Chapter 9 (part 3)

2.) "Many a soul in her malignity would become a devil within one hour if the external life did not prevent it, so that her complete ignition cannot take place." ( Forty Questions , xvi. 12.) "In examining our own selves we find that, on the whole, the external spirit (our human nature) is very useful to us. Many souls would become corrupted if the animal spirit did not hold captive the fire and present to the fire-spirit terrestrial, animal occupation and joy, wherein it may amuse itself until it obtains again a glimpse of its nobler image, and begins to seek for it again." ( Forty Questions , xvi. 10.) "If the matter of this world (the imagery of external nature) were broken, as it will be broken one day in the future, the soul would have stood in eternal death, in the darkness. The beautiful creature (the living image) would then have been captured by the realm of hell, and the devil would have been triumphing over it." ( Threefold Life , viii. 38.) As the soul of man became captured by the spirit of this world, and as she allowed its tincture to enter within herself, the terrestrial qualities necessarily arose (became pre-eminently active) in him. 1 "The poor soul of Adam was made captive by the spirit and principle of this world, and allowed the tincture of this world to enter within her." ( Threefold Life , viii. 63.) p. 185 "That in which the imagination of the spirit enters becomes expressed in the corporeal form by means of the impression of the spiritual desire. Therefore God commanded Adam, when he still was in Paradise, not to eat with his imagination from the tree of self-knowledge of good and evil, so that he should not sink into suffering and death and die to the kingdom of heaven, as has actually occurred." 1 (Baptism, i. 22.) "The terrestrial quality, which formerly was in Paradise in an unmanifested condition, manifested itself by means of the desire of the soul. From this resulted heat and cold, the poison-life of all adversities, and the supremacy of the body, so that the beautiful image of Heaven and Paradise faded out of sight." ( Stiefel , ii. 83.) The bodies of the first human beings were of a spiritual, celestial nature; but, in consequence of eating of the forbidden fruit, they became terrestrial and material. "God had given to man a body constituted of pure, essential power, after the nature of the soul, and which, if compared with the grossly terrestrial substance, may be looked upon as being a spiritual body." ( Mysterium , xvi. 3.) "The body of the first human beings was of a celestial kind; but when they ate of the terrestrial fruit and absorbed it into the bodies the temperature separated, and the terrestrial body became manifest according to all its qualities." ( Grace , vii. 5.) "When Eve reached out for the tree and broke the fruit, she did it through the earthly limus and through the will of the soul, which desired knowledge from the centre of nature. In eating actually of the fruit, her body's essence, p. 186 i.e. , the human essence, took in the essence in the tree." 1 ( Mysterium , xx. 29.) Man hereby lost the life in eternity, and became subject to death. 2 "We cannot say of man that in the beginning he was enclosed in time. In Paradise he was embraced in eternity. God created him in His image; but when he fell he became subject to the limitation of time." ( Grace , vii. 51.) "Time has a beginning and an end, and as the will with its desire has surrendered itself to the temporal guide, the body dies and perishes therefore likewise." ( Signature , v.