Genesi 4:15
To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.
Arcana Coelestia #371
371. By the “speaking of Jehovah” the most ancient people signified perception, for they knew that the Lord gave them the faculty to perceive. This perception could continue no longer than while love was the principal. When love to the Lord ceased, and consequently love toward the neighbor, perception perished; but insofar as love remained, perception remained. This perceptive faculty was proper to the Most Ancient Church, but when faith became separated from love, as in the people after the flood, and charity was given through faith, then conscience succeeded, which also gives a dictate, but in a different way, of which, by the Lord’s Divine mercy, hereafter. When conscience dictates, it is in like manner said in the Word that “Jehovah speaks;” because conscience is formed from things revealed, and from knowledges, and from the Word; and when the Word speaks, or dictates, it is the Lord who speaks; hence nothing is more common, even at the present day, when referring to a matter of conscience, or of faith, than to say, “the Lord says.”
