De Conjugio (On Marriage) · 14 of 25

The Infernal Marriage

62.THE INFERNAL MARRIAGE. The infernal marriage is when one wills to command and the other wills not to serve; thence is deadly hatred interiorly. This was represented by the most direful things, which on account of direfulness cannot be described. They breathe nothing else than slaughter, and also torment of each other; wherefore they are separated and live separated in hell and adultery, concerning which above, concerning Charles XII.

63.THOSE WHO PLOT AGAINST CONJUGIAL LOVE. I have heard from such, many plots and secret arts of alluring chaste wives to adultery. I have seen more arts than in the world, gaining the favor of them as well as of the husband, by flattering both, and especially the husband; putting on the appearance of interior friendship, exploring the desires and cupidities of the wife, whether she wishes openly or unwillingly, besides a thousand other things. But such are sent not long after death into a hell, situated under the hinder part of the province of the knee, and are there very deep and altogether shut up, that there may be no aperture whatever to look out of that prison, for they are dangerous against conjugial love, which is most holy, and there they are compelled to labor, and have a harlot in place of a wife.

64.But they who have the rage of violation, and perceive a delight in violation, are let down into a cadaverous hell whence exhales a smell as from corpses, which excites vomiting; it excites it with me.

65.They plot by means of love towards infants; they were seen to rise from the earth over in front of Gehenna, almost invisible, continually removing obstacles, so that they might come into chaste homes; these they love, but not unchaste ones. They can put on various countenances, and also by arts send themselves forth through thoughts as if they were elsewhere, and thus enter. They put on also a countenance of innocence, and preach chastity; they extol it with praises; they enter into friendships in various ways, even so that they are praised and loved, and if the wife is conscious and desirous, she is praised. They spoke with me, saying, that they wondered that there could be any so conscientious as to say that this is against conscience, charity, and religion; they were in such persuasion, that they saw no evil in it, much less anything filthy. They also spoke sanely concerning marriage; their hell also is under the buttocks, in front, in the foul excrementitious smell there; and because they are crafty, feigning chastity, innocence, and friendships, and many other things, therefore when they come to their internals, which are adulteries, they are vastated until they appear deformed devils; as to internals little of the human remains. They become stupid because they are against the holiness of heaven. They mock and laugh at those who call marriages holy, and adulteries profane or even unlawful.