0. CONTENTS
PART I
MARITAL LOVE: ITS WISE DELIGHTS
Preliminary – THE JOYS OF HEAVEN AND A WEDDING THERE
I. MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN
II. THE STATE OF PARTNERS AFTER DEATH
III. TRUE MARITAL LOVE
IV. THE ORIGIN OF MARITAL LOVE IN THE MARRIAGE OF GOOD AND TRUTH
V. THE MARRIAGE OF THE LORD AND THE CHURCH, AND ITS CORRESPONDENCE
VI. CHASTE AND NON-CHASTE
VII. THE CONJUNCTION OF SOULS AND MINDS BY MARRIAGE
VIII. THE CHANGE IN STATE OF LIFE MADE IN MEN AND WOMEN BY MARRIAGE
IX. UNIVERSALS ABOUT MARRIAGES
X. CAUSES OF COLD, SEPARATION AND DIVORCE IN MARRIAGE
XI. CAUSES OF APPARENT LOVE, FRIENDSHIP AND FAVOR IN MARRIAGES
XII. BETROTHALS AND WEDDINGS
XIII. REMARRIAGE
XIV. POLYGAMY
XV. JEALOUSY
XVI. THE CONJUNCTION OF MARITAL LOVE WITH LOVE FOR CHILDREN
PART II
SCORTATORY LOVE: ITS INSANE PLEASURES
XVII. THE OPPOSITION OF SCORTATORY LOVE TO MARITAL LOVE
XVIII. FORNICATION
XIX. CONCUBINAGE
XX. ADULTERIES: KINDS AND DEGREES
XXI. THE LUST OF DEFLOWERING
XXII. THE LUST FOR VARIETY
XXIII. THE LUST OF VIOLATION
XXIV. THE LUST OF SEDUCING INNOCENCES
XXV. THE CORRESPONDENCE OF WHOREDOM WITH VIOLATION OF SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
XXVI. THE IMPUTATION OF EACH LOVE, SCORTATORY AND MARITAL
1. MARITAL LOVE: ITS WISE DELIGHTS
PRELIMINARY
THE JOYS OF HEAVEN AND A WEDDING THERE
I foresee* that many who read the Memorabilia immediately following and those after the chapters will believe that they are inventions of the imagination. I solemnly declare, however, that they are not inventions, but things which were actually done and seen�seen, moreover, not in a state of the mind asleep, but in a state of full wakefulness. For the Lord has been pleased to manifest Himself to me and to send me to teach what is intended for a new Church, meant by the New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse. To this end He has opened the interiors of my mind and spirit, so that it has been my privilege to be with angels in the spiritual world and at the same time with men in the natural world, and this now** for twenty-five years.
* In the original Latin this paragraph is enclosed in quotation marks. It occurs again in True Christian Religion, n. 851.
** In the year 1768; Swedenborg was to live, and to continue in this privilege, four years longer. See note at n. 419.
“What is going on? I heard your trumpet-blast and observed your descent through the air.”
“I have been sent,” he said, “to call together residents here from countries of the Christian world who are the most noted for learning, the most clear-sighted mentally, and the most eminent in reputation for wisdom. They are to assemble on this hill where you tarry, and to tell from the heart what thoughts, understanding and wisdom they had in the world about Heavenly Joy and Eternal Happiness. [2] The reason I was sent is this. Some newcomers from the world who were received into our heavenly society in the east, reported that no one in all the Christian world knows what heavenly joy and eternal happiness are, or, consequently, what heaven is. My brothers and companions were amazed at this, and said to me, ‘Go down, call together the wisest in the world of spirits (into which all mortals are first gathered after their departure from the natural world) and assemble them so that we may ascertain from the mouths of a number if it is true that such thick darkness and dense ignorance obtain among Christians about the future life’.” The angel added, “Wait a little while, and you will see the companies of the wise flocking here. The Lord will prepare them an assembly-hall.”
[3] I waited, and after half an hour beheld two bands approaching from the north, two from the west, and two from the south. When they had arrived, they were led by the angel trumpeter into the building prepared, and took places appointed them according to the quarter whence they came. There were six bands or companies. There was a seventh company from the east, but it was invisible to the others on account of the light. When all were assembled, the angel broached the reason for the convocation, and asked the companies to express in turn their wisdom about Heavenly Joy and Eternal Happiness. Thereupon each company arranged itself in a circle, with all facing one another, to recall the subject according to the ideas which they had formed in the world, and to review it, and after conference to give their conclusion.
* The Memorabilia following (nn. 2-25) occur again in True Christian Religion, nn. 731-752.
[2] Thereupon the Second Company from the north out of their wisdom pronounced this surmise: “Heavenly joy and eternal happiness are nothing but very cheerful intercourse and pleasant talk with angels, by which the countenance is kept expanded in cheer, and all faces wreathed in glad smiles at the pleasantries and witticisms. What are heavenly joys but variations of such pleasures to eternity?”
[3] The Third Company, which was the first of the wise from the western quarter, spoke from their hearts’ thought: “What are heavenly joy and eternal happiness but feastings with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,* whose tables will be spread with rich and dainty viands and generous and noble wines? After the feasts follow games, and dances of youths and maidens moving to the measures of strings and pipes, with the sweetest songs sung in the intermissions. In the evening there are dramatic representations, then banquets again, and so on, every day to eternity.”
[4] After this deliverance, the Fourth Company�the second from the western quarter�gave their opinion, saying: “We have entertained a number of opinions about heavenly joy and eternal happiness, but after considering different joys and comparing them, we have come to the conclusion that the joys of heaven are the joys of a paradise. What is heaven but a paradise, throughout which from east to west and south to north there are fruit-trees and beautiful flowers and in the midst of all the magnificent tree of life, around which the blessed will be seated, enjoying fruits of delicate flavor, and adorned with wreaths of the most fragrant flowers? Under the breath of perpetual spring, trees and flowers spring up daily and in infinite variety, by their perpetual birth and blooming, together with the constantly vernal temperature, ever renewing the spirits of the blessed, so that they cannot but breathe in and breathe out new joys with every day. They therefore return to the flower of life, to that pristine state, too, in which Adam and his wife were created, and thus are restored to their paradise, transferred now from earth to heaven.”
[5] The Fifth Company, the first of the gifted from the southern quarter, spoke thus: “Heavenly joy and eternal happiness are nothing else than supreme power, limitless wealth, a more than regal magnificence and a more than brilliant splendor. We have seen clearly from those who possessed them in the former world that such things are the joys of heaven and that the perpetual enjoyment of them is eternal happiness. We feel the more sure of this, because the blessed in heaven are to reign with the Lord,** and are to be kings and princes, being sons of the King of kings and Lord of lords, and are to sit on thrones, with the angels for ministers. We have also glimpsed heaven’s magnificence in that the New Jerusalem, in which the glory of heaven is depicted, is to have gates each of a single pearl, streets of pure gold, and a wall with foundations of precious stones.*** Every one received into heaven therefore has his own palace, resplendent with gold and precious materials; and enjoys power according to rank, one above another. Knowing that joys and happiness are inborn and inherent in such things, and that they are God’s promise which cannot be broken, we are unable to trace the very happy state of heavenly life to any other source.”
[6] Thereupon the Sixth Company, the second from the southern quarter, said with a loud voice: “The joy of heaven and its eternal happiness are nothing else than perpetual glorification of God, solemn festival maintained to eternity, and very blessed worship, with songs and paeans. They consist in constant uplifting of the heart to God, with full trust that He accepts the prayers and praises which in His Divine bounty He endows with such bliss.”
Some of the company added that this glorification would be attended with magnificent lights and very fragrant incense, with processions of great pomp, too, led by a chief pontiff with a great trumpet, followed by primates and other officials, great and small, and these by men bearing palms and women carrying golden images.
* Cf. Matthew viii. 11.
** Revelation xx. 6.
*** Revelation xxi. 18-21.
which they have pictured; and that when they have tried those joys and found that they only reflect their vain conceits and crazy phantasies, they are brought out of them and instructed.”
(This takes place in the world of spirits with most of those who in the former life had reflected about heaven and formed some conclusion about heavenly joys to the point of desiring them.)
On hearing these words the angel trumpeter said to the six companies assembled from the wise of the Christian world: “Follow me, and I will usher you into your joys and so into heaven.”
[3] The angel then addressed them and said, “Your state is the sure doom of the joys which you thought were the only heavenly ones, but which as a matter of fact are only accompaniments of heavenly joy.”
They asked the angel, “What then is heavenly joy?”
He replied briefly: “It is the joy of doing something of use to oneself and others. The joy of service has its essence from love, and its existence by wisdom. Originating from love by wisdom, that joy is the soul and life of all heavenly joys. [4] There are, indeed, very cheerful social occasions in heaven, exhilarating and diverting the mind, rejoicing the heart, and recreating the body; the angels enjoy them after they have done the uses of their employments and occupations. The soul and life of all their cheer and diversions comes from these uses. If you remove this soul and life, any attendant joys gradually cease to be joys, becoming first indifferent, then valueless, and finally gloomy and anxious.”
Thereupon the door was opened, and those sitting by it leaped up and ran home, to be revived each in his employment and work.
[2] They had not waited long before all the tables appeared full of dishes of food, the spaces between the dishes embellished with pyramids holding sweetmeats. About the tables stood guests, awaiting their hosts. Presently these were seen entering, in order from Abram to the last of the Apostles. Each went to his table and reclined on a couch at its head. They bade the company, “Recline with us, too.” They did so, the men with the Fathers, and the women with their wives, and ate and drank with joy and veneration.
After the banquet, the Fathers withdrew. Games and dances of youths and maidens began, succeeded by theatrical performances.
When the shows were over, all were invited to feast again, with the stipulation that they should eat with Abram on the first day, with Isaac on the second, with Jacob on the third, with Peter on the fourth, with James on the fifth, with John on the sixth, with Paul on the seventh, and in turn with the others until the fifteenth day, when they were to repeat the festivities in the same order, only changing seats, and so on to eternity.
[3] Thereupon the angel called together the members of his company and told them: “All whom you saw at the tables have had the same imaginary ideas about the joys of heaven and the eternal happiness they yield, as you. Mock festivities like this were started (they are permitted by the Lord) that people may see for themselves the vanity of their ideas and be withdrawn from them. The leaders whom you saw at the heads of the tables were counterfeited Fathers, men largely from the peasantry, who being bearded and comparatively wealthy are rather puffed up, on whom, too, the phantasy has been induced that they are those ancient Fathers. But follow me to the exits from this training-school.”
[4] As they left, they saw fifty here and fifty there who had crammed their bellies with food to the point of nausea, and who longed to return to their usual affairs, stations, business or labor. Many were stopped by guards at the grove and questioned about their days of feasting�had they eaten yet with Peter, and with Paul? They were told that they should be ashamed to leave before they had done so; it would not be proper. Most of them replied, “We are sated with our joys. Food has turned tasteless and all relish for it is gone, our stomachs loathe it, we cannot endure it. We have spent long days and nights in this excess and earnestly ask to be allowed to go.” On being released, they raced breathlessly home.
[5] The angel then collected the men in his charge and as they went along taught them as follows about heaven. “In heaven as in the world there are food and drink, feasts and banquets. The tables of the prominent are spread with sumptuous feasts, delicacies and luxuries, which exhilarate and revive one’s spirits. There are games, too, and shows, music and song, all in the greatest perfection. Such things are joys to the angels, too, but not happiness. Happiness must fill and spring from the joys. It is the happiness within the joys which makes them joys, giving them value and keeping them from becoming cheap and tedious. This happiness one finds in the use he serves in his employment. [6] Hidden in the affection of the will of an angel, is a certain impulse which urges the mind to do what brings it tranquillity and satisfaction. The satisfaction and tranquillity render the mind receptive of the love of use from the Lord. And by the reception of this love, comes heavenly happiness, which is the life of the joys mentioned above. Heavenly food in its essence is nothing else than love, wisdom and use together, that is, use from love by means of wisdom. Every one in heaven is therefore given food for the body according to the use which he performs�sumptuous food to those in an exalted use, modest food but of exquisite flavor to those in a moderate degree of use, ordinary to those in an ordinary use, but none to the inactive.”
He led them to a portico of pillars and pyramids. A low palace in front of it gave access to it. Led through this by the angel, they saw groups of twenty waiting. Suddenly, an impersonated angel appeared, who told them, “The way to heaven lies through this portico. Wait a while, and prepare yourselves, for the older among you are to be kings, the younger, princes.”
[2] At these words there appeared beside each pillar a throne, and on the throne a silken cloak, and on the cloak a scepter and a crown. Beside each pyramid there appeared a chair of state, three cubits high, and on each chair a gold chain and the ribbon of a knightly order with circlets of diamonds for clasps. Proclamation was made: “Come, array yourselves, be seated, and wait!”
Instantly the older men ran to the thrones, and the younger to the chairs of state, arrayed themselves, and sat down. Then a mist seemed to come up from below. As the occupants of the thrones and chairs breathed the mist, their faces puffed up, their breasts swelled, and they felt sure that they were kings and princes. The mist was only an aura of the phantasy which inspired them. Young men suddenly flew down, as if from heaven, and took posts, two at a throne, one at a chair of state, to serve as pages. From time to time a herald cried: “Ye kings and princes, wait yet a little while. Your courts in heaven are being made ready for you. Courtiers with a retinue will soon attend and introduce you.” They waited and waited, until their spirits gasped for breath, and they were worn out with desire.
[3] After three hours heaven opened above them, and angels looked down and, moved to pity, said, “Why do you sit there so foolish and indulge in these theatricals? They have made game of you, and turned you from men into statues, all because your hearts are persuaded that you will reign with Christ as kings and princes and will be ministered to by angels. Have you forgotten the Lord’s words** that he who would be great in heaven must be as a servant? Learn then what is meant by ‘kings’ and `princes’ and by ‘reigning with Christ,’ namely, to be wise and do uses. The kingdom of Christ, or heaven, is a kingdom of uses. For the Lord loves all and out of love wills good to all, and good is use. Inasmuch as the Lord does uses or goods through the instrumentality of angels and in the world through the instrumentality of men, He imparts to those who do uses faithfully the love of use and its reward, which is internal beatitude, and this is eternal happiness. [4] Supreme power and boundless wealth are to be found in heaven as in the world, for governments exist there, greater and less, and therefore greater and lesser powers and dignities. Occupants of the highest posts have palaces and courts far surpassing in magnificence and splendor those of earthly kings and emperors. Honor and glory surround them in the splendid raiment and the number of their courtiers, ministers and attendants. Still, rulers are chosen from among those whose hearts are in the public welfare�their bodily senses only are in this display of magnificence, for the sake of obedience to authority. The public welfare requires that every member of a society, as of any general body, shall serve a use; and as every use is from the Lord, and is accomplished through angel or man as if by effort of his own, obviously to reign with the Lord means to perform a use.”
On hearing these words from heaven, the mimic kings and princes quit their thrones and chairs and flung away their scepters, crowns and cloaks. The mist in which was the aura of phantasy receded, and a bright cloud enveloped them, in which was an aura of wisdom, restoring sanity to their minds.
* Revelation xx. 6.
** Matthew xx. 26.
He led them through a lofty gateway formed of the interwoven boughs and branches of noble trees. The way began to wind about. The place was in fact a paradise at the first entrance to heaven, where those are sent who in the world have believed that all heaven is just a paradise because it is so called, and who also have impressed on themselves the notion that after death there is rest from all work�a rest which is spent in inhaling the soul of delights, in walking on roses, in enjoying the most delicate grape-wines, and going to festive gatherings�and that such an existence is to be had only in a heavenly paradise. [2] Conducted by the angel, they beheld a vast multitude of men old and young, and boys, and of women and girls, too, some sitting by threes and tens in rose-gardens, weaving garlands with which to adorn the heads of the old and the arms of the young, and to festoon the boys. Others were picking fruit from the trees and bearing it in osier baskets to their friends; others were pressing the juice of grapes, cherries and berries into cups and gaily drinking; others were breathing in the fragrances exhaled and diffused by flower, fruit and scented leaf; others were singing sweet songs which charmed the listeners’ ears; others sat beside fountains and changed the up-gushing water into different patterns; others were walking about, chatting, and jesting; others were running, playing, or dancing, some by themselves, some in groups; still others went and reclined on couches in the small garden-houses; not to mention many other pleasures of the paradise.
[3] After they had seen these things, the angel conducted his companions here and there by winding ways, and finally up to some people who were sitting in a very beautiful rose-garden enclosed by olive, orange and citron trees. These folks, their drooping heads propped on their hands, were weeping and wailing. The angel’s companions addressed them and asked, “Why are you sitting here so sad?” They replied, “This is the seventh day since we came into this paradise. When we entered, our minds seemed to be swept up to heaven and carried into the inner happinesses of its joys. After three days, however, this happiness began to dull, to be banished from our minds, and to turn unreal and into nothing at all. When the joys we imagined had died, we feared we should lose all delight in living, and began to question whether indeed any eternal happiness exists. Then we wandered by paths and open places, seeking the gate by which we entered. We strayed in circles, and asked directions of those we met. Some of them said, ‘It is impossible to find the gate; this garden-paradise is such an extensive labyrinth that any one who wants to get out of it only gets farther into it. There is nothing to do but to remain here forever. You are in the heart of the paradise, where all delights center.'” And they continued to the angel’s companions, “We have sat here now a day and a half. Having lost hope of finding the way out, we have been resting in this rose-garden, where we look upon this wealth of olives, grapes, oranges and citrons. But the more we look at them, the more our eyes tire with looking, our nostrils with smelling, our tongues with tasting. Now you know the cause of the gloom, grief and weeping in which you behold us.”
[4] Hearing this, the angel of the company told them, “This labyrinthine paradise is in truth an entrance to heaven. I know the way out and will lead you forth.”
At these words they sprang up, embraced the angel, and joined his company. As they proceeded the angel instructed them what heavenly joy and eternal happiness therefrom are�that these are not to be found in the external delights of a paradise if unaccompanied by internal paradisaical delights. “The external are only delights of the bodily senses, whereas the internal are delights of the affections of the soul. The external have no heavenly life in them apart from the internal, being then without a soul. Any delight apart from its corresponding soul becomes languid and dull, and tires the mind more than work does. Everywhere in heaven are garden-paradises, which afford the angels joys; but it is only as far as delight of the soul is in these joys, that they are joys.”
[5] Hearing this, they all asked, “What is delight of the soul, and whence is it?”
The angel answered, “Delight of the soul is from love and wisdom from the Lord. Love is the doer, and it acts by means of wisdom; the two therefore have their settled abode in deed, which is use. The delight flows from the Lord into the soul, and descends through the higher and lower ranges of the mind into all the bodily senses, where it fulfils itself. Joy then becomes joy, and is eternal from the Eternal Being whence it is. You have seen a paradise, and I assure you that there is not a thing there, not even a small leaf, which is not from the marriage of love and wisdom in use. When a man is in this marriage, he, too, is in the heavenly paradise or in heaven.”
The angel said to them, “Follow me, and I will introduce you into your joy.” He led them into a small city, in the center of which stood a temple, and all of the houses in which were called sacred buildings. In this city they saw people gathered from every corner of the surrounding country, and among them a number of priests, who met and greeted the arrivals, and leading them by the hand to the temple-gates and into some of the buildings around the temple, initiated them into the perpetual worship of God. They told them that the city was a forecourt of heaven, and that the temple was the entrance to a magnificent and very large temple in heaven, where the angels glorify God with prayers and praises to eternity. “The regulations, both here and there, are that you enter the temple and remain three days and three nights, and then proceed into the city’s homes, which are so many chapels we have consecrated, and go from chapel to chapel, and pray, proclaim and preach in fellowship with those assembled there. Take every care to speak to your companions, and to think, only what is holy, pious and religious.”
[2] The angel then led his company into the temple, which was filled to the doors with many who had stood high in the world, and also with many of the common people. Guards were stationed at the doors, permitting no one to leave who had not remained the three days. The angel remarked: “These worshipers have been here two days. Observe them and you will see how they glorify God.” They looked, and most were asleep, and those who were awake yawned again and again. Some�what with the constant uplifting of their thoughts to God, without consideration for the body�looked like faces severed from the body. They felt so to themselves, and hence appeared so to others. Some were wild-eyed from gazing into space. In short, their breathing was labored, and they were wearied in spirit from the tedium. They had their backs to the pulpit, and were shouting, “Our ears are stunned. Bring your sermons to an end. We no longer hear a word, and begin to loathe the sound.” Then they arose, rushed in a body to the doors, broke them open, jostled the guards and drove them off. [3] Seeing this the priests followed, and clinging close to them, went on teaching and praying, sighing and exhorting, “Keep up the service! Glorify God! Sanctify yourselves! In this forecourt of heaven we will initiate you into everlasting glorification of God in a magnificent and most spacious temple in heaven, and so into the enjoyment of eternal happiness.”
But these appeals went uncomprehended and were hardly heard, so dull were their minds after the two days’ inactivity and detention from domestic and business affairs. Still, when they tried to get away, the priests seized them by the arms and sleeves, to push them into the buildings where they were to preach; but in vain. The people cried, “Let us alone! We shall swoon.”
[4] At these words there appeared four men in mitres and white raiment. One of these had been an archbishop in the world, and the other three, bishops; all now were angels. They called the priests together and said to them: “From heaven we saw you and these sheep, and took note how you feed them. You feed them even to insanity. You do not know what the glorification of God means. It means to bring forth the fruits of love; that is, to do the work of one’s calling faithfully, sincerely and diligently. For this belongs to love for God and to love for the neighbor, and is the bond of society, and its well-being. By this is God glorified, and then at stated times by worship. Have you not read these words of the Lord?
Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear fruit, and be made my disciples (John xv. 8).
[5] You priests can persist in glorification by worship, for that is your office and thence are your glory, honor and reward; but not even you, any more than they, could continue in that glorification were not glory, honor and reward connected with your office.”
So saying the bishops ordered the doorkeepers to let all in and out freely, “for there is a mass of people who can imagine no heavenly joy other than perpetual worship of God, so ignorant are they about the state of heaven.”
The angel said to them, “Wait a while here. I will sound my trumpet, and there will come hither men of an illustrious name for wisdom in the spiritual things of the Church.” A few hours later, nine men came, each decorated with laurel in token of his renown. The angel conducted them into the assembly-hall where were all who had been summoned at the first. Before them all, the angel addressed the nine laureates. “I understand that in compliance with your own wish and idea, you were privileged to ascend into heaven, and that you have returned to this lower or subheavenly land with full knowledge of what heaven is like. Tell us, therefore, what heaven seemed like to you.”
[2] They answered in turn. The First said: “From early boyhood to the close of my life in the world I thought of heaven as the home of every beatitude, bliss, joy, gladness and pleasure. I supposed that if I were admitted, I should be encompassed with the aura of all this happiness and should inhale it deeply, like a bridegroom celebrating his marriage and entering the bridal chamber with his bride. In this opinion I ascended to heaven. I passed the first guards, and the second, but when I came to the third, the captain of the guard accosted me and asked, ‘Who are you, friend?’ I replied: ‘Is not heaven here? I have come up at the bidding of my desire; I beg you, let me in.’ He did so, and I saw angels in white, who gathered around me, and examining me, murmured: a new guest not clad in heaven’s garments!’ Hearing this, I seemed to myself like the man of whom the Lord said that he had come to a wedding without a wedding garment.* So I said, ‘Give me such garments,’ but they laughed. Then a courier arrived from the court with the command, ‘Strip him, cast him out, and throw his clothes after him.’ So I was cast out.”
[3] The Second said, “I believed as did he, that if only I were admitted to heaven, up above my head, joys would flow around me, and I should be animated by them forever. I, too, obtained my wish, but when the angels saw me, they fled, saying to one another, ‘What monster is this? How came this bird of night here?’ And though I was not altered, I actually felt changed from being human; breathing the heavenly air did it. Presently a man came running from the court, with an order that two servants should conduct me out, and take me back by the way I had ascended, and to my home. Once home, I seemed to myself and others a man.”
