Visiones de santa Brígida de Suecia

The above text was translated into Middle English at Syon Abbey in a manuscript now in the Garrett Collection at Princeton University, then translated into modern English in Julia Bolton Holloway, Saint Bride and Her Book: Birgitta of Sweden's Revelations (1992; republished, Cambridge: Boydell and Brewer , ISBN 0-941051-18-8). This vision concerns the Florentine Seneschal of Naples, Nicholas Acciaiuoli, at whose deathbed Bride was present, 8 September 1366, Johannes Jørgensen, Saint Bridget of Sweden (London: Longmans Green, 1954), II.183-188.

{ How Saint Bride sees in her spiritual sight the judgment of a soul whom the fiend accused, and at the last was helped by our Lady;and how she saw all Hell and Purgatory and many other marvels; and how needful it is to help them who are in Purgatory. Chapter 17. [IV.7]

{ It seemed to a person who was awake in prayer and not sleeping as though she had seen in her spiritual sight a palace of incredible greatness, in which were countless people, clad in white and shining clothes. And each of them seemed to have a proper seat to himself. In this palace stood principally a judgment seat, in which it was as if there were a sun; and the brightness that went from that sun was more than may otherwise be told or understood, in length, depth and breadth. There stood also a Virgin close to that seat, having a precious crown on her head. And all who were there served the Son sitting on the throne, praising him with hymns and songs. Then appeared there an Ethiopian, fearful in sight and bearing, as though he had been full of envy and greatly enraged. He cried and said: 'O you rightful Judge, grant me this soul, and hear his works; for now his life is near the end. Allow me therefore to punish the body with the soul, until they are separated'.

When this was said, it seemed to me that one stood before the throne, like a knight armed excellently, and wise in words, and sober in hearing, who said: 'You, Judge, see, here are his good works that he has done up to this hour'.

And then there was heard a voice out of the sun sitting on the seat: 'Here are vices', he said, 'more than virtues. And it is not justice that vice be joined to him who is supreme virtue'.

Then answered the Ethiopian: 'Therefore it is rightful that this soul be joined to me; because if it has any vice in it, in me is all wickedness'. The knight answered: 'The mercy of God follows every person until the last moment of his life, and then comes the Judgment. And in this man that we speak of are yet both soul and body joined together, and discretion remains in him'.

The Ethiopian answered: 'The Scriptures say, that may not be: you shall love God above all things, and your neighbour as yourself. See you therefore, that all the works of this man are done out of dread, and not out of love and charity as they ought to be. And all the sins that he is cleansed of, you will find him cleansed with little contrition. And therefore he has deserved Hell; because he has forfeited the kingdom of Heaven. And therefore his sins are here opened before the Judgment of God. For he never yet was contrite in goodly charity for the sins that he has done'.

The knight answered: 'Truly, he hoped and believed he would become contrite before his death'.

'You', he said, 'have gathered all the deeds that he had ever done well, and you know all his words and his thoughts for the salvation of his soul. And all these, whatever they may be, may not be likened to that grace gained by contrition for the love of God with holy faith and hope, and much less they may not cancel out all his sins. For justice is in God who is without beginning, that no sinner shall enter Heaven who is not perfectly contrite. And therefore it is impossible that God should judge against the disposition ordained from before time. Therefore the soul is to be judged to Hell and to be joined with me in everlasting pain'.

When this was said, the knight held his peace and answered nothing to these words. After this appeared innumerable fiends, like sparks out a hot fire. And they all cried out with one voice saying to him who sat in the seat as a sun: 'We', they say, 'know that you are God in two Persons, without beginning and end, and there is no other God but you. You are that charity to which is joined mercy and righteousness. You were in yourself from before the beginning, having not lessened nor in any little way changed, as it seemed God without you is not, and nothing has joy without you. Therefore your charity made angels of no other matter but the power of your Godhead. And you did as mercy stirred you. But after that we were burned within with pride, envy and greed; your charity, loving righteousness, cast us out of heaven with the fire of our malice into dark and unseeable deepness that is now called Hell. So did your charity, then, which shall not yet be separated from the Judgment of your justice, whether it be after mercy or after equity. And yet we say more, if the thing which you love before all things, the Virgin who bore you, who never sinned, had sinned mortally and died without goodly contrition, you love justice so that her soul should never have got to Heaven, but it should have been with us in Hell. Therefore, Judge, why do you not condemn this soul to us, that we may punish it after his works'.

After this was heard as it were the sound of a trumpet, and all who heard it were still. And then was heard a voice saying: 'Be still and listen, all angels, souls and fiends, to what the Mother of God speaks'.

And then, the same Virgin appearing before the seat of Judgment and having under her mantle as it had been some great private things, said: 'O, you enemies, you persecute mercy and without charity you love justice, though here appears a lack of good works for which this soul ought not to get Heaven, yet see what I have under my mantle'.

