3583. As they were unable to reply to this, though they appeared as persons convicted, it was given to know, that their persuasive principle arose not so much from the store of reasonings as from other causes, and that they had confirmed and darkened their minds, so as to deny the truths of faith. But as they were smitten, as it were, with such a love of self as to suppose that whatever they thought was actually so, and thus to deem themselves infallible and as gods upon earth, this was perhaps the source of their persuasive principle, concerning which I have spoken before in relation to the antediluvians, which is also confirmed by this that when they lived in the body, they would have strangled those who did not admit that everything was just as they would have it. They would not allow its being said that they wished to kill them, but rather, to strangle, and thus to suffocate them, for their persuasive principle is such as to suffocate, whence some would have it that the flood is to be understood in this way, as something by which men were suffocated one after another. For this persuasive principle is such as to suffocate others by taking away their respiration, wherefore they now say that they are thus suffocated by their own persuasive principle, when it penetrates interiorly, where the spiritual resists, so as not to suffer them to die eternally.