(3) He moved his pinions afterwards and fanned us, Affirming those 'qui lugent' to be blessed, For they shall have their souls with comfort filled. "What aileth thee, that aye to earth thou gazest?" To me my Guide began to say, we both Somewhat beyond the Angel having mounted. And I: "With such misgiving makes me go A vision new, which bends me to itself, So that I cannot from the thought withdraw me." "Didst thou behold," he said, "that old enchantress, Who sole above us henceforth is lamented? Didst thou behold how man is freed from her? Suffice it thee, and smite earth with thy heels, Thine eyes lift upward to the lure, that whirls The Eternal King with revolutions vast." Even as the hawk, that first his feet surveys, Then turns him to the call and stretches forward, Through the desire of food that draws him thither, Such I became, and such, as far as cleaves The rock to give a way to him who mounts, Went on to where the circling doth begin. On the fifth circle when I had come forth, People I saw upon it who were weeping, Stretched prone upon the ground, all downward turned.

(2) It came to pass then, when Jesus had reached the heaven, after three hours, that all the powers of the heaven fell into agitation, and all were set in motion one against the other, they and all their æons and all their regions and all their orders, and the whole earth was agitated and all they who dwell thereon. And all men who are in the world fell into agitation, and also the disciples, and all thought: Peradventure the world will be rolled up. And all the powers in the heavens ceased not from their agitation, they and the whole world, and all were moved one against the other, from the third hour of the fifteenth day of the moon of Tybi until the ninth hour of the morrow. And all the angels and their archangels and all the powers of the height, all sang praises to the interiors of the interiors, so that the whole world heard their voices, without their ceasing till the ninth hour of the morrow.

(23) And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up?

(13) And in the fourth year this week Lot parted from him, and Lot dwelt in Sodom, and the men of Sodom were sinners exceed- ingly.

(1) The Hoopoe continued: 'Then comes the valley where there is neither the desire to possess nor the wish to discover. In this state of the soul a cold wind blows, so violentthat in a moment it devastates an immense space: the seven oceans are no more than a pool, the seven planets a mere spark, the seven heavens a corpse, the seven hells broken ice. Then, an astonishing thing, beyond reason! An ant has the strength of a hundred elephants, and a hundred caravans perish while a rook is filling his crop.

' In order that Adam might receive the celestial light, hosts of green-clad angels were consumed by sorrow. So that Noah might become a carpenter of God and build the ark, thousands of creatures perished in the waters. Myriads of gnats fell on the army of Abrahah so that that king would be overthrown. Thousands of the first-born died so that Moses might see God. Thousands of people took the Christian

(Ill)

girdle so that Christ could possess the secret of God. Thousands of hearts and souls were pillaged so that Muhammad might ascend for one night to heaven. In this Valley nothing old or new has value; you can act or not act. If you saw a whole world burning until hearts were only shish kabab, it would be only a dream compared to reality. If myriads of souls were to fall into this boundless ocean it would be as a drop of dew. If heaven and earth were to burst into minute particles it would be no more than a leaf falling from a tree; and if everything were to be annihilated, from the fish to the moon, would there be found in the depths of a pit the leg of a lame ant? If there remain no trace of either of men or jinn, the secret of a drop of water from which all has been formed is stiU to be pondered over.'

(53) By this you may understand what great power the spirits of the expelled angels have had in the heavenly nature; and of what manner of substance this perdition or corruption is; how in their place they have corrupted and spoiled nature in heaven with their horrible kindling, from whence the horrible fierceness which is predominant in this world exists.

(38) As this lord commanded, so his subjects obeyed; when he elevated himself, and would be God, his angels, seeing it, followed their lord, doing as he did, all made a proffer to assault and storm the Deity.

(1) Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide Turned like a little child who always runs For refuge there where he confideth most; And she, even as a mother who straightway Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy With voice whose wont it is to reassure him, Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven, And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all And what is done here cometh from good zeal? After what wise the singing would have changed thee And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine, Since that the cry has startled thee so much, In which if thou hadst understood its prayers Already would be known to thee the vengeance Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest. The sword above here smiteth not in haste Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him Who fearing or desiring waits for it. But turn thee round towards the others now, For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see, If thou thy sight directest as I say." As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned, And saw a hundred spherules that together With mutual rays each other more embellished.