[4] The Third said, “I had always fashioned my idea of heaven on a conception of place, not of love. When I came into this world, therefore, I longed intensely for heaven. I saw some ascending, and followed, and was admitted, but only a few steps. And when I sought to gladden my spirit according to my conception of the joys and beatitudes there, then, owing to the light of heaven, which was white as snow, and the essence of which is said to be wisdom, a stupor assailed my mind, and darkness my sight, and I began to be insane. Moreover, owing to the heat of heaven, which corresponded to the whiteness of that light, and the essence of which is said to be love, my heart pounded, anxiety seized me, an inward pain racked me, and I threw myself flat on the ground. While I lay there, an attendant came from the court, with the order to carry me slowly back into my own light and heat. As I came into these, my breath and heartbeat returned.”
[5] The Fourth said that he, too, had thought of heaven as a place, not as a state of love. “When I first came into the spiritual world,” he said, “I asked the wise if one might mount to heaven. They said that one could, but would have to take care that he was not cast down. I laughed and ascended, believing as others do that all in the world are capable of receiving in full the joys of heaven. Sure enough, when I was in, I nearly expired; and suffering pain and torment in head and body, I pitched headlong to the ground and writhed like a serpent put close to a fire. I crept to a precipice and flung myself over it. Later I was picked up by some standing below, and carried to an inn, where I recovered health.”
[6] The other Five also related amazing things about their ascent into heaven. They compared the change of state which befell them to the condition of fish lifted from the water into the air, and to that of birds lifted into the ether. They declared that after these hard experiences they no longer desired heaven but only a life of companionship with their like, wherever these were. They had also learned that all are prepared beforehand in the world of spirits (“where we are”), the good for heaven, and the evil for hell. They also said that when men have been prepared, they see ways open to the societies of others like themselves, with whom they can remain to eternity; and that they enter on these ways with joy, because they are the ways of their own love.
On hearing these accounts, all the members of the original assembly confessed that they, too, had thought of heaven as a place primarily, where they would drink in freely and forever the joys surrounding them.
[7] After this the angel trumpeter said to them, “You appreciate now that the joys of heaven and eternal happiness are not those of a locality, but of a state of human life. The state of the heavenly life is from love and wisdom; and as use contains in it these two, the state of heavenly life is from the union of the two in use. It is the same thing if we say that it is from charity, faith and good works; for charity is love, faith is truth from which is wisdom, and good works are use. Moreover, there are spaces in our spiritual world as there are in the natural world�otherwise there would be no abiding-places and individual homes. Still, place is not place here, but an appearing of place according to the state of
[8] love and wisdom or of charity and faith. Everyone who becomes an angel carries his own heaven within him, because he carries within him the love of his own heaven. By creation man is a miniature effigy, image and type of the great heaven; the human form is nothing else. Every one passes, therefore, into that heavenly society of whose form he is an especial effigy. Entering that society, he enters a form corresponding to himself. There is a mutual fitness between it and himself, and he breathes the society’s life as his own, and his own life as its life. Each society is a general body, of which the angels are similar parts, constituting it. It follows from all this that those who, being in evils and thence in falsity, have formed an effigy of hell in themselves, are tortured in heaven due to the influx and violent action of opposite on opposite. For infernal love is opposed to heavenly love, and the delights of the two loves clash in enmity, and in any contention destroy each other.”
* Matthew xxii. 11.
Ten were selected, and followed the angel. They took a steep path up a hill, and then went on up a mountain, on which was that heaven of angels which from a distance had looked to them earlier like an expanse in the clouds. Gates were opened to them, and after they had passed through the third one, the angel guide hastened on to the prince of that society or heaven and announced their arrival. The prince replied, “Take some of my retinue and tell your company that they are welcome. Bring them into my forecourt and assign each an apartment with a sleeping-room. Take some of my courtiers and their servitors, and have them wait on their pleasure.” It was so done.
When they had been ushered in by the angel, they asked whether they might go and see the prince. The angel replied, “It is morning still. He cannot be seen before noon; until then all are engaged at their posts and in their employments. But you have been invited to dinner and will sit at table with the prince. Meanwhile I will take you to his palace, where you will see magnificent and splendid things.”
As they stood in awe at the magnificence, the angel said, “Do not marvel. What you see was not made or fashioned by any angelic hand, but by the Maker of the universe, whose gift it all is to the prince. The art of architecture is therefore in its very art here; the world derives hence all its rules of the art.” The angel went on, “You may suppose that things like these enchant our eyes and even infatuate them until we come to believe that they are the joys of our heaven, but, as we do not set our hearts on them, they are only accompaniments of our heart’s joy. Viewing them so and as God’s work, we behold in them the Divine omnipotence and mercy.”
“Behold the most magnificent garden in this heavenly society.”
They answered, “What did you say? There is no garden here. We see only one tree, fruit seemingly of gold on its branches and top, and leaves as of silver, their edges ornamented with emeralds, and under the tree little children with their nurses.”
At this the angel said in an inspired tone, “This tree occupies the center of the garden, and we call it the tree of our heaven, some the tree of life. But proceed, go nearer, your eyes will be opened, and you will see the garden.”
They did so; and their eyes were opened. They saw trees weighed down with delicious fruit and entwined with the tendrils of vines, their tops inclining with their fruit toward the tree of life in the center. [2] The trees were arranged in an unbroken row, which extended in the recurring circles or gyres of what seemed to be an endless spiral. It was a perfect spiral of trees, arranged by kinds in the order of the excellence of their fruits. The spiral began at a little distance from the tree in the center. Across the intervening space a shaft of light shone on all the trees of the gyre from first to last in a graduated splendor. The first trees, called trees of paradise, were the finest of all, luxuriant with the choicest fruits,�they are not to be seen on any earth of the natural world and cannot exist there. Then came oil-trees; then wine-trees; then fragrant trees; and finally timber trees for building. Here and there in the unending spiral or gyre of trees were seats formed of the trained and interlaced boughs of the trees behind them, and enriched and adorned by their fruits. In it, too, passageways opened on flower-gardens and on the level stretches and sloping banks of lawns beyond.
[3] The companions of the angel cried out at the sight, “Behold, the very form of heaven! Wherever we turn our gaze, there flows in something ineffable of a heavenly paradise.”
The angel rejoiced to hear this. “All our gardens,” he said, “are in origin representative forms or types of heavenly beatitudes. It was because an influx of these beatitudes uplifted your minds that you exclaimed, ‘Behold, the very form of heaven!’ These paradises look like woods to those who do not receive an influx. All who are in the love of use receive an influx, but not those who love glory without loving use.” Then he explained and taught them what the several objects in the garden represented and signified.
They dressed, and accompanied by their angel were led into a corridor, an ambulatory of the palace, where they awaited the prince. There the angel introduced them among noted and influential men who were also expecting the prince. Soon the doors opened, and by a wide one on the west they saw the prince enter in the order and pomp of a procession. Before him went the chief counsellors, then the chamberlains, and then the heads of the court. Midway came the prince, followed by courtiers of different ranks, and lastly by personal attendants�in all a hundred and twenty persons.
[2] The angel at the head of the ten newcomers (who in their dress looked like inhabitants now) approached the prince with them, and respectfully called attention to their presence. Without halting, the prince bade them, “Come, and dine with me.”
They followed into the dining-hall, where they saw a table handsomely set. In the center was a high golden pyramid, with a hundred small dishes on three rows of shelves, holding cakes, wine-jellies, and other delicacies composed of wine and bread. From the top of the pyramid gushed a fountain with a wine-like nectar, the stream dividing as it fell and filling cups. At either side of the high golden pyramid projected different heavenly forms of gold, holding dishes and plates filled with every kind of food. The heavenly forms were forms of wisdom’s own art, such as no art in the world can produce, nor can words describe them. Dishes and plates were of silver, they and their supporting forms graven around with reliefs of similar pattern. The cups were of transparent gems. Such was the arrangement of the table.
To the newcomers the prince said, “Recline with me, too. See, there are your places.” And they reclined. The attendants whom the prince had sent to minister to them took their places behind them. The prince then bade them, “Take each a plate from its ring, and then a little dish from the pyramid.” They did so, and fresh plates and dishes at once appeared in the place of those removed. Their cups were filled with the wine jetting from the high pyramid, and they ate and drank. [2] When they were moderately satisfied, the prince addressed the ten guests, saying:
“I hear that you were called together on the earth under this heaven to tell what you thought about the joys of heaven and the eternal happiness coming from them. I also hear that you expressed divergent views, each according to the delights of his bodily senses. But what are the delights of the bodily senses apart from the delights of the soul? The soul is what renders them delightful. The delights of the soul in themselves are imperceptible beatitudes, but become more and more perceptible as they descend into the thoughts of the mind, and from these into the sensations of the body. They are perceived in the thoughts of the mind as states of bliss; in the sensations of the body as enjoyments; and in the body itself as pleasures. Eternal happiness is derived from them all together. The happiness derived from the last alone, however, is not eternal, but transitory, coming to an end and passing away, sometimes turning into unhappiness. You have seen that all your joys are indeed joys of heaven, and are keener than you could ever have supposed, and yet they do not affect our minds interiorly. [3] Three things flow as one into our souls from the Lord. These three, which are one or a trine, are love, wisdom and use. Love and wisdom exist only ideally if they exist only in the affection and thought of the mind; in use they exist really, being then also in the work and activity of the body. Where they exist really, they also persist. Now because love and wisdom exist and subsist in use, it is use which affects us. Use is to do the work of one’s employment faithfully, sincerely and diligently. The love of use and the resulting zeal in use keep the mind from being diffuse, and from straying and imbibing all those lusts which flow in with their allurements from body and world through the senses, and which scatter the truths of religion and morality along with their goods to the winds. The mind’s absorption in a use binds and holds these truths together and disposes the mind into a form capable of receiving wisdom from them, thrusting aside the mischiefs and mockeries of vanities as well as of falsities. But you will hear more on these subjects from wise men whom I shall send to you this afternoon.”
Having spoken thus, the prince arose, and the guests with him, and after bidding them farewell, he told their angel guide to conduct them again to their apartments and to show them every courtesy; also to invite affable men from the city to entertain them with discussion of the different joys of that society.
1. Our prince appoints days of festivity to relax the mind from the fatigue which the ambition to excel brings to some. On these days there are concerts of music and song in the squares, and games and shows outside the city. In the squares platforms are erected, with balustrades entwined with vines and hanging clusters, where the musicians are seated on three levels, with their string and wind instruments of high pitch and low, loud and soft. At the sides are men and women singers, who delight the citizens with the sweetest anthems and songs, in chorus and solo, varied in kind at intervals. On festive days these concerts last from morning until noon, and again into the evening.
[2] 2. Every morning the sweetest singing by young women and girls is to be heard from the houses around the squares�the whole city resounds with it. Each morning they sing some affection of spiritual love. That is, some affection is so expressed by modifications or modulations of the voice that the song seems the affection itself. It flows into the souls of listeners and excites them to correspondence with it. Such is the nature of heavenly song. The singers declare that the volume of the song is as it were inspired and animated from within, and delightfully exalted in the measure in which it is received by listeners. This ended, the windows and doors of the houses on the squares and streets are closed, and the whole city falls silent; not a sound is to be heard anywhere, and no loiterers are to be seen. All have made ready and now engage in the duties of their several occupations.
[3] 3. At noon the doors are opened, and here and there windows in the afternoon, and boys and girls appear playing in the streets, while their governesses and tutors oversee them from the porches of the houses.
[4] 4. In the outskirts of the city there are various games for boys and youths�running games, ball-games, games with balls struck back and forth, called tennis. There are trials of skill for the boys, to see how ready they are in speech, action and comprehension. The readiest receive laurel leaves for prizes. Not to mention many other games to call out the latent aptitudes of the boys.
[5] 5. Outside the city there are also theatrical performances with players depicting the different virtues and excellencies of the moral life, among them some actors, too, to create contrasts.
One of the ten asked, “Why contrasts?”
“No virtue,” they replied, “can be shown to the life in its grace and seemliness except by contrasts between greater and less; there are actors to present even the least phase of virtue down to the vanishing point. But the law requires that nothing of the opposite, or of what is called dishonorable or unseemly, shall be exhibited, except figuratively and so to speak remotely. This requirement is laid down because nothing honorable or good in a virtue passes over progressively into the dishonorable or evil, but only to its least, when it perishes. Then the opposite sets in. Heaven, where all is honorable and good, has nothing in common therefore with hell, where all is dishonorable and evil.”
On hearing this the angel of the company said to them, “At table the prince spoke with these men about the residence of wisdom in use. Will you also speak to them on this subject, please?” They said: “As first created, man was imbued with wisdom and a love of it, not for his own sake, but that he might communicate it from himself to others. It is inscribed on the wisdom of the wise, therefore, that no one is wise and none lives for himself alone, but at the same time for others. So society arises, which otherwise would not be. To live for others is to do uses. Uses are the bonds of society, which are as numerous as good uses, and these are infinite in number. There are spiritual uses, pertaining to love of God and love of the neighbor. There are moral and civil uses, belonging to love of the society or the community in which a man lives, and to love for his companions and fellow-citizens. There are natural uses, pertaining to love of the world and of the necessities of life. And there are uses of the body, belonging to the love of self-preservation in the interest of the higher uses. [2] All these uses are inscribed on the human being and follow in order one after the other; when they occur together, one is within the other. Men who are in the first or spiritual uses are also in those which follow, and are wise men. Those not in the first uses, and yet in the second and in the rest, are not so wise, but only appear to be so, because of their outward morality and civility. Those not in the first and second uses, but in the third and fourth, are not at all wise; in fact, loving only themselves and doing so for the world’s sake, they are satans. Those in the fourth use only are least wise of all; living for themselves alone, and if for others only for the sake of themselves, they are devils. [3] Every love, moreover, has its delight, in which it finds its life. The delight of the love of use is a heavenly delight which enters the succeeding delights in turn, exalting them and making them eternal.”
Then they enumerated heavenly delights issuing from the love of use, saying, “There are tens of thousands of them, and into them those enter who are in heaven.” They spent the day with them until evening, in further wise discourse about the love of use.
When the time came, the angel said, “Dress yourselves, and put on the garments of heaven which our prince sent you.” They did so, and found their garments shining as if with a flamy light. They asked the angel the reason, and he said, “You are going to a wedding. Our garments shine then and become wedding garments.”
[2] While they were gazing at these things, a door opened from a room adjoining the bridal chamber, and they saw six young women come out, and behind them the bridegroom and bride holding each other by the hand. They led each other to a seat placed opposite the candlestick, and sat down, the bridegroom on the left with the bride at his right; while the six young women stood beside the seat near the bride. The bridegroom was dressed in a glistening purple robe and a tunic of shining linen, with an ephod on which was a plate of gold set around with diamonds; on the plate a young eagle was engraved, the nuptial badge of that heavenly society; on his head the bridegroom wore a mitre. The bride was dressed in a crimson cloak, under which was an embroidered gown reaching from the neck to the feet; around her waist she wore a golden girdle; and on her head she had a crown of gold set with rubies.
[3] After they had seated themselves together, the bridegroom turned to the bride and placed a gold ring on her finger; and taking some bracelets and a necklace of pearls, he fastened the bracelets on her wrists, and the necklace about her neck, and said: “Accept these pledges.” As she did so, he kissed her, and said, “Now you are mine,” and called her his wife. Thereupon the guests cried out, “May there be a blessing!” The cry came from each separately and then from all together. Some one delegated by the prince to represent him also joined in the cry. At that instant the room filled with an aromatic incense, a sign of heaven’s blessing. Attendants then took bread from the two tables beside the candlestick and cups full of wine from the tables in the corners, and gave each guest his bread and his cup, and they ate and drank.
After this the husband and his wife arose, and the six virgins, with the silver lamps now lighted in their hands, attended them to the threshold of the bridal chamber. The married pair entered, and the door was closed.
One of the wedding guests, a sage, inquired, “Do you understand what the things signify which you have seen?” They replied that they understood a little of them; but then asked him, why the bridegroom, now a husband, was dressed as he was.
He answered: “The bridegroom, now a husband, represented the Lord, and the bride, now a wife, represented the Church, because nuptials in heaven represent the marriage of the Lord with the Church. That is why the bridegroom wore a mitre on his head and was dressed in a robe, tunic and ephod like Aaron; and the bride, now a wife, wore a crown on her head and was attired in a cloak like a queen. Tomorrow they will be differently clothed, because this representation is only for today.”
[2] “Why,” they asked again, “if he represented the Lord and she the Church, did she sit at his right hand?”
The wise man replied: “Two things constitute the marriage of the Lord and the Church, namely, love and wisdom. The Lord is love and the Church wisdom. Wisdom is at love’s right hand. For the man of the Church becomes wise as if of himself, and as he does so, receives love from the Lord. The right hand, moreover, signifies power, and love has power through wisdom. But as I said before, the representation is changed after the wedding; for then the husband represents wisdom, and the wife the love of his wisdom. This love, however, is not the prior love, but a secondary one�the wife has it from the Lord through her husband’s wisdom. The love from the Lord which is the prior love, is the husband’s and is a love of growing wise. After the wedding, therefore, the two together, husband and wife, represent the Church.”
[3] Again they asked, “Why did not you men stand beside the bridegroom, now a husband, as the six young women stood beside the bride, now a wife?”
The wise man answered, “For the reason that we are numbered today among the virgins, and the number six signifies all and what is complete.” But they asked, “How is that?”
He answered, “Virgins signify the Church, which consists of both sexes. As respects the Church we also are virgins. This is plain from the following words in the Apocalypse:
These are they who were not defiled with women; for they are virgins; and they follow the Lamb wherever He goes (xiv. 4).
Because ‘virgins’ signify the Church, the Lord likened it to
Ten virgins invited to a wedding (Matthew xxv. 1 seq.).
And because Israel, Zion and Jerusalem mean the Church, the Word speaks so often of the ‘Virgin’ and `Daughter’ of Israel, of Zion and Jerusalem. The Lord describes His marriage with the Church by these words, too, in David:
At your right hand the queen in the best gold of Ophir … Her clothing is inwrought with gold; she shall be brought unto the king in broidered work; the virgins, her companions, after her … shall enter into the king’s palace (Psalm xlv. 9-15).”
[4] Afterwards they asked, “Is it not fitting that a priest be present and officiate at weddings?”
The sage replied, “It is fitting on earth, but not in heaven, in view of the representation by the two of the Lord Himself and the Church. This is not known on earth. Even with us a priest officiates at betrothals, and hears, receives, confirms and consecrates consent. Consent is the essential in a marriage; the ceremonies which follow are its formalities.”
He asked, “Why?” They answered, “We do not know; but we perceived something which repelled us and drove us back. They must excuse us.”
The angel returned to his companions, and told them the reply, and added, “I suspect that you have not a chaste love of the sex. In heaven we love young women for their beauty and their lovely ways, and we love them very much, but chastely.” His companions smiled, and said, “You surmise rightly. Who can see such beauty near him and not feel some desire?”
At dawn they heard a proclamation, “Today is a Sabbath!” They arose and asked the angel, “Why is that?” He answered that it is for the worship of God, which recurs at stated times and is proclaimed by the priests. “A service is conducted in our temples and lasts about two hours. If you will, come with me, and I will introduce you.” They made ready, accompanied the angel and entered. They found a large temple, semicircular, capable of holding about three thousand people, with benches or seats extending around in an arc following the outline of the temple, and the rear seats higher than those in front. The pulpit was in front of the seats, a little over from center. Behind the pulpit towards the left was a door.
The ten newcomers with their angel guide entered, and he shewed them where to sit, remarking, “Every one who enters the temple knows his own place. He does so from an innate perception and cannot sit elsewhere. If he sits anywhere else, he hears or perceives nothing, and also upsets the order, and when this is upset, the priest is not inspired.”
As the listeners dispersed, the angel asked the priest to speak some farewell words to his ten companions. He came and talked with them for half an hour, discussing the Divine Trinity, and saying that it is in Jesus Christ, in whom the fullness of all Divinity dwells bodily, according to the deliverance of the Apostle Paul.* Afterwards he spoke of the union of charity and faith, but himself said, “the union of charity and truth,” for faith is truth.
* Colossians ii. 9.
* * * * *
The Son of man in the midst of the seven candlesticks (i. 12, 13);
Tabernacle, temple, ark, and altar in heaven (xv. 5, 8; xi. 19, vi. 9, viii. 3, ix. 13);
A book sealed with seven seals; opened; and horses issuing from it (v. 1, vi. 1, 2, 4, 5, 8);
Four animals around the throne (iv. 6);
Twelve thousand chosen from each tribe (vii. 4-8); Locusts ascending from the abyss (ix. 3, 7);
The dragon and his battle with Michael (xii. 7);
The woman giving birth to a son, and fleeing into the wilderness to escape the dragon (xii. 1, 2, 5, 6);
Two beasts, one ascending from the sea, the other from the land (xiii. 1, 11);
A woman seated: on a scarlet beast (xvii. 3);
The dragon cast into the lake of fire and sulphur (xx. 3, 10);
A white horse and a great supper (xix. 11, 17);
A new heaven and a new earth, and the holy Jerusalem descending, described as to its gates, wall, and foundations (xxi. 1, 2, 12, 14, 17-20);
Also a river of the water of life, and trees of life yielding fruit every month (xxii. 1, 2);
besides much else, all of which John saw, and saw while he was in the spiritual world and in heaven as to the spirit. Then there are the things which the Apostles saw after the Lord’s resurrection; and Peter (Acts xi); also what Paul saw and heard.** Furthermore, what the Prophets saw, like Ezekiel, who saw
Four animals which were cherubim (i, x);
A new temple, and a new earth, and an angel measuring them (xl-xlviii);
He was carried to Jerusalem, and saw abominations there; and to Chaldea, into captivity (viii and xi).
The like befell Zechariah: he saw
A horseman among the myrtle trees (i.8 seqq.);
Four horns, and a man with a measuring reed in his hand iii. 1 seqq.);
A candlestick and two olive trees (iv. 1 seqq.);
A flying scroll, and an ephah (v. 1, 6);
Four chariots coming from between two mountains; and horses (vi. 1 seqq.).
Likewise what befell Daniel; he saw
Four beasts ascending from the sea (vii. 3 seqq.);
Also combats of a ram and a he-goat (viii. 2 seqq.);
The angel Gabriel, and spoke much with him (viii, ix. 20).
Furthermore
Elisha’s servant saw chariots and horses of fire around Elisha; and he saw them when his eyes were opened (2 Kings vi. 17).
It is apparent from these and many other passages in the Word that objects existing in the spiritual world have been seen by many before and after the Lord’s advent. What wonder then that they are seen now, too, when the Church is beginning anew,*** and the New Jerusalem is descending from the Lord out of heaven?
* This paragraph, in the original enclosed in quotation marks, was employed again in substance in True Christian Religion, n. 851.
** 2 Corinthians xii. 4.
*** See n. 532 [2].
27. I
MARRIAGES IN HEAVEN
The fact that there are marriages in heaven cannot be credited by those who think that after death man, as a soul or spirit, is like the ether or a breath; or by those who think that the human being lives as such again only after the last judgment-day; or, in general, by those who know nothing about the spiritual world, where angels and spirits are, and so where the heavens and hells are. Nothing could be revealed about marriages in heaven while ignorance prevailed about that world, especially while it was not known that the angels of heaven are human beings in complete form (the spirits of hell are also human beings, but are deformed). The question would have been raised, “How can soul be united with soul or breath with breath, as partner is united with partner on earth?” And much else, which, the moment it was said, would have taken away or routed belief in marriages there. But now that much has been revealed about the spiritual world, and its nature described (which was done in Heaven and Hell and Apocalypse Revealed), the fact that marriage is to be found there can be established to the reason by the following considerations:
i. The human being lives as such after death.
ii. Male is male then, and female female.
iii. The life-love remains with every one after death.
iv. In particular, love for the sex remains, and so does marital love with those who enter heaven, namely, those who on earth become spiritual.
v. Full substantiation of these facts from observation.
vi. Hence there are marriages in the heavens.
vii. The Lord’s words that “after the resurrection they are not given in marriage” refer to spiritual nuptials.
We proceed to exposition of these propositions in the order given.
