I once heard a great hullabaloo in the world of spirits. There were some thousands gathered together shouting 'Punish them, punish them!' I went close and asked, 'What is going on here?' One who was standing apart from the huge crowd told me that they were furiously angry with three priests, who were going about everywhere preaching against adulterers, saying that adulterers did not acknowledge God, that heaven was closed to them and hell open; and that in hell they are filthy devils, because seen from a distance there they look like pigs wallowing in dung, and the angels of heaven loathe them.

'Where,' I asked, 'are these priests, and why is there all this shouting about it?' He replied that the three priests were in the middle of the crowd, protected by attendants. The crowd was composed of people who believe adultery not to be a sin, and say that adulterers acknowledge God just as do those who keep to their wives. They are all from the Christian world. They were visited by angels to see how many there were who believed adultery to be a sin, and out of a thousand they found less than a hundred.

[2] The remaining nine hundred, he told me, expressed the following views on adultery. 'Anyone knows that the pleasure of adultery is far superior to that of marriage. Adulterers are perpetually on heat and so more alert and busy, and lead a more active life than those who live with only one woman. On the other hand, love with a wife grows cool, sometimes to such an extent that eventually hardly a word of conversation* or [an hour] in her company has any life in it. It is different with prostitutes; the deadening of life with a wife, due to a failure of potency, is revived and quickened by affairs. Is not something that revives and quickens more valuable than something that deadens? What is marriage but a lawful affair? Can anyone tell the difference? Surely love cannot be compelled - yet a man is compelled to love his wife by a marriage compact and the law. Love with a wife is surely sexual love, something so universal that it is shared by birds and animals. What is conjugial love but sexual love? And sexual love is unrestricted with every woman. The reason there are civil laws against adultery is that the legislators believed that this is in the public interest; yet the legislators and the judges themselves sometimes behave immorally, and say to one another, 'Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.' Only simple and pious people believe adultery to be a sin; intelligent people do not, for they, like us, use the poor light of nature to examine this subject.

[3] 'Does not adultery lead to the birth of children, just as marriage does? Are not illegitimate children as handy and as capable of performing duties and services as legitimate ones? Moreover this provides families, where otherwise there would be barrenness; is this not an advantage rather than a loss? What harm does it do a wife to have a number of rivals? And how does it harm a husband? The view that it is a disgrace to the husband is a frivolous one based on imagination. The reason why adultery is contrary to the laws and statutes of the church is that it gives the clergy power. But what have theology and spirituality to do with purely bodily and fleshly delights? Are there not priests and monks who behave like this? Surely they are not thereby prevented from acknowledging and worshipping God? So why are these three preaching that adulterers do not acknowledge God? We will not put up with such blasphemy. So let them be tried and punished.'

[4] After this I saw them summon judges, whom they requested to sentence them. But the judges said, 'This is no part of our duties, for it concerns the acknowledgment of God and sinning, and thus salvation and damnation. Judgment on these matters comes from heaven; but we will give you advice on how you can know whether these three priests were telling the truth. There are three places which we judges know, where such matters are especially put to the test and revealed. One is where everyone finds a road open to heaven; but when they reach heaven they can perceive for themselves what they are like as regards the acknowledgment of God. The second place is where they find another road open to heaven, but no one can take that road unless he has heaven within him. The third place is where there is a road to hell, and those who love what is hellish take that road of their own accord, because they find it pleasant. We judges send all who demand a judgment from us about heaven and hell to those places.'

[5] On hearing this the gathering declared, 'Let us go to those places.' When they went to the first, where all find a road open to heaven, it suddenly became pitch dark; so some of them lit torches and led the way with them. The judges accompanying them said, 'This happens to all who approach the first place, and as they come near their torches burn less brightly, and when they reach it the torches are put out by the light flowing in from heaven. This is a sign that they have arrived. It is because heaven is at first shut to them, and then later it is opened.'

So they reached this point, and when their torches had gone out of their own accord, they saw a slanting road leading up to heaven. Those who were furiously angry with the priests took this road. Those who were deliberate adulterers led the way, and they were followed by the confirmed adulterers. As they went up the first group shouted, 'Follow us!' and those behind them shouted 'Hurry up!' and urged them on.

[6] After a short while, when they were all inside the heavenly community, a gap appeared between them and the angels; and the light of heaven flowing from above the gap into their eyes opened up the inner levels of their minds, thus making them express what they thought inwardly. Then they were questioned by the angels whether they acknowledged the existence of God.

The first group, the adulterers by a deliberate act of the will, replied, 'What is God?,' and looking at one another they said, 'Which of you has seen Him?' The second group, the adulterers confirmed as such by the intellect, said, 'Is not everything a proof of nature? What stands above nature but the sun?' Then the angels said to them, 'Begone from us. Now you can perceive that you have no acknowledgment of God. When you go down the inner levels of your minds will be closed, and the outer ones opened; and then you will be able to speak contrary to your inner thoughts and say that God exists. Believe us, as soon as a person becomes an adulterer in fact, heaven is closed to him; and when it is closed, there is no acknowledgment of God. We can tell you the reason: adultery is the source of all the uncleanness of hell, and in heaven this stinks like the foul mud of the streets.'

On hearing this they turned about and came down by three ways. When they were down below, the first and second groups held a discussion and said, 'The priests won there. But we know that we can talk about God just as well as they can; and when we say that He exists, are we not acknowledging Him? The inner and outer levels of the mind the angels kept talking about are a fiction. But let us go off to the second place the judges pointed out, where there is a road open to heaven for those who have heaven within them, and so for those who are to come into heaven.'

[7] As they approached a voice came out from that heaven, 'Shut the gates! There are adulterers at hand.' The gates were suddenly shut, and guards with sticks in their hands drove them away. But they released from custody the three priests who had been jostled, and brought them into heaven. The moment the gate was opened to admit the priests, the joy of marriage blasted the rebels, and this, being chaste and pure, almost choked them.

So fearing they would faint through choking they made haste to the third place, from which the judges said the road led to hell. From there emanated the joy of adultery, and this so enlivened the deliberate and confirmed adulterers that they almost danced all the way down, and there they wallowed in filth like pigs. * It seems likely that some words have fallen out in the original at this point. The exact sense may be rather different.