In the eastern quarter there appeared to me a wood of palm-trees and laurels arranged in spiralling curves. I approached and went in, walking though several curving paths, until at the end of the paths I saw a garden, which occupied the central position in the wood. There was a small bridge which divided off the garden, with a gate on the side of the wood and another on the garden side. When I approached, the gates were opened by the guard. I asked him what the garden was called. 'Adramandoni', he said, 'which means the delights of conjugial love.'

I went in and saw olive-trees, with vines running between the trees and hanging down. Beneath and between the trees there were flowering shrubs. In the middle was a grassy circle, in which husbands and wives and young men and women were sitting in pairs. At the centre of the circle there was a rise in the ground with a fountain leaping into the air due to the force of the water. When I came close by, I saw two angels dressed in purple and red engaged in conversation with those who were sitting on the grass; they were talking about the source of conjugial love and its delights. Since this love was the subject, they were listened to eagerly and given full attention, and they were uplifted as if by the fire of love in what the angels said.

[2] What I gathered from their talk can be summarised as follows. They started by talking about the difficulty of the enquiry, saying how difficult it was to perceive the source of conjugial love, because it has a celestial Divine source; this is Divine love, Divine wisdom and Divine use, the three of which proceed as one from the Lord. They flow into men's souls as one, and through their souls into their minds. There they enter into their inner affections and thoughts, passing through these into the desires closely connected with the body, and from these through the chest into the genital region. Here everything which derives from the prime source is present at once, and together with their successive stages brings about conjugial love.

After this the angels said, 'Let us converse by question and answer, for if something is merely heard it may be perceived at the time, but the impression does not last, unless the hearer also thinks about it for himself and asks questions.'

[3] Then some from the assembly of couples said to the angels, 'We have heard that the source of conjugial love is a celestial Divine one, because it results from the Lord's influence on men's souls. Being from the Lord it is love, wisdom and use, the three essentials which together make up the one Divine essence. Nothing can proceed from the Lord except what belongs to His Divine essence, nor can anything else flow into the inmost region of a person, what we call his soul. Those three are, as they descend into the body, turned into analogous and corresponding things. Our first question then is 'What is meant by the third essential which proceeds from the Divine, what is called use?'

The angels replied that love and wisdom without use are merely abstract ways of thinking, which also after a brief stay in the mind, pass away like winds. 'But,' they said, 'these two are gathered together in use, there becoming one, what is called reality. Love cannot rest except in action, for love is the very principle which gives activity to life. Nor can wisdom come into and remain in being, except as the result of love and by acting together with it. Action is use. So we arrive at the definition of use: doing good out of love through wisdom. Use is goodness itself.

[4] 'Since the trio of love, wisdom and use flow into men's souls, it can be established why it is said that all good is from God. For all that is done out of love through wisdom is good, and use is also something done. What is love without wisdom but folly? And what is love together with wisdom without use but a state of mind?* But love and wisdom together with use not only make a person, they are a person. In fact, surprising as you may find it, they cause human reproduction. For the man's seed contains his soul in a complete human form, enveloped by the purest substances in nature, and from this the body develops in the mother's womb. This is the highest and ultimate use served by Divine love through Divine wisdom.'

[5] 'The conclusion to be drawn,' the angels finally remarked, 'is that all fruitfulness, all propagation and all reproduction come in origin from the love, wisdom and use flowing in from the Lord. It flows directly from the Lord into men's souls, indirectly into the souls of animals, and even less directly into the inmost regions of plants. All these processes arise in the final region from the first. It is plain that fruitfulness, propagation and reproduction are the means of continuing creation; and the only possible source of creation is out of Divine love through Divine wisdom in Divine use. Everything therefore in the universe is procreated and formed out of use, in use and to serve a use.'

[6] Later those who were sitting on the grassy banks asked the angels, 'Where do the delights of conjugial love, which are beyond counting and telling, come from?'

The angels replied that they come from the uses of love and wisdom. This could be seen from the fact that the more anyone loves to be wise for the sake of a proper use, so much the more does the drive and potency of his conjugial love increase. These two together are the measure of his delight. It is the result of use, because love by means of wisdom [brings about use, and then love and wisdom]** take pleasure in each other and as it were play like children; and as they grow up, they become linked in cheerfulness. This takes place as it were through engagements, weddings, marriages and having children; and this continues in different forms for ever. These are the relations between love and wisdom when they underlie the use made of them; but these delights are in their beginnings impossible to perceive, but become more and more perceptible, as they come down by stages and enter the body. The stages by which they enter are from the soul into the inner regions of a person's mind, from there into the outer regions, from these into the cavity of the chest, and from there into the genital region.

[7] 'These heavenly nuptial games in the soul pass quite unnoticed by the person, but from there they slip into the inner regions of the mind as a feeling of peace and innocence, and into the outer regions of the mind as a feeling of blessedness, cheerfulness and pleasure. In the chest cavity, however, they take on a feeling of the delights of intimate friendship, and in the genital region as the result of the influence constantly coming from the soul together with the real sense of conjugial love, the feeling of utmost delight. As these nuptial games of love and wisdom in use in the soul proceed towards the chest cavity, they last, and in that cavity they make themselves felt as a boundless variety of delights. On account of the remarkable connexion that exists between the chest cavity and the genital region, the delights of one become in the other the delights of conjugial love. These exceed all the delights known in heaven and in the world, because the use of conjugial love is the most exalted of all uses, being the procreation of the human race, and from that the heaven of angels.'

[8] The angels went on to say that those who do not love being wise for the sake of use coming from the Lord know nothing of the countless varieties of delights arising from truly conjugial love. 'For,' they said, 'in the case of those who do not love being wise with real truths, but love to be crazed with falsities, a madness which leads them out of some love to perform evil uses, the route to the soul is blocked. Hence it is that the heavenly nuptial games of love and wisdom in the soul are more and more cut off and cease; and this produces the same results on conjugial love, its drive, potency and delights.'

On hearing this the audience declared that they perceived that conjugial love is in proportion to the love of being wise for the sake of uses coming from the Lord. The angels replied that it was so. Then some of them were seen to have garlands of flowers on their heads; when they asked why, the angels said, 'Because their understanding of the subject is deeper.' Then they left the garden with the angels in their midst. * Reading status mentis for flatus mentis (A.W. Acton). ** The Latin text is here plainly defective, and some words seem to have fallen out. Those supplied are merely conjectural. The original Latin may have been quia amor per sapientiam [in usum venit, et tunc amor et sapientia] inter se delitiantur.