er struck in, "will extend to
the principle of generation. The divine life will sanctify the organs
which henceforth can procreate only elect creatures, exempt from
original sin, creatures whom it will not be necessary to test in the
fires of humiliation, as the Holy Bible says. This was the doctrine of
the prophet Vintras, that extraordinary unlettered man who wrote such
impressive and ardent pages. The doctrine has been continued and
amplified, since Vintras's death, by his successor, Dr. Johannes."

"Then there is to be Paradise on earth," said Des Hermies.

"Yes, the kingdom of liberty, goodness, and love."

"You've got me all mixed up," said Durtal. "Now you announce the
arrival of the Holy Ghost, now the glorious advent of Christ. Are these
kingdoms identical or is one to follow the other?"

"There is a distinction," answered Gevingey, "between the coming of the
Paraclete and the victorious return of Christ. They occur in the order
named. First a society must be recreated, embraced by the third
Hypostasis, by Love, in order that Jesus may descend, as He has
promised, from the clouds and reign over the people formed in His
image."

"What role is the Pope to play?"

"Ah, that is one of the most curious points of the Johannite doctrine.
Time, since the first appearance of the Messiah, is divided, as you
know, into two periods, the period of the Victim, of the expiant
Saviour, the period in which we now are, and the other, that which we
await, the period of Christ bathed in the spittle of mockery but radiant
with the superadorable splendour of His person. Well, there is a
different pope for each of these eras. The Scriptures announce these two
sovereign pontificates--and so do my horoscopes, for that matter.

"It is an axiom of theology that the spirit of Peter lives in his
successors. It will live in them, more or less hidden, until the
longed-for expansion of the Holy Ghost. Then John, who has been held in
reserve, as the Gospel says, will begin his ministry of love and will
live in the souls of the new popes."

"I don't understand the utility of a pope when Jesus is to be visible,"
said Des Hermies.

"To tell the truth, there is no use in having one, and the papacy is to
exist only during the epoch reserved for the effluence of the divine
Paraclete. The day on which, in a shower of meteors, Jesus appears, the
pontificate of Rome ceases."

"Without going more deeply into questions which we could discuss