(47) But the Salitter in a good beast will not therefore be left to the devil for a propriety, but will in the separated part, in the nature of God, eternally blossom— ["That is, their figure will stand as a shadow upon the holy ground, in the wonders, viz., in the eternal Magia:"] —and bring forth other heavenly figures. But the Salitter of the beast of God's wrath will, in the wrath of God, bear eternal hellish fruits.

(8) And therefore that creature is a loathsome abomination before the total God, and before all his creatures, and must stand in eternal enmity and ignominy or shame before God, and before all the creatures.

(3) "As much as the image is inferior to the living face, so much is the world inferior to the living Æon. What is, then, the cause of the image? The majesty of the face, which exhibits the figure to the painter, to be honoured by his name; for the form is not found exactly to the life, but the name supplies what is wanting in the effigy. The invisibility of God co-operates also in order to the faith of that which has been fashioned." For the Creator, called God and Father, he designated as "Painter," and "Wisdom," whose image that which is formed is, to the glory of the invisible One; since the things which proceed from a pair are complements, and those which proceed from one are images. But since what is seen is no part of Him, the soul comes from what is intermediate, which is different; and this is the inspiration of the different spirit, and generally what is breathed into the soul, which is the image of the spirit. And in general, what is said of the Creator, who was made according to the image, they say was foretold by a sensible image in the book of Genesis respecting the origin of man; and the likeness they transfer to themselves, teaching that the addition of the different spirit was made; unknown to the Creator. When, then, we treat of the unity of the God who is proclaimed in the law, the prophets, and the Gospel, we shall also discuss this; for the topic is supreme. But we must advance to that which is urgent. If for the purpose of doing away with death the peculiar race has come, it is not Christ who has abolished death, unless He also is said to be of the same essence with them. And if He abolished it to this end, that it might not touch the peculiar race, it is not these, the rivals of the Creator, who breathe into the image of their intermediate spirit the life from above - in accordance with the principle of their dogma - that abolish death.

(12) But the reasoning faculty, being peculiar to the human soul, ought not to be impelled similarly with the irrational animals, but ought to discriminate appearances, and not to be carried away by them. The powers, then, of which we have spoken hold out beautiful sights, and honours, and adulteries, and pleasures, and such like alluring phantasies before facile spirits; as those who drive away cattle hold, out branches to them. Then, having beguiled those incapable of distinguishing the true from the false pleasure, and the fading and meretricious from the holy beauty, they lead them into slavery. And each deceit, by pressing constantly on the spirit, impresses its image on it; and the soul unwittingly carries about the image of the passion, which takes its rise from the bait and our consent.

(115) Also such an image was Adam, as God created him, before his Eve was made out of him; but the corrupted Salitter did wrestle with the wellspring of life in Adam, till it overcame. And so Adam became weary, which made him fall into a sleep. Here he was undone: And if the Barmhertzigkeit, or the mercy of God, had not come to help him, and made a woman out of him, he would have still continued asleep. Of this we will speak in its proper Place.

(15) For He who prohibited the making of a graven image, would never Himself have made an image in the likeness of holy things. Nor is there at all any composite thing, and creature endowed with sensation, of the sort in heaven. But the face is a symbol of the rational soul, and the wings are the lofty ministers and energies of powers fight and left; and the voice is delightsome glory in ceaseless contemplation. Let it suffice that the mystic interpretation has advanced so far.

(34) Now then, seeing the devils kindled their own bodies, intending thereby to domineer over the whole Deity, therefore the creator also, in his wrath, kindled this third spirit, or this third birth or geniture in nature, and imprisoned the devil therein, and made an eternal lodging therein for him, that he might not be higher than the whole God. ["Understand, in the outward sources or qualities; for the outermost of all, is also the innermost of all."]

(2) And my Conductor, with his spans extended, Took of the earth, and with his fists well filled, He threw it into those rapacious gullets. Such as that dog is, who by barking craves, And quiet grows soon as his food he gnaws, For to devour it he but thinks and struggles, The like became those muzzles filth-begrimed Of Cerberus the demon, who so thunders Over the souls that they would fain be deaf. We passed across the shadows, which subdues The heavy rain-storm, and we placed our feet Upon their vanity that person seems. They all were lying prone upon the earth, Excepting one, who sat upright as soon As he beheld us passing on before him. "O thou that art conducted through this Hell," He said to me, "recall me, if thou canst; Thyself wast made before I was unmade." And I to him: "The anguish which thou hast Perhaps doth draw thee out of my remembrance, So that it seems not I have ever seen thee. But tell me who thou art, that in so doleful A place art put, and in such punishment, If some are greater, none is so displeasing."

