(34) They are wicked in their behavior! Some of them fall away to the worship of idols. Others have demons dwelling with them, as did David the king. He is the one who laid the foundation of Jerusalem; and his son Solomon, whom he begat in adultery, is the one who built Jerusalem by means of the demons, because he received power. When he had finished building, he imprisoned the demons in the temple. He placed them into seven waterpots. They remained a long time in the waterpots, abandoned there. When the Romans went up to Jerusalem, they discovered the waterpots, and immediately the demons ran out of the waterpots, as those who escape from prison. And the waterpots remained pure thereafter. And since those days, they dwell with men who are in ignorance, and they have remained upon the earth.

(9) Of the holy house, the house of the gods, the habitation had not been made

(2) Because, likewise, they are excluded, through certain defilements, from an association with pure spirits, they become connected with evil spirits, are filled from them with the worst kind of inspiration, are rendered depraved and unholy, become replete with intemperate pleasures, and every kind of vice, are emulous of manners foreign to the Gods, and, in short, become similar to the depraved dæmons, with whom they are connascent. These, therefore, being full of passions and vice, attract to themselves, through alliance, depraved spirits, and are excited by them to every kind of iniquity. They are also increased in wickedness by each other, like a circle conjoining the beginning to the end, and similarly making an equal compensation. Hence deeds which are the nefarious offences of impiety, which are introduced into sacred works in a disorderly manner, and which are also confusedly performed by those who betake themselves to such works, and at one time, as it seems, cause one divinity to be present instead of another, and again, introduce depraved dæmons instead of Gods, whom they call equal to the Gods ( αντιθεους )—such deeds as these you should never adduce in a discourse concerning sacerdotal divination. For good is more contrary to evil than to that which is not good.

(1) The holy house, the house of the gods, in the holy place had not yet been made

(27) Thus it became a Custom, that every one was bound to come] to the Temple made of Stones, and the Temple of God in Christ stood and stands very empty; but when they saw the Desolation in the Contention, they called Councils, and made Laws and Canons, that every one must observe upon Pain of Death. Thus the Temple of Christ was turned into Temples made of Stones, and out of the Testimony of the Holy Ghost a worldly Law was made. Then the Holy Ghost spoke no more freely, but he must speak according to their Laws. If he reproved their Errors, then they persecuted him; and so the Temple of Christ in Man's Knowledge became very obscure; if any came that was born of God, and taught by the Holy Ghost, and was not conformable to their Laws, he must be a Heretic.

(14) The whole house of this world, which stands in a visible and comprehensible or palpable being, is the old house of God, or the old body, which stood before the time of wrath in a heavenly clarity and brightness. But when the devil stirred up the wrath therein, then it became a house of darkness and of death.

(9) Thus also is the whole house of this world. The outward darkness is the house of God's wrath, wherein the devils dwell, and it is rightly the house of death, for the holy light of God has therein died. ["Understand, the light stepped into its Principle, and is the outward substantiality in God, as it were dead in our esteem, whereas it liveth in God, but in another source or quality."]

(33) For he has made the house of light to be a house of darkness, and the house of joy to be a house of mourning, lamentation and sadness; that which was the house of pleasure, delight, vivifying and refreshing, he has made to be a house of thirst and hunger; the house of love to be a house of eternal enmity; and the house of meekness to be a house of knocking, rumbling, thundering and lightning; the house of peace to be a house of lamenting and eternal howling; the house of laughing to be a house of eternal trembling and horror:

(11) And they made for selves molten images, and they worshipped each the idol, the molten image which they had made for \themselves, and they began to make graven images ind unclean simulacra, and malignant spirits assisted 3.v*;?v'v. knd seduced (them) into committing transgression land uncleanness.

(19) Further, at the fulness or accomplishment of this time, God would adorn and trim this house with its qualities, as a royal government, and let those very qualifying or fountain spirits possess the whole house, that they might, in that house of darkness and of death, bring forth creatures and images again, as they had done from eternity, till the accomplishment or fulfilling of the whole host or army of the new created angels, namely men. Then God would bolt and bar up the devil in the house of darkness in a narrow hell, and then kindle the whole house in its own light again, all but the very hole, hell or dungeon of the devils. Now it may be asked, Why did not God bolt him up instantly, and then he had not done so much mischief. Answer.

