2277. By that living experience, of some hours' [duration], I was afterwards instructed by a living voice, as I admit, with persuasion, that in a similar manner were the prophets of old [veteres] obsessed, to wit, that when spirits occupied them they occupied the whole of their body, and then that there was nothing of man left, as it were, but that the spirits possessed each and all of his [parts], and hence directed themselves so insanely; the Lord nevertheless directing that they might not bring mischief on anyone. Thus those who were obsessed had nothing of themselves left [ita nihil eorum, qui obsessi erant, relquum sibi habuerunt]. Whether it had been the same with the prophets who wrote, and who knew nothing of those things which they spoke, or how much they had known whether [it was] only words which they had not understood, I do not yet know.