(3) Dense clouds do not appear, nor rarefied, Nor coruscation, nor the daughter of Thaumas, That often upon earth her region shifts; No arid vapour any farther rises Than to the top of the three steps I spake of, Whereon the Vicar of Peter has his feet. Lower down perchance it trembles less or more, But, for the wind that in the earth is hidden I know not how, up here it never trembled. It trembles here, whenever any soul Feels itself pure, so that it soars, or moves To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it. Of purity the will alone gives proof, Which, being wholly free to change its convent, Takes by surprise the soul, and helps it fly. First it wills well; but the desire permits not, Which divine justice with the self-same will There was to sin, upon the torment sets. And I, who have been lying in this pain Five hundred years and more, but just now felt A free volition for a better seat. Therefore thou heardst the earthquake, and the pious Spirits along the mountain rendering praise Unto the Lord, that soon he speed them upwards."

(9) The people that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others said, An angel spake.

(68) But when, in these two days, the creation of heaven and of earth was completed, and the heaven was made in the heart of the water, for a difference or distinction between the light of God and the wrath of God, then, on the third day, through the terror or crack of the fire-flash, which rose up in the heart of the water, and presseth through death, incomprehensibly as to death, there sprang up all manner of ideas, forms and figures, as was done before the time of the kindled wrath.

(6) Whereupon, as I went to Damascus, with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice saying in the Hebrew tongue,

(34) The fourteenth chapter opens with the Lamb standing on Mount Zion (the eastern horizon), about Him gathered the 144,000 with the name of God written in their foreheads. An angel thereupon announces the fall of Babylon--the city of confusion or worldliness. Those perish who do not overcome worldliness and enter into the realization that spirit--and not matter--is enduring; for, having no interests other than those which are material, they are swept to destruction with the material world. And St. John beheld One like unto the Son of Man (Perseus) riding upon a cloud (the substances of the invisible world) and bearing in his hand a sharp sickle, and with the sickle the Shining One reaped the earth. This is a symbol of the Initiator releasing into the sphere of reality the higher natures of those who, symbolized by ripened grain, have reached the point of liberation. And there came another angel (Boötes)--Death--also with a sickle (Karma), who reaped the vines of the earth (those who have lived by the false light) and cast them into the winepress of the wrath of God (the purgatorial spheres).

(615) who had been great criminals: they were just, as they fancied, about to return into the upper world, but the mouth, instead of admitting them, gave a roar, whenever any of these incurable sinners or some one who had not been sufficiently punished tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect, who were standing by and heard the sound, seized and carried them off; and Ardiaeus and others they bound head and foot and hand, and threw them down and flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring to the passers-by what were their crimes, and that 8 they were being taken away to be cast into hell.’ And of all the many terrors which they had endured, he said that there was none like the terror which each of them felt at that moment, lest they should hear the voice; and when there was silence, one by one they ascended with exceeding joy. These, said Er, were the penalties and retributions, and there were blessings as great. Now when the spirits which were in the meadow had tarried seven days, on the eighth they were obliged to proceed on their journey, and, on the fourth day after, he said that they came to a place where they could see from above a line of light, straight as a column, extending right through the whole heaven and through the earth, in colour resembling the rainbow, only brighter and purer; another day’s journey brought them to the place, and there, in the

(1) When he said this, he left. We knelt down, Peter and I, and gave thanks and sent our hearts up to heaven. We heard with our ears and saw with our eyes the noise of wars, a trumpet blast, and great turmoil.

(4) And he testified to the Watchers, who had sinned with the daughters of men ; for these had begun to unite themselves, so as to be defiled, with the daughters of men, and Enoch testified against (them) all.

