De Conjugio (On Marriage) · 22 of 25

Adulteries in the Christian World

79.ADULTERIES IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD. There are many there of family and of illustrious condition, and thus not of the common people, because they adopted the principle that marriages are for the sake of offspring, and it matters not whether they are violated by others; and they laugh at the sanctity of marriage, calling them silly. Such were brought up out of the hells in great numbers, and being let into the state in which they were in the world, they inquired where there were beautiful wives, and when it was pointed out, they rushed like insane persons and like furies, wishing to enter into houses; but in their blind heat they were carried away to a place where the earth opened, and the crowd was cast into a hell which was behind the back.

80.THE INFLUX OF ADULTERY FROM GENII. I have passed through the hell where were crafty and interiorly vastated adulterers, and then it was permitted them to flow into the affections of my will, and with such subtlety and art and skill to invert, pervert, and extinguish my thoughts in favor of chastity, and to induce the enjoyment and lust of adultery. They turned themselves to every particle of thought from affection, persuading silently: this was done with me, that I might know that man of himself could in no way resist the delight of adultery except from the Lord; for they act into the hereditary life within the thought, insomuch that man can in no wise observe it; but there was then given me by the Lord an interior perception of their effort.