The Forty Questions of the Soul

1. THIS is also above human reason, no outward reason can comprehend it; but seeing l it is born, it must be made manifest: For there are such Mysteries couched in it as the world is not able to conceive, and we shall not mention them at large, for they have their 2 limit how far they shall go; for in this [time] wonders shall be done upon the earth, for which cause our speech is taken from us, that we must be silent.

2. Yet we shall shew what kind of life it is, or whither Enoch is gone, as also Elias and Moses: it is no fiction, we declare only what is given us; we shall further be silent, and not believe reason, for it is a fool herein.

3. But we may well speak something of it, for the time is 3 born, for 4 Enoch to speak, and * 5 Elias to work again; which Babel shall find by experience: for Moses hath 6 horns, and yet he is a patient lamb.

1 the Enochian life is brought forth.

2 bounds, or appointed time.

3 Or come.

4 Or prophecy.

5 Or the sword.

6 Or beams, or rays, which with their light shall contend with darkness.

* "Elias to work again," lit., "Elias to work wonders."

4. O how wouldst thou rejoice if thou wouldst go among Moses 'flock, for he hath a good message: Rejoice O heaven, and *be merry O earth! for Enoch is in the field, and keepeth his flock.

5. What will Elias do? for he is clothed with a white garment, and was with Christ on the mount, and spake of the consummation of man's redemption; he spake also of the entering into paradise, and of the final deliverance from the l hunter.

6. He that is born blind, seeth nothing: How can a lame man get the prize, or a deaf man distinguish languages? Doth not the sun shine daily, and yet the mole remaineth blind? Shall Babel come to see? We know she is a scorner, and therefore she must be blind, though the sun shine clearly to her.

7. How can he behold two worlds that always liveth but in one? Or is it not fart and wit, that hath understanding able to search out the deep gates; but 2 they pass away, as a wind which bringeth forth nothing, though it maketh such a bluster; and so doth Babel.

8. When we will speak of the Enochian life, we must consider the Scripture, and see who Enoch was, and what life he led; and then we may soon find where he is, and what his translation was.

9. You know that the 3 Scripture saith his Father's name was 4 JARED; if you understood the language of nature, you had the whole ground.

1 Or driver, or persecutor.

2 art and wit.

3 Gen. v. 18.

4 See the Mysterium Magnum, Ch. 30, ver. 19, 20.

* "be merry" (jauchtze), "shout for joy."

t "art and wit" (Kunst Witze), "the wits of art."

10. And Enoch begat Methusalah, who attained the highest age of man; and after he had begotten him, he continued in a divine life, till the Lord took him into his own Principle.

11. But we must not understand it as if he were wholly perfect in the light of the divine Majesty, and should not appear at the Day of Judgment. Indeed he is in God without death, or want of anything; he is in God's Love, but in the birth of the Divine Principle, for he had also Adam's flesh.

12. And you know well that the outward kingdom, with the earthly flesh, belongeth to the turba; though it is clear that he had the body of the wonders of God in the outward body, in which divine body of the wonders he was taken away into the Mystery; so that the outward body was, as it were, swallowed up by the Mystery.

13. But now the Mystery must give up all whatsoever it hath swallowed up; as you know, that at the end, the outward body must appear, with all its 1 works, before the Judgment: and thus the turba is in the outward body with the wonders, which shall be made manifest and tried in the fire.