Several times earlier a similar turmoil had in fact arisen [see 243], and I did not know differently than that all were in disarray, and thus a last judgment [was at hand]. For it is a kind of mental image of the last judgment, seeming like a chaos, for a jumbled murmur is heard, or a clashing grumble of many, many spirits who also do not know otherwise than that everything was being thrown into confusion. For societies are broken up, and all are under the control of their own opinion, each one thinking independently, and not in association or community of thought, as if they were one spirit, but as many. Because the opinions differ, therefore due to their unspoken thoughts together with their grumbling talk, that clashing grumble is heard. It is like an image of the last judgment, which the spirits also thought to be at hand, for they could not be ignorant of the fact that they would now no longer be together, harmonize, and have rest. Before this, I had not known what this was and, like the spirits, thought that everything was getting mixed up. It is like the confounding of the lips [at Babel, Gen. 11:7-9], a chaotic mass of opinions about certain truths to which their thoughts are especially directed. Thus a spiritual chaos seems to arise.