All the dead rise again, and that God is God not of the dead, but of the living (Matthew xxii. 31, 32; Luke xx. 37, 38).
As to affection and thought, moreover, every man is in the midst of angels and spirits, and is so associated with them that he cannot be parted from them without dying. The general ignorance is the more strange in that every person who has died since the first creation, has passed at
death, or as the Word says, has been “gathered,” to his people. There is also a common perception (which is an influx of heaven into the interior of the mind) by virtue of which the human being perceives and sees truths as it were inwardly in himself, and in particular the truth that he lives as a human being after death, happy if he has lived well, and unhappy if he has lived ill. What man does not think so, if his mind is raised at all above the body and above the thought nearest the body’s senses, as it is in inward Divine worship or when he lies dying and awaiting the end? We think so, too, when we hear about the dead and their lot. I have reported thousands of things about the dead, telling people how their brothers, married partners or friends fared; I have written of the lot after death of the English and the Dutch, of Papists, Jews and Gentiles, and also of the lot of Luther, Calvin and Melancthon; but I have never yet heard any one object, “How can their lot be as you say when they have not yet arisen from their graves, inasmuch as the Last Judgment has not yet been effected? Are they not souls, like breaths, and in an undefined somewhere?” I have never heard such objections made, and can conclude that we perceive in ourselves that we live as human beings after death. What man, who has loved his partner, and his babies and children, does not assure himself, when they die, at least if his thought rises above the sensuous things of the body, that his loved ones are in God’s hands, and that, after his own death, he will see them again and rejoin them in a life of love and joy?
Jehovah God . . . took one of the man’s ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and He built . . . the rib, which he had taken from the man, into a woman; and He brought her to the man; and the man said, This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, having been taken from man (ii. 21-23).
We shall tell elsewhere** what “rib” and “flesh” signify.
* N. 156r and elsewhere.
** N. 193.
Certain Sadducees, who deny the resurrection, asked Jesus, saying, Master, Moses wrote . . . If a man’s brother die, having a wife, and himself is childless, the brother shall take the wife, and raise seed to his brother. There were seven brothers, of whom one after another took the wife; but they died childless; . . . finally the woman died too. In the resurrection whose wife of them all will she be? But Jesus said in reply, The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those deemed worthy to attain another age and resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; for they can no longer die, but are like the angels and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection. But that the dead rise again, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; for He is not God of the dead, but of the living; for to Him all are living. Luke xx. 27-38; Matthew xxii. 23-32; Mark xii. 18-27).
[2] By these words the Lord taught two truths, first that the human being rises after death, and second, that they are not given in marriage in heaven. The first He taught in the words that God is not God of the dead but of the living, and that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are living�He taught the like in the parable of Dives in hell and Lazarus in heaven (Luke xvi. 22-31). He taught the other truth�that they are not given in marriage in heaven�in the words that those who are deemed worthy of attaining the other world do not marry nor are given in marriage. The reference is to spiritual nuptials, as what follows makes plain, namely, that they can no more die, being like the angels, and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection. Spiritual nuptials are union with the Lord, and this union is effected on earth; accomplished there, it is accomplished for heaven. Hence men are not “wedded” in heaven, nor “given in marriage” there. The same is meant in the words “the sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are deemed worthy to attain the other age, neither marry nor are given in marriage.” The Lord also calls them “sons of the marriage” (Matthew ix. 15, Mark ii. 19), and here “angels,” “sons of God” and “sons of the resurrection.” [3] That “to marry” is to be united with the Lord, and that to “enter on marriage” is to be received into heaven by the Lord, is plain from these words:
The kingdom of the heavens is like a man, a king, who made a marriage for his son, and sent his servants forth and gave invitations to the marriage (Matthew xxii. 1-14);
“The kingdom of the heavens is like ten maidens, who went forth to meet the bridegroom;” of whom the five who were ready, entered into the marriage (Matthew xxv. 1 seq.)
In these words the Lord alluded to Himself, as is plain from verse 13, which reads,
Watch, for you know not the day and hour when the Son of man will come.
So in the Apocalypse:
The time of the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready: blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb (xix. 7, 9).
In Doctrine of the New Jerusalem on the Sacred Scripture, published at Amsterdam in 1763, we have shown that there is a spiritual understanding in each and all things which the Lord said.
I
Looking up to heaven one morning I saw one expanse after another above me. As I watched, the first expanse, which was near by, opened, and presently the second which was higher, and finally the third which was highest. By enlightenment thence I perceived that on the first expanse were angels such as compose the first or lowest heaven; on the second expanse were angels of the second or middle heaven; and on the third expanse angels of the third or highest heaven. At first I wondered what it all meant, but I soon heard a voice from heaven as of a trumpet, saying:
“We perceived and see now that you are meditating on Marital Love. We know that as yet no one on earth knows what true marital love is in origin and in essence; and yet it is important that it should be known. The Lord has therefore been pleased to open the heavens to you, that illumination and perception from it may flow into the interiors of your mind. With us in the heavens, especially in the third heaven, our heavenly delights are chiefly from marital love. Having been given leave, we shall send down a married pair that you may see.”
Thereupon there appeared, descending from the highest or third heaven, a chariot in which one angel was seen; but as it approached two were visible in it. [2] At a distance the chariot glittered like a diamond before my eyes. Young horses, white as snow, were harnessed to it; and the occupants held two turtledoves in their hands. They called to me, saying:
“You wish us to come nearer. Be careful that the flame-like effulgence from our heaven whence we have descended, does not penetrate interiorly. The influx of it will indeed illuminate the higher ideas of your understanding, which are in themselves heavenly; but in your own world they are ineffable. Therefore receive rationally what you are about to hear, and explain it so to the understanding.”
I answered, “I shall take care; come nearer.”
They came, and lo! they were a husband and his wife.
“We are married partners,” they said. “We have lived blessed in heaven since the first age, called by you the Golden Age; and always in the same flower of youth in which you behold us today.”
[3] I observed them attentively, perceiving that they represented marital love, both in its life and in its adornment; in its life in their faces, and in its adornment in their apparel. For all angels are affections of love in human form; the ruling affection itself shines forth from their faces. And by the affection and according to it are garments appointed. They say in heaven therefore that a person’s affection clothes him. The husband looked to be of an age between youth and early manhood. From his eyes beamed a light sparkling with the wisdom of love. His face seemed inmostly radiant from this light, and in the irradiation from it the very skin seemed refulgent. His whole face was one shining comeliness. He was dressed in a robe which reached to the ankles, and wore under this a blue garment, girded with a golden girdle with three precious stones on it, two sapphires at the sides and in the middle a carbuncle. His stockings were of shining linen interwoven with threads of silver; and his shoes were wholly of silk. This was the representative form of marital love with the husband.
[4] But with the wife it was this: I saw her face and did not see it. I saw it as beauty itself, and did not see it because this was inexpressible. For in her face was the flame-like light which is found with the angels of the third heaven, and it dazzled my sight. I was simply dumbfounded. Observing this she spoke to me, saying,
“What do you see?”
I answered, “I see only marital love and the form of it. But I see and do not see.”
At this she turned herself obliquely from her husband, whereupon I was able to regard her more intently. Her eyes sparkled with the light of her heaven, which, as was said, is flame-like and derived from the love of wisdom. For in that heaven wives love their husbands for and in their wisdom; and husbands love their wives from and in that love toward themselves�and so they are united. Hence her beauty was a beauty no painter could emulate and portray in its form; for there is no such coruscation in his color, nor is any such symmetry expressible by his art. Her hair was gracefully arranged to suit her beauty, with diadems of flowers in it. She wore a necklace of carbuncles, and pendent from it a rosary of chrysolites; and she had bracelets of large pearls. She was dressed in a flowing red robe, and under this had a bodice of purple clasped in front with rubies. But, what astonished me, the colors varied according to her address to her husband, and according to it they were also now more, now less brilliant, more when the two turned toward each other, and less when they were partly turned away from each other.
[5] When I had observed these things they talked with me again, and when the husband was speaking he spoke as if at the same time from his wife; and when the wife was speaking she spoke as if at the same time from her husband; for such was the union of minds whence the speech came. I also heard the very utterance of marital love, inwardly coincident with, and also proceeding from, the delights of a state of peace and innocence.
At length they said, “We are recalled. We must go.”
Once again they seemed to be conveyed in a chariot, and were borne along a paved way between flower-gardens around which stood olive trees and well-laden orange trees. As they approached their heaven young women came out to meet them, and received and conducted them in.
“I saw that you were meditating upon marital love. In this parchment are arcana of wisdom on the subject not hitherto made known in the world. They are now disclosed, because it is important that they should be. More of these arcana are to be found in our heaven than in others, because we are in the marriage of love and wisdom. But I predict that only those will possess themselves of this love who are received by the Lord into the new Church, which is the New Jerusalem.”
So saying the angel let down the unrolled parchment. An angelic spirit* intercepted it and laid it on a table in a certain room which he immediately locked. Handing me the key, he said, “Write.”
* Angelic spirits are good spirits in the world of spirits, not yet prepared for heaven. True Christian Religion, n. 387.
44. II
I once saw three spirits newly arrived from the world, who were roaming about, observing and inquiring. They were astounded that they were living as men, just as before, and that they saw things similar to those they had seen before. For they were aware that they had left the former or natural world; there they had believed that they would not live as men until after the last judgment-day, when they would be reclothed with the flesh and bones which had been laid away in the grave. From time to time they examined and felt of themselves and of others, and touched things, in order to rid themselves of all doubt that they really were men. By a thousand evidences they convinced themselves of the fact that they were now men as in the former world, except that they beheld one another in brighter light and saw objects in greater splendor and more perfectly.
[2] Two angelic spirits happened on them at that time, and stopping them, asked, “Whence are you?”
They replied, “We left a world, and again are living in a world. We seem to have migrated from one world to another. We are astonished.”
And then they asked the two angelic spirits about heaven. Two of the newcomers were young men, and a gleam of lust for the sex shone from their eyes. The angelic spirits remarked: “Perhaps you have seen some women?”
They replied that they had.
As they were asking about heaven, the angelic spirits said:
“In heaven all things are magnificent and splendid beyond anything the eye has ever seen. And there are young men and maidens in heaven�maidens of such beauty that they may be called beauty in its own form; and young men of such morality that they may be called morality in its own form. The beauty of the maidens and the morality of the young men answer to each other, as mutually adapted forms.”
The two newcomers asked whether human forms in heaven are altogether like those in the natural world, and were told:
“They are altogether like them; nothing is subtracted from either the man or the woman. In a word, a man is a man and a woman is a woman in all the perfection of form in which they were created. If you like, withdraw and examine yourselves, and see whether anything whatever is wanting, and whether you are not men as before.”
Again the newcomers said,
[3] “We heard in the world which we left by death that in heaven ‘they are not given in marriage, because they are angels.’ Does sexual love not exist there then?”
The angelic spirits replied, “Not your love of the sex, but an angelic love of the sex which is chaste, devoid of all the allurement of lust.”
“Just what is sexual love without allurement?” the newcomers wanted to know.
As they thought about this love, they sighed and exclaimed, “Oh, how insipid is the joy of heaven! What young man can desire heaven then? Is such love not empty and lifeless?”
The angelic spirits laughed and replied: “Angelic love of the sex, or love of the sex such as it is in heaven, is full of inmost delights. It is a most pleasing expansion of all things of the mind and thence of all things of the breast, in the breast resembling the interplay of heart and lungs whence are breath, voice and speech. These delights render the companionship of the sexes or of young men and maidens, heavenly sweetness itself, which is pure. [4] All newcomers ascending into heaven are examined as to their chastity. They are admitted to the companionship of maidens�beauties of heaven�who perceive from the tone of voice and from the speech, face, eyes, bearing, and outflowing sphere, what their quality is in respect to love for the sex; and if it is unchaste they flee away, and tell their companions that they have seen satyrs or priapi. Such newcomers are also actually changed and appear hairy to the angels, and seem to have feet like calves or leopards. They are soon cast down, lest they defile the aura of heaven with their lust.”
[5] Hearing this the two newcomers said again, “So there is no love of the sex in heaven. What is a chaste sexual love but a love emptied of the essence of its life? Are not then the companionships of your young men and maidens insipid joys? We are not stones and stocks, but perceptions and affections of life.”
[6] Hearing this, the two angelic spirits replied indignantly:
“You are altogether ignorant what chaste love for the sex is, because you are not yet chaste. That love is the very delight of the mind and thence of the heart, but not at the same time of the flesh below the heart. Angelic chastity, which is common to both sexes, prevents the passing of that love beyond the enclosure of the heart; but within and above this, the morality of the youth delights in the beauty of the maiden, with the delights of a chaste love for the sex which are too interior and too rich in pleasantness to be described by words. But angels have this love of the sex because they have only marital love, along with which unchaste love of the sex cannot exist. True marital love is chaste and has nothing in common with unchaste love. It is love for only one of the sex to the removal of all others; for it is a love of the spirit and thence of the body, and not of the body and thence of the spirit or infesting the spirit.”
The two young novitiates were glad to hear this, and said,
“Then there is such a thing as love for the sex in heaven after all. What else is married love?”
But to this the angelic spirits replied: “Think more deeply and reflect. You will perceive that your love for the sex is an extra-marital love and that marital love is altogether different�as different from it as wheat from chaff or rather as the human from the bestial. Ask women in heaven what extra-marital love is, and I assure you they will answer, ‘What did you say? How can a question fall from your lips which so offends the ears? How can a love that was not created be engendered in a man?’ Then ask them what true marital love is, and I know they will answer: ‘It is not love for the sex, but love for one of the sex,’ which springs up when a young man sees the maiden and the maiden the young man whom the Lord has provided, and they mutually feel the marital enkindled in their hearts, and perceive, he that she is his, and she that he is hers. For love meets love, makes itself known, conjoins the souls at once, and afterwards the minds, and thence enters the breast, and after the nuptials farther; so it becomes a full love, which grows daily to conjunction, until they are no more two, but like one. [7] I know also that they will solemnly aver that they know no other love of the sex. For they say, ‘How can there be love for the sex unless it is so meet and mutual that it breathes after eternal union, which is that the two may become one flesh?”
To this the angelic spirits added: “In heaven there is no knowledge at all what whoredom is, or that it exists, or can be. Angels turn cold in the whole body at unchaste or extra-marital love; and, on the other hand, they grow warm in the whole body at chaste or marital love. As for men in heaven, all their nerves are unstrung at the sight of a harlot and grow tense at the sight of a wife.”
[8] Having heard these things the three newcomers asked, “Is there love between married partners in heaven like that on earth?”
The two angelic spirits answered: “It is quite similar.”
Perceiving that they wished to know whether there are similar ultimate delights there, they said: “They are altogether similar, but far more blessed, because angelic perception and sensation is far more exquisite than human perception and sensation. What life has that love except from a vein of potency? If this fails, does not the love diminish and grow cold? And is not that vigor the very measure, degree and basis of that love? Is it not the beginning, foundation and completion of it? It is a universal law that first things exist, subsist and persist by last things. So also with this love. If there were no ultimate delights, there would not be any delights of marital love.”
[9] Then the newcomers asked, “Are offspring born there from the ultimate delights of this love? If not, what use do those delights serve?”
The angelic spirits replied, “Spiritual offspring are, but not natural.”
And they asked, “What are spiritual offspring?” They answered:
“By the ultimate delights married partners are more closely united in the marriage of good and truth, which is the marriage of love and wisdom; and love and wisdom are the offspring which are born of that marriage. Consider that there the husband is wisdom, and the wife is a love of wisdom, and that both of these are spiritual; then no other than spiritual offspring can be conceived and born there. Hence it is, too, that angels do not become sad after the delights, as some do on earth, but cheerful. This results from the perpetual influx of fresh powers succeeding the former, renewing and enlightening the angels. For all who come into heaven return into the springtime of their youth and into the vigor of those years, and remain so to eternity.”
[10] Hearing these things the three newcomers said, “Do we not read in the Word that there are no nuptials in heaven because they are angels?”
To this the angelic spirits replied, “Look up into heaven and you will be answered.”
And they asked, “Why look up into heaven?”
They said, “Because all our interpretations of the Word are from heaven. Inwardly the Word is spiritual, and the angels, being spiritual, are bound to teach a spiritual understanding of it.”
After some delay heaven was opened above their heads, and two angels came into sight, and said:
“There are nuptials in heaven as on earth; but only with those who are in the marriage of good and truth; no others are angels. Therefore it is spiritual nuptials, or marriages of good and truth, which are meant in Scripture. These nuptials take place on earth and not after death, thus not in the heavens. So we are told that the five foolish virgins who also were invited to the nuptials, could not enter, because there was no marriage of good and truth in them; for they had no oil, but only lamps. By oil, good is meant, and by lamps, truth, and to be given in marriage is to enter into heaven where that marriage is.”
The three newcomers rejoiced to hear these things. Filled with a desire for heaven and with the hope of nuptials there, they declared: “We will strive eagerly after morality and a right life, that we may realize our desires.”
45. II
THE STATE OF PARTNERS AFTER DEATH
In our first chapter we showed that there are marriages in the heavens; here our question is, whether or not the particular marital tie formed in the world will remain and endure after death. As this is not a matter for judgment but for observation, and I have been enabled to make the observation through association with angels and spirits, I must relate what the facts are; but still in a fashion to engage the reason in assent. Partners long and desire to know how this is. Husbands who have loved their deceased wives, and wives who have loved their husbands, want to know whether it is well with them, and whether they will meet again. Many partners also wish to know whether they will be parted after death or live together; those who are inharmonious of mind, whether they will not be separated; those harmonious of mind, whether they will not live together. Because it is sought, the information is offered, and will be presented in this order:
i. Love for the sex continues after death with every person such as it was inwardly, that is, such as it was in the interior will and thought in the world.
ii. In the same way, marital love persists.
iii. Two partners usually meet after death, recognize each other, associate again, and for a time live together. This takes place in the first state, thus while they are in externals as in the world.
iv. But gradually, as they put off externals and enter into their internal selves, then perceive of what sort their love and inclination for each other had been, and thus whether they can live together or not.
v. If they can live together, they remain partners; but if they cannot, they part, sometimes the man from the wife, sometimes the wife from the man, and sometimes the two mutually.
vi. The man is then given a suitable wife, and the woman a suitable husband.
vii. Partners enjoy an intercourse like that in the world, but pleasanter and more blessed; but without prolification, for which, or in its place, there is spiritual prolification, which is one of love and wisdom.
viii. This is what befalls those who come into heaven; but it is otherwise with those who go into hell.
Explanation follows, elucidating and demonstrating these propositions.
follows one after death, for love is the esse of man’s life. The ruling love, which is the head of the rest, and subordinate loves along with it, persist with man to eternity. Loves persist because strictly they are of man’s spirit, and of the body from the spirit, and after death the human being becomes a spirit, and thus takes his love with him. As love is the esse of man’s life, it is plain that such as a man’s life was in the world, such is his lot after death. As for sexual love, it is the universal love, having been put by creation in man’s very soul, which is his whole essence, and this for the sake of the propagation of the race. This love in particular remains, because a man after death is a man and a woman a woman, and there is nothing in soul, mind or body, which is not masculine in the male and feminine in the female. The two have been so created, moreover, that they seek after conjunction, yes, to be one; this striving is the love of the sex, which precedes marital love. A conjunctive inclination which has been inscribed on each and all things of man and woman certainly cannot be blotted out and perish with the body.
47r. (iii) Two partners usually meet after death, recognize each other, associate again and live together for a time. This takes place in the first state, thus while they are in externals as in the world. The human being experiences two states after death, an external and an internal. He comes first into his external self, and then into the internal. While he is in the external, partner meets partner (if each is dead), and recognizes the other, and if they have lived together in the world, they associate and for some time live together. While this state lasts, one does not know the other’s inclination to himself, for this is hidden in the internal self. But later, when they come into their internal state, the inclination becomes manifest, and if it is accordant and sympathetic, they continue their married life, but if discordant and antipathetic, they dissolve it. A man who has had a number of wives unites himself with them in turn while in the external state; but when he enters the internal state, in which he perceives the inclinations of love, and of what sort these are, he either takes one or leaves all; for in the spiritual world, equally as in the natural, no Christian is permitted to marry several wives, for this infests and profanes religion. The like takes place with the woman who has had several husbands. Women, however, do not betake themselves to the husbands; they only become present, and the husbands join themselves to them. It should be known that husbands rarely recognize their wives, but that wives readily recognize their husbands; the reason is that women have an interior perception of love, and men only an exterior.
48r. (iv) But gradually, as partners put off externals and enter into their internal selves, they perceive of what sort their love and inclination for each other had been, and thus whether they can live together or not. This does not need to be explained further, for it follows from what has been said in the preceding paragraph. Here we shall only explain how a person after death puts off externals and puts on internals.
After death every one is first introduced into the world called the world of spirits, which is intermediate between heaven and hell, and is prepared there, a good man for heaven, and a bad man for hell. [2] The preparation has for its object that internal and external shall agree and make one, and not disagree and make two. In the natural world they make two; only with the sincere in heart do they make one. How they make two is plain from the deceitful and adroit, and especially from hypocrites, flatterers, fawners and liars. In the spiritual world, however, it is not permissible to have a mind thus divided. A person who has been evil inwardly will be so outwardly; similarly a man is good both inwardly and outwardly. [3] For after death the whole man becomes such as he had been inwardly, and not such as he was outwardly. To this end he is let by turns into external and internal. Every person, moreover, while he is in his external state, is wise, that is, wishes to appear wise, even the evil man, who in his internal nature is insane. In these alternations of state a man can see his insanities and repent of them. But if he had not repented in the world, he cannot afterwards, for he loves his insanities and wishes to remain in them. Therefore he drives his external to be insane likewise. So his internal and external become one, and when this has been effected, he is ready for hell. [4] It is the other way about with the good man. Because he looked to God in the world and repented, he was wiser in his inward nature than in his outward; for in the outward he was foolish at times, influenced by the attractions and vanities of the world. For this reason his external, too, is reduced to accord with his internal, which, as we said, is wise. This done, he is ready for heaven. We have said so much to illustrate how one “puts off the external” and “puts on the internal” after death.
* Matthew xix. 6, Mark x. 8.
I
Once the sweetest of melodies was heard from heaven. Wives together with maidens were singing a song the sweetness of which was like the affection of some love flowing forth harmoniously. Song in heaven is nothing else than affection sounding, or affection expressed and formulated in sound; just as thought is expressed by speech, so affection is by song. From the symmetry and flow of the utterance the angels perceive the subject of the affection.
There were a number of spirits about me at the time. Some of them said that they heard the very sweet melody, and that it was the song of some lovely affection the subject of which they did not know. They made various conjectures, but in vain; some that the song was an expression of the affection of bridegroom and bride at betrothal; others that it expressed the affection of bridegroom and bride at the nuptials; and still others that it expressed the early love of husband and wife.
[2] But an angel appeared in the midst of them from heaven, and said that they were singing chaste love of the sex. But those standing around asked,
“What is chaste love for the sex?”
The angel said, “It is the love a man has for a maiden or wife of beautiful form and becoming manner, free from all idea of lasciviousness, or the similar love of a maiden or wife toward a man.” So saying, the angel vanished.
The singing continued, and now that they knew what affection it expressed they heard it with much variety, each according to the state of his love. Those who regarded women chastely, found the song melodious and sweet; but those who regarded women unchastely, found it unmelodious and sad; while those who regarded women disdainfully, found it discordant and harsh. [3] Suddenly the plain on which they were standing was turned into a forum, and a voice was heard, saying, “Look into this love.”
Immediately spirits were present from different societies, and among them some angels in white. The latter spoke and said:
“We have inquired in this spiritual world into all kinds of love, not only into the love of man for man and of woman for woman, and into the mutual love of husband and wife, but also into the love a man feels toward women and a woman toward men. We have been enabled to traverse and explore whole societies, and we have yet to find sexual love chaste except with those who are in constant potency from true marital love, and these are in the highest heavens. We were also enabled to perceive the influx of this love into the affections of our hearts; it seemed to us to exceed every other love in sweetness, except the love of two married partners whose hearts are one. But we pray you to consider this love, for it is new and unknown to you; while by us in heaven it is called heavenly sweetness, because it is pleasantness itself.”
