(64) If I had the tongue of an angel, and thou hadst an angelical understanding, we might very finely discourse of it. But the spirit only seeth it, and the tongue cannot advance towards it. For I can use no other words than the words of this world; but now the Holy Ghost being in thee, thy soul will well apprehend it.

(112) But here I speak with an angel's tongue, thou must not understand it earthly, like unto this world.

(64) If thou wert come to this window, thou wouldst not then say that it is earthly: And though I must indeed use the earthly tongue, yet there is a true heavenly understanding couched under it, which in my outermost birth I am not able to express, either in writing or in speaking.

(29) Therefore, if we intend to speak of God, we must use similitudes. For we live in this world as men who know but in part, and are made of that which is but in part. Therefore I cite the Reader into the life to come, where and when I shall speak more properly and more clearly of this high article.

(112) But that the spirit suddenly affecteth the tongue, when the spirit cometh upon it, whereupon it leapeth for joy, and will go before the spirit forth at the mouth, signifieth that the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of nature, (which are called the astral birth), when the light of God, (which is called the day), rose up in them, suddenly gat the divine life and will, and so highly rejoiced; as the tongue in the mouth here does.

(162) Or why and what do I write, I, whose tongue does but stammer like a child that is learning to speak? With what shall I compare it? or to what shall I liken it? Shall I compare it with the love of this world? No, that is but a mere dark valley to it.

(2) Whoso lamenteth him that here we die That we may live above, has never there Seen the refreshment of the eternal rain. The One and Two and Three who ever liveth, And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One, Not circumscribed and all things circumscribing, Three several times was chanted by each one Among those spirits, with such melody That for all merit it were just reward; And, in the lustre most divine of all The lesser ring, I heard a modest voice, Such as perhaps the Angel's was to Mary, Answer: "As long as the festivity Of Paradise shall be, so long our love Shall radiate round about us such a vesture. Its brightness is proportioned to the ardour, The ardour to the vision; and the vision Equals what grace it has above its worth. When, glorious and sanctified, our flesh Is reassumed, then shall our persons be More pleasing by their being all complete; For will increase whate'er bestows on us Of light gratuitous the Good Supreme, Light which enables us to look on Him;

(105) No; but I speak in a corporeal or angelical or human way that the Reader may the better understand it, in such a manner as the angelical creatures were imaged or framed, and as it is in God everywhere universally.

(3) To these statements the apostle will testify: "I know a man in Christ, caught up into the third heaven, and thence into Paradise, who heard unutterable words which it is not lawful for a man to speak," - intimating thus the impossibility of expressing God, and indicating that what is divine is unutterable by human power; if, indeed, he begins to speak above the third heaven, as it is lawful to initiate the elect souls in the mysteries there. For I know what is in Plato (for the examples from the barbarian philosophy, which are many, are suggested now by the composition which, in accordance with promises previously given, waits the suitable time). For doubting, in Timaoeus, whether we ought to regard several worlds as to be understood by many heavens, or this one, he makes no distinction in the names, calling the world and heaven by the same name. But the words of the statement are as follows: "Whether, then, have we rightly spoken of one heaven, or of many and infinite? It were more correct to say one, if indeed it was created according to the model." Further, in the Epistle of the Romans to the Corinthians it is written, "An ocean illimitable by men and the worlds after it." Consequently, therefore, the noble apostle exclaims, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!"

(38) What manner of joy this must be, let every soul consider: I, in my corrupted nature, cannot apprehend it, much less can I write it.