Then at once an angel appeared standing in their midst, dressed in white clothing, and around his head appeared a shining band containing tiny stars. He addressed the four groups and said: 'We have heard in heaven that you in turn brought forward your opinions on conscience, and that you all supposed it to be some sort of mental distress, which afflicts the head and thence the body with heaviness, or the body and thence the head. But conscience regarded in itself is not any distress, but is a spiritual willingness to do what religion and faith dictate. Thus it is that those who enjoy a conscience live in tranquil peace and inward blessedness when they act according to conscience, and in some unease when they act against it. The mental distress which you thought was conscience is not that, but is temptation, the conflict between the spirit and the flesh. When temptation is spiritual, it draws support from conscience. But if it is only natural, it owes its origin to the diseases the doctors listed just now.

[2] 'Examples can be quoted to illustrate what conscience is. A priest, who has a spiritual wish to teach truths in order that his flock may be saved, has a conscience. But if he is motivated by any other cause, he has no conscience. A judge, who has regard for nothing but justice and applies this with judgment, has a conscience. But one whose primary aim is to get a bribe, to help friends or to curry favour has no conscience. Again, if anyone has someone else's goods in his possession without the other person's knowledge, so that he can profit from them without fear of legal action or loss of rank or reputation, and gives them back to the other because they are not his own, he has a conscience, because he is acting justly for the sake of justice. So too if anyone can take office, but knows that another candidate is more use to the community, if he yields place to the other for the community's good, he has a good conscience; and likewise in other matters.

[3] All who have a conscience speak from the heart when they speak, and act from the heart when they act; for they have their minds undivided, speaking and doing according to what they understand and believe truth and good to be. From this it follows that a more perfect conscience is possible for those who excel others in their possession of the truths of faith, and have a clearer perception, than for those who are less enlightened and have only dim perception. It is in true conscience that a person's actual spiritual life resides, for there his faith is linked to charity. For such people therefore acting according to conscience is acting according to one's spiritual life, and acting against conscience is for them acting against that life of theirs. Moreover, is there anyone who does not know from common parlance what conscience is? As when we say of someone: "He has a conscience," do we not mean that he is a just person? And in the opposite case, when we say of someone: "He has no conscience," do we not mean too that he is unjust?'

[4] When the angel had made this statement, he was suddenly taken up to his own heaven. The four groups came together to make one and then for a while they discussed the angel's pronouncements. Then they were divided again into four groups, but not the same ones as before. One contained those who grasped what the angel said and agreed with it. The second contained those who were unwilling to grasp it, but were still in favour. The third contained those who did not grasp it and said: 'What have we to do with conscience?' The fourth contained those who mocked at it and said: 'What is conscience but flatulence?' Then I saw the groups parting from one another, the first two groups going away to the right, and the latter two groups going to the left; these were going down, but the first two were going up.