[4] In their consideration, those spoke first who could not predicate chastity of marriages. These said: “Who, on seeing a beautiful and lovely girl or wife can chasten and purify the ideas of his thought from all lust so as to love her beauty and yet not desire at all, if allowed, to taste it? Who can turn the lust which is innate in every man into such chastity, that is, into what is not itself, and yet love? Can love for the sex, as it enters from the eye into the thought, stop at a woman’s face? Does it not descend in a moment into the breast and beyond? The angels have idly said that this love can be chaste and yet be of all loves the sweetest; and that it is found only with husbands who are in true marital love and thence in extraordinary potency with their wives. Can they, any more than others, when they see beautiful women, keep the ideas of their thoughts on high and as it were suspended, so that they do not descend and go on to what constitutes the love?”
[5] Then those spoke who were both in cold and in heat, in cold towards their wives and in heat towards the sex; and they said:
“What is chaste love for the sex? Does not sexual love become a contradiction when chastity is added? And what is the contradiction in the addition except that a subject from which its predicate is taken away is then nothing? How can a chaste love for the sex be the sweetest of all loves when chastity robs it of its sweetness? You all know in what the sweetness of that love resides. When, then, all idea connected with this is banished, where and whence is its sweetness?”
Some interposed here, saying, “We have been with the most beautiful and have felt no desire; we therefore know what chaste love for the sex is.”
But their companions, acquainted with their lewdness, replied, “You were then in a state of distaste for the sex
for lack of potency; and this is not chaste love for the sex, but the last state of unchaste love.”
[6] Indignant at what they had heard, the angels asked those to speak who were standing at the right or to the south. These said:
“There is a love of man and man, and of woman and woman; and there is a love of man for woman and of woman for man; and these three pairs of loves are entirely different from one another. The love of man and man is like the love of understanding and understanding; for man was created and hence is born to become understanding. The love of woman and woman is like the love of affection and affection for the understanding of men; for the woman was created and is born to become the love of man’s understanding. These loves, namely, of man for man and of woman for woman, do not enter the breast deeply, but stand outside and merely touch; thus do not conjoin the two inwardly. So two men contend against each other by arguments like two athletes; and sometimes two women by passions like two pantomimists fighting. [7] But the love of a man and a woman is love between understanding and its affection, and this enters deeply and conjoins; and the conjunction is the love. But conjunction of minds and not at the same time of bodies, or the effort toward just this conjunction is spiritual and therefore chaste love. Only they know this love who are in true marital love and thence in eminent potency, because in their chastity they do not admit the influx of love from the body of any other woman than their own wife; and in eminent potency they cannot but love the sex and at the same time hold in aversion what is unchaste. Thence they have a chaste love for the sex which regarded in itself is interior spiritual friendship, which derives its sweetness from eminent but chaste potency. They have this eminent potency from their total renunciation of whoredom; and it is chaste because the wife only is loved. Their love then, not partaking of the flesh but only of the spirit, is chaste; and it is sweet, because woman’s beauty does naturally enter the mind at the same time.”
[8] On hearing these things many of the bystanders clapped their hands to their ears, saying, “These words offend our ears! What you have said, to us is trash.” They were unchaste.
Again the singing was heard from heaven, sweeter now than before. But to the unchaste it grated so discordantly that because of the harshness of the discord they rushed from the forum and fled, only a few remaining who in wisdom loved marital chastity.
Talking with angels on a time in the spiritual world, I was inspired with a pleasant desire to see the Temple of Wisdom which I had seen once before. asked them the way to it. They replied,
“Follow the light and you will come to it.”
I said, “How do you mean, ‘Follow the light’?”
“Our light grows brighter and brighter,” said they, “as we approach the temple. Follow the light, therefore, as it increases in brightness. Our light proceeds from the Lord as a Sun and therefore considered in itself is wisdom.”
In company with two of the angels I walked on, following the increasing brightness of the light, and ascended by a steep path to the very top of a hill which lay in the southern quarter, where I came to a magnificent gate.
Seeing the angels with me, the guard opened the gate, and an avenue of palms and laurels appeared, along which we proceeded. The avenue wound about and ended at a garden in the midst of which was the Temple of Wisdom.
I looked around me and saw some small buildings, replicas of the temple, wherein were wise men. We approached one of the buildings, and at the entrance spoke to the host there, and told the reason of our coming, and how we came. He replied,
“Welcome! Come in; be seated. Let us join in discourses of wisdom.”
[2] I saw that the house was divided in two inside and yet was one. It was bisected by a transparent partition; it seemed like a single room because the transparence was like that of the purest crystal. I asked why the room was so arranged.
“I am not alone,” he said, “my wife is with me. We are two and yet not two, but one flesh.”
I said: “I know that you are a wise man; what has a wise man or wisdom to do with a woman?” At this our host in some indignation changed expression. He stretched out his hand, and immediately other wise men were present from neighboring houses, to whom he said jocosely,
“Our newcomer here wants to know, ‘What has a wise man or wisdom to do with a woman?'”
They all laughed at this, and said, “What is a wise man or wisdom apart from a woman or without love? A wife is the love of a wise man’s wisdom.”
[3] But the host said, “Now let us engage in some conversation of wisdom. Let us converse about causes; and first, about the cause of the beauty of the female sex.” Then they spoke in turn. The first gave this cause: women were created by the Lord affections of the wisdom of men, and the affection of wisdom is beauty itself. The second assigned this cause: woman was created by the Lord through the wisdom of man because from man; she is therefore a form of wisdom inspired with the affection of love; as the affection of love is life itself, woman is the life of wisdom, while the male is wisdom; and the life of wisdom is beauty itself. The third mentioned this cause: woman is given a perception of the delights of marital love, and her whole body is an organ of that perception; the habitation both of the delights of marital love and of the perception of them is beauty. [4] The fourth named this cause: the Lord has taken life’s beauty and grace from man and transcribed them on woman; hence without reunion with this beauty and grace in woman, man is stern, austere, uninspired and unlovely; nor is he wise unless for himself alone, and such a one is foolish; but when man is united with this beauty and grace of life in a wife, he becomes agreeable, pleasant, animated and lovely, and thus wise. The fifth mentioned this cause: women are created beauties not for their own sake but for men; in order that men, of themselves hard, may be softened; their dispositions, of themselves severe, may become gentle; and their hearts, of themselves cold, may become warm; such they do become when they become one flesh with their wives. [5] The sixth gave this cause: the universe was created by the Lord a most perfect work; but nothing in it was created more perfect than woman, beautiful of face and charming in her ways, to the end that man may render thanks to the Lord for this bountiful gift and repay it by the reception of wisdom from Him.
After these and many such things had been said, the wife appeared through the crystal partition and said to her husband, “Speak, if you please.” As he spoke, the life of wisdom from the wife was perceived in his speech; for the love of it was in the tone of his voice. Thus did experience bear witness to that truth.
Afterwards we viewed the Temple of Wisdom and the surrounding paradise, too, and filled thereby with joy we took our leave, followed the avenue to the gate, and descended by the way we had come.
57. III
TRUE MARITAL LOVE
Marital love has infinite variety; it is not the same with any two persons. It seems the same, indeed, with a number, but it so appears only to the bodily judgment, a coarse and dull judgment, from which one discerns little about such matters. (By bodily judgment is meant judgment of the mind by the external senses.) But differences appear to those who see from the spirit’s judgment, and the more distinctly as they raise the vision of this judgment higher, by withdrawing the outlook from the senses and elevating it into higher light. These can at length confirm themselves in the comprehension and insight that marital love is not the same in any two persons. Still, no one can see its infinite varieties in any light of the understanding, however elevated, unless first he knows what the nature of this love is in its essence and integrity, thus what it was like when, together with life, it was imparted to man by God. Unless this, its first and most perfect state, is known, in vain are its differences to be discovered by any scrutiny. For there is then no fixed point from which, as a beginning, the differences can be determined, and to which, as to a criterion, they can be referred so as to appear truly and not misleadingly. We therefore proceed now to describe this love in its genuine essence; and because it had this essence when together with life it was infused in man by God, to describe it as it was in its first state. In that state it was true marital love, and the present chapter is therefore entitled, “True Marital Love.” We proceed with the description in this order:
i. There is a true marital love which is so rare today that its character is not known, and hardly that it exists.
ii. The origin of this love is in the marriage of good and truth.
iii. There is a correspondence between this love and the marriage of the Lord and the Church.
iv. In view of its origin and correspondence, this love is celestial, spiritual, holy, pure and clean above every love which the angels of heaven or men of the Church have from the Lord.
v. It is also the fundamental love among all celestial and spiritual loves and among natural loves thence.
vi. Into this love are gathered all joys and delights from first to last.
vii. Only those come into this love, however, or can be in it, who approach the Lord, and love the truths and do the goods of the Church.
viii. This love was the love of loves with the ancients who lived in the golden, silver and copper ages, but afterwards it gradually declined.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
* Chap. V.
* Nn. 155r, 209; 293, 294.
[2] No human or angelic love can ever become utterly pure, thus neither can marital love; but the intention which is of the will is what is primarily regarded by the Lord. Therefore as far as a man has the intention and perseveres in it, so far he is introduced into and gradually advances in the purity and holiness of marital love. Only those who become spiritual from the Lord can be in spiritual married love, for heaven is in that love. The natural man, with whom the love derives its pleasure solely from the flesh, cannot draw near heaven or near an angel; for that matter, he cannot approach a man in whom the love is, for this love is the basic one among all celestial
[3] and spiritual loves (see above, nn. 65-67). I have been made sure of this fact by much experience. I have seen genii in the spiritual world, who were being prepared for hell, approach an angel who was enjoying his partner; even as they were coming in the distance, they grew into furies and sought caverns and crevices for asylum, into which to throw themselves. From what was related in the preliminary section (n. 10) it can be concluded that evil spirits love what is homogeneous with their affection, however unclean the thing is, and being averse to what is pure, as to what is heterogeneous, are averse to heavenly spirits.
75. I
As I was meditating once* on marital love, my mind was seized with a desire to know what that love was like with those who lived in the Golden Age; and what it was like later with those who lived in the ages following, named from silver, copper, and iron. Knowing that all who lived well in those ages are in the heavens, I prayed the Lord that I might be allowed to speak with them and be instructed.
And lo! an angel presented himself and said, “The Lord has sent me to be your guide and companion. I will guide and accompany you first to those who lived in the first age or epoch, called the Golden Age.” He added, “The way to them is arduous. It lies through a dark forest which no one can get through without a guide given him by the Lord.”
[2] I was in the spirit and prepared myself for the journey. We turned our faces eastward. As we proceeded I saw a mountain which rose above the region of clouds. We crossed a great desert and came to the forest of which the angel had spoken, thick with different kinds of trees and dark from their density. The forest was intersected by many narrow paths, which the angel said were so many winding ways leading astray, remarking that unless the eyes were opened by the Lord to see olive trees encircled with vine tendrils, and the steps were directed from olive tree to olive tree, the traveller would wander away into Tartarus, which is round about at the sides. The forest is of this character in order to guard the approach; for only the earliest of the race dwell upon that mountain. [3] After we entered the forest our eyes were opened and we saw the olive trees here and there, bound with vines from which hung clusters of dark blue grapes. These trees were arranged in perpetual circles; keeping them in view, we circled around and around. At last we saw a grove of lofty cedars and some eagles in their branches.
At sight of the grove the angel said, “We are now on the mountain not far from its summit.”
We kept on, and beyond the grove came to a circular plain where male and ewe lambs were feeding, which were forms representing the state of innocence and peace of the mountain dwellers. We crossed the plain and saw tents after tents ahead and on either side, many thousands in number, as far as the eye could reach.
And the angel said, “We are now in the encampment where is the army of the Lord Jehovih! So they call themselves and their habitations. When they lived in the world, these most ancient people dwelt in tents; therefore they dwell in tents now, too. But let us bend our way southward, where the wiser ones are, and find some one with whom we may converse.”
[4] As we proceeded I saw at a distance three boys and three girls sitting in the door of one of the tents; but as we came near they proved to be men and women of average stature.
The angel remarked, “All the inhabitants of this mountain appear from a distance like little children because they are in a state of innocence, of which infancy is an appearance.”
On seeing us the men ran up to us and asked, “Whence are you? And how came you here? Your faces are not our mountain faces.”
In reply the angel told them our means of getting through the forest and our reason for coming. Hearing this, one of the three invited and led us into his tent. He was clothed in a blue mantle and a tunic of white wool; and his wife in a flowing purple robe, and under it, about the breast, a tunic of fine embroidered linen. [5] As I was eager to learn about the marriages of the most ancient people, I contemplated husband and wife by turn, and noted the unity of their souls as it were in their faces.
“You two are one,” I said.
“We are one,” the man replied. “Her life is in me and mine in her. We are two bodies but one soul. The union between us is like that of the two tents in the breast called heart and lungs. She is my heart and I am her lungs. But as we here mean love by the heart and wisdom by the lungs, she is the love of my wisdom and I am the wisdom of her love. Therefore her love envelops my wisdom, and my wisdom is inwardly in her love. Hence, as you said, the unity of our souls appears in our faces.”
[6] I then asked, “If your union is so close, can you look at any other woman than your own?”
He replied, “I can; but as my wife is united to my soul, we two look together; then nothing of desire can enter. For when I look at the wives of others I look at them through my wife whom alone I love. And as she, my own, has a perception of all my inclinations, as intermediary she directs my thoughts, averts everything discordant, and imparts a cold and horror at everything unchaste. It is therefore as impossible for us to look from lust upon a comrade’s wife as it is for a man to look from the darkness of Tartarus at the light of our heavens. We therefore possess no idea of thought, still less any word of language, for the allurements of wanton love.” He could not say “whoredom,” for the chastity of their heaven resisted.
The angel guide said to me, “You are listening now, in the speech of the angels of this heaven, to the language of wisdom; for they speak from causes.”
[7] Then looking about I noticed that their tent seemed to be overspread with gold, and I asked, “Whence is this?”
“Our flaming light does that,” he replied. “It gleams like gold, and lights and tints the curtains of our tent when we are conversing about marital love. For the heat of our sun, which in its essence is love, bares itself then and tinges the light, which in its essence is wisdom, with its own golden color. The reason is that marital love in origin is the interplay of wisdom and love; for man is born to be wisdom, and woman to be the love of man’s wisdom. So the delights of that play exist in marital love and, from that love, between us and our wives. For thousands of years we have seen clearly that these delights are excellent and exalted in abundance, degree and vigor according to the worship of the Lord Jehovih among us, from whom inflows the heavenly union, or the heavenly marriage, namely, of love and wisdom.”
[8] After these words I saw a great light on a hill in the midst of the tents, and asked, “Where does that light come from?”
“From the holy place in our tent of worship,” was his reply.
I asked whether it was allowable to visit the tent. He said it was; and I went and saw a tabernacle, inside and out exactly like the tabernacle which was built for the children of Israel in the wilderness, the pattern of which was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai (Exodus xxv. 40; xxvi. 30).
I asked, “What is in the holy place, that so much light comes from it?”
“A tablet with the inscription, ‘The Covenant between Jehovah and the heavens,'” he replied, and said no more.
[9] We were ready to go now, and I asked, “Did any of you live with more than one wife in the natural world?”
He answered that he knew not one. “For we could not think of more. Those who did think of more told us that the states of heavenly blessedness of their souls, and along with those states the stamp of virility, instantly retreated from inmosts to the extremities of their bodies, even to the nails. When this was perceived they were expelled from our countries.”
Having spoken so, the man ran to his tent and returned with a pomegranate, containing an abundance of seeds of gold. He gave it to me and I brought it away as a token that we had been with those who had lived in the Golden Age. After farewells we left and returned home.
* These Memorabilia are repeated with some variations in Coronis, n. 37.
76.* II
The next day the same angel came to me and said, “Would you like me to guide and escort you to the people who lived in the Silver Age or epoch, to hear from them about the marriages of their time?” He added that neither can these be approached save under the Lord’s auspices.
I was in the spirit as before. I accompanied my guide, first to a hill in the southeast. When we had gained its gently sloping height, he showed me a wide stretch of land; far away we beheld a mountainlike eminence, between which and the hill where we stood was a valley and beyond it a plain from which the high ground rose gently.
Descending the hill to cross the valley, we saw here and there on either side wood and stone carved in the likeness of men and of various beasts, birds and fishes. I asked the angel, “What are these? Are they idols?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “They are figures representing different moral virtues and spiritual truths. The peoples of this epoch had a knowledge of correspondences; and as every man, beast, bird or fish corresponds to some quality, therefore each piece of sculpture represents an aspect of a virtue or truth, and several together the virtue or truth itself as a whole. They are what in Egypt were called hieroglyphics.”
[2] We passed through the valley, and entering the plain beheld horses and chariots�horses variously caparisoned and harnessed, and chariots of different form; some carved like eagles, others like whales, others like stags with horns, others like unicorns; and at the farther end also some wagons and stables around at the sides. But as we approached, both horses and chariots disappeared. In their stead we saw men, walking in pairs, conversing and reasoning. And the angel said to me, “Semblances of horses, chariots and stables, seen at a distance, are appearances of the rational intelligence of the men of this epoch. For by correspondence a horse signifies the understanding of truth; a chariot, doctrine about truth; and stables, instruction. In this world, you know, all things appear according to correspondences.”
[3] But we proceeded past these and went up a long ascent, and at last saw a city, which we entered. As we walked along, we surveyed the houses from street and square. They were so many palaces built of marble, with steps of alabaster in front, and pillars of jasper at the sides of the steps. We also saw temples of precious stone of the color of sapphire and lapis lazuli.
And the angel told me, “Their houses are of stone because stones signify natural truths, and precious stones spiritual truths; and all those who lived in the Silver Age had intelligence from spiritual truths and from natural truths thence. Silver has a like significance.”
[4] As we traversed the city we saw consorts here and there in pairs; and because they were husbands and wives, we hoped to be asked in somewhere. As we were going by in that expectation, we were called back by two to their house; and we ascended and entered. Speaking for me, the angel explained to them our reason in coming to this heaven, that it was “for instruction about marriages among the ancients from among whom you in this heaven are.”
“We were from peoples in Asia,” they answered. “The study of our age was truths, by which we had intelligence. This was the study of our soul and mind. But the study of our bodily senses was the representation of truths by forms. The knowledge of correspondences united what was of the bodily senses with the perceptions of our minds, and so integrated our intelligence.”
[5] Hearing this the angel asked them to tell us something about marriages among them.
“There is a correspondence,” said the husband, “between spiritual marriage, which is of truth with good, and natural marriage, which is that of a man with one wife. As we have applied ourselves to correspondences, we have seen that the Church with its truths and goods cannot exist at all except with those who live in true marital love with one wife. For the marriage of good and truth is the Church in man. Therefore all of us here say that the husband is truth and the wife is its good; and that good cannot love any other truth than its own, nor can truth in return love any other good than its own. If any other were loved, the inward marriage which makes the Church would perish, and a merely external relationship would take its place, to which idolatry and not the Church corresponds. For this reason we call marriage with one wife `sacrimony,’ but were it contracted among us with more than one, we should call it sacrilege.”
[6] After this speech, we were admitted into an antechamber where were many designs on the walls, and small statues as if cast of silver. I asked, “What are these?” He said, “They are pictures and figures representing many of the qualities, attributes and delights of marital love. These represent the unity of the souls; these the conjunction of minds; these the concord of heart; and those, delights springing from them.”
While we were examining the designs and statues, we beheld on the wall what seemed to be a rainbow, composed of three colors, purple, blue and white. We saw the purple cross the blue and tinge the white with dark blue, and saw this color flow back through the blue into the purple, intensifying it to a dazzling radiance.
“Do you understand these things?” the husband asked.
I answered, “Instruct me.”
[7] He replied, “By correspondence the purple signifies the wife’s marital love; the white, the husband’s intelligence; the blue, the incipience of marital love from the wife in the husband’s perception; and the dark blue tingeing the white, marital love then in the husband. The fact that the color flowed back through the blue into the purple, intensifying it to a dazzling radiance, signifies the marital love of the husband flowing back to the wife. Such things are represented on the walls when, in meditation on marital love and its mutual, successive and simultaneous union, we watch intently the rainbows painted there.”
To this I said, “These figurative things are more than mystical today, for they are representations of arcana in the marital love of one man with one wife.”
“They are,” he said, “but to us here they are not arcana and therefore not mystical either.”
[8] When he had spoken, a chariot appeared in the distance drawn by two small white horses. At sight of it, the angel said, “That chariot is a sign we must go.”
As we descended the steps, our host gave us a cluster of white grapes with leaves from the vine attached; and lo! the leaves turned silver. We brought them away as a token that we had spoken with people of the Silver Age.
* These Memorabilia are repeated with some variations in Coronis, n. 37.
77.* III
The next day my angel guide and companion came again and said, “Make ready, and let us go to the heavenly inhabitants in the west, the people who lived in the third epoch or Copper Age. Their dwelling-places extend from the south over the west northward, but not into the north.”
I made ready and accompanied him. We entered their heaven from the south, where was a magnificent grove of palms and laurels, through which we passed. At its western border we came upon giants, of twice the size of ordinary men. They asked us, “Who let you in through the grove?”
“The God of heaven,” said the angel.
They responded, “We are guards of the ancient western heaven, but pass on.
[2] We proceeded and from a lookout saw a mountain towering to the clouds. Between us on the lookout and the mountain was village after village, with gardens, groves and fields between. We travelled past the villages to the mountain and ascended. Its summit proved to be, not a peak, but a plain with an extensive and spacious city on it. All its houses were of rosin tree woods and their roofs of boards.
I asked, “Why are the houses here of wood?”
The angel replied, “Because wood signifies natural good, and the men of the third era on earth were in that good. Copper also signifies natural good, and therefore those early people named the age in which they lived from copper. The sacred buildings here are also built of olive wood. In the center of each is a sanctuary where in an ark lies the Word given to the inhabitants of Asia before the Israelitish Word, the historical books of which are called, ‘The Wars of Jehovah,’ and the prophetical books, ‘Enunciations,’** both mentioned by Moses in Numbers xxi. 14, 15, 27-30. This Word is now lost in the countries of Asia and is preserved only in Great Tartary.”
The angel then led me to one of the buildings, and we looked in and saw the sanctuary at the center, all in the most brilliant white light. The angel said, “The light is from that ancient Asiatic Word; all Divine truth shines in the heavens.”
[3] Leaving the building we heard that the news had spread in the city that two strangers were there, and that they ought to be questioned whence they were, and what their business in the place was. An attendant from the palace appeared and ordered us before the judges.
To the question whence we were and what our business was, we answered, “We came through the grove of palm trees and also passed the abodes of the giants who are the guards of your heaven, and afterwards through the district of villages, from which you may conclude that it is not of ourselves but of the God of heaven that we have arrived here. The business on which we have come is to be informed about your marriages, whether they are monogamous or polygamous.”
They replied, “What are polygamous marriages? Are they not scortatory?”
[4] Thereupon the assembled judges deputed an intelligent man to instruct us in his own house on our business. At his home he drew his wife to his side and addressed us as follows:
“We possess precepts on marriage preserved among us from the primeval or most ancient people, who were in true marital love and thus more than others in the vigor and potency of that love in the world, and who are now in a most blessed state in their heaven, which is in the east. We are their descendants. They as fathers gave us as sons canons of life, among which is this on marriage: `Sons, if you would love God and the neighbor, and if you would be wise, and be happy to eternity, we counsel you to live in monogamy. If you depart from this precept, every heavenly love will flee from you, and internal wisdom with it, and you will be destroyed.’ To this precept of our fathers we as sons have hearkened. And we have perceived the truth of it, which is, that in so far as a man loves his married partner alone he becomes heavenly and internal; and that in so far as a man does not love his married partner alone he becomes natural and external, and does not love at all, except himself and the imaginations of his own mind, and is foolish and mad. Hence all of us in this heaven live in monogamy. [5] Because we do, all the boundaries of our heaven are guarded against polygamists, adulterers and whoremongers. If polygamists get in, they are cast out into the darkness of the north; if adulterers, they are cast out into the fires of the west; and if whoremongers, they are cast out into the fatuous lights of the south.”
