The Forty Questions of the Soul

• 23. It cannot sufficiently be described, what refining the soul hath, and how it is
• * hindered and plagued by the devil, ere it can get this spark into itself. But this wise world will not believe this, it is too wise, and yet it is so stark blind, it understands nothing, but hangeth continually to the letter: O! that none might feel this by experience, we would willingly be silent.

24. We speak not here of any strange * source, but only of that which is in the turba, and also of no other power of the devil over the poor soul, but its own horror and 2 abominable suggestions, by which the imagination of the soul is so tormented.

25. The condition of hell is far otherwise than Babel teacheth; she saith that the devil 3 beateth and tormenteth the soul; but this is spoken in mere blindness; the devil is not at odds with his own children; they must all do his will; the anguish and horror of hell plague every one of them sufficiently in their own abominations; every one hath his own hell; there is nothing but his own poison that apprehendeth him.

1 Or pain.

2 Or wicked.

3 whippeth.

* "hindered" (gehalten), "held," or "held back."

26. *The four forms of the original of nature, are the common plague which every one feeleth according to his own turba, but one far otherwise than another: the covetous hath frost; the angry, fire; the envious, bitterness; the proud, a high aspiring, and yet an eternal sinking and falling into the abyss; the 1 scorner swalloweth down the turba of those abominations which he here belched forth; the false f deceitful heart hath the fourth form, viz. the great 2 anguish.

27. For the turba standeth in the circle of the fire, viz. in the heart of the soul; and false speaking, lying, and 3 untruths, are an abomination and gnawing, and make it curse itself.

28. A potentate who hath oppressed the poor, and consumed his 4 sweat in pride, he rideth in the curses of the poor in the height of fire; for all the 5 necessities of the poor stick in him.

29. He hath no rest, his pride always climbeth up, he behaveth himself just as he did here; he continually seeketh, and yet wanteth all things; what he had too much of, that he hath too little of there; he continually desireth to devour his own essence, but he hath none, for he is magical.

30. He hath lost his 6 true image; he hath the image, as it were, of a proud prancing horse, or of what else he hath been delighted with; whatsoever he took with him in his will, that is his image; where his heart is, there is his treasure also, and that in its eternity.

31. But hearken, Friend, what the Last Judgment will bring with it! then all things shall pass through the fire, and the floor shall be swept clean; and every one shall go into his own place; at this the very devils themselves do tremble.

1 Or blasphemer.

2 Or aching.

3 idle words, unfaithfulness, or jeering.

4 Or labour.

5 Or miseries.

6 Or right.

* "The four forms . . . are the common," etc. Both 1682 and 1730 editions have "The fourth form ... is the common," etc.

t "deceitful" (verleumderisch), "slandering."

THE NINETEENTH QUESTION
How is the Soul Mortal? and how Immortal?

1. A THING which hath an eternal beginning, hath also an eternal end, and so hath the essence of the soul.

2. As concerning the image which God created, and which hath a temporal beginning, that is born out of the eternal, and is placed in the eternal essence without 1 source.

3. And where there is no 1 source, there is also no death; and though there be a source (as there is a source in heaven), yet it is but in one only will, and that hath its foundation in the eternity; and as nothing is there that can find it, so there is nothing that can come into it.

4. But where there is one will only (as in God, who is All in All), there is nothing that can find the will; there is no turba there; for the will desireth nothing but itself only, and its 2 twigs, which all stand in one tree, in one essence; the tree is its own beginning, and its own end.