And when the Virgin had opened both the fronts of her mantle, under the one appeared as like a little church, in which seemed to be some men of religion /See the medieval paintings, particularly common in Florence, of Mary in this attitude with people gathered within her cloak; also the Giotto Arena Chapel Last Judgment fresco with Ernesto Scrovegni donating that chapel shown self-referentially within it, Sarel Eimerl, The World of Giotto: c. 1267-1377 (New York: Time Incorporated, 1967), p. 129; also Birgitta's cloak which survives as a relic. Here Bride is speaking of Nicholas Acciaiuoli's founding of the Carthusian monastery, La Certosa, in Florence, 1342, from his ill-gotten Neapolitan gains as that Kingdom's Seneschal, and from similar motives as had Scrovegni the Arena Chapel. Compare, too, with St Francesca Romana ./; and under the other appeared women and men, Friends of God , religious and other /Birgitta frequently uses this term, associated with the medieval Dominican mystics, the Friends of God, especially in her material concerning Magister Mathias, who was buried with the Stockholm Dominicans, and who had studied at their house in Paris. This can explain Birgitta's presence in the great Dominican fresco in Santa Maria Novella's Spanish Chapel./. And they all cried with one voice saying, 'Have mercy, merciful Lord'.

Then after there was silence and the Virgin spoke and said: 'The Scripture said, he who has perfect faith may thereby move mountains in the world. What then may and ought the voices of these do, who had faith and also served God with charity? And what shall those friends of God do, whom this man asked that they pray for him, that he might be separated from Hell and obtain Heaven? And he sought no other reward for his good works but heavenly things, where all their tears and prayers may not or are not of power to take him and lift him up so that he get goodly contrition with charity before his death, and furthermore I shall add to my prayers the prayer of all the saints that are in Heaven, whom this man specially worshipped'. Yet then further said the Virgin: 'O, you fiends, I command you by the power of the Judge to take heed of these things that you see now in justice'.

Then they all answered as if it had been with one mouth: 'We see', they said, 'that in the world a little water and great air balance out the anger of God. And so by your prayer is God weighed to mercy with charity'.

After this was heard a voice from the Son, saying: 'For the prayers of my friends shall this man now get goodly contrition before his death, in so much that he shall not come into Hell; but he shall be purged with them who suffer most grievous pain in Purgatory. And when the soul is purged, he shall have reward in Heaven with them who had faith and hope on earth with right little charity'.

When this was said, the fiends fled away. Then after that it seemed to the Bride as if there had opened a fearful and dark place wherein there appeared a furnace all burning within; and that fire had nothing else to burn but fiends and living souls. And above that furnace appeared that soul whose judgment was just completed. The feet of the soul were fastened to the furnace, and the soul stood up like a person. It did not stand in the highest place nor in the lowest, but as if on the side of the furnace. The shape of the soul was fearful and marvelous. The fire of the furnace seemed to come up between the feet of the soul, as when water ascends up by pipes. And that fire ascended upon his head, and violently thrust him together; so much that the pores stood as veins running with burning fire. His ears seemed like smiths' bellows which moved all his brain with continual blowing. His eyes seemed turned upside down and sunk in as if they were fastened to the back part of his head. His mouth was open and his tongue drawn out by his nostrils and hung down to his lips. His teeth were as iron nails fastened to his palate. His arms were so long that they stretched down to his feet. Both his hands seemed to have and to press together a kind of fat with burning pitch. The skin which seemed to be upon the soul seemed like the skin upon a body, and it was as a linen cloth all fouled with filth; which cloth was so cold that each one could see it tremble and shiver. And there came from it pus from a sore with corrupt blood, and so wicked a stench that it could not be compared to the worst stench in the world. When his tribulations were seen, there was heard a voice of the soul that said five times, 'Woe, woe, alas, alas', crying with tears and all his might.

First he said: 'Alas and woe to me, that I loved God so little for his truly great virtues and grace given to me'. The second: 'Alas and woe to me, that I did not fear the Judgment of God as I ought'. The third, 'Alas and woe to me, that I loved the body and the lust of my sinful flesh'. The fourth, 'Alas and woe to me, for my worldly riches and pride'. The fifth, 'Alas and woe to me, that ever I saw you, Lewes and Joan'./Latin text gives 'Ludovicum et Ioannam'. This is the vision Bride had about Nicholas Acciaiuoli, Grand Seneschal of Naples, who had been tutor to Prince Lewes of Taranto and whose marriage he arranged in 1347, following her murder of her previous husband and King of Naples, Andrew of Hungary, 1345. Acciaiuoli had founded Carthusian Certosa in Florence, 1342: ASF Monastero de Santa Brigida detto del Paradiso 61, fols. 21v-24v; Vatican MS Ottob. lat, fol. 120; Jorgensen 2:121-122. The Carthusians continued to inhabit Certosa until the war years when they fled first to Lucca, then Grenoble. Today Certosa is shared by Cistercian monks and the University of Florence's medievalists of S.I.S.M.E.L. For a sepia photograph of Carthusian monks at the Certosa in Pavia , see 'I Fratelli Alinari: Florentine Photographers'/