On hearing this I asked what he meant by the darkness of the north, the fires of the west, and the fatuous lights of the south.
He answered, “The darkness of the north is mental obtuseness and ignorance of truth; the fires of the west are loves of what is evil; and the fatuous lights of the south are falsifications of truth. Falsifications of truth are spiritual whoredoms.”
[6] Then he said, “Follow me to our treasure house.”
We followed, and he showed us writings of the most ancient peoples, pointing out that they were on tablets of wood and stone, and later on polished tablets of wood; while the second age inscribed its writings on parchments. He brought out a parchment onto which the canons of the first people had been copied from tables of stone, among which also was the precept on marriage.
When we had seen these and other memorable things of very early antiquity, the angel said, “It is time for us to go now.”
Thereupon our host went out into his garden, broke some twigs from a tree and tied them in a bunch, and gave them to us, saying, “These twigs are from a tree native or peculiar to our heaven, the sap of which has a balsamic fragrance.”
We brought the bunch away with us, and descended by a way at the east, which was not guarded. Behold, the twigs turned to shining brass and the tips of them to gold, as a token that we had been with the people of the third age, which is named from copper or bronze.
* These Memorabilia are repeated with some variations in Coronis, n. 37.
** Translated “Proverbs” in the Authorized Version.
78.* IV
Three days later the angel spoke to me again, saying, “Let us finish the cycle of the ages. There still remains the last age, named from iron. The people of the Iron Age live in the north, on the westward side, and far westward. They are all from ancient inhabitants of Asia who had the Ancient Word and worshiped according to it; of a time, therefore, prior to the advent of our Lord into the world. This is evident from writings of the ancients in which those epochs are so named. The same ages are meant by the statue seen by Nebuchadnezzar, the head of which was gold, the breast and arms silver, the belly and thighs brass, the legs iron, and the feet iron and clay (Daniel ii. 32, 33).
[2] The angel told me these things along the way, which was shortened and speeded by changes of state induced on our minds according to the genius of the inhabitants through the midst of whom we passed; for spaces and therefore distances in the spiritual world are appearances according to states of mind. When we raised our eyes, behold, we were in a forest of beeches, chestnut trees and oaks; and looking about we saw bears to the left and leopards to the right.
When I wondered at this the angel said, “They are not bears or leopards, but men, who guard these dwellers in the north. With their nostrils they scent the spheres of life of such as go by, and rush upon all who are spiritual; for the inhabitants are natural. Those who read the Word but draw nothing of doctrine from it appear in the distance like bears, and those who confirm falsities from it appear like leopards.” But seeing us, they turned away and we passed on.
[3] After the forest there appeared thickets; and then grassy fields divided into plots hedged by box. Then the country descended gently into a valley in which were any number of cities. We went by some, but entered a large one. Its streets were irregular; the houses likewise. They were built of brick with timbers between and plastered. In the squares were shrines of hewn limestone, the substructure of which was below the ground and the superstructure above. We went down into one of these by three steps; round about against the walls we saw idols in various forms and a crowd on their knees adoring them. In the center was a group over whom projected the head of the tutelary god of the city. As we were leaving, the angel told me that among the ancients who lived in the silver age (of whom we spoke above), idols were images representing spiritual truths and moral virtues; but that when the knowledge of correspondences was lost to memory and became extinct, those images first became objects of worship, and later were adored as gods. Hence arose idolatry.
[4] When we were outside the temple, we observed the people and their dress. They had faces like steel, of a bluish gray color; and were dressed like comedians, with skirts about the thighs hanging from a vest fitted tightly to the chest; on their heads were the curled hats of mariners.
“But enough of this,” said the angel. “Let us learn about the marriages of the peoples of this age.”
We entered the house of an important man, on whose head was a turret-like hat. He received us kindly, and said, “Walk in. Let us talk.
We entered the vestibule and sat down. I asked him about the marriages of this city and country. He said, “We do not live with one wife, but some of us with two or three, and some with more; for we delight in variety and in the obedience and honor accorded to majesty. These we receive from our wives when there are several. With only one there would not be enjoyment in variety but tedium from sameness; nor the flattery that comes from obedience but irritation from equality; nor would there be the satisfaction of ruling and so of honor, but disquiet from bickering about superiority. And what is woman? Is she not born subject to man’s will? To serve and not to rule? Therefore every husband here has royal majesty as it were in his own house. As this is what we love, it is also the blessedness of our life.”
[5] “But,” I asked, “where then is marital love, which makes two souls one, conjoins the minds, and blesses man? That love cannot be divided; divided, it becomes a burning heat which cools and passes away.”
To this he replied, “I do not understand what you say. What else blesses man but the rivalry of wives for the honor of first place with their husband?”
Saying this the man went to the seraglio, opening both doors. A lustful effluvium issued which stank like mire; it was from a polygamous love, which is at the same time connubial and scortatory. I got up and shut the doors.
[6] Afterwards I said, “How can you subsist on this earth when you have no true marital love and when you also worship idols?”
“As for connubial love,” he responded, “we are so violently jealous of our wives that we permit no one to enter our houses farther than the vestibule; where there is jealousy, there is love. As for the idols, we do not worship them, but we cannot think of the God of the universe except with the help of images before our eyes. For we cannot raise our thoughts above the senses of the body, or our thought of God higher than things visible.”
Again I asked, “Are not your idols highly diverse? How can they give a vision of the one God?”
“That is a mystery to us,” he answered. “Something of the worship of God lies hid in each form.”
I said, “You are merely sensuous and corporeal. You have neither a love of God nor a love of the married partner which derives anything from the spiritual. Yet these loves together make man, and from sensuous make him heavenly.”
[7] As I was saying this there appeared as it were lightning through the portal; and I asked, “What is that?”
He said, “Such lightning is a sign to us that the Ancient One from the East will come who teaches us about God, that He is one, and the only Omnipotent, who is the First and the Last. He also admonishes us not to worship idols, but to look on them only as images representative of those forces, proceeding from the one God, which together fashion the worship of Him. This Ancient One is our Angel whom we revere and to whom we hearken. He visits us and raises us up when we slip into obscure worship of God from phantasy about our images.”
[8] Having heard these things we left the house and the city. On the way we drew conclusions from what we had seen in the heavens, respecting the circuit and the progress of marital love. As for its circuit, marital love had passed from the east into the south, on into the west, and thence into the north. As for its progress, it had declined as it followed this circular course; that is to say, in the east it was celestial, in the south spiritual, in the west natural, and in the north sensuous; furthermore it declined in the same degree as did the love and worship of God. From which comes the conclusion that in the first age this love was like gold, in the second like silver, in the third like copper, in the fourth like iron, and that finally it ceased.
Then my angel guide and companion said, “Nevertheless, the hope upholds me that this love will be revived again by the God of heaven, who is the Lord; for it can be revived.”
* These Memorabilia are repeated with some variations in Coronis, n. 37.
79. V*
The angel who had been my guide and companion to the ancient peoples who had lived in the four ages, the golden, silver, copper, and iron, came to me again and said, “Do you wish to see what the age was like, and still is like, which succeeded those earlier epochs? Follow me, then, and you shall see. They are the people of whom Daniel prophesied:
A kingdom shall arise after those four wherein iron shall be mixed with miry clay; they shall mingle themselves by the seed of man, but they shall not cleave the one to the other, even as iron is not commingled with clay (Daniel ii. 41-43).”
He added, “‘The seed of man by which the iron shall be mingled with clay and yet they shall not cohere,’ means the truth of the Word falsified.”
[2] Whereupon I followed him, and on the way he told me: “These people dwell in the southwest, but at a great distance behind those who lived in the four earlier ages and also at a greater depth.”
We came by the south to a region bordering on the west and passed through a dreadful forest. In it were stagnant pools, out of which crocodiles lifted their heads and opened wide on us their gaping jaws set with teeth. Between the pools were frightful dogs, some three-headed like Cerberus, others two-headed; and as we passed they all glared at us with a horrible ravenous look and ferocious eyes. We entered the western part of this region and saw dragons and leopards, like those described in Revelation xii. 3 and xiii. 2.
[3] The angel said to me, “All the wild beasts which you have seen are not beasts but correspondences, and thus representative forms, of the lusts in which are the people whom we are about to visit. The lusts themselves are represented by those frightful dogs; the deceitfulness and craftiness of the people by the crocodiles; their falsities and depraved interest in the things of worship by the dragons and leopards. But the inhabitants represented do not dwell next to the forest, but beyond a great desert which intervenes, so that they can be kept entirely separate and apart from the peoples of the preceding ages. They are also totally alien and different from them. They have heads indeed above their breasts, and breasts above their loins, and loins above their feet, like the earliest men; but there is nothing of gold in their heads, or silver in their breasts, or of bronze in their loins, no, not even anything of pure iron in their feet; but in their heads is iron mixed with clay; in their breasts, both of these mixed with brass; in their loins, both also mixed with silver; and in their feet these are mixed with gold. By this inversion they have been changed from men into graven images of men, in whom nothing within coheres; for that which was highest has become lowest, so that what was the head has become the heel, and vice versa. To us in heaven they look like acrobats who, with the body upside down, lie upon their elbows and hitch forward; or like beasts which lie upon their backs, lift up their feet, and with the head buried in the earth, look up to heaven.”
[4] We passed through the forest and entered the desert which was no less terrible. There were mounds of stone with gullies between, from which hydras and vipers stealthily crept, and fiery serpents flew forth. The whole desert was a continuous descent, and going down the long decline, we came at length into a valley where dwell the inhabitants of that region and age.
Huts here and there grew in number and at length clustered in the form of a city. We entered the city, and lo! the houses were constructed of charred branches of trees cemented with mud. The roofs were covered with black slates. The streets were irregular, all narrow at first, but widening as they ran on, and broad at the ends, where there were squares. There were as many squares as there were streets.
As we entered the city darkness fell, for heaven could not be seen. We therefore looked up and light was given us and we saw. I asked those whom I met, “Can you see when heaven is not visible above you?”
“What makes you ask that?” they wanted to know. “We see clearly. We walk about in full light.”
Hearing this, the angel said to me, “Darkness is light to them and light darkness, just as with birds of night; for they look down and not up.”
We stepped into hovels here and there, and in each saw a man with his woman. We asked whether all of them dwelt each in a house with only one wife.
They answered, hissing, “Why do you say with only one wife? Why not ask whether we live with only one harlot? What is a wife but a harlot? It is not permissible under our laws to commit whoredom with more than one woman. And yet, to do so with more is not dishonorable or disgraceful among us, but it must be done outside the home. We boast about it among ourselves. In this way we enjoy license and its pleasure more than polygamists do. Why is a plurality of wives denied to us, when it has been granted and is granted to all the world around us? What is life with only one woman but captivity and imprisonment? But then, we break the bars of our prison and deliver and liberate ourselves from this slavery. Who is angry with a captive who frees himself when he can?”
[6] To this we answered, “Friend, you talk like one devoid of religion. Who that is imbued with any reason does not know that adulteries are profane and infernal? And that marriages are holy and heavenly? Are not adulteries to be found among the devils in hell, and marriages with the angels in heaven? Have you not read the sixth commandment** of the Decalogue? Or in Paul*** that adulterers can in no wise enter heaven?”
At this our host laughed heartily and looked on me as a simpleton and almost as a madman. At that moment a messenger came running from the head of the city and said, “Bring the two strangers into the square. If they will not come, drag them there. We have seen them in the shadows. They came in secretly. They are spies.”
And the angel said to me, “The reason we appeared to them in shadow is that the light of heaven in which we are is shadow to them, and the darkness of hell is light to them. This befalls them because they consider nothing sin, not even adultery, and therefore they see falsity altogether as truth. For falsity emits light to the satans in hell; while truth darkens their eyes like the shade of night.”
[7] We said to the messenger, “We are not going to be forced, still less dragged to the forum, but will go with you of our own accord.”
And we went. There was a great crowd there out of which some lawyers stepped and whispered in our ears, “Take care not to say anything against religion or the form of government or good manners.”
We replied, “We mean to speak in favor of them and according to them.”
And we asked, “What is your religion regarding marriages?”
At this the crowd muttered, and said, “What concern are marriages to you here? Marriages are marriages.”
We asked again, “What is your religion about whoredoms?”
The crowd murmured at this, too, saying, “What have you to do here with whoredoms? Whoredoms are whoredoms. Let him that is without guilt first cast a stone.”****
We asked a third time, “Does your religion teach that marriages are holy and heavenly? and that adulteries are profane and infernal?”
At this many in the crowd laughed aloud and mocked and jeered, saying, “Ask our priests, not us, about matters of religion. We acquiesce entirely in their pronouncements; for nothing of religion falls within the judgment of the understanding. Have you not heard that the understanding is insane as to the mysteries of which religion altogether consists? And what have deeds to do with religion? Is it not the utterances of a devout heart about expiation, satisfaction and imputation, and not works which render souls blessed?”
[8] Then some of the so-called wise of the city came to us and said,
“Leave the place! The crowd is inflamed. There will be a riot. We will talk with you about this matter alone.
There is a walk behind the court; let us withdraw there. Come along.”
And we followed. Then they asked us whence we came and what our errand was. We said:
“To be instructed about marriages; whether with you as with the ancients who lived in the golden, silver and copper ages they are sacred or not.”
They replied, “What! Sacred! Are they not deeds of the flesh and of the night?”
We answered, “Are they not also deeds of the spirit? And is not what the flesh does from the spirit, spiritual? And all that the spirit does, it does from the marriage of good and truth. Does not this spiritual marriage enter into the natural marriage of husband and wife?”
To this the so-called wise men responded, “You refine and exalt this thing too much. You climb above rational things to spiritual. Who can start there, descend thence, and thus form a judgment about anything?” and they added derisively, “Perhaps you have the wings of an eagle and can fly into the topmost region of heaven and see such things. We cannot.”
[9] Then we asked them to tell us from the height or element in which the winged ideas of their minds flew, whether they knew or could know that there is such a thing as a marital love of one man with one wife, into which are gathered all heaven’s beatitudes, satisfactions, joys, gladness and pleasure, and that this love is from the Lord according to the reception of good and truth from Him, that is, according to the state of the Church.
[10] Hearing this they turned away and said, “These men rave. They soar with their judgment into the ether; in empty speculation they disseminate nothings.”
Then they turned to us and replied, “We will make a direct answer to your windy conjectures and dreams.” And they said, “What has marital love in common with religion or with inspiration from God? Has not every man that love according to the state of his potency? Is it not equally with those outside the Church and with those inside it? Equally with Gentiles and with Christians? Yes, equally with the impious and the pious? Is not the strength of that love either from heredity, or good health, or temperate living, or the warmth of the climate? Can it not also be strengthened and stimulated by medicines? Is it not like that of beasts, especially birds, which love in pairs? Is that love not carnal? What has a carnal thing in common with the spiritual state of the Church? Does that love in its ultimate expression with a wife differ in the least from love in its ultimate expression with a harlot? Is there not similar lust? Similar delight? It is therefore damaging to trace the origin of marital love to holy things of the Church.”
[11] On hearing this we said to them, “You reason from the heat of lasciviousness and not from marital love. You are totally ignorant what marital love is because it is cold with you. We are convinced by what you have said that you are from the age named from and composed of iron and clay, which do not cohere, according to the prophecy in Daniel (ii. 43). For you make marital love and scortatory love to be one and the same. Do these cohere any more than iron and clay do? You are reputed to be wise and are so called; and yet you are anything but wise.”
Enraged, they shouted, and rallied the crowd to cast us out. But then by power given us by the Lord we held up our hands, and fiery serpents, vipers, hydras and dragons appeared from the desert, and rushed in and filled the city, from which the inhabitants fled in terror.
The angel informed me, “Newcomers from the earth arrive in this vicinity daily. The inhabitants are removed at intervals and cast down into gulfs at the west, which at a distance look like lakes of fire and brimstone. All these men are both spiritual and natural adulterers.”
* These Memorabilia are repeated with some variations in Coronis, n. 37.
** In dividing the Commandments, Swedenborg followed the custom of the church of his upbringing, the Lutheran Church, taking Exodus xx. 3-6 as one commandment, and making two of verse 37. The Commandment numbered the seventh in other Protestant churches is then the sixth.
*** Corinthians vi. 9.
**** John viii. 7.
At those words, I looked to the far west, and behold! There appeared as it were lakes of fire and brimstone. I asked the angel, “Why do the hells in that quarter have this appearance?”
He answered, “They appear like lakes from falsifications of truth; water in the spiritual sense is truth. The likeness of fire appears around and in them from love of evil; and of brimstone from love of the false. These three, lake, fire, and brimstone, are appearances, being correspondences of the evil loves in which those hells are. The inhabitants are locked up in eternal workhouses, where they labor for food, clothing and lodging. When they do evil, they are severely and miserably punished.”
[2] Again I asked the angel, “Why did you say that the people in this place are spiritual and natural adulterers? Why not say evil doers and impious?”
He replied, “Because all who consider adulteries nothing, that is, believe from confirmation that they are not sins, and therefore do them deliberately, are at heart evil doers and impious. For the human marital and religion take every step together. Every advance and every step from religion and toward religion is also an advance and step by and toward the marital which belongs to the Christian man and is peculiar to him.”
To the question, “What is this �marital’?” he said, “It is the desire of living with one wife only. The Christian has this desire as he has religion.”
[3] Afterwards I grieved in spirit that marriages, in ancient ages so very holy, had been so wretchedly changed into adulteries.
And the angel said, “It is the same with religion at the present day; for the Lord says:-
In the consummation of the age there shall be the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel. And there shall be great affliction, such as has not been from the beginning of the world . . . (Matthew xxiv. 15, 21)
�The abomination of desolation’ signifies falsification and derivation of all truth; �affliction’ signifies the state of the Church infested by evils and falsities; and �the consummation of the age,’ of which these things are predicated, signifies the lat time or end of the Church. The end is now; for no truth is left which has not been falsified; and falsification of truth is spiritual whoredom, which acts as one with natural whoredom; they cling together.
The angel said to me, “The Lord is being glorified by angels of eastern and western heavens on account of His advent.”
From southern and northern heavens only a gentle murmur was heard.
The angel followed it perfectly and told me first of all that glorifications and celebrations of the Lord are done from the Word, being done then from the Lord; for He is the Word, that is, the very Divine Truth therein.
Then he said, “Just now they are glorifying and celebrating the Lord in words spoken by Daniel the prophet:
You saw iron mixed with miry clay; they shall mingle themselves by the seed of man, but shall not cohere. .. . But in those days the God of the heavens shall make to arise a kingdom that shall not be destroyed for ages. It shall break in pieces and consume all those kingdoms, but itself shall stand for ages (Daniel ii. 43, 44).”
[2] After this I heard as it were the sound of a song, and saw deeper in the east a gleaming light more brilliant than the first. I asked the angel what the glorification there was.
He said, “In these words from Daniel:�
I saw in visions of the night, and behold! with the clouds of heaven one like unto the Son of man, and unto Him was given dominion … and a kingdom; and all peoples and nations … shall worship Him. His dominion is the dominion of an age, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed (Daniel vii. 13, 14).
In addition, they celebrate the Lord in words from the Apocalypse:-
To Jesus Christ be glory and might. Behold He comes with the clouds. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, … who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. I John heard this from the Son of man out of the midst of the seven candlesticks (Revelation i. 5-7, 8, 9, 10-13; xxii. 13; and from Matthew xxiv. 30, 31).”
[3] I looked again toward the eastern heaven and a light burst out on the right and spread to the southern expanse. I heard a sweet sound, and asked the angel, “For what are they glorifying the Lord there?”
He said, “In these words of the Apocalypse:-
I saw a new heaven and a new earth, and I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, descending from God out of heaven prepared as a bride for her husband. And the angel spoke with me and said, Come, I will show you the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife. And he carried me away in the spirit onto a mountain, great and high, and showed me the city, the holy Jerusalem (Revelation xxi. 1, 2, 9, 10).
And in these words:-
I Jesus am the bright and morning Star. And let the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. He said, Yea, I come quickly. Amen, yea, come, Lord Jesus (xxii. 16, 17, 20).”
[4] After these glorifications here and there, a general glorification began, extending from the east to the west of heaven, and also from the south to the north. I asked the angel, “What is it now?” He said, “A glorification in these words from the Prophets:-
Let all flesh know that I, Jehovah, am your Savior and your Redeemer (Isaiah xlix. 26).
Thus said Jehovah, the King of Israel, and your Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts, I am the First and the Last, and beside Me there is no God (Isaiah xliv. 6).
It shall be said in that day, Lo, This is our God, whom we have waited for, that He should deliver us. This is Jehovah, for whom we have waited (Isaiah xxv. 9).
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of Jehovah. Behold, the Lord Jehovih comes in strength. He shall feed His flock like a shepherd (Isaiah xl. 3, 10, 11).
Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, whose name is Wonderful, Counselor, God, Hero, the Father of Eternity, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah ix. 6).
Behold, the days come when I will raise unto David a just Branch, who shall reign as King. And this is His name, Jehovah our Righteousness (Jeremiah xxiii. 5, 6; xxxiii. 15, 16).
Jehovah Zebaoth is His name; and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall He be called (Isaiah liv. 5).
In that day . . . Jehovah shall be for a King over all the earth; in that day there shall be one Jehovah, and His name one (Zechariah xiv. 8, 9).”
[5] My heart exulted to hear and understand these glorifications. I went home in joy. There, returning from the state of the spirit into that of the body, I wrote down what I had seen and heard. To all of which I now add this: Marital love will be raised up anew by the Lord after His advent, such as it was with the ancients. For that love is from the Lord alone, and is with those who are made spiritual by Him through the Word.
* With some variations this paragraph appears as Memorabilia at True Christian Religion, n. 625.
I answered, “The doctrinal ideas of the Church which is meant by the ‘New Jerusalem’ are as follows: (1) There is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and He is the Lord Jesus Christ. (2) Saving faith is to believe in Him. (3) Evils are to be shunned as sins, because they are of the devil and from the devil. (4) Goods are to be done, because they are of God and from God. (5) They are to be done by a man as of himself; yet he must believe that they are from the Lord with him and through him.”
[2] On hearing these words, his fury abated for a few moments. But after some deliberation he looked at me grimly again and said, “Are these five precepts doctrinal ideas of the faith and charity of the new Church?”
I answered, “They are.”
Whereupon he asked me roughly, “How can you prove the first, ‘That there is one God, in whom is the Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord Jesus Christ’?”
I said, “I prove it thus: Is not God one and indivisible? Is there not a Trinity? If God is one and indivisible, is He not one person? If one person, is not the Trinity in that person? That He is the Lord Jesus Christ, I prove by this saying:
He was conceived of God the Father (Luke i. 34, 35);
so that as to the soul He is God, and hence, as He Himself says:-
The Father and He are one (John x. 30).
He is in the Father and the Father in Him (John xiv. 10, 11). He who sees Him and knows Him, sees and knows the Father (John xiv. 7, 9).
No one sees and knows the Father but He who is in the bosom of the Father (John i. 18).
All things of the Father are His (John iii. 35; xvi. 15).
He is the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by Him (John xiv. 6).
Thus He is from Him because He is in Him; and, according to Paul
In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Colossians ii. 9).
Further:
He has power over all flesh (John xvii. 2).
He has all power in heaven and on earth (Matthew xxviii. 18).
It follows that He is the God of heaven and earth.”
[3] Then he asked how I proved the second, ‘That saving faith is to believe in Him.’
I replied, “I prove it by these words of the Lord Himself:
This is the will of the Father, that every one who believes in the Son shall have everlasting life (John vi. 40).
God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life (John iii. 16).
He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; but he who believes not the Son shall not see life, but the anger of God abides on him (John iii. 36).”
[4] Then he said, “Prove the third also, and those that follow.”
