5378. I heard and saw up to many myriads let down from heaven there, first toward the north, then toward the west, and lastly toward the south. In a word, an enormous multitude was heard. And it was said that they were those who have lived piously and thought about God, yet not about the Lord except as a human being like themselves and not about Him as God. And in addition there were those who had thought only about the Father and about the Lord otherwise than one ought. In a word, they were those who had always directed their thought to God the Father so that He would save them on account of the Son. And when they did think about the one God, they did not think about the Lord at the same time. So they had not worshiped the Lord, when yet the Father cannot be approached except through Him, since He is the way [John 14:6], and no one comes to the Father except through Him [ibid.]. And also no one can see the Father [John 6:46] unless He makes Him known, as He himself says in John 1:18 and elsewhere. In a word, they had not had the Lord in their life of piety, when nevertheless without the Lord there is no salvation. Those who are like this, however much they think about God, still cannot be led, for they still think indeterminately and have no connection with the Lord, who nevertheless is the God of heaven and earth. Nor were they able to think about God in any human, thus definite, form. As a result their thought collapses into something nonexistent, or rather, they do not think about the Trinity, when yet this must be thought about when thinking about God. Because they passed by the Lord and are then in oblivion, that is to say, engaged in no thought about the Divine itself, however much the church openly teaches this; their thought about the Lord sinks from the Divine, which is nothing to them, into the likeness of a common man, thus not into someone to whom they could direct their thoughts. Rather their mental picture about Him would be like that of a mere man, and not God. Because of this such spirits could not be together with the angels and heaven. Therefore they were let down from there to the number of many thousands.