(3) As, therefore, the sacrilegious are in the most eminent degree hostile to the religious cultivation of the Gods; thus, also, those who are conversant with dæmons who are fraudulent, and the causes of intemperance, are undoubtedly hostile to theurgists. For from these every depraved spirit departs, and when they are present, is entirely subverted. Every vice, too, and every passion, are by these perfectly amputated: for a pure participation of good is present with the pure, and they are supernally filled with truth from a divine fire. These, therefore, suffer no impediment from evil spirits, nor are these spirits any obstacles to the goods of their souls. Nor are theurgists disturbed by pride, or flattery, or the enjoyment of exhalations, or any violence; but all these, as if struck by lightning, yield and recede, without touching the theurgist, or being able to approach to them. Hence this genus of divination is undefiled and sacerdotal, and is truly divine.

(1) And many will perish and they will be taken captive, and will fall into the hands of the enemy, because they have forsaken My ordinances and My com- mandments, and the festivals of My covenant, and My sabbaths, and My holy place which I have hal- lowed for Myself in their midst, and My tabernacle, and My sanctuary, which I have hallowed for Myself in the midst of the land, that I should set My name upon it, and that it should dwell (there). II. And they * will make to themselves high places and groves and graven images, and they will worship, each his own (graven image), so as to go astray, and they will sacrifice their children to demons, and to all the works of the error of their hearts.

(109) And he said unto me: 'This place which thou seest--here are cast the spirits of sinners and blasphemers, and of those who work wickedness, and of those who pervert everything that the Lord hath spoken through the mouth of the prophets--(even) the things that shall be.

(23) Now if God should have instantly left it to the devil for an eternal dwelling-house, then out of that place a new body could not have been built. Now what sin had that space, place or room committed against God, that it should stand in eternal shame? None; and therefore that were an injustice.

(65) And such a house also the whole space or extent of this world came to be, when the Deity, in the seven spirits, had hidden itself from the horrible devils.

(6) My house is the house of prayer. Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.

(1) Fools laud and magnify the mosque, But the former is mere form, the latter spirit and truth. The mosque that is built in the hearts of the saints Is the place of worship of all, for God dwells there. So long as the hearts of the saints are not afflicted, Our forefathers lifted their hands against the prophets; Seeing their bodies, they took them for ordinary men. In you also abide the morals of those men of old; How can you avoid fearing that you will act like them? The morals of those unthankful ones dwell in you, Seeing that all these bad symptoms are seen in you, And that you are one with those men, how can you escape?

(36) And concerning the question of idols, I command and admonish you to reject them and hate them, and love them not; for they are full of deception for those that worship them and for those that bow down to them.

(1) Again, therefore, still worse than this is the explanation of sacred operations, which assigns as the cause of divination, “ a certain genus of dæmons, which is naturally fraudulent, omniform, and various, and which assumes the appearance of Gods and dæmons, and the souls of the deceased .” I shall, therefore, relate to you, in answer to this, what I once heard from the prophets of the Chaldeans. Such Gods as are truly divinities, are alone the givers of good; alone associate with good men, and with those that are purified by the sacerdotal art, and from these amputate all vice, and every passion. When these, also, impart their light, that which is evil, and at the same time dæmoniacal, vanishes from before more excellent natures, in the same manner as darkness when light is present; nor is it able to disturb theurgists in the smallest degree, who receive from this light every virtue, obtain worthy manners, become orderly and elegant in their actions, are liberated from passions, and purified from every disorderly motion, and from atheistical and unholy conduct. But those who are themselves flagitious, and who leap, as it were, to things of a divine nature in an illegal and disorderly manner, these, through the imbecility of their proper energy, or through indigence of inherent power, are not able to associate with the Gods.

(68) Which indeed befalls those who lodge the devil within them; but so long as he is but a guest, he lies still like a tame whelp; but when he becometh the host himself, the master of the house, then he stormeth and makes havock in the house, as he did to the body of God.