The Forty Questions of the Soul

1. MY beloved Friend, this is a very 1 deep Question, yet you shall be answered; for the time of the manifestation is born, the day breaketh, the night is past; therefore eternal praise and thanks be given to God, that hath again begotten us to light, and to an inheritance that never fadeth away, and hath received us for his beloved children.

2. My beloved Friend, you know well the heavy fall of Adam, as we have shewn you copiously in all our writings, viz. that the soul hath turned itself away with the right eye from God into the spirit of this world, and is become disobedient to God, and hath wholly depraved its noble image, and changed it into a monstrous image, and hath let in the spirit of this world; whereas it should have powerfully ruled over it with the will, and not have let the soul eat of evil and good at all.

3. But now it hath plainly transgressed God's 2 command, and hath put its imagination into the earthly spirit, where the turba, which brought the earthly monster into its noble image, instantly took it captive, and so the turba instantly sought, and found the limit, in which the image perished; and if the Word had not 3 mediated, or interposed itself, it would have continued so for ever.

1 sublime, acute, or subtle.

2 pleasure

3 set itself in the midst.

4. And so, now the turba is once seated in the earthly abyss, and hath captivated both body and soul, it always driveth the body to the limit, and there destroyeth it, and casteth it away, and then the poor soul remaineth 1 naked without a body.

5. And except it turneth with its right eye again into the Word, and acquireth again a body born out of God, it is but naked, and hath the turba in it, which stirreth up the fire in its great anguish; for 2 it is an eager hunger, a seeker, and a finder.

6. Now it is thoroughly known to us, that our soul is fast bound to the spirit of this world, for the turba holdeth us captive in the wrath of the anger of God.

7. And although our soul goeth forth, and becometh new-born in God, yet 3 it possesseth the outward body still, and consumeth it, for *it pierceth through it even to the abyss, and there it findeth that it is only a glass of the eternal; and then it goeth forth from the glass into the eternal, and lets the body lie in the nothing.

1 raw.

2 Viz. the turba.

3 the turba,

* "it pierceth through" (durchsucht), or "it searcheth through."

8. Also you know well, that the soul, with the body in the seed, is half earthly; for it is Sulphur, that is, 1 Phur and 2 Sul 3 together, and the turba is in it, which hath ability enough to destroy the seed.

9. How then can a soul be born pure? It cannot be; it bringeth the turba with it into the world, and is sinful in the mother's 4 womb.

10. But know that God is become man, and the Word Fiat hath again put itself into the seed; and although the turba be now in the earthly part, so that the seed is not altogether free, yet the matter stands thus with the soul.

11. The soul is not wholly forsaken of God, so far as the father and mother are

5 honest, and in God; for it proceedeth from the soul of the father and of the mother: And although a child dieth in the mother's womb without 6 baptism, yet it is baptized with the spirit of the father, and of the mother, viz. with the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in them, and the turba is destroyed in death; for 7 the faith's part presseth through to God.

12. But the matter is far otherwise with wicked parents: If the child die in the mother's 8 womb, the soul of it falleth into the turba, and reacheth not God to eternity: It also knoweth nothing of him, but it is a life according to the essence and property of the parents.

1 Phur is power, matter, or substance.

2 Sul is spirit, or light.

3 in one another.

4 Or body.

5 Or virtuous.

6 external baptism.

7 that which belongeth to faith.

8 Vide Question 19, ver. 12.