Then the blessed father, who has shining ships as lodgings and dwelling places according to their size, in accordance with the clemency that is attached to him, brings aid to set his vital substance free from the impious bonds and straits and torments in which it is held.
By his invisible nod he transforms his powers which he has in his shining ship, and causes them to show themselves to the hostile powers which are set in the different parts of the heavens.
These are of both sexes, male and female.
Hence he makes the aforesaid powers appear partly in the shape of beardless boys to women of the hostile race, partly in the shape of fair virgins to males of the hostile race.
He knows that all these hostile powers are easily taken in because of the deadly unclean lust that is congenital to them, and will yield to the beautiful forms they see, and will so be dissolved.
Know that our blessed father is identical with these powers of his, which for a necessary purpose he transforms into the undefiled likeness of boys and vir-gins.
He uses these as his proper instruments, and by them accomplishes his will.
The shining ships are full of these divine powers which are set over against members of the infernal race as in a kind of marriage.
Quickly and easily, in a moment, they achieve their purpose.
When reason demands that they should appear to males they show themselves in an instant in the form of beautiful virgins.
Again, when they have to come to women they put off the appearance of vir-gins and take on that of beardless boys.
At this comely sight, their ardour and concupiscence grow, and in this way the prison of those evil thoughts is broken, and the living soul which was held bound in their members of those same beings is by this opportunity released and escapes and mingles with the purest air which is its native element. Souls that are completely purified board the shining ships which have been prepared for their conveyance and passage across the narrow sea that separates them from their homeland.
Anyone who still shows the taint of the adverse race goes down step by step through fiery heat, gets mixed up with trees and the other cuttings used for propagation and all the seedlings and is stained with diverse colours.
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Out of that great shining ship the figures of boys and virgins appear to the hostile powers whose home is in the heavens and whose nature is fiery.
At the fair sight the part of life which is held bound in their members is re-leased and brought down by heat to earth.
In the same way the highest power, that inhabits the ship of living waters, ap-pears by means of his messengers in the shape of boys and holy virgins to the powers whose nature is cold and moist, which also are set in the heavens.
To those which are female it appears in the form of boys, and to males in the form of virgins.
By this diversity of divine and beautiful forms the princes of cold and moist stock, whether male or female, are brought to naught and the vital element in them escapes.
What remains is brought down to earth by cold and is mingled with all the species of earth.
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