I answered, “What need is there to prove that ‘evils are to be shunned because they are of the devil and from the devil’? And that ‘goods are to be done because they are of God and from God’? And that ‘these things ought to be done by man as if of himself, yet that he ought to believe that they are done from the Lord with him and through him’? Sacred Scripture from beginning to end confirms the truth of these three doctrines. What else does it contain in summary but admonition to shun evils and do goods and to believe in the Lord God? Without these three, moreover, there is no religion. Is not religion a matter of life? And what is life but shunning evils and doing goods? And how can a man do and believe these things except as of himself? Therefore if you take these doctrines away from the Church you take away the Sacred Scriptures from it, and you also take religion away from it, and when that is removed from it, the Church is not a Church.”
On hearing these things the man withdrew and pondered; but still he left in indignation.
83. IV
THE ORIGIN OF MARITAL LOVE IN THE MARRIAGE OF GOOD AND TRUTH
Marital love has internal and external origins, of each of which there are a number, but there is one inmost or universal origin. This, as we shall show in what now follows, is the marriage of good and truth. Marital love has not been traced to this source before because the existence of a union between good and truth has lain hidden. This has lain hidden because good does not, like truth, come into the light of the mind, and thus knowledge of it has concealed itself and eluded investigation. As good is consequently among things unknown, no one could surmise that there is a marriage between it and truth. Indeed, in the view of natural reason, good seems so remote from truth that conjunction is impossible. So our references to the two bear witness, for when the assertion is made, “This is good,” there is no thought of truth; and when the assertion is made, “This is truth,” there is no thought of good. Many therefore believe today that truth is one thing, and good wholly another. Indeed, there are many who think that a man is intelligent and wise, and thus a human being, according to the truths which he thinks, speaks, writes, and believes, and not at the same time according to goods. Yet there is no good without truth nor truth without good; consequently there is an eternal marriage between them, and this marriage is the origin of marital love, all of which we shall explain in this order:
i. Good and truth are the universals of creation and hence are in all created things, but are in the created subjects according to the form of each of these.
ii. Good does not occur solitary, nor does truth, but they are everywhere conjoined.
iii. There is “truth of good,” and “good of truth” therefrom, or “truth from good” and good from such truth, and an inclination to unite into one has been implanted in the two by creation.
iv. In subjects of the animal kingdom truth of good or truth from good is the masculine, good of truth therefrom or good from that truth is the feminine.
v. Love for the sex and marital love come by an influx of the marriage of good and truth from the Lord.
vi. Love for the sex is of the external or natural man, and so is common to all animals.
vii. But marital love is of the internal or spiritual man, and is therefore peculiar to man.
viii. In man marital love is within love for the sex like a gem in its matrix.
ix. Love for the sex with man is not the origin but the first stage of marital love, and is like an external natural in which an internal spiritual is implanted.
x. When marital love has been implanted, love for the sex alters and becomes chaste love for the sex.
xi. Male and female were created to be the very form of the marriage of good and truth.
xii. It is as the interiors of their minds are opened, that they come into this form in their inmosts and then in the derivations from the inmosts.
Good and truth are the universals of creation inasmuch as they are in the Lord God the Creator, indeed are God, for He is Divine Good itself and Divine Truth itself. This may fall more clearly into the perception of the understanding and into the idea of thought, if instead of good we say love, and instead of truth, wisdom. To put it so, there are in the Lord God the Creator Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and these are God, that is, He is Love itself and Wisdom itself. These two are the same as good and truth, good being of love, and truth of wisdom, for love consists of goods and wisdom of truths. Since the two sets of terms mean the same thing, in what follows we shall use now one and now the other, intending no difference of meaning. We premise this note, lest the understanding conceive a difference when the terms are used in what follows.
* Nn. 220 [1, 2], 433.
The wisdom which makes this form and receives this love is rational wisdom and at the same time moral wisdom. Rational wisdom regards goods and truths, which appear interiorly in one, not as one’s own, but as inflowing from the Lord. Moral wisdom shuns as leprosies evils and falsities, especially things lascivious which contaminate its marital love.*
* In the original Latin this paragraph is enclosed in quotation marks.
I
One morning before sunrise, as I looked toward the east in the spiritual world, I beheld four horsemen flying, so it seemed, out of a cloud resplendent with the glow of dawn. On the horsemen’s heads appeared crested helmets; on their arms, as it were wings; and about their bodies light tunics of an orange color. Thus arrayed as for speed, they bent forward and drew the reins taut over the manes of their horses, which sped along as though their feet were winged. I followed their course or flight with my eyes, with a mind to know where they were going. Three of the horsemen shot off in three directions, south, west and north; and the fourth came to an abrupt stop in the east.
[2] Wondering at this, I looked up to heaven and asked where the horsemen were going. I received for answer:
“To the wise in the kingdoms of Europe, men of keen reason and acute insight in investigating subjects, who enjoy high praise among their people for their genius; that they may come and explain the secret of The Origin of Marital Love and of its Vigor or Potency.”
They said from heaven, “Wait a while and you will see twenty-seven chariots, three with Spaniards in them, three with French or Gauls, three with Italians, three with Germans, three with Batavians or Hollanders, three with English, three with Swedes, three with Danes, and three with Poles.”
After two hours the chariots appeared, drawn by small, light-bay horses, elegantly caparisoned. They swept toward a spacious building which was to be seen in the southeast. There all the occupants of the chariots alighted, and entered with an air of confidence.
And I was bidden, “Do you go in, too, and listen.”
[3] I went and entered. Examining the building inside, I noted that it was square, the sides turned to the four quarters. On each side were three lofty windows of crystalline glass, with frames of olive wood. Beside each window were projections from the walls like chambers, vaulted over, with tables in them. The walls of the chambers were of cedar, the roof of noble thyine-wood, and the floor of poplar plank. Against the eastern wall, which had no windows, stood a table overlaid with gold, on which was placed a tiara studded with precious stones; this was to be bestowed as a prize or reward on the man who should solve the secret about to be propounded. [4] As I glanced along the chambered projections, like so many closets beside the windows, I saw in each five men from each kingdom of Europe, ready and awaiting the subject on which they were to form judgments.
At that instant an angel stood in the center of the palace, and said, “The subject on which you are to form a judgment is The Origin of Marital Love and of its Vigor or Potency. Consider it and decide. Set down your decision on a paper to be put into this silver urn which you see placed beside the golden table. Subscribe yourselves with the initial letter of the kingdom from which you are; that is, for the French or Gauls, F; for the Batavians or Hollanders, B; for the Italians, I; for the English, E; for the Poles, P; for the Germans, G; for the Spaniards (Hispani), H; for the Danes, D; and for the Swedes, S.” With these words the angel departed, saying, “I shall return.”
Then the five compatriots in the apartments by the windows revolved and analysed the proposition, and according to the excellence of their gift of judgment made their decision, wrote it on sheets of paper subscribed with the initial letter of their kingdom, and cast it into the silver receptacle. This was over in three hours, when the angel returned, drew the papers out of the urn, one after another, and read them to the assemblage.
On hearing this some one said in a mocking tone, “Predestination! What a handsome justification for defect or impotence!”
Hearing this there was a cry from the tables, “Put that paper aside and take another from the urn.”
And a man shall leave father and mother; and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh (Genesis ii. 24).
That it may be inspired into Christians is plain from these words:�
Jesus said, Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning made them male and female? And He said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh; wherefore they are no more two but one flesh (Matthew xix. 4-6).
So much on the origin of marital love. But the origin of the vigor or potency of true marital love, we conjecture, arises from similarity of minds and unanimity. For when two minds are conjoined in marriage, their thoughts spiritually kiss each other and breathe their vigor or potency into the body.” To this was subscribed the letter S.
All the tables agreed by show of hands to give permission.
One of the Africans thereupon entered and standing by the table on which the tiara was placed, said, “You Christians trace the origin of marital love to the love itself. We Africans trace it to the God of heaven and earth. Is not marital love a chaste, pure and holy love? Are not the angels of heaven in that love? Are not the whole human race and the whole angelic heaven therefrom the fruitage of that love? Can anything so preeminent have any other source than God Himself, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe? You Christians trace marital vigor or potency to different rational and natural causes. We Africans trace it to man’s state of conjunction with the God of the universe. This state we call a state of religion, but you call it a state of the Church. For when the love is from that union and is steady and perpetual, it is bound to put forth its vigor which bears its likeness and therefore is also steady and perpetual. True marital love is the experience of the few who are near to God; and therefore the potency of that love is known to no others. The love and the potency are described by the angels in heaven as the delight of perpetual spring.”
115. II
Aroused* from sleep in the middle of the night, I saw at a height toward the east an angel holding in his right hand a paper, which was glistening white under the inflowing light of the sun; and in the middle of it was some writing in letters of gold. I saw written: The Marriage of Good and Truth. From the writing flashed a radiance which spread in a wide circle around the paper. The widening circle looked like a dawn in springtime.
After this I saw the angel descending with the paper in his hand. As he descended, it glistened less and less, and the inscription, “The Marriage of Good and Truth,” changed in color from gold to silver, then to copper, afterwards to iron, and finally to the color of iron rust and copper rust. At last the angel seemed to pass into a bedimming mist and through it to the ground, and there the paper, although still in the angel’s hand, was not to be seen. This happened in the world of spirits where all men first meet after death.
[2] Then the angel spoke to me, saying, “Ask those who come this way whether they see me, or anything in my hand.”
There came a multitude, a company from the east, one from the south, another from the west, and a company from the north. I asked those who came from the east and the south (in the world they had devoted themselves to learning) whether they saw anybody with me, and saw anything in his hand. All replied they saw nothing at all. I then put my question to those who came from the west and the north (men who in the world had rested their belief on words of the learned). They said they saw nothing. But some in the background (who in the world had lived in simple faith from charity or in some truth from good), when the rest had left, said that they saw a man with a paper�a man in seemly apparel, and a paper with letters on it. When they looked more closely, they said that they read, “The Marriage of Good and Truth.” They addressed the angel, and asked him to tell what this meant.
[3] And he said, “All things which exist anywhere in either heaven or the world are nothing but a marriage of good and truth. Each and all things, both those which live and breathe and those which do not live and breathe, were created by and into the marriage of good and truth. Nothing whatever is created in truth alone and nothing whatever in good alone. Neither good solitary nor truth solitary is anything; they exist and become something by marriage, and something of a similar kind with the marriage. Divine Good and Divine Truth are to be found in their very substance in the Lord the Creator. The esse of His substance is Divine Good, and the existere of His substance is Divine Truth. Good and truth are also in their very union in Him; for they make one infinitely in Him. Being one in the Creator Himself, these two are also one in each and all things created by Him. Thereby the Creator and all things created by Him are united in an eternal covenant as it were of marriage.”
[4] The angel said further that Sacred Scripture, which proceeded directly from the Lord, is in general and in particular a marriage of good and truth. Moreover, as the Church, which is formed by truth of doctrine, and religion, which is formed by good of life according to truth of doctrine, are derived with Christians solely from Sacred Scripture, it is evident that the Church, too, in general and in particular, is a marriage of good and truth. (That it is, see Apocalypse Revealed, nn. 373, 483.) What we have said about the marriage of good and truth may be said as well of the marriage of charity and faith, for good is of charity and truth is of faith.
Some of those who had failed to see the angel or the writing, but were still standing near, hearing these things, said under their breath, “Why, of course, that is plain.” Whereupon the angel said to them, “Turn away a little from me and repeat what you said.” They turned away and said in a loud voice, “It is not so.”
[5] After this the angel spoke about the marriage of good and truth with married partners, saying that if their minds were in that marriage, or if the husband was truth and the wife the good of this truth, they would both be in the delights of the blessedness of innocence, and thence in the happiness in which the angels of heaven are. In that state the generative power of the husband would be at a perpetual springtime, and so in the effort and ability to propagate his truth; and the wife would be in perpetual reception of it from love: “Wisdom from the Lord with men knows nothing more agreeable than to propagate its truths. Love of wisdom with wives knows nothing more delightful than to receive these truths as in the womb and so to conceive them, carry them in the womb and give them birth. Of this sort are the spiritual prolifications among the angels of heaven. And if you will believe it, natural prolifications have the very same origin.”
After a salutation of peace the angel rose from the earth, and passing through the mist ascended into heaven. Then the paper in his hand glistened as before, ever more brightly as he ascended. The circle of light about it which had looked like the dawn, crept down and dispelled the mist which had thrown a shadow over the earth; and the sun came out.
* These Memorabilia, abbreviated, occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 624.
116. V
THE MARRIAGE OF THE LORD AND THE CHURCH, AND ITS CORRESPONDENCE
We also deal at this point with the marriage of the Lord and the Church, and its correspondence, because without knowledge and intelligence on this subject one can hardly know that marital love is holy, spiritual and celestial in origin and is from the Lord. Some in the Church do say that marriages bear a relation to the marriage of the Lord and the Church, but what the relation is, is not known. In order to place the relation in some light of the understanding, we give a separate chapter to that holy marriage, which is with and in those who constitute the Lord’s Church; these and no others have true marital love. To elucidate this arcanum, our discussion is to be divided into the following propositions:
i. In the Word the Lord is called Bridegroom and Husband and the Church Bride and Wife; and the conjunction of the Lord with the Church and the reciprocal conjunction of the Church with the Lord, is called marriage.
ii. So, too, the Lord is called Father, and the Church Mother.
iii. The offspring of the Lord as Father and of the Church as Wife and Mother are all spiritual, and are meant in the spiritual sense of the Word by sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, and by other names denoting generation.
iv. The spiritual offspring, born of the marriage of the Lord and the Church, are truths, from which are understanding, perception and all thought; and goods, from which are love, charity and all affection.
v. From the marriage of good and truth, proceeding and in flowing from the Lord, the human being receives truth; to this the Lord conjoins good; and so the Church is formed with man by the Lord.
vi. The husband does not represent the Lord and the wife the Church, inasmuch as both together, husband and wife, constitute the Church.
vii. There is therefore no correspondence of the husband with the Lord or of the wife with the Church in the marriages either of the angels in heaven or of men on earth.
viii. But the correspondence is with marital love, impregnation, the bearing of offspring, love for children, and like things in and of marriages.
ix. The Word is the medium of conjunction, for it is from the Lord, and is the Lord.
x. The Church is from the Lord and with those who approach Him and live according to His commandments.
xi. Marital love is according to the state of the Church with a man, because it is according to the state of wisdom with him.
xii. Because the Church is from the Lord, marital love also is.
Explanation of the propositions follows.
He who has the Bride is the Bridegroom; but the friend of the Bridegroom, who stands and hears Him, rejoices with great joy at the Bridegroom’s voice (John iii. 29);
John the Baptist spoke this of the Lord.
Jesus said, As long as the Bridegroom is with them, the children of the nuptials cannot fast: the days will come when the Bridegroom will be taken away from them, then will they fast (Matthew ix. 15, Mark ii. 19, 20, Luke v. 34, 35).
I saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem .. . prepared as a Bride adorned for her husband (Revelation xxi. 2);
by the ‘New Jerusalem,’ the Lord’s new Church is meant (see Apocalypse Revealed, nn. 880, 881 ).
The angel said to John, Come, I will show you the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife; and he showed him the Holy City, Jerusalem (Revelation xxi. 9, 10) .
The time of the nuptials of the Lamb has come, and His Wife has made herself ready: . . . blessed are those who have been called to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Revelation xix. 7, 9).
The Lord also is meant by the Bridegroom whom the five virgins who were ready went to meet and with whom they entered into the wedding (Matthew xxv. 1-10), as is plain from verse 13, where it is said,
Watch therefore, for you know not the day or the hour in which the Son of man will come.
We might cite many passages from the Prophets, too.
A Child is born to us, a Son is given us, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, God, … the Father of eternity, the Prince of peace (Isaiah ix. 6).
Thou, Jehovah, art our Father, Redeemer from eternity is Thy name (Isaiah lxiii. 16).
Jesus said, He who sees Me, sees the Father, who sent Me (John xii. 45).
If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from henceforth you know Him and have seen Him (John xiv. 7).
Philip said, Show us the Father, . . . Jesus said to him . . . He that has seen Me, has seen the Father; why then do you say, show us the Father? ( John xiv. 8, 9).
Jesus said, The Father and I are One (John x. 30).
All things which the Father has, are mine (John xvi. 15; xvii. 10).
The Father is in Me, and I in the Father (John x. 38; xiv. 10, 11, 20).
We have demonstrated in the Apocalypse Revealed that the Lord and His Father are one as soul and body are one; that God the Father descended from heaven and assumed the humanity to redeem and save men; and that it is the humanity which is called the Son, who was sent into the world.
Jehovah said, Plead with your mother, she is not my wife, and I am not her husband (Hosea ii. 2);
You are your mother’s daughter, who loathes her husband (Ezekiel xvi. 45)
Where is the bill of your mother’s divorcement, whom I put away? (Isaiah 1.i);
Your mother is like a vine … planted by the waters, fruitful (Ezekiel xix. 10);
all this with reference to the Jewish Church.
Stretching forth His hand, Jesus said, My mother and my brothers … are those who hear the Word of God and do it (Luke viii. 21; Matthew xii. 49, 50; Mark iii. 33-35)
the Church is meant by the “Lord’s disciples.”
His mother stood at Jesus’ cross … And Jesus, seeing His mother and the disciple standing near whom He loved, said to His mother, Woman, behold, your son; and He said to the disciple, Behold, your mother; wherefore from that hour the disciple took her in his own home (John xix. 25-27).
These words indicate that the Lord did not recognize Mary but the Church as His mother; hence He calls her “woman” and mother of the disciple. He called her the mother of this particular disciple, John, for the reason that John represented the Church as to the goods of charity�these are the Church in its whole effect. Therefore it is said that John took her to his home. See in Apocalypse Revealed (nn. 5, 6, 790, 798, 879) that Peter represented truth and faith, James charity, and John the works of charity; and (nn. 233, 790, 903, 915) that the twelve disciples together represented the Church as to all its elements.
He is in them, and they in Him (John xv. 4, 5).
Which was with God, and which was God, from which is the life and light of men, and which was made flesh (John i. 1-14).
Again, the Church is with those who approach the Lord, because it is with those who believe in Him. To believe that He is God the Savior and Redeemer, Jehovah our Righteousness, the Door by which one enters the sheepfold or the Church, and that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; that no one comes to the Father except by Him; that the Father and He are one, besides much else which He teaches�these things, I say, no one can believe except from Him. One cannot believe them unless the Lord is approached, for the reason that He is God of heaven and earth, as He also teaches. Who else is there to approach? And who else can be approached? Finally, the Church is with those who live according to His commandments, for the reason that only with these is conjunction effected. For he says,
He who has My commandments and does them, he it is that loves Me, … and I will love him … and will make My abode with him … but he who loves Me not, does not keep My commandments (John xiv. 21-24).
Love is conjunction, and conjunction with the Lord is the Church.
*Man has knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge is a matter of cognition, intelligence of reason, and wisdom of life. Comprehensively regarded, wisdom is a matter at once of cognition, reason and life. Cognitions come first, reason is formed by them, and wisdom by both as a man lives rationally in accord with the verities of knowledge. Wisdom is therefore both of the reason and of life; while it is of the reason and thence of life, it is becoming wisdom, and when it has been made a thing of life and thence of reason, it is wisdom. The most ancient people in the world acknowledged no wisdom other than wisdom of life. Such was the wisdom of those who used to be called sophi. The ancient people who succeeded the most ancient, took for wisdom the wisdom of reason; they were known as philosophi. But today there are many who call mere knowledge wisdom; the trained, erudite and merely informed are called wise; so has wisdom slipped from peak to valley.
[2] But let us say something, too, about what wisdom is in its rise, progress and whole estate. The things of the Church, which are called spiritual, reside in man’s inmost being; the things of the state, called civic, occupy a place below them; and those of knowledge, experience and skill called natural, constitute the substructure. The things of the Church, called spiritual, reside in the inmosts, because these things are conjoined with heaven and by heaven with the Lord; no other things enter man from the Lord by way of heaven. The things of the state, called civic, occupy a place below the spiritual because they are conjoined with the world, being of the world; for they are statutes, laws and regulations binding men together into a stabilized and orderly society and state. The things of knowledge, experience and skill, called natural, make the substructure because they are closely bound up with the five senses of the body, and these are lowest things in which interior things, which are of the mind, and inmost things, which are of the soul, are as it
[3] were seated. Now, in view of the fact that the things of the Church, called spiritual, reside in the inmost, and what resides there makes the head, and those which come under them, called civic things, make the body, and the last things, called natural, make the feet, it is plain that when these three follow in order, the human being is a perfected man; for they inflow then as do those which are of the head into the body, and by the body into the feet; that is, the spiritual into the civic, and by the civic into the natural. Being in the light of heaven, spiritual things illuminate with their light the things which follow in order, and with their heat, which is love, they animate them, and when this happens, man has wisdom.
[4] We said above that wisdom is of the life and thence of the reason; just what is this wisdom of life? Briefly apprehended, it is this: to shun evils, because they are the ruination of the soul, of the state, and of the body; and to do goods, because these are the enrichment of soul, state and body. This is the wisdom with which marital love is bound up. Marital love is inevitably bound up with a wisdom which shuns the evil of adultery as a bane to soul, state and body. This wisdom springs from things spiritual, moreover, which are of the Church, and it follows that marital love is according to the state of the Church with a man, with which his state of wisdom accords. By this is meant, too, as has been said frequently in what precedes, that as far as a man is spiritual, so far he is in true marital love; for man is made spiritual through the spiritual things of the Church. More about the wisdom with which marital love is united, may be seen below (nn. 163-165).
* From this point this number in the original Latin is enclosed in quotation marks.
I
I was speaking once* with two angels, one from an eastern heaven, the other from a southern heaven, who, when they perceived that I was meditating on arcana of wisdom about marital love, inquired, “Are you acquainted with the Schools of Wisdom in our world?” I replied that I was not. They remarked, “There are a number of them. Men who love truths from spiritual affection, or because they are truths, and wisdom is to be had thereby, meet at a given signal, and discuss and draw conclusions on questions calling for unusually profound understanding.” Then they took me by the hand, saying, “Come with us; you shall see and hear. The signal has been given for a meeting today.”
I was led across a plain to a hill; from the foot of the hill an avenue of palms stretched to the very top. We entered the avenue and ascended. On the summit of the hill a grove appeared, the trees of which on a rising ground formed a kind of amphitheater, with a level space paved with multicolor pebbles. Around this space were placed seats forming a square, where the lovers of wisdom were seated; and in the center was a table on which lay a paper sealed with a seal. [2] The occupants of the seats invited us to places still vacant; but I responded, “I was shown here by two angels to see and hear, not to join the assembly.” Then the two angels went to the table in the center of the level area, broke the seal on the paper, and read to those who sat there the arcana of wisdom written on it, which they were to consider and unfold. These had been written by angels of the third heaven, and lowered upon the table.
There were three arcana: First, What is “Me image of God,” and what is” the likeness of God,” in which man was created? Second, Why is man not born into the knowledge belonging to a love, when yet beasts and birds, ignoble and noble alike, are born into the knowledges belonging to their loves? Third, What is meant by “the tree of life”? And what by “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”? And what by “eating” of them?
Underneath was written, “Combine these three into one view, write it on a clean sheet of paper, place it on the table, and we shall see. If, on being weighed, the view seems balanced and just, each of you will be given a reward of wisdom.” Having read aloud the instructions, the two angels withdrew and were taken up into their heavens.
[3] Then those who sat there began to consider and unfold the arcana propounded to them. They spoke in turn, first those who sat on the north side, then those on the west, after them those on the south, and last of all, those at the east. They took up the first topic for consideration, which was, What is “the image of God,” and what is “the likeness of God,” in which man was created? But to begin with, the following words from the Book of Creation were read aloud before them all:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him (Genesis i. 26, 27).
In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him (v. 1).
Those who sat at the north spoke first, saying, “The image of God and the likeness of God are the two lives breathed into man by God�the life of the will and the life of the understanding. For we read:
Jehovah God … breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of lives; and man became a living soul (Genesis ii. 7).
`Into the nostrils’ means into a perception that in him are a will of good and an understanding of truth, thus the breath of lives. As life was breathed into man by God, the image and likeness of God mean integrity in man from wisdom and love and from righteousness and judgment.”
