin. From which error arises that God is the cause of sin, which it is impious to say. And the foreknowledge of God has it that it is necessary to happen; therefore man sinned by his own will, and not by any necessity, because it was in God's foreknowledge that he would sin by will and free choice, and not by compelling necessity. If therefore the foreknowledge of God cannot be avoided, man could not sin otherwise than by will, with no other force compelling him: because God thus foreknew that he would sin. Therefore, if voluntarily, he was not compelled.

For if he was not compelled to sin, he could undoubtedly have not sinned if he had wished; and therefore he deserved punishment, because he did not sin unwillingly; otherwise he would not have received the penalty of death from God. Whose speech is a hidden inspiration, by which He invisibly shows His will and His love to minds; seeing which, the Angels obey God in all things. Whose praise is that by which He will praise the elect, a manifestation by which He will show the good deeds of His elect to all; but the constant praise with which the elect will praise Him is their perpetual admiration of Him. Who, in a wondrous way, did not precede the world and time in time (for He was not before the world for the space of any hour), and yet He always was without beginning. For there was no time before time, but time began to run with the world; before the world was made, there was no time. Therefore, as we have said, God did not precede times and the world, which is coeval with them, by any time; indeed, He is a little prior to them, for by His motion they began to run. Whatever is moved precedes its own motion. For God preceded the world in ineffable eternity, not in time. Whose time before the world did not exist. Whose light dispels the darkness of ignorance, by some particle of which we know that all these things we have said are true and certain. By the same light we see that it is better to be true than false; and yet it is worse to be a true evil or a true sin than a false evil or a false sin; not because it is true, but because it is evil or sin; but it is evil or sin precisely because it is a true evil or a true sin.

Otherwise, evil or sin could not exist, unless it is true that it is evil, just as false silver is not silver. Someone might say that evil or sin is the evil of truth, which is entirely false. For everything true is from truth, and everything true, insofar as it is true, is good. Therefore, from truth it is that it is true that evil or sin exists, not the evil or sin itself; for the evil itself is one thing, and the truth that it exists is another. Although, therefore, the evil itself is not good, it is nevertheless good that it is true that it exists. For unless it were good that evil exists, God would in no way permit it to happen. Indeed, the Omnipotent makes many good things from evils, as from the adultery of men He forms and makes good men. But if, by some particle of that light, as if poured in through narrow cracks, we have come to know that these and all other things we know are true, with what and how great a light of knowledge and wisdom shall we be illuminated there, where we will see the Sun of truth itself face to face, that is, present with certain and true wisdom. For he who clings to true wisdom, true beauty, true eternity will surely be wise, beautiful, and eternal. For its absence makes him unlike it in every way. Its eternity is without beginning and without end (for if there were a time when it was not, who would have made it?), because it is God alone, and before it there was no other God, nor is there, nor will there be.

It did not create itself, since nothing creates itself; for by what power could that which entirely does not exist bring itself into being? It remains, therefore, that God was not made at all. Since God was in no way made, He was without beginning before all things. For whatever is made has a beginning; and whatever has a beginning is without doubt made, not by another except by God, who is not made, but who makes all things. His knowledge, without any variation in the act of knowing, and without any running to and fro, comprehends and understands at once and simultaneously the innumerable variety of all creatures—angels, men, stars, grains of sand, hairs, words, thoughts, all moments. Therefore God is the fountain and origin of all knowledge: the more one drinks from Him, the more one thirsts. CHAPTER VI. The knowledge of the blessed. On the threefold vision: bodily, spiritual, intellectual. Incomparably safer, therefore, is the kingdom of the world, as we said above, even if it were eternal, than the company of angels and saints, and the presence of the vision of God Himself. In whose vision a threefold knowledge arises: that is, the man who perceives, and God who is perceived, and all others will see and understand all things.

Just as through a glass mirror a threefold vision is administered to us, because we see ourselves, and the mirror itself, and whatever is present before us; so through the mirror of divine clarity we shall see God Himself as He is, as far as is possible for a creature, and we shall know ourselves and the rest with true and certain knowledge. Then the hidden things of creatures, and of hell itself, we shall see by seeing God. Then it will be manifest to the just how God is invisible, incomparable, without beginning and without end, before all things and after all things; what difference there is between being born, which pertains to the Son, and proceeding, which pertains to the Holy Spirit, except that one was born from one, the other proceeded from two; and how the Father did not precede the Son in time, but in origin, nor the Holy Spirit; and how all things of God are one in God, except what pertains to relation; for the wisdom of God and truth and eternity are not diverse among themselves, but are one, like all other things; for the wisdom of God is no more wisdom than it is truth, and it is no more truth than it is wisdom, than it is eternity, than it is all other things of God; for they are one in God, and not only are these the same among themselves in God, but they are nothing other than God Himself: and how the world was in God, before it was in itself, not world, but God: and how He is everywhere without place, great without quantity, good without quality: and how He penetrates all things, clean and unclean, without pollution to Himself.

For if this visible light illuminates all places, and even penetrates dung heaps without stench and without defilement, how much more does God, who is invisible and unchangeable light, penetrate, rule, sustain, encompass, and illuminate all things, without any change or pollution, not only celestial and terrestrial, but even infernal things! Then there will be for the elect of God a threefold vision: that is, corporeal, by which bodies will be seen—some shining like the sun, some like the moon, others like stars; and spiritual, by which likenesses of bodies in the spirit and not in deceptive phantasy they will behold—a vision which even today the spirits of the just enjoy after the barriers of the body; and intellectual vision, by which with the pure eye of the mind in the spirit they will see God, and their own souls, and the inner virtues, and angelic spirits. Then they will give twofold thanks to God, namely for their liberation from perpetual damnation, and for the ineffable bestowal of goods. Then the common accuser and enemy of all, the devil, will be condemned in the sight of God’s elect, whose condemnation and intolerable punishment will provide a delightful spectacle for the elect. Then with the most ardent love they will love their liberator and the giver of all places, and without weariness and without satiety, with the cry of the heart, they will praise almighty, benign, and merciful God: to whom is honor and glory both now and through all ages of ages. Amen.