10. Now says reason, wherefore did God suffer it to come to pass? Answer: Thus must it be; that the wonders of the wisdom in the unformed Word of the five vowels might introduce themselves, through the formed word of the three Principles, into a form or external contemplation, as a counter platform, draft, portraiture or formation. For the dark world of God's anger was become manifest in man, whence the gross earthly property was generated, which also had wholly captivated man; and the same did here likewise represent its image as a selfly god.
11. Now then, the tower was a type of the dark world, where man would behold God in the dark selfhood; and denotes the earthly man, who stands in God's sight as this tower, and is an image and resemblance of divine contemplation 1 according to evil and good, as a painted life; for the true human life was the formed life, which became, in own-desire to selfhood, such an image, before God, as this tower.
1 Or God's contemplation.
12. All men, even from Adam, who have taught of God, without [having] the divine vision of the spirit of God in them, they have all spoken and taught from this tower of the confounded tongues. And even hence has the strife arisen about God, and his will and essence; so that man has in selfhood contended and jangled about God. One has said, they must bring bricks to the building of the tower, another stone, a third lime, a fourth wood, water, or other needful materials; and their chief masterbuilders have been manifold, every one according to the property of his own tongue: every one has desired to build the tower upon his own foundation and proper ground; one has had, in the property of his country and climate, stone for the building thereof another lime, the third chalk or clay, the fourth wood; and every one has thought good to build the tower alone for himself; out of the material of his own property, for a great wonder, that all the world might look and behold that which he has built.
13. And then, when people of other countries have seen what that has built, then they have contemned it, and said, that the property of the material of their country has been better for the erecting the tower; and have begun to reject it, and to build the tower for themselves, and praised that also; which likewise has again been despised of others, who have accounted the material of their country better, so long till they have fallen quite out, in pride and contention, and have left off from the tower, and have fallen upon one another, and persecuted, slain and murdered one another about the knowledge of the tower of Babel; and that party which has then got the victory, that has again built the tower out of its own property; till other people have also risen up and accounted their own matter and stuff for the best.
14. For the speeches of the understanding were confounded and divided, therefore the people neither knew nor understood one another's property; and each people or nation has supposed and looked upon the other to be strange in the power of the understanding in the formed word; from whence the contempt of religion, viz. of the knowledge and confession of the word has arisen; for the sensual [intelligible] tongue was compacted according to the multiplicity of the properties.
10. Now says reason, wherefore did God suffer it to come to pass? Answer: Thus must it be; that the wonders of the wisdom in the unformed Word of the five vowels might introduce themselves, through the formed word of the three Principles, into a form or external contemplation, as a counter platform, draft, portraiture or formation. For the dark world of God's anger was become manifest in man, whence the gross earthly property was generated, which also had wholly captivated man; and the same did here likewise represent its image as a selfly god.
11. Now then, the tower was a type of the dark world, where man would behold God in the dark selfhood; and denotes the earthly man, who stands in God's sight as this tower, and is an image and resemblance of divine contemplation 1 according to evil and good, as a painted life; for the true human life was the formed life, which became, in own-desire to selfhood, such an image, before God, as this tower.
1 Or God's contemplation.
12. All men, even from Adam, who have taught of God, without [having] the divine vision of the spirit of God in them, they have all spoken and taught from this tower of the confounded tongues. And even hence has the strife arisen about God, and his will and essence; so that man has in selfhood contended and jangled about God. One has said, they must bring bricks to the building of the tower, another stone, a third lime, a fourth wood, water, or other needful materials; and their chief masterbuilders have been manifold, every one according to the property of his own tongue: every one has desired to build the tower upon his own foundation and proper ground; one has had, in the property of his country and climate, stone for the building thereof another lime, the third chalk or clay, the fourth wood; and every one has thought good to build the tower alone for himself; out of the material of his own property, for a great wonder, that all the world might look and behold that which he has built.
13. And then, when people of other countries have seen what that has built, then they have contemned it, and said, that the property of the material of their country has been better for the erecting the tower; and have begun to reject it, and to build the tower for themselves, and praised that also; which likewise has again been despised of others, who have accounted the material of their country better, so long till they have fallen quite out, in pride and contention, and have left off from the tower, and have fallen upon one another, and persecuted, slain and murdered one another about the knowledge of the tower of Babel; and that party which has then got the victory, that has again built the tower out of its own property; till other people have also risen up and accounted their own matter and stuff for the best.
14. For the speeches of the understanding were confounded and divided, therefore the people neither knew nor understood one another's property; and each people or nation has supposed and looked upon the other to be strange in the power of the understanding in the formed word; from whence the contempt of religion, viz. of the knowledge and confession of the word has arisen; for the sensual [intelligible] tongue was compacted according to the multiplicity of the properties.
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