Those who sat at the west approved; only they added that this state of integrity breathed into man by God has been breathed into every man since; but it is in man as in a receptacle; only as far as he is a receptacle is a man an image and likeness of God.
[4] Then the third in turn, those who sat at the south, said,
“The image of God and the likeness of God are two distinguishable things, but are united in man from creation. We see, as from interior light, that the image of God may be destroyed by man, but not the likeness of God. We find a suggestion of this in the fact that Adam retained the likeness of God after he had lost the image of God; for we read after the curse:
Behold the man is as one of us, in knowing good and evil (Genesis iii. 22).
And later he is called the likeness of God, but not the image of God (Genesis v. 1). But let us leave it to our associates in the east who are in greater light, to say what, strictly, the image of God and the likeness of God are.”
[5] There was a hush, and then those sitting at the east rose from their seats and looked up to the Lord. Resuming their seats, they said, “The image of God is a receptacle of God; and as God is love itself and wisdom itself, the image of God in man is the receptacle in him of love and wisdom from God. But the likeness of God is the complete look and entire appearance that love and wisdom are in man, just as if they were his own. For man feels no otherwise than that he loves and is wise of himself, or that he wills good and understands truth of himself, when yet it is not at all of himself, but of God. God alone loves and is wise of Himself, for He is very love and very wisdom. The look or appearance that love and wisdom or good and truth are in man as his own, causes him to be man, and renders him capable of being united to God and so of living to eternity. It follows that man is man in that he can will good and understand truth as of himself, but still know and believe that it is of God. For, through his knowing and believing this, God puts His image in him. This could not be if a man believed that all is from himself and not from God.”
[6] Having said so much, in an access of zeal from their love of truth they continued: “How can man receive anything of love and wisdom, or retain and reproduce it, unless he feels it is his own? How can there be conjunction with God through love and wisdom unless the man has a reciprocal part in the conjunction? There is no conjunction without what is reciprocal; and man’s reciprocal role in this union is that he shall love God and be wise in the things which are of God as of himself, and yet believe that it is of God. Further, how can man live to eternity unless he is conjoined with the eternal God? And consequently, how can man be man without the likeness of God in him?”
[7] All had listened with approval, and said, “Let the conclusion be this: ‘The human being is a receptacle of God, and a receptacle of God is an image of God; and as God is love itself and wisdom itself, it is of these that man is a receptacle; and in proportion as he receives, the receptacle becomes an image of God. Man is a likeness of God in that he feels within himself that the things which are of God are as his own in him; and yet with this likeness he is only so far an image of God as he acknowledges that love and wisdom or good and truth in him are not his own and hence not of himself, but are solely in God and therefore of God.'”
* These Memorabilia are repeated in True Christian Religion, n. 48.
[2] Then they confirmed the statement that beasts, both noble and ignoble, such as land animals, birds of the air, reptiles, fish, the worms called insects, are born into all the knowledges necessary to the loves of their life. For example, into knowledge about food and shelter, about sex-love and breeding, and about raising their young. They confirmed this by remarkable examples which they recollected from what they had seen, heard, and read in the natural world (so they called our world in which they had once lived), where animals are not representative but real. Having thus established the truth of the proposition, they turned their minds to investigate and discover those ends and causes through which they might unfold and disclose this arcanum. They were agreed that such things must spring from Divine Wisdom, in order that man may be man, and beast be beast, and that the imperfection of man at his birth thus becomes his perfection, and the perfection of the beast at its birth becomes its imperfection.
[2] Next those on the west spoke, and said, “Man is not born with knowledge like a beast, but is born a faculty and an inclination�a faculty for knowing and an inclination for loving. Indeed, he is born a faculty not merely for knowing, but also for understanding and for becoming wise; and he is born to an inclination, the most perfect, for loving not only the things which are of self and of the world, but also those which are of God and of heaven. Consequently, man is born from his parents an organism which lives only in the external senses and at first in none that are internal, in order that he may become successively, first a natural, then a rational, and finally a spiritual man; which he never would become, were he born into knowledges and loves as beasts are. For connate knowledge and affection limit progress, while a connate faculty and inclination set no limit. Man can therefore be perfected in knowledge, intelligence and wisdom to eternity.”
[3] Then those on the south took up the subject and expressed their opinion, saying, “It is impossible for man to acquire any knowledge by himself, but he must acquire it from others, for no knowledge is connate with him. As he cannot get knowledge, neither can he get love from himself, since there is no love where there is no knowledge, for knowledge and love are inseparable companions. They can no more be separated than will and understanding, or affection and thought, indeed, no more than essence and form. Therefore as far as man gets knowledge from others, love joins it as its companion. The universal love which adjoins itself is the love of knowing, understanding and becoming wise. This love only man has, and no beast; and it flows in from God. [4] We agree with our companions from the west that man is not born into any love, and therefore not into any knowledge, but is only born into an inclination to love and hence into a faculty for receiving knowledges, not from himself but from others, that is, through others. We say ‘through others’ because neither have these received anything of knowledge from themselves, but from God. We also agree with our companions from the north, that at birth man is like ground in which no seeds have been planted, but in which all seeds may be planted, good and bad. To these considerations we add that beasts are born into natural loves and hence into knowledges corresponding to them; and yet they do not know, think of, understand and become wise from knowledges; but are led by their loves with the help of knowledge, much as a blind man is led along the street by a dog, for as to understanding they are blind; or better, they are like sleepwalkers, doing all they do from blind knowledge, the understanding being asleep.”
[5] Last, those from the east spoke, and said, “We agree with what our brothers have said, that man has no knowledge from himself, but from and through others, to the end that he may come to know and acknowledge that all his knowledge, understanding and wisdom are of God; and that he cannot otherwise be conceived, born and generated of the Lord and become His image and likeness. For he becomes an image of the Lord by acknowledging and believing that he has received and continues to receive every good of love and of charity, and every truth of wisdom and of faith from the Lord, and nothing at all from himself. He becomes a likeness of the Lord in feeling as though this were all of himself. He feels so because he is not born into knowledges but receives them, and what a man receives appears to him as if from himself. Man is given to feel so by the Lord that he may be man and not a beast; for in willing, thinking, loving, knowing, understanding and becoming wise as if of himself, he receives knowledge and exalts it to intelligence and, through applications of it, into wisdom. Thus the Lord conjoins man to Himself, and man conjoins himself to the Lord. This could not have been if the Lord had not provided that man should be born in total ignorance.”
[6] After this pronouncement all desired that a conclusion be reached on the basis of the deliberations. The following was arrived at: “Man is born into no knowledge in order that he may come into all knowledge, and advance to intelligence and by intelligence to wisdom. He is born into no love that he may come into all love through the application of knowledge from intelligence; and into love to the Lord through love towards the neighbor; and so may be conjoined to the Lord, and through this conjunction may become a man and live to eternity.”
They responded, “We shall speak; but as man cannot obtain anything whatever of himself, but receives all from the Lord, we shall speak from Him; and yet we shall do so as if of ourselves.” Then they said, “A tree signifies a man, and its fruit signifies the good of life. By the tree of life, therefore, is meant man living from God, or God living in man. And as love and wisdom, or charity and faith, or good and truth, make the life of God in man, these are meant by the tree of life, and from these man has life eternal. The like is signified by the tree of life of which it is given to eat, in Revelation ii. 7; xxii. 2, 14. [2] By the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, on the other hand, is signified the man who believes that he lives of himself, and not from God; thus, that love and wisdom, charity, and faith, that is, good and truth, are in man, his own, and not of God; believing this because he thinks and wills, and speaks and acts with all the look and appearance of doing so of himself. It is because man in this belief persuades himself that God has imparted Himself or infused His Divine into him, that the serpent said:
God knows that in the day that you eat of the fruit of that tree your eyes will be opened, and you will be as God, knowing good and evil (Genesis iii. 5).
[3] By eating of those trees is signified reception and appropriation; by eating of the tree of life, the reception of life eternal; and by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the reception of condemnation; therefore also both Adam and his wife, together with the serpent, were accursed. By the serpent is meant the devil as to the love of self and the pride of one’s own intelligence. This love is the owner of the tree of knowledge; and men who are in pride from this love are such trees. Those are in monstrous error, therefore, who believe that Adam was wise and did good from himself, and that this was his state of integrity; when, as a matter of fact, it was on account of Adam’s believing so, signified by his eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that he was accursed. He then fell from the state of integrity, in which he was by virtue of believing that he was wise and did good only from God, and not at all from himself; which is meant by eating of the tree of life. The Lord alone when He was in the world was wise of Himself and did good from Himself; for the Divine Itself was in Him and was His by nativity. He therefore became the Redeemer and Savior by His own power, too.”
[4] From all that had been said they formed this conclusion: “By the tree of life, and by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and by eating of them, is signified that life for man is God in him; and that then he has heaven and eternal life; but the persuasion and belief that life for man is not God, but himself, is death to him; by such belief he reaps hell and eternal death, which is damnation.”
They wrote this upon a clean piece of paper, which they placed on the table. Suddenly, in a brilliant white light, angels were present and carried the paper into heaven. When it had been read there, the members of the assembly heard from heaven the words, “Well done! Well done! Well done!” And on the instant a figure appeared, as if flying thence, with two wings at the feet and two at the temples, bringing the rewards, which were robes, caps and wreaths of laurel. He alighted and gave those sitting at the north robes of an opal color; those sitting at the west, scarlet robes; those at the south, caps, the edges of which were adorned with fillets of gold and pearls, and the upper left side with diamonds cut in the forms of flowers; while to those on the east he gave wreaths of laurel in which were rubies and sapphires. Decorated with these rewards they all went home from the school of wisdom; and as they were about to show themselves to their wives, their wives came out to meet them, also decorated with honors bestowed from heaven, at which they wondered!
137. II
While I was meditating on marital love, two naked infants appeared in the distance, with baskets in their hands and turtledoves fluttering around them. Even when I saw them nearer by, they still seemed to be naked, becomingly adorned with wreaths of flowers�chaplets of flowers bedecked their heads; garlands of blue lilies and roses, hanging obliquely from shoulder to hip, adorned their breasts; and around the two ran a common bond, as it were, woven of little leaves and olives. But when they came closer still, they did not appear as infants or naked, but as two persons in the first bloom of life, clad in robes and tunics of shining silk, into which were woven flowers very beautiful to see. And as they reached my side there breathed on me through them a vernal warmth from heaven with the fragrance of early things in garden and field. They were two married partners from heaven.
They addressed me; and as what I had just seen filled my thoughts, they asked me, “What did you see?”
[2] I related how they had looked like naked infants to me at first, then as infants adorned with wreaths, and at last as adults clothed in beflowered garments, and how forthwith spring had breathed on me with its delights.
They smiled with pleasure, and said they did not seem to themselves on the way like infants, or naked, or garlanded, but all along as they looked now. Their marital love, they said, was so represented at a distance-its state of innocence by their appearing like naked infants, its delights by the garlands of flowers, and the same delights again by the flowers woven into their robes and tunics.
They continued, “You said that when we approached, a vernal warmth breathed on you with its pleasant aromas, as from a garden. We will tell you why that was.” [3] They explained, “We have been married partners for ages now, and constantly in the flower of age in which
you now behold us. Our first state was the first state of a virgin and youth when they join in marriage. We supposed that that state was the very blessedness of our life!
We heard from others in our heaven, however, and afterwards we ourselves perceived that it was a state of heat not tempered with light, and that it would be modified gradually, as the husband was perfected in wisdom and the wife loved that wisdom in the husband; and that this is effected by uses and according to them�uses which the two in mutual helpfulness render society; and that delights ensue according as heat and light, or wisdom and its love, are tempered. [4] A springlike warmth breathed on you as we approached because marital love and vernal warmth act as one in our heaven. For among us love is heat, and wisdom is the light with which heat is united; and use is like an atmosphere which holds them both in its bosom. What are heat and light without a containant? Likewise, what are love and wisdom without their use? The marital is not in them, because the subject in which they must be, is lacking. In heaven, where the heat is vernal, there is true marital love. True marital love is found there because the vernal is only where heat is equally united with light, or where there is as much heat as light, and vice versa. We aver that as heat delights itself with light, and in turn light with heat, so love delights itself with wisdom, and wisdom in turn with love.”
[5] He remarked further, “There is perpetual light with us in heaven and never any evening dusk. Still less is there darkness. Our sun does not set and rise like your sun, but always remains midway between the zenith and the horizon, or in your manner of speech at an elevation of forty-five degrees. Hence the heat and light proceeding from our sun make perpetual spring; and a perpetual springtime breathes on those in whom love is equally united with wisdom. Our Lord, through the eternal union of heat and light, breathes forth nothing else than uses; thence also are the germinations on your earth, and the mating of your birds and animals, in the springtime. For the vernal heat opens their interiors to the very inmosts, which are called their souls, and affects these and imparts what is marital. It brings their breeding impulse into its delights, in a continual endeavor to serve its use, which is the propagation of the species. [6] But with men there is perpetual influx of vernal heat from the Lord, wherefore they can at all seasons, even in mid-winter, enjoy the delights of marriage. For men were created receptions of light, that is, of wisdom, from the Lord; and women were created receptions of heat, that is, of the love of the man’s wisdom, from the Lord. This, then, is the reason why, at our approach, a vernal warmth breathed on you, with a redolence like that of early things in garden and field.”
Having said this the man gave me his right hand and led me to homes where were other married partners in the prime of life like themselves. He remarked, “These wives, now looking like young women, were old women in the world; and their husbands, who look like young men, were infirm old men. They were restored by the Lord to this flower of age because they loved each other mutually and from religion shunned adulteries as monstrous sins.”
And they added, “Only he knows the blessed delights of marital love who rejects the horrid delights of adultery; and only he can reject these who is wise from the Lord; and only he is wise from the Lord who performs uses from the love of use.”
I also noted the furnishings of their houses, every article of a heavenly pattern, and glistening with gold, aflame, as it were, from the rubies studding it.
138. VI
CHASTE AND NON-CHASTE
We are still only entering upon the discussion of marital love in particular. What marital love is, can be known only indistinctly and obscurely unless one sees in some measure what its opposite is, which is the unchaste. What this is, appears in a measure or in shade when the chaste is described along with the non-chaste (non-chastity comes with removal* of what is unchaste from what is chaste). I shall therefore say something here of chaste and non-chaste. What is unchaste, however, or wholly opposite to the chaste, will be discussed in the latter part of this work, where it will be described in its whole extent and with its variations under the title, “Scortatory Love: its Insane Pleasures.” Now what chaste and non-chaste are, and with whom they are found, shall be made clear in this order:
i. Chaste and non-chaste are predicable only of marriages and of such things as concern marriage.
ii. The chaste is predicable only of monogamous marriages, or marriages of one man with one wife.
iii. The Christian marital tendency alone occurs chaste.
iv. True marital love is chastity itself.
v. All the delights of true marital love, including the ultimate, are chaste.
vi. With those who from the Lord become spiritual, marital love is more and more purified and rendered chaste.
vii. Chastity in marriage comes about through total renunciation of whoredoms for religion’s sake.
viii. Chastity cannot be predicated of infants, or of boys and girls, nor can it be predicated of young men and women before they experience love of the sex.
ix. Chastity cannot be predicated of eunuchs, so born or made.
x. Chastity cannot be predicated of those who do not believe that adulteries are evils to religion, and still less of those who do not believe that adulteries are a damage to society.
xi. Chastity cannot be predicated of those who refrain from adulteries only for various external reasons.
xii. Chastity cannot be predicated of those who believe that marriages are unchaste.
xiii. Chastity cannot be predicated of those who have renounced marriages by vowing perpetual celibacy, unless they have and retain a love for a true marital life.
xiv. The state of marriage is to be preferred to the state of celibacy.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
* Clarified in n. 146.
* Cf. Titus i. 15.
[2] chastity of marriages comes to be. One might think that the external marital, continuing after the internal has separated itself from it or it from itself, is the same as the external not separated, but I have heard from the angels that they are entirely dissimilar, as, for instance, that the external from the internal (which they called the external of the internal) is devoid of all lasciviousness, because the internal cannot be lascivious but can only be delighted chastely, and that it imports a like nature into its external, in which it feels its delights: entirely different is the external separated from the internal; this they said is lascivious in whole and in part. The external marital from the internal they likened to choice fruit, whose agreeable flavor and fragrance penetrate the very rind, forming even it in correspondence with themselves. They also likened the external marital from the internal to a granary whose store is never diminished, because what is taken out is steadily replaced. The external separated from the internal, on the other hand, they likened to a wheat-winnower, in which, as it is shaken, only chaff remains, which is scattered by the wind: the like befalls marital love, unless whoredom is renounced.
That if one looks on the woman of another to lust after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew v. 28).*
[2] All the reasons for refraining from adulteries physically only cannot be recounted, for they vary with the states of marriage and also with the body’s states. There are those who refrain from adultery for fear of the civil law and its penalties; for fear of losing reputation and honor; for fear of diseases; for fear of contentions at home from one’s wife, and thus of intranquillity of life; for fear of the husband’s vengeance or that of a kinsman; and for fear of floggings at the hands of servants. There are also those who refrain out of poverty, or avarice, or out of weakness arising from disease, abuse, age or impotence. Among these are also some who, not able or daring in body, therefore condemn adulteries in spirit; they speak with morality against them and in favor of marriages; but if they do not denounce adulteries in spirit and from religion, they are adulterers still, for though they do not commit them in the body, they still do so in spirit; wherefore, after death, when they become spirits, they speak openly in favor of them. From this it is plain that even the impious can shun adulteries as a damage, but no one but a Christian can shun them as sins. From this now the truth of the proposition is established that chastity cannot be predicated of those who refrain from adulteries for various external reasons only.
* So Swedenborg regularly renders this verse (see also n. 494). But the Greek texts read simply “on a woman”; in adding “of another,” Swedenborg embodies in the verse a traditional Jewish and Christian understanding. The Schmidius Latin Bible used by him read so, obviously embodying an interpretation. His own view, advanced in this very paragraph, is that there may be adulterous love in matrimony; cf. Apocalypse Explained, n. 988 [5].
151r. I append two Memorabilia.
I
When* I was returning home from the School of Wisdom (of which above, n.132), on the way I saw an angel in raiment of the color of hyacinth. He joined me and said: “I see that you have come from the School of Wisdom, and are gladdened by what you heard there. I also perceive that you are not fully in this world, being at the same time in the natural world. You may not be acquainted with our Olympic Gymnasia where the ancient so phi meet and where they learn from those who come from your world what changes and successions of state wisdom has undergone and is undergoing. If you wish, I will conduct you to a place where many of the ancient so phi and their “sons” or disciples have their homes.”
He led me toward the northeast. Looking ahead from a considerable prominence I beheld a city, and to one side of it two hills, the one nearer the city lower than the other. He told me, “That city is called Athens, the lower hill, Parnassus, and the higher, Helicon. All are so called because in and about the city dwell ancient wise men of Greece, like Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristippus and Xenophon, with their disciples and neophytes.”
I asked about Plato and Aristotle. “They and their followers,” he said, “dwell in another region, for they taught matters of reason which are of the understanding; but these taught morals which are of the life.” [2] He said that students are frequently sent from this city of Athens to the learned from among Christians, to ascertain what at this day Christians think about God, the creation of the universe, the immortality of the soul, the state of man as compared with that of beasts, and about other things which are matters of interior wisdom. He also said that a herald had announced an assembly for that day�a sign that their emissaries had encountered newcomers from the earth, from whom they had heard strange things. We saw many leaving the city and its immediate vicinity, some with laurels on their heads, some bearing palms in their hands, some with books under their arms, and some with pens under the hair of the left temple.
We mingled with them and went up together. On the hill we found an octagonal palace, called the Palladium, which we entered. It had eight hexagonal recesses, each with a bookcase in it, and a table at which those crowned with laurel were sitting. In the Palladium itself appeared seats of hewn stone, on which the others seated themselves. [3] Then a door opened at the left through which two newcomers from the earth were ushered in. After the greetings, one of the laurelled ones asked them, “What news from the earth?”
They said, “There is a report that some men like beasts, or beasts like men, have been found in a forest. From face and body it was plain, however, that they were born men, and must have been lost or left in the woods when two or three years old.” They said, “The report was that they could not utter anything of thought or learn to make words. Nor did they know the food suited to them as do beasts, but thrust into their mouths whatever they found in the woods, both clean and unclean,” and many other like things. “From which,” they said, “some of the learned among us have formed many conjectures, and some have come to many conclusions about the state of men compared with that of beasts.”
[4] On hearing this some of the ancient sophi asked what the conjectures and conclusions from these facts had been. The two newcomers answered, “They were many, but can be reduced to these: (i) Man of his own nature and also by birth is more stupid and as a result meaner than any beast, and so becomes if not instructed. (ii) He can be instructed, for he has learned to articulate sound and hence to speak; and by this means he soon began to express thoughts, and this gradually more and more until he could formulate social laws, many of which, however, have been stamped upon beasts by birth. (iii) Beasts have rationality in like manner with men. (iv) Therefore if beasts could speak they would reason about things as skillfully as men, as is indicated by the fact that they, equally with men, think from reason and prudence. (v) Understanding is but a modification of light from the sun, with heat cooperating, the ether serving as medium; and hence is only an activity of interior nature; and it can be heightened until it appears to be wisdom. (vi) It is idle therefore to believe that a man lives after death any more than a beast; except perhaps that for some days after death, from the exhalation of the life of the body, he may appear like a vapor in the shape of a spectre before being dissolved in nature, much as a twig, protruding in the ashes of a fire, retains a semblance of its shape. (vii) Consequently religion, teaching a life after death, is an invention to keep the simple in restraint inwardly by its laws, as they are kept outwardly by civil laws.” To this they added, “The merely ingenious ones reason in this way, but not the intelligent.”
When asked, “How do the intelligent reason?” they replied that they had not heard, but supposed they must reason differently.
152r. Hearing these things, those seated at the tables exclaimed, “What times these are on earth! Alas, what changes wisdom has undergone! Turned into foolish ingenuity! The sun has set, and is under the earth opposite its meridian! Who cannot see from the evidence of those lost and found in the woods what man is like without instruction? Is he not what he is taught? Is he not born in greater ignorance than beasts? Must he not learn to walk? and to talk? If he did not learn to walk would he stand erect on his feet? And if he did not learn to speak could he give utterance to any thought? Is not every man just as he is taught, insane from falsities or wise from truths? And is not the man insane from falsities in the phantasy that he is wiser than the man wise from truths? Are there not foolish and crazy, who are no more men than those found in the woods? Are not those who have lost their memory like them? We conclude from all this that without instruction man is not man, nor is he a beast. He is a form which can receive in it what makes a man; thus he is not born a man, but becomes a man. Man is born such a form in order that he may be an organ receiving life from God, to the end that he may be a subject into which God can bring every good and which He can render blessed to eternity by union with Himself. We perceive from what you have said that wisdom is so far extinct at this day or is rendered so foolish, that men know nothing at all about the state of human life compared with the life of beasts. As a result they do not know man’s state of life after death. Those who might but do not wish to know it and therefore deny it, as do many of your Christians, we may liken to those found in the woods. Not that they have become so stupid for lack of instruction; they have made themselves so stupid by fallacies of the senses, in which truth is in darkness.
153r. But then a man standing in the center of the Palladium, holding a palm in his hand, said: “Pray, unfold this arcanum: How could man, created in the form of God, be changed into the form of the devil? I know that the angels of heaven are forms of God; the angels of hell, forms of the devil; and that the two forms are opposites, these, forms of insanity, those of wisdom. Tell us, then, how man, created a form of God, could pass from day into such a night as to be able to deny God and eternal life?”