(627) 1771 To say: N. is a well-equipped spirit, who asks to be; 1771 heaven is agitated; the earth quakes 1771 --------------------------- 1772 N. was born on (the day of the feast) of the month; N. was conceived on (the day of the feast) of the half-month; 1772 (for) he came forth with the dorsal carapace of a grasshopper, 1772 as among that (of) which the wasp bore. 1773 The two wings ------------------- 1773 --------- two uraeuses. N. was conceived in the night and ascends to R` each day. 1773 The chapel is open for him (when) R` appears. 1774 N. has ascended on the rain-cloud; he has descended ---- 1774 -------------------- truth is before R` 1774 on the day of (the feast) of each first-of-the-year. 1775 Heaven was in satisfaction; the earth was, in joy, 1775 (after) they heard that N. had put truth [in the place of error]. 1776 ------ protect (or, avenge) ----- N. in his divine court 1776 with the true decision, which comes forth from his mouth, 1776 demanded his installation as chief: Two acres 1776 ---------------- 1777 N. is the great falcon who asks to be; 1777 N. ferries over the sky on four geese (?). 1777 N. has ascended on the rain-cloud; he has descended --- 1777 ------------------ 1778 N: is the great falcon, who is upon the battlements (or, cornice blocks) of the house of "him of the hidden name," 1778 who will seize the (possessions, or) provisions of Atum for him who separates the sky from the earth and Nun 1778 -- this N. in all (?) ---- shines. 1779 His two lips are like those of the male of the divine falcons; 1779 his neck is like that of the mistress of the nbi-flame; 1779 his claws are like those of the bull of the evening; 1780 his wings are like those of him who presides over (his) abode within the lake of his chapel. 1780 The w (taste) of N. is like the swnw-r.f-wr, who is at the side of him who is, in Nun. 1780 N. was born at (or, on) the hand of eternity. 1781 ------------------- 1781 N. [went?] to the field of the glorified; 1781 his hands fell upon Dbn-wp.wt (him of the twisted horns), north of the island of Elephantin� (bw); 1781 he has illuminated the earth with his first divine being. 1782a (N. I 168). To the side --------- 1782 ------------ the [urae]us, the gu[ide], in his first birth. 1782 He is busying himself with pd.w nw.t; 1782 It goes well with N. because of his ba. 1783 ----------------- 1783 ------------------- w 'irmn.wt nfr. 1783 The name of N. is made like that of a divine falcon, through which he who passes by it fears; 1784 because like N. mw is older than nhd -- 1784 ------ 1784 N. goes to his seat (place?) of (in) the Ssm.t-land; 1784 that which N. eats comes from the Marshes, of Offerings 1784 and from the lakes of malachite ------------1785a (N. I 171). He --- a ka in the body of a hundred thousand --- 1785 N. conducts R` into his two boats of m`.t 1785 on the day (of the feast) of the end of the year, 48. TEXTS OF MISCELLANEOUS CONTENTS,

(6) "His mother suffered none of the pangs of travail. At the moment of his coming into the world a celestial light illumined the surrounding country, and the new born child, raising his eyes to heaven, exclaimed: 'God is great! There is no God bur God, and I am his prophet!' Heaven and earth, we are assured, were agitated at his advent. The Lake Sawa shrank back to its secret springs, leaving its borders dry; while the Tigris, bursting its bounds, overflowed the neighboring lands. The palace of Khosru the king of Persia shook t on its foundations, and several of its towers were toppled to the earth. * * * In the same eventful night the sacred fire of Zoroaster, which, guarded by the Magi, had burned without interruption for upward of a thousand years, was suddenly extinguished, and all the idols in the world fell down." (See Mahomet and His Successors.)

(32) When, in two days, God had brought the body of this world into a right form, and had made the heaven for a partition between the love and the wrath, then, on the third day, the love pressed through the heaven and through the wrath, and instantly the old body in death stirred and moved itself to the birth or geniture.

(10) And the Lord sent a_jniglity» <Ra^- whyii-again&t-4he-towfiX and overthrew it upon the ^A ' earth, and behold it was between Asshur and Babylon in the laad-of Shinar, and they called its name " Over- 1688 am throw." *