Then the angel said to me: 'I will explain this vision to you. This palace you have seen is the likeness of heaven. The multitude of those who were on the thrones, clad in white and shining clothes, are angels and the souls of saints. The sun means Christ in his Godhead. The woman means the Virgin who bore God. The Ethiopian means the fiend who accuses the soul. The knight means the angel who tells of the good works of the soul. The furnace means Hell, which is so burning within, that if all the world burnt with all things that are within, it would not be like the greatness of that furnace. In this furnace are heard diverse voices, all speaking against God, and all beginning their utterances with "Woe and alas", and ending in the same way. The souls appeared as people whose members are stretched out without comfort and who never can rest. Know also the fire that seemed to you in the furnace, burns in everlasting darkness, and the souls that burn within it do not all have the same pain. The darkness that appeared about the furnace is called "limbus" /To be in 'limbo' is to be betwixt and between, neither in Heaven nor in Hell. See Dante, Inferno 4./, and it comes from the darkness that is in the furnace and yet they are both the same place and one Hell. Whoever comes there shall never dwell with God. Above this darkness is the greatest pain of Purgatory that souls may suffer. And beyond this place is another place where there is less pain, that is none other but the lack of firmness in strength, beauty and such other: as I tell you by a parable, as if there were a sick man; and when the sickness and the pain had ended, he was left so feeble that he had no strength, until he recovered little by little. The third place is above, where there is no other pain but the desire of coming to God. And that you should understand this better in your conscience, I tell you by a parable, as if other metals were meddled with gold and burnt in a most hot fire and should so long be purged, that the other metals were refined away; and the gold stayed pure and clean though the other metal was strong and thick, so that it should need the hotter fire, and the gold was like running water, and all burning. Then the master of the work puts the gold in another place, where it shall take its true form and shape by sight and by touch. And after that, he puts it in the third place, where it is kept until it is presented to the owner.

'It is the same spiritually. In the first place above the darkness is the greatest pain of Purgatory, where you see the said soul being purged. There is tormenting by fiends. There appear the likeness of venomous worms and the likeness of savage beasts. There is heat and cold. There is darkness and confusion that comes from the pain that is in Hell. Some souls there have less pain and some more, according to whether their sins were amended or not, during the time that the soul dwelled in the body. Then the master, that is, the justice of God, puts the gold, that is the souls, in other places, where there is less strength, in which the souls abide until they have refreshing of their friends or of the continual prayers of holy Church. For a soul, the more help it has from its friends, the rather will it become strong and be delivered from that place. After this, the soul is born to the third place, where there is no pain except the desire to come into the presence of God and to his blessed sight. In this place dwelled many and for a very long time, without, those who had perfect desire while they lived in the world to come to the presence and sight of God. Know also that many die in the world so virtuously and innocently, that soon they come to the sight and presence of God. And some have so amended their sins with good works, that their souls shall feel no pain. But there are few who come not to the place where there is desire to come to God. Therefore all souls abiding in these three places have a part in the prayers and good works of holy Church that are done in the world; namely of those that they did while they lived, and of those which are done by their friends after their death. Know also that as sins are many and diverse, so are the pains many and diverse. Therefore as the hungry one delights in food when it comes to his mouth, and the thirsty in drink, and as he who is downcast, is gladdened with joy, and the naked with clothing, and the sick with going to his bed, so the souls joy in and are partners of the good deeds that are done for them in the world'.

Then said the angel furthermore: 'Blessed be he who has in the world helped souls with prayers, good works and the labour of his body. For the Justice of God may not lie which says that souls either must be purged after their death with the pain of Purgatory, or else they must be loosed by the good works of their friends'.

After this were heard many voices out of Purgatory, saying: 'O Lord Jesus Christ, just Judge, send your charity to them who have spiritual power in the world; for then shall we have more part than we have now, of their song, readings and offerings'.

Above this space from where this cry was heard, it seemed as if it were a house in which were heard many voices, saying, 'Let those be rewarded of God who send us help from our errors'.

In the same house the sun seemed to go forth as if it had been the spring of a day. And under that dawn appeared a cloud that had not the light of the morning time. Out of which came a great voice, saying: 'O Lord God, give of your unspeakable power to each of them in the world a hundredfold reward, that with their good deeds lift us up into the light of your Godhead and into the sight of your face'.