[2] To this the teachers replied in turn; first the Pythagoreans, then the Socratics, and afterwards the others. A certain Platonist among them was the last to speak, and his view prevailed. It was this: “Men of the Saturnian period or golden age knew and acknowledged that they were forms receiving life from God. Wisdom was therefore inscribed on their souls and hearts. Hence they saw truth from the light of truth, and by truths perceived good from the delight of the love of good. But as the human race in subsequent ages fell away from the acknowledgment that every truth of wisdom and hence every good of love with men continually flow in from God, they ceased to be habitations of God; speech with God and association with angels also ceased. For the interiors of their minds�which God had once raised to Himself�were then deflected more and more obliquely out into the world, to be raised by God to Himself only through the world; and at length were turned about in the opposite direction, namely, downwards to themselves. God cannot be kept in view by the man who is turned in on himself and thus turned away. Thus men separated themselves from God and became forms of hell or of the devil. [3] It follows that in the first ages men acknowledged with heart and soul that they had every good of love and every truth of wisdom thence from God; that these were God’s in them, and they themselves only receptacles of life from God; for that reason they were called ‘images’ of God, ‘sons of God,’ and ‘born of God.’ But in subsequent ages this was not acknowledged with heart and soul, but in a kind of persuasive faith; afterwards in a traditional belief; and finally with the mouth only. To acknowledge such a truth with the mouth only is not to acknowledge, but rather to deny it at heart. From these facts it may be seen what wisdom is at this day among Christians on earth, who, though they might be inspired of God by written revelation, do not know the difference between man and beast, and many of whom therefore believe that if man lives after death, a beast also must do so, or because a beast does not live after death neither does man. Has not our spiritual light which enlightens the sight of the mind become thick darkness with them? And has not their natural light which only enlightens the sight of the body, become brightness to them?”
154r. After this they turned to the two newcomers and, thanking them for coming and reporting, begged them to tell their brethren what they had heard. The newcomers replied that they would strengthen their brethren in this truth: that in so far as they attribute every good of charity and truth of faith to the Lord and not to themselves, they are men; in like measure, too, they become angels of heaven.
* These Memorabilia are repeated in True Christian Religion, n. 692.
II
155r. One morning I was aroused from sleep by some very sweet singing, sounding from a height above me. In that first moment of wakefulness, more internal, peaceful and sweet than the rest of the day, I could be kept for a while in the spirit, seemingly out of the body, and could attend alertly to the affection which was being sung. Singing in heaven is nothing else than the melodious utterance of an affection of the mind. The intonations, as distinct from the words, of a speaker come from the affection of love, which gives speech its life. In that state I perceived that it was an affection of the delights of marital love which some wives in heaven were rendering into a melody. So I discerned from the sound of the singing, in which those delights were varied in marvellous ways.
I arose and looked out into the spiritual world. In the east beneath the sun there appeared as it were a Golden Rain. It was the morning dew, falling in great abundance and touched by the rays of the sun, which presented this appearance to my sight. Waked still more fully by this, I walked forth in the spirit and asked an angel, who met me by chance just then, whether he saw the golden rain descending from the sun. [2] He answered that he did as often as he was in meditation on marital love and looked in that direction. He went on:
“The golden rain is falling over a hall in which are three husbands with their wives, who live in the midst of an eastern paradise. The rain seems to be falling upon that hall from the sun, because wisdom about marital love and its delights dwells with them, with the husbands wisdom about marital love, and with the wives, wisdom about its delights. I see that you are meditating on the delights of marital love; let me conduct you to the hall and introduce you.”
He led me through paradisaical scenes to houses built of olive wood, with two columns of cedar at the entrance. He introduced me to the husbands, and asked that I be permitted to speak in their presence with their wives. They nodded assent and called them.
The wives gazed searchingly into my eyes. I asked why they did so. They said, “We can see exactly what your inclination is and your affection from it, and what your thought from this is about love of the sex. We see that you are thinking intensely and yet chastely about love of the sex.” And they asked:
“What would you like us to tell you about it?”
I answered, “Tell me, please, something about the delights of marital love.”
The husbands nodded assent, saying, “If you will, tell something about them. Their ears are chaste.”
[3] But they inquired, “Who taught you to ask us about the delights of that love? Why not ask our husbands?”
I responded, “This angel with me whispered to me that wives are receptacles and sensories of those delights, because they are born loves, and all delights are of love.”
Smilingly they answered, “Be prudent and tell nothing of the kind, save in an ambiguous sense. For it is a wisdom kept deep in the hearts of our sex; a husband is not told unless he is in true marital love. This for many reasons, which we also keep to ourselves.”
The husbands remarked, “Our wives know all the states of our minds; nothing at all is hidden from them. They see, perceive and feel every motion of our wills; while we know nothing of what takes place in them. Wives are thus dowered because they are most tender loves and because they are ardent zeals, as it were, for the preservation of marital friendship and trust and so for the life-happiness of both. They care for this happiness, their husbands’ and their own, from a wisdom implanted in their love�a wisdom so full of prudence that they will not and hence cannot say that they love, but that they are loved.”
I asked, “Why are they not willing and why can they not?”
They answered that if the least such thing escaped their lips, cold would assail their husbands and separate from bed, chamber and sight. This takes place, however, with those who do not consider marriages holy, and therefore do not love their wives from spiritual love. It is otherwise with those who do so love. With them, marital love is spiritual in the mind, and thence natural in the body. “We, in this hall, are in the natural love from the spiritual. We therefore confide arcana about our delights in marital love to our husbands.”
[4] I courteously asked them to disclose some of the arcana to me also. They glanced at once toward a window on the south, and there a white dove, with wings which glittered as with silver, its head decked with a crest as of gold, perched on a bough from which an olive grew.
As the dove tried to spread its wings the wives said, “We will disclose something. When this dove appears, it is a sign to us that we may.” And they said, “Every man has five senses, sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But we have also a sixth sense, which is the sense of all the delights of the marital love of the husband. We have this sense in the palms of our hands, when we touch the breasts, arms, hands, or cheeks, especially the breasts of our husbands, and also when we are touched by them. All the gladnesses and pleasantnesses of the thoughts of their inner mind, all the joys and delights of their outer mind, and the cheer and mirth of their bosoms pass from them into us and take form and become perceptible, sensible and tangible. We discern them as exquisitely and distinctly as the ear does the modulations of song or as the tongue does the flavors of dainties. In a word, the spiritual delights of our husbands assume as it were a natural embodiment with us. For that reason our husbands call us the sensory organs of chaste marital love and thence of its delights. But this sense of our sex exists and subsists, it endures and is heightened, in the degree that our husbands love us from wisdom and judgment, and as we in turn love them for these qualities in them. This sense of our sex is called in the heavens the disporting of wisdom with its love and of love with its wisdom.”
[5] These disclosures excited my desire to put further questions, some, for instance, about the variety of the delights. They replied, “The variety is infinite. But we do not wish to say more. Nor may we; for the dove on the olive branch at our window has flown away.”
I waited for it to return, but in vain.
Meanwhile I asked the husbands, “Have you a similar sense of marital love?”
They answered, “A general one, not so specific. We enjoy a general blessedness, delight and pleasantness from the particular sensations of our wives. The general sense which we have thence is like the serenity of peace.”
At these words, a swan, standing on a branch of a fig-tree appeared beyond the window; it spread its wings and flew off. At the sight the husbands said, “That is a sign to us for silence about marital love. Return at some other time and perhaps more may be disclosed.”
They withdrew, and we left.
156r. VII
THE CONJUNCTION OF SOULS AND MINDS BY MARRIAGE, MEANT BY THE LORD’S WORDS, “THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO, BUT ONE FLESH.”
It is evident from the Book of Creation and also from words of the Lord that there were set in man and woman by creation and still are present in them an inclination and also a faculty for conjunction as into one. We read in the Book of Creation, called Genesis:
Jehovah God built the rib which He had taken from man, into a woman; and He brought her to the man; and the man said, This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; her name shall be called Ischah, because she was taken from Isch. On this account shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they shall be one flesh (ii. 22-24).
The Lord spoke similarly in Matthew:
Have you not read that He who made them male and female at the beginning, said, On this account shall a man leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh; wherefore they are no longer two, but one flesh? (xix. 4, 5, 6).
[2] From these words it is evident that woman was created from man and that man and woman have both inclination and faculty for reuniting into one. This means into one human being, which is also plain from the Book of Creation, where the two together are called a human being; for we read,
On the day that God created man�He created them male and female, and He called their name Man (v. 1, 2).
The wording is, “He called their name ‘Adam,'” but `Adam’ and ‘Man’ are the same word in the Hebrew language. Moreover, the two together are called man (i. 27, iii. 22-24). By one flesh, also, one human being is meant, as is plain from passages in the Word where “all flesh” occurs, by which all mankind is meant (as Genesis vi. 12, 13, 17, 19; Isaiah xl. 5, 6; xlix. 26; lxvi. 16, 23, 24; Jeremiah xxv. 31; xxxii. 27; xlv. 5; Ezekiel xx. 48; xxi. 4, 5; and elsewhere). [3] But what is meant by the `man’s rib,’ which was built into the woman, by the ‘flesh’ which was closed up in its place, and thus by ‘bone of my bones’ and ‘flesh of my flesh,’ and by ‘father and mother’ whom the man is to leave on marriage, and what by `cleaving to his wife,’ has been shown in the Arcana Coelestia, where the two books of Genesis and Exodus are explained in the spiritual sense. In that work we have shown that by ‘rib’ a rib is notmeant, nor by ‘flesh’ flesh, nor by ‘bone’ bone, nor by ‘cleaving’ cleaving, but spiritual things corresponding to them and therefore signified by them. That spiritual things are meant which from two make one human being, is evident from the fact that it is marital love which conjoins the two; this love is spiritual. We have said more than once that the man’s love of his wisdom was transcribed into his wife, and we shall establish the fact still more fully in chapters to follow. But we must not turn aside, digressing from the proposition under consideration, which concerns the conjunction of two partners into one flesh through union of the souls and minds. We shall explain this conjunction in the following order:
i. By creation a faculty and an inclination were set in each sex as a result of which they can and wish to be conjoined as into one.
ii. Marital love conjoins two souls and hence minds into one.
iii. The wife’s will unites with the man’s understanding, and then the man’s understanding with the wife’s will.
iv. Inclination to unite the man to herself is constant and perpetual with the wife, but inconstant and recurrent with the man.
v. Conjunction is inspired in the man by the wife according to her love, and received by the man according to his wisdom.
vi. This conjunction is effected gradually from the first days of marriage, and with those in true marital love, more and more profoundly to eternity.
vii. The wife’s conjunction with the husband’s rational wisdom is effected from within, but with his moral wisdom from without.
viii. In the interests of this conjunction, the wife has been endowed with a perception of the husband’s affections and with the highest prudence in moderating them.
ix. Wives conceal this perception in themselves and hide it from their husbands for causes which are necessities, that marital love, friendship and confidence, and so the blessedness of living together and happiness of life, may be assured.
x. This perception is the wife’s wisdom; the man does not have it, nor does the wife have his rational wisdom.
xi. A wife in her love is always mindful of the man’s inclination to her, with the intent to conjoin him to her; not so the man.
xii. The wife conjoins herself to the man by address to his will’s desires.
xiii. A wife is conjoined to her husband through the sphere of her life emanating from her love.
xiv. A wife is conjoined to the husband through appropriation of his manhood’s powers, but this takes place according to their mutual spiritual love.
xv. A wife thus receives her husband’s image in herself, and hence perceives, sees and feels his affections.
xvi. There are activities proper to the man and activities proper to the wife; the wife cannot enter on those proper to the man, nor the man on those proper to the wife, and perform them aright.
xvii. In mutual helpfulness these activities also conjoin the two into one; at the same time they make the home one.
xviii. By the conjunctions named above, partners become more and more one human being.
xix. Those in true marital love feel they are a united human being and, as it were, one flesh.
xx. Regarded in itself true marital love is union of the souls, conjunction of the minds, and an effort after conjunction in bosom and so in the body.
xxi. The states of this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, full trust, and a mutual desire of mind and heart to do each other every good; and growing out of all these, blessedness, satisfaction, joy, pleasure, and in the eternal fruition of these, heavenly happiness.
xxii. These can by no means be possessed except in a marriage of one man with one wife.
Explanation of these propositions now follows.
[2] There was talk once about this matter there, and men insisted, under the persuasion of their wives, that they loved, and not the wives, but that the wives received love from them. To settle the dispute over this arcanum, all women together with their wives were removed from the men, and with them the sphere itself of love of the sex was taken away. On the removal of this the men came into a state totally strange to them, never before perceived by them, at which they complained much. Then, while in this state, women were brought to them, and their wives to the husbands, and both addressed them softly. But they were cold to their charms, and turned away, and said to one another, “What is this? What is woman?” And when some said that they were their wives, they replied, “What is a wife? We do not know you.” When, however, the wives began to be troubled at the men’s cold indifference, and some to cry, the sphere of feminine love of the sex and of marital love, which had been taken away, was restored, whereupon the men at once returned into their former state, the lovers of marriage into theirs, and the lovers of the sex into theirs. Thus the men were convinced that there is nothing of marital love nor indeed of love of the sex resident with them, but only with wives and women. Still the wives in their prudence afterwards induced the men to believe that love resides with men and that some spark of it can pass from them into themselves.
[3] We have adduced this experience that it may be known that wives are loves and men receptions. Men are receptions according to the wisdom with them, especially according to this wisdom from religion that the wife alone is to be loved. This is plain from the fact that while the wife alone is loved, love is concentrated; and being ennobled, too, it remains in its strength, is steadfast and endures; otherwise it would be like throwing wheat from a granary to dogs, with resulting poverty at home.
* Nn. 155r, 208.
** Nn. 293, 294.
* Nn. 293, 294.
* Nn. 155r, 208; 293, 294.
A man’s garment shall not be on a woman nor a woman’s on a man; for this is an abomination (Deuteronomy xxii. 5).
The reason is that all in the spiritual world are clothed in accord with their affections, and the two different affections, of man and woman, can be united only between two and never in one person.
I
Some weeks later* I heard a voice from heaven, saying, “There is another meeting on Parnassus. Come, we will show you the way.” I went, and drawing near, I saw a trumpeter on Helicon, announcing and proclaiming the assembly.
People were going up from the city of Athens and its neighborhood as before, and in the midst of them three newcomers from the world. These three were from among Christians, one a priest, another a politician, and the third a philosopher. Along the way they were entertained with varied talk, especially about ancient wise men who were mentioned by name. They asked whether they would see these wise men, and were told that they might and would be presented to them if they wished, for they were affable. They asked about Demosthenes, Diogenes and Epicurus. They were informed, “Demosthenes is not here, but is with Plato. Diogenes dwells with his pupils at the foot of Helicon, because he puts no store by the mundane, but occupies his mind solely with the heavenly. Epicurus lives near the western border and does not associate with us, for we distinguish between good and evil affections, and hold that good affections are one with wisdom and evil affections contrary to wisdom.”
[2] When the company had climbed the hill Parnassus, some custodians brought water in crystal goblets from a fountain there, and said, “This is water from that fabulous fountain which the ancients said was broken open by the hoof of the horse Pegasus and later consecrated to the nine virgins. By the winged horse Pegasus they meant the understanding of truth, whence is wisdom; by its hoofs, the experiences through which comes natural intelligence; and by the nine virgins, knowledge and information of every kind. These things are called myths today, but they are correspondences, in the terms of which the early peoples spoke.”
The companions of the three newcomers remarked, “Do not wonder. The custodians have been instructed to make this speech. We understand that to drink water from a fountain means to be instructed about truths, and by the truths about goods, and thus to become wise.”
[3] Thereupon they entered the Palladium, and with them the three novitiates from the world, the priest, the politician, and the philosopher. The laurelled ones seated at the table asked the newcomers, “What news from the earth?” They answered, “This! A certain man asserts that he speaks with angels and that his sight is opened into the spiritual world, just as it is open into the natural world. Thence he brings much which is new, among other things these: That man lives as a man after death, as he did before in the world; that he sees, hears and speaks as before in the world; that he is clothed and adorned as before in the world; that he hungers and thirsts, eats and drinks, as before in the world; that he enjoys marital delight as before in the world; that he sleeps and wakes as before in the world; that there are lands and lakes there, mountains and hills, plains and valleys, fountains and rivers, gardens and groves; palaces and houses, too, and cities and villages, just as in the natural world; writings, also, and books, occupations and business; so also precious stones and gold and silver; in a word, that every thing which exists on earth is there, but in the heavens infinitely more perfect, with the sole difference that all things in the spiritual world have a spiritual origin and are therefore spiritual, being from the sun there which is pure love; while all things in the natural world have a natural origin and hence are natural and material, being from the sun there which is pure fire. In a word, that man is perfectly a man after death, in fact, more perfectly a man than he was before in the world; for previously, in the world, he was in a material body, but in this he is in a spiritual body.”
[4] Being told this the ancient sages asked, “What do the people on earth think about all this?”
The three replied, “We ourselves know that these things are true, because we are here, and have viewed and tested them all. We will relate what people on earth have said about them and how they have reasoned.”
The priest then said, “Members of our order, on first hearing these things, called them visions, then fabrications; afterwards they declared that the man saw ghosts; and finally, at a loss, they said, ‘Believe them if you wish; we have always taught that after death man will not be in a body until the last judgment-day.’
But the sages asked, “Are none of them intelligent enough to show and convince others of the truth that man lives as a man after death?”
[5] The priest replied, “Some do demonstrate it, but fail to convince. They argue, ‘It is contrary to sound reason to believe that a man does not live as a man until after the last judgment-day, and meanwhile is a soul without a body. What is a soul? Where is it meanwhile? Is it a breath? Or a windy something flying in the air? Is it an entity hidden at the earth’s center? Just where is it? Are the souls of Adam and Eve and of all since their day, six thousand years or sixty centuries ago, still flying about in the universe? Or are they kept confined in the bowels of the earth, awaiting the Last Judgment? What could be more distressing and miserable than such suspense? Is their lot not like the lot of men bound hand and foot in prison? If this is man’s lot after death, would it not be better to be born an ass than a man? Is it not also contrary to reason to believe that a soul can be reclothed with its body? Has the body not been consumed by worms, mice and fish? Can the bony skeleton, burnt with the sun or fallen into dust, be placed in a new body? How can cadaverous and decaying bodies be assembled and united to the soul?’ But on hearing such arguments people reply with no attempt at reason, but cling to their belief, saying,
`We hold reason bound under obedience to faith.’ As for assembling all bodies out of the sepulchres at the judgment-day, they say that that is the work of omnipotence. And when they name omnipotence or faith, reason is exiled. I may truly say that sound reason is as nothing then, and to some a mere spectre; indeed, they can say to sound reason, ‘You are insane.'”
[6] Hearing these things the Greek sages said, “Are these paradoxes not so contradictory that they are dissipated of themselves? And yet in the world at this day they cannot be dissipated even by sound reason! What could one believe more paradoxical than their declarations about the Last Judgment? The universe is to perish then, they say, the stars are to fall from heaven upon the earth, which is smaller than the stars, and men’s bodies�corpses then or mummies eaten by men** or bits of dust�are to be reunited with their souls! When we were in the world we believed in the immortality of the human soul from inductions which the reason supplied us; we also assigned places of abode to the blessed, which we called Elysian Fields; and we believed souls had human shape or semblance, but were subtle because spiritual.”
[7] After saying this they turned to the other newcomer, who in the world had been a politician. He confessed that he had not believed in a life after death; and he had thought the news which he had heard of it was fiction and invention. “Meditating on the life after death, I used to say, ‘How can souls be bodies? Does not the whole man lie dead in the tomb? Is not the eye there? How can he see? Is not the ear there? How can he hear? Whence has he a mouth with which to speak? If man lived at all after death would it not have to be as a spectre? But can a spectre eat and drink? Can it enjoy marital delight? Whence has it raiment, house and food? and so on. Spectres, which are airy shapes, only seem to be, but are not.’ So I thought in the world about the life of man after death. But now that I have seen all things and touched things with my hands, I am convinced by my very senses that I am a man as I was in the world. I know no otherwise than that I am living just as I did, with the difference that I now have sounder reason. Many a time have I been ashamed of my former thoughts.”
[8] The philosopher gave much the same account of himself, with this difference, however, that he had put the news which he heard of the life after death in the same category with opinions and hypotheses which he had collated from ancient and modern thinkers.
The sophi were astounded at hearing these things. Those of the Socratic school said that they perceived in this news from the earth that the interiors of men’s minds had been gradually closed and that belief in what is false now shines like truth in the world, and futile cleverness like wisdom; and that since their own times the light of wisdom has sunk from the interiors of the brain to the mouth under the nose, where it appears before the eyes as a verbal glamour, making what is said seem like wisdom.
On hearing these things, a neophyte there exclaimed, “How stupid the minds of men on earth are at this day! If only disciples of Heraclitus and of Democritus were here, who laugh or weep at everything! What laughter and lamenting we should hear!”
When the meeting was concluded the three newcomers from the earth received as badges from that domain bronze platelets on which hieroglyphics were engraved. With these they departed.
* These Memorabilia occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 693.
** In explanation see True Christian Religion, n. 160 [5].
183. II*
In an eastern quarter I saw a grove of palms and laurels arranged in spiral coils. I approached and entered, and walked by winding ways over some of the spiral turns; and at the end of the ways saw a garden, which formed the center of the grove. A small bridge, with a gate at either end, marked the garden off from the grove.
I drew near, and a custodian opened the gates.
I asked him the name of the Garden. He replied, “Adramandoni,” that is, The Delight of Marital Love. I entered and saw olive trees, and pendent vines trailing from tree to tree, and under the trees blossoming shrubs. On a grassy circle in the center of the garden sat husbands and wives, and young men and women in pairs. On a mound in the circle’s center a small fountain was leaping aloft in a forceful stream. As I approached, I saw two angels in purple and scarlet, talking with those seated on the grass. They were speaking about the origin of marital love and about its delights. And because that was the topic, there was eager attention and all receptiveness and an exaltation thence in the speech of the angels as from the fire of love.
[2] To summarize what I gathered from their conversation: They first commented on the difficulty of discovering or perceiving the origin of marital love, because that origin is Divine-heavenly. For it is Divine love, wisdom and use, which three proceed from the Lord as one, and also flow as one into men’s souls. From the soul they flow into the interior affections and thoughts of the mind, thence into desires near to the body, and thence through the bosom into the genital region, where all things derived from the first origin are together, and in all their successive phases constitute marital love.
Thereupon the angels said, “Let us pursue the discussion by question and answer. For while the perception of a subject derived from hearing alone, flows in, it does not remain unless the hearer also thinks about it for himself and puts questions.”
[3] Then some of that marital assembly said to the angels, “We have heard that the origin of marital love is Divine-heavenly, inasmuch as it comes by influx from the Lord into men’s souls. This influx from the Lord is one of love, wisdom and use�the three essentials which together constitute the one Divine essence; nothing but what is of this essence can proceed from the Lord and flow into man’s inmost, which is called his soul. We have heard further that these three, in their descent into the body, are changed into what is analogous and correspondent.
“Now, then, we ask first of all, what is meant by the third essential, the proceeding Divine which is called use.”
The angels replied, “Apart from use, love and wisdom are only abstract ideas, which after a brief stay in the mind vanish as the winds do. In use, however, love and wisdom are brought together and make a one which is called a reality. Love cannot rest unless it is doing, for it is the active itself of life; wisdom cannot exist and subsist unless it is doing from and with love; and doing is use. We therefore define use as doing good from love by wisdom. Use is good itself. [4] As all three�love, wisdom and use�flow into men’s souls, it is evident why all good is said to be from God. For everything done from love by wisdom is called good; and use is what is done. Is not love without wisdom something maudlin? And love along with wisdom but apart from use a pretense of the mind? On the other hand, love and wisdom with use not only fashion man; they are the man. Indeed�and this may surprise you�they propagate man. For in man’s seed is his soul in perfect human form, covered with substances from the purest things of nature, out of which a body is formed in the mother’s womb. This use is the highest and ultimate use of Divine love acting by Divine wisdom.”
[5] Finally the angels said, “This must be the conclusion. All fructification, propagation and prolification come originally by the influx of love, wisdom and use from the Lord�into the souls of men by immediate influx from Him; into the souls of animals by mediate influx; and into the inmosts of plants by influx still further mediated �and all are accomplished in things last from things first. Fructifications, propagations and prolifications are