(19) But the animated or soulish spirit, which qualifieth or uniteth with God, that comprehends it well; but the bestial body attains only a glimpse thereof, just as if it lightened: For thus presenteth itself the innermost birth or geniture of the soul, when it teareth through the outermost birth or geniture in the elevation of the Holy Ghost, and so breaketh through the gates of hell; but the outermost birth presently shuts again; for the wrath of God bolteth up the firmament, and holds it captive in its power.

(122) O man, thou wast not, by the Word, created together with and as the beasts, from good and evil; and if thou hadst not eaten of good and evil, then the wrath-fire would not have been in thee; but by that means thou hast also gotten a bestial body: It is done: The love of God take pity, and have mercy in that behalf.

(39) But hearken, Friend, tarry yet a little while, and then give the bestial body for food to the worms: But when the total God shall kindle the seven spirits of God in the corrupted earth, then, if that same Salitter which thou sowest in the earth will not be capable of the fire, then thy qualifying or fountain spirits, which thou didst sow in thy lifetime, and which are sown in thy departure from hence, will rise again in the same Salitter which thou hast sown, and will triumph therein, and become a body again.

(173) Therefore also the creatures, as beasts, fowls or birds, fishes and worms in this world, are not created to an eternal being, but to a transitory one, as the figures in heaven also pass away.

(96) O dear blind man! it was not a man nor a beast that stood here before God. But it was God against God; one strong one against another: Besides, how should God withstand him? With the friendly love? That could not avail, for Lucifer did but scorn and despise that, and would himself be God.

(22) For what sin had the Salitter committed against God, that it should stand totally in eternal shame? None: It was only a body, which must remain still, when the devil elevated or swelled himself therein.

(42) This fire-spirit, and right devil's spirit, elevated itself now also in the centre of the heart, and would rule through the animated or soulish spirit, ["Hereby is understood the spirit of the will, out of the centre, which is generated out of the genitrix, viz. out of the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, which is the image of God,"] in the whole divine power, and kindle the whole Salitter of God as a new and potent God; and so the formings and heavenly imagings should rise up in a horrible fiery quality, and suffer themselves to be imaged and framed according to this fierceness.

(2) For although it be full profitable sometime to think of certain conditions and deeds of some certain special creatures, nevertheless yet in this work it profiteth little or nought. For why? Memory or thinking of any creature that ever God made, or of any of their deeds either, it is a manner of ghostly light: for the eye of thy soul is opened on it and even fixed thereupon, as the eye of a shooter is upon the prick that he shooteth to. And one thing I tell thee, that all thing that thou thinketh upon, it is above thee for the time, and betwixt thee and thy God: and insomuch thou art the further from God, that aught is in thy mind but only God.

(5) We shall find the Mystic Theologians enfolding these things not only around the illustrations of the Heavenly Orders, but also, sometimes, around the supremely Divine Revelations Themselves. At one time, indeed, they extol It under exalted imagery as Sun of Righteousness, as Morning Star rising divinely in the mind, and as Light illuming without veil and for contemplation; and at other times, through things in our midst, as Fire, shedding its innocuous light; as Water, furnishing a fulness of life, and, to speak symbolically, flowing into a belly, and bubbling forth rivers flowing irresistibly; and at other times, from things most remote, as sweet-smelling ointment, as Head Corner-stone. But they also clothe It in forms of wild beasts, and attach to It identity with a Lion, and Panther, and say that it shall be a Leopard, and a rushing Bear. But, I will also add, that which seems to be more dishonourable than all, and the most incongruous, viz. that distinguished theologians have shewn it to us as representing Itself under the form of a worm. Thus do all the godly-wise, and interpreters of the secret inspiration, separate the holy of holies from the uninitiated and the unholy, to keep them undefined, and prefer the dissimilar description of holy things, so that Divine things should neither be easily reached by the profane, nor those who diligently contemplate the Divine imagery rest in the types as though they were true; and so Divine things should be honoured by the true negations, and by comparisons with the lowest things, which are diverse from their proper resemblance. There is then nothing absurd if they depict even the Heavenly Beings under incongruous dissimilar similitudes, for causes aforesaid. For probably not even we should have come to an investigation, from not seeing our way,--not to say to mystic meaning through an accurate enquiry into Divine things,--unless the deformity of the descriptions representing the Angels had shocked us, not permitting our mind to linger in the discordant representations, but rousing us utterly to reject the earthly proclivities, and accustoming us to elevate ourselves through things that are seen, to their supermundane mystical meanings. Let these things suffice to have been said on account of the material and incongruous descriptions of the holy Angels in the Holy Oracles. And next, it is necessary to define what we think the Hierarchy is in itself, and what benefit those who possess a Hierarchy derive; from the same. But let Christ lead the discourse--if it be lawful to me to say--He Who is mine,--the Inspiration of all Hierarchical revelation. And thou, my son, after the pious rule of our Hierarchical tradition, do thou religiously listen to things religiously uttered, becoming inspired through instruction in inspired things; and when thou hast enfolded the Divine things in the secret recesses of thy mind, guard them closely from the profane multitude as being uniform, for it is not lawful, as the Oracles say, to cast to swine the unsullied and bright and beautifying comeliness of the intelligible pearls.

