386. To these things I will add this MEMORABLE OCCURRENCE. Once when I looked around in the spiritual world I heard as it were the gnashing of teeth, and also as it were a knocking, and mingled with those [sounds] a raucous sound, and I inquired what they were. And the angels who were with me said, 'They are Clubs (Collegia) that are called Inns (Diversoria) by us, where they are holding controversial debates. Their controversies are heard in this manner from afar off, but near by they are heard only as controversies.' I approached and saw little huts woven out of rushes plastered with mud; and I wanted to look in through a window, but there was none. Nor was it allowed to enter by the door, because in that event light out of heaven would inflow and confuse them. But suddenly from the right side a window was made, and then I heard complaints that they were in darkness. Presently, however, a window was made from the left side, the window from the right side having been closed, and then the darkness was dispersed a little and they seemed to themselves to be in light. And after this it was granted me to go in through the door, and to hear. There was a table in the middle, and benches round about. But despite this they all seemed to me to be standing on the benches and disputing sharply among themselves about FAITH and CHARITY, one lot [contending] that faith was the chief thing of the Church, the other that it was charity. Those who were making faith the chief thing said, 'Do we not act with God from faith, and with man from charity? Is not faith therefore heavenly, and charity earthly? Are we not saved by means of what is heavenly and not by what is earthly? Again, is not God able to give faith out of heaven because it is heavenly, and should not man set about giving himself charity because it is earthly? and what a man gives himself, this is not of the Church, and therefore does not save. Can any one thus be justified before God as a result of the works that are called works of charity? Believe us, that by faith alone we are not only justified but also sanctified, provided the faith is not contaminated by the merit-seeking qualities that are derived from the works of charity.' [2] Besides more. Those, however, who were making charity the chief thing of the Church were sharply refuting this, saying that charity saves and not faith. 'Does not God hold all dear to Him, and will good to all? How can God do this except by means of men? Does God only grant to talk with men about the things that are of faith, and not to do to men the things that are of charity? Do you not see that you have absurdly said of charity that it is earthly? Charity is heavenly, and because you are not doing the good of charity, your faith is earthly. How do you acquire faith except as a stock or stone? You say, by only a hearing of the Word, but how can the Word operate by only having been heard? and how can it operate upon stock or stone? Perhaps you have been vivified all unknown to you, but what is the vivification, except that you are able to say that faith alone saves? But what faith is, and what is a saving faith, you do not know.' [3] Whereupon one arose, who was called a Syncretist by the angel speaking with me. He took a turban off his head and put it on the table, but promptly replaced it because he was bald. He said, 'Listen, you are all astray. It is true that faith is spiritual, and charity is moral, but yet they are joined together, and joined together by the Word, by the Holy Spirit, and by a putting into practice unbeknown to the man, which can indeed be called obedience, but in this the man does not have any part. I have thought about these things myself a long time, and I have at length found that a man can acquire from God a faith, which is spiritual, but that he cannot be moved by God to a charity that is spiritual any more than a pillar of salt.' [4] These things having been said, those who were in faith alone were applauding, but those who were in charity were booing. And the latter were indignantly saying, 'Listen, comrade, you do not know that there is a spiritual moral life, and that there is a merely natural moral life; a spiritual moral life with those who do good from God and yet as if from themselves, and a merely natural moral life with those who do good out of hell and yet as if from themselves.'