433. Conjugial love makes a person more virile, as has also been shown by what was reported in the earlier part of the book on conjugial love and its delights. These are: (a) the ability called virility accompanies wisdom, as this is animated by the spiritual teachings of the church. Hence it is contained in conjugial love. Wisdom unstops the flow of this love from its source in the soul, and so puts vigour into the life of the intellect, which is the essence of male life, and gives it the blessing of never failing. (b) As a result the angels of heaven enjoy this for ever, as their statements in an account of experience (355, 356) show. The Most Ancient people in the golden and silver ages also had enduring potency, because they loved the embraces of their wives and loathed those of prostitutes, as I have heard from their own lips (see 75, 76). No more will that spiritual ability, even at the natural level, desert those who today approach the Lord, and regard adultery as a hellish abomination; this I have been told from heaven. The reverse, however, befalls deliberate and confirmed adulterers (as described just above at the end of 432). It is well known, though not sufficiently publicised, that in their case the ability called virility fades away to nothing, and is replaced by sexual frigidity; this is followed by a feeling of distaste verging on nausea. I have been told from afar by sirens, who are specimens of exhausted sexual lust, and also by brothel-keepers there that this is the condition of such adulterers in hell. These facts establish that scortatory love makes a person less and less human and virile, and conjugial love makes him more and more human and virile.