THE SEVENTH TEXT 155
ad tongues have recourse), which expresses the
•ee with its power and virtue.
10. The fifth is God's Spirit, which is the re-
ealer of all alphabets ; and this alphabet can no
tan learn, unless it reveal itself in man's spirit.
11. These alphabets take their origin from the
clours of the great Mystery, and distribute them-
ilves moreover into seventy-seven languages;
[though we recognize only five for chief languages,
nd seventy-two for the marvels wherein Babel is
nderstood, as a mouth of a confusedness. There
jason abandoned her guide and willed to go alone,
nd to climb aloft into the Mystery.
12. As is to be known by the children of Nimrod
fc the tower of Babel, when they had fallen from
bedience to God into their own individual reason ;
len they had lost their guide and did confound
3ason, so that they comprehended not their own
inguage.
13. Thus many languages, viz. seventy-two,
rew out of confused Babel, and each entered into
;self and sought knowledge, each in its own reason
nd iniquity; for they had forsaken God and
rere become heathens. And he suffered them to
ralk in their wonders, for they would not cleave
.nto him, but would be a special self-ful growth,
md their own reason (which was mixed of all the
olours) had to rule them.
14. Then the turba was born, so that they were
iot of one mind; for every one would live under
uidance of his own colour. And yet these were
ot the true chief colours, but only their evil
elf-hatched children, who hatched themselves out