But where would that come from, if the spirit had not previously been made free and alive?! The body is an outer shell, which falls off and decomposes; the soul is the food and body of the spirit. But if you only read to enrich your external knowledge of nature, what shall come from the spirit, who is not yet living to the proper extent and (therefore not), meets every word he reads immediately with his living spiritual knowledge, and that from the outside phrased word with its living cores fulfilled, and thereby makes it alive and effective? – Explanation of Scriptures, Chapter 8, Paragraph 20