Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 518

"

494

THE INSTRUMENTS OF INSPIRATION

§ 82.

[Div. Ill

awake, and

sits, stands, walks, or rides, and meanwhile and sees sometimes close at hand sharply outlined images in colors and in forms, which, even when the vision departs, leave him a sharp and clear impression, so is

loses himself,

startlingly vivid that he can scarcely it

was not

reality.

make

himself believe

Hyperesthesis can introduce such illusory

and can even assume the form of monomania In the " Fixed Idea and be a precursor of insanity. (Zwangvorstellung), also, a visionary image may obtrude And finally we observe, itself upon us against our will. that vision occurs in rest, in action, in dialogue, and even with the adoption of the person in the drama of the vision. But in whatever form it occurs, it is always character-l conditions,

istic of

the vision that the person

master in his

own

who

sees

consciousness and in his

it

own

ceases to be]

imagination, j

and

nothing but a spectator, while another power within him. is

With is

this general discrimination of that

which

is

is

active \

visual,

it

not in the least surprising that in the Holy Scripture the

vision

is also

attributed to false prophets (Is. xxviii.

xiv. 14, Ezek. xii.

even, in history, role.

When,

24, etc.),

and that outside

the visionary plays

therefore, in

the

7,

Jer.

of Scripture

an important

such

Holy Scripture the

vision

and niTO, Gen. xv. 1) appears as a fixed form, especially of prophetical revelation, it must not be taken as though there were anything uncommon in this vision but it should be understood in the sense that God the Lord made use of the capacity for visions in man in order to reveal to us His will and His counsel. At best it may still be remarked that the revelation vision often appears with a certain connexity and continuity. Not some strange vision now, and again one some years after, but the vision is constantly repeated in a definite series, even introduced by a vision of a call, by which all the visions become together the successive acts of one mighty drama. Thus construed, the visionary phenomena are certainly subjected to a governing power, while the visions themselves have nothing uncommon about them. That which is uncommon consists exclusively in this, that (jlin

;

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