(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, and which is his ANIMAL (or animated) or lifespirit, 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 signifieth 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.

(6) Someone may here object, "But if man has been created with animal and demonic qualities as well as angelic, how are we to know that the latter constitute his real essence, while the former are merely accidental and transitory?" To this I answer that the essence of each creature is to be sought in that which is highest in it and peculiar to it. Thus the horse and the ass are both burden-bearing animals, but the superiority of the horse to the ass consists in its being adapted for use in battle. If it fails in this, it becomes degraded to the rank of burden-bearing animals. Similarly with man: the highest faculty in him is reason, which fits him for the contemplation of God. If this predominates in him, when he dies, he leaves behind him all tendencies to passion and resentment, and becomes capable of association with angels. As regards his mere animal qualities, man is inferior to many animals, but reason makes him superior to them, as it is written in the Koran: "To man We have subjected all things in the earth." But if his lower tendencies have triumphed, after death be will ever be looking towards the earth and longing for earthly delights.

(40) So likewise it professeth to remain unmoved by any of the creature’s works; whether they be good or evil, against God or not, is all alike to it; and it keepeth itself apart from all things, like God in Eternity, and all that belongeth to God and to no creature it taketh unto itself, and vainly dreameth that this belongeth unto it; and deemeth itself well worthy of all this, and that it is just and right that all creatures should serve it, and do it homage. And thus no contradiction, suffering or grief is left unto it; indeed nothing but a mere bodily and carnal perceiving: this must remain until the death of the body, and what suffering may accrue therefrom. Furthermore, this False Light imagineth, and saith, that it has got beyond Christ’s life in the flesh, and that outward things have lost all power to touch it or give it pain, as it was with Christ after His resurrection, together with many other strange and false conceits which arise and grow up from these. And now since this False Light is nature, it possesseth the property of nature, which is to intend and seek itself and its own in all things, and what may be most expedient, easy and pleasant to nature and itself. And because it is deceived, it imagineth and proclaimeth it to be best that each should seek and do what is best for himself. It refuseth also to take knowledge of any Good but its own, that which it vainly fancieth to be Good. And if one speak to it of the One, true, everlasting Good, which is neither this nor that, it knoweth nothing thereof, and thinketh scorn of it. And this is not unreasonable, for nature as nature cannot attain thereunto. Now this False Light is merely nature, and therefore it cannot attain thereunto. Further, this False Light saith that it hath got above conscience and the sense of sin, and that whatever it doeth is right, Yea, it was said by such a false Free Spirit, who was in this error, that if he had killed ten men he should have as little sense of guilt as if he had killed a dog. Briefly: this false and deceived Light fleeth all that is harsh and contrary to nature, for this belongeth to it, seeing that it is nature. And seeing also that it is so utterly deceived as to dream that it is God, it were ready to swear by all that is holy, that it knoweth truly what is best, and that both in belief and practice it hath reached the very summit. For this cause it cannot be converted or guided into the right path, even as it is with the Evil Spirit. Mark further: in so far as this Light imagineth itself to be God and taketh His attributes unto itself, it is Lucifer, the Evil Spirit; but in so far as it setteth at nought the life of Christ, and other things belonging to the True Light, which have been taught and fulfilled by Christ, it is Antichrist, for it teacheth contrary to Christ. And as this Light is deceived by its own cunning and discernment, so all that is not God, or of God, is deceived by it, that is, all men who are not enlightened by the True Light and its love. For all who are enlightened by the True Light can never more be deceived, but whoso hath it not and chooseth to walk by the False Light, he is deceived. This cometh herefrom, that all men in whom the True Light is not, are bent upon themselves, and think much of themselves, and seek and propose their own ends in all things, and whatever is most pleasant and convenient to themselves they hold to be best. And whoso declareth the same to be best, and helpeth and teacheth them to attain it, him they follow after, and maintain to be the best and wisest of teachers.