(43) Thou judgest us, and thereby thou judgest thyself, in that thou blowest up the zealous or jealous Spirit in Anger and Wrath, which extinguishes thy Light. Note. * But if thou art grown on a sweet Tree, and suppressest the evil Influence or Suggestions, and livest well and holily in the Law of Nature, that shows thee very well what is right, if thou art not indeed grown out from a fierce or wrathful Twig or Branch. [Ezek. 18. 20.]

(2) Although he also shall be punished as for a voluntary action, if one transfer the affection to the truth. For, in reality, he that cannot contain the generative word is to be punished; for this is an irrational passion of the soul approaching garrulity. "The faithful man chooses to conceal things in his spirit." Things, then, that depend on choice are subjects for judgment. "For the Lord searcheth the hearts and reins." "And he that looketh so as to lust" is judged. Wherefore it is said, "Thou shalt not lust." And "this people honoureth Me with their lips," it is said, "but their heart is far from Me." For God has respect to the very thought, since Lot's wife, who had merely voluntarily turned towards worldly wickedness, He left a senseless mass, rendering her a pillar of salt, and fixed her so that she advanced no further, not as a stupid and useless image, but to season and salt him who has the power of spiritual perception.

(37) But when he saw that he was so fair and beautiful, and found or felt his inward Birth and great Power or Authority, then his Spirit, which he had generated in his Body, which is his ANIMAL (or animated) or Life-spirit, or Son, or Heart, exalted itself, intending to triumph over the divine Birth, and to lift up or extol itself above the Heart of God. Note, The Author calls the soulish Birth the ANIMAL Birth, from Anima, which signifies the Soul; but seeing the Scripture otherwise understands by the Word Animal the perished or corrupted Soul, or Animalem hominem, the Animal Man, or the corrupted natural Man, that is, the Adamical bestial Man, and so he being advertised of it, he altered that Expression, and used it no more any further. Here observe the Depth.

(105) Indeed Man's Word conceives itself just in such a Form, Manner, Proportion, Quality, and Correspondency; only the half dead Man does not understand it: And this Understanding is very noble, dear and precious, for it is generated only in the Knowledge of the Holy Ghost. [The Holy Ghost.]

(99) But the Body, or the bestial Flesh in Man, signifies the dead corrupted Earth, which Man through his Fall has so framed to himself, of which more shall be spoken in its due Place.

(110) But that the Tongue crouches towards the nether Gums, and is sharp at the Point, and will not be used about the Hissing, it signifies, that the outward Birth or Geniture, together with all the Creatures which are therein, cannot comprehend, or reach to apprehend the Holy Spirit, which goes forth out of the innermost Birth or Geniture out from the Heart of God, neither can they hinder him by their Power. [The Natural Man cannot perceive the Things of God.]

(43) On the other hand, the life of the natural man, where he hath a lively, subtle, cunning nature, is so manifold and complex, and seeketh and inventeth so many turnings and windings and falsehoods for its own ends, and that so continually, that this also is neither to be uttered nor set forth. Now, since all falsehood is deceived, and all deception beginneth in self-deception, so is it also with this false Light and Life, for he who deceiveth is also deceived, as we have said before. And in this false Light and Life is found everything that belongeth to the Evil Spirit and is his, insomuch that they cannot be discerned apart; for the false Light is the Evil Spirit, and the Evil Spirit is this false Light. Hereby we may know this. For even as the Evil Spirit thinketh himself to be God, or would fain be God, or be thought to be God, and in all this is so utterly deceived that he doth not think himself to be deceived, so is it also with this false Light, and the Love and Life that is thereof. And as the Devil would fain deceive all men, and draw them to himself and his works, and make them like himself, and useth much art and cunning to this end, so is it also with this false Light; and as no one may turn the Evil Spirit from his own way, so no one can turn this deceived and deceitful Light from its errors. And the cause thereof is, that both these two, the Devil and Nature, vainly think that they are not deceived, and that it standeth quite well with them. And this is the very worst and most mischievous delusion. Thus the Devil and Nature are one, and where nature is conquered the Devil is also conquered, and, in like manner, where nature is not conquered the Devil is not conquered. Whether as touching the outward life in the world, or the inward life of the spirit, this false Light continueth in its state of blindness and falsehood, so that it is both deceived itself and deceiveth others with it, wheresoever it may. From what hath here been said, ye may understand and perceive more than hath been expressly set forth. For whenever we speak of the Adam, and disobedience, and of the old man, of self-seeking, self-will, and self-serving, of the I, the Me, and the Mine, nature, falsehood, the Devil, sin; it is all one and the same thing. These are all contrary to God, and remain without God.

(12) The commandment, then, "Thou shalt not lust," says, thou shalt not serve the carnal spirit, but shall rule over it; "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit," and excites to disorderly conduct against nature; "and the Spirit against the flesh" exercises sway, in order that the conduct of the man may be according to nature. Is not man, then, rightly said "to have been made in the image of God?" -not in the form of his [corporeal] structure; but inasmuch as God creates all things by the Word (logw and the man who has become a Gnostic performs good actions by the faculty of reason (tw logikp), properly therefore the two tables are also said to mean the commandments that were given to the twofold spirits, - those communicated before the law to that which was created, and to the ruling faculty; and the movements of the senses are both copied in the mind, and manifested in the activity which proceeds from the body. For apprehension results from both combined. Again, as sensation is related to the world of sense, so is thought to that of intellect. And actions are twofold - those of thought, those of act.

(92) Therefore now it expresses or speaks forth all Words, according to the innate infant Generating or Production of Nature; for the Spirit of Man, which stands in the astral Birth, and qualifies or unites with the total universal Nature, and is as it were the whole Nature itself, that forms the Word, according to the innate, infant Birth or Geniture.

(19) But the animated or soulish Spirit, which qualifies or unites with God, that comprehends it well; but the bestial Body attains only a Glimpse thereof, just as if it lightened: For this is the Posture of the innermost Birth or Geniture of the Soul, when it tears through the outermost Birth or Geniture in the Elevation of the Holy Ghost, and so breaks through the Gates of Hell; but the outermost Birth presently shuts again; for the Wrath of God bolts up the Firmament, and holds it captive in its Power. And

(110) The Spirit alone understands this hidden Secret, which must fight daily and hourly with the Devil, the outward Flesh cannot comprehend it; also the astral Spirits in Man cannot understand it, neither is it comprehended by Man at all, unless the animated or soulish Spirit unites, qualifies, and operates with the innermost Birth or Geniture in Nature, in the Center, where the Light of God is set opposite against the Devil’s Kingdom, that is, in the third Birth or Geniture, in the Nature of this World.