264. After this the ground opened up again, but this time on the right, and I saw another devil rising up. He had on his head a sort of mitre with coils wrapped around it like a snake's, but with its peak jutting out. His face was leprous from forehead to chin, and so were both hands. His loins were bare and black as soot with a dull glow of fire as if from a hearth showing through. His ankles were like two vipers. The first devil on seeing him went down on his knees and worshipped him. I asked him why. 'He is the God,' he answered, 'of heaven and earth, and is omnipotent.' So I asked the other devil, 'What have you got to say to this?' 'What can I say?' he replied. 'I have all power over heaven and hell; the fate of all souls is in my hand.' 'How can he,' I asked again, 'who is emperor of emperors so humble himself, and how can you accept his worship?' 'He is none the less my servant,' he replied. 'What is an emperor in the sight of God? I hold in my right hand the thunderbolt of excommunication.'
[2] Then I said to him, 'How can you be so crazy? In the world you were only an ordinary clergyman; and because you laboured under the delusion that you had the keys, and so the power to bind and release, you let your spirit be so far carried away, that you have now reached such a pitch of madness as to make you believe that you are God Himself.'
He was annoyed at this and swore that he was, and that the Lord had no power in heaven, 'because,' he said, 'He has transferred it all to us. We need only issue orders, and heaven and hell respectfully obey us. If we send anyone to hell, the devils immediately accept him; and so do the angels when we send anyone to heaven.' 'How many,' I went on to ask, 'are there of you in your community?' 'Three hundred,' he said, 'and all of us are gods; but I am the god of gods.'
[3] After this the ground opened beneath the feet of both, and they sank deep down to their own hells. I was allowed to see that under their hells were prison workshops, for those who harm others to fall into. For everyone in hell is allowed to keep his delusion and to boast about it, but not to do anyone else harm. The reason why people there are like this is that a person is then in his spirit, and the spirit, when it has been separated from the body, enjoys complete freedom to act in accordance with its affections and the thoughts they give rise to.
[4] Later I was allowed to look into their hells. The hell, where emperors of emperors and kings of kings were, was full of all kinds of filth. They themselves looked like various wild beasts with glowering eyes. It was much the same in the other hell, where the gods and god of gods were. In that hell were to be seen the ill-omened night birds called ochim and iyim* flying around them. Their delusions produced images like this to my sight. These experiences made it plain what the self-love of politicians and ecclesiastics is like. The latter want to be gods, the former emperors. In so far as the restraints placed on those loves are relaxed, they want this and strive to achieve this. * Hebrew words apparently meaning 'howling creatures'.
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