invited
and introduced us into his tabernacle. The man was dressed in a blue
robe and a tunic of white wool: and his wife had on a purple gown, with
a stomacher under it of fine linen wrought in needle-work. And as my
thought was influenced by a desire of knowing the state of marriages
among the most ancient people, I looked by turns on the husband and the
wife, and observed as it were a unity of their souls in their faces; and
I said, "You are one:" and the man answered, "We are one; her life is in
me, and mine in her; we are two bodies, but one soul: the union between
us is like that of the two viscera in the breast, which are called the
heart and the lungs; she is my heart and I am her lungs; but as by the
heart we here mean love, and by the lungs wisdom, she is the love of my
wisdom, and I am the wisdom of her love; therefore her love from without
veils my wisdom, and my wisdom from within enters into her love: hence,
as you said, there is an appearance of the unity of our souls in our
faces." I then asked, "If such a union exists, is it possible for you to
look at any other woman than your own?" He replied, "It is possible but
as my wife is united to my soul, we both look together, and in this case
nothing of lust can enter; for while I behold the wives of others, I
behold them by my own wife, whom alone I love: and as my own wife has a
perception of all my inclinations, she, as an intermediate, directs my
thoughts and removes every thing discordant, and therewith impresses
cold and horror at every thing unchaste; therefore it is as impossible
for us to look unchastely at the wife of any other of our society, as it
is to look from the shades of Tartarus to the light of our heaven
therefore neither have we any idea of thought, and still less any
expression of speech, to denote the allurements of libidinous love." He
could not pronounce the word whoredom, because the chastity of their
heaven forbade it. Hereupon my conducting angel said to me, "You hear
now that the speech of the angels of this heaven is the speech of
wisdom, because they speak from causes." After this, as I looked around,
I saw their tabernacle as it were overlaid with gold; and I asked,
"Whence is this?" He replied, "It is in consequence of a flaming light,
which, like gold, glitters, irradiates, and glances on the curtains of
our tabernacle while we are conversing about conjugial love; for the
heat from our sun, which in its essence is love, on suc