I once had a talk with two angels, one from the eastern and one from the southern heaven.

When they noticed that I was pondering the mysteries of wisdom on the subject of conjugial love, they said: 'Don't you know anything about the contests of wisdom in our world?' 'No, not yet,' I replied.

'There are many of them,' they said, adding that those whose love of truth comes from a spiritual affection, that is to say, they love truths because they are true, and because they are the way to wisdom, meet when the signal is given, to discuss matters requiring profound understanding and to reach conclusions about them. Then they took me by the hand, saying: 'Come with us and you will see and hear. The signal has been given for a meeting today.'

I was taken across a plain to a hill, and there at the foot of the hill was an avenue of palm-trees extending all the way to the top. We went in and climbed the hill. On the top or summit of the hill we saw a wood, the trees of which formed on a rise in the ground a kind of theatre. Inside this there was a flat space paved with pebbles of different colours, and around this were ranged seats in a square; these were occupied by the lovers of wisdom. In the middle of the theatre was a table, and a document secured with a seal lay on it.

[2] Those who were sitting on the seats invited us to occupy some which were still vacant. But I replied, 'I have been brought here by two angels to see and listen, not to take part in the session.'

Then the two angels went up to the table in the middle of the arena and broke the seal on the document. They then read out to the meeting the mysteries of wisdom written in the document, which were to be discussed and expounded. It had been written by angels of the third heaven, and sent down to lie on the table. There were three questions: the first was, 'What is the image of God and what is the likeness of God in which man was created?' The second was, 'Why is man born without knowledge of what he should love, yet animals and birds, the highest as well as the lowest, are born knowing all that their loves require?' The third was, 'What is the meaning of "the tree of life", "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and "eating of them?"

Underneath was written, 'Link these three subjects into a single statement of opinion, and write it on a fresh sheet of paper; then place it on this table, and we shall look at it. If the opinion appears well-balanced and fair, each of you will be awarded a prize for wisdom. After reading this out the two angels went away, and rose up into their own heavens.

[3] Then those taking part in the session began to discuss and expound the questions set before them. They spoke in turn, beginning with those who sat on the north side, then those who sat on the west, then those on the south and finally those on the east. They took up the first subject for discussion: 'What is the image of God, and the likeness of God, in which man was created?' First of all the following passages were read aloud from the book of Genesis:

God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and God created man in His own image, to be an image of God He created him. Gen. 1:26, 27. On the day when God created man, He made him to be a likeness of God. Gen. 5:1. Those who sat on the north were the first to speak. They said that the image and the likeness of God are the two lives breathed into men by God, the life of the will and the life of the intellect. 'For we read,' they said,

'Jehovah God breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of lives,* and man became a living soul. Gen. 2:7.

Into the nostrils means so as to perceive that the willing of good and the understanding of truth, and so the breath of lives, was in him. And since life was breathed into him by God, the image and the likeness of God mean his uprightness arising from wisdom and love, and from righteousness and the powers of judgment present in him.'

Those who sat on the west side supported this view, with, however, the addition that the state of uprightness breathed into Adam by God is constantly breathed into every person after Adam. But it is present in a person as if in a receiver; and to the extent that a person is a receiver, he is an image and likeness of God.

[4] Then the fourth group, who sat on the south side, said: 'The image of God and the likeness of God are two separate things, but in man they are combined from his creation. Some kind of inward illumination shows us that the image of God can be destroyed by man, but not his likeness. This is visible as it were through a screen from the fact that Adam retained the likeness of God after he had lost His image. For we read, after he was cursed:

See, man is as one of us, knowing good and evil. Gen. 3:22.

Afterwards he is called a likeness, but not an image of God (Gen. 5:1). But we would leave it to our colleagues from the east, who therefore enjoy better illumination, to say what the image and the likeness of God properly are.'

[5] Then, when there was silence, those who sat on the east side rose from their seats and looked up to the Lord. Then they sat down again and said that an image of God was a means of receiving God, and since God is love itself and wisdom itself, the image of God is the means in a person of receiving love and wisdom from God. But the likeness of God was the perfect likeness and complete appearance of love and wisdom being present in a person and belonging to him. 'For a person cannot help feeling that he loves and is wise of himself, that is, he wills good and understands truth of himself, when in fact it is not in the least from himself, but from God. It is only God who loves of Himself and is wise of Himself, because God is love itself and wisdom itself. The likeness or appearance that love and wisdom, or good and truth, are present in a person as if they belonged to him is what makes him human, and capable of being linked to God and so living for ever. The consequence of this is that a person's humanity is the result of his ability to will good and understand truth exactly as if he did so of himself, while at the same time knowing and believing that he does so from God. For to the extent that he knows and believes this, God places His image in a person; it would be otherwise if he believed that it was of himself and not from God.'

[6] After saying this they were overcome by zeal because of their love for truth, and this led them to say: 'How can a person receive any love and wisdom and keep it and reproduce it, unless he feels that it is his own? And how can he be linked by love and wisdom to God, unless he has given to him something by which to reciprocate the linking? No linking is possible unless it is reciprocal; and the reciprocal side of the link is the person's loving God and being wise about things to do with God, as if of himself, yet believing that they come from God. Again, how can a person live for ever, unless he is linked to the everlasting God? So how can a person be human without having that likeness in him?'

[7] All applauded this speech and asked for a conclusion to be drawn from what had been said. The following statement was adopted: 'Man is made to receive God, and the means of receiving Him is God's image. Since God is love itself and wisdom itself, man can receive both of these; and the more it receives, the more that which receives God becomes an image of God. Man is a likeness of God by virtue of the fact that he feels in himself that what he receives from God is his, as if it belonged to him. But still that likeness makes him an image of God, in so far as he acknowledges that the love and wisdom, or good and truth, in him are not his, and do not come from him, but are present only in God and therefore come from Him.' * The Latin follows the Hebrew in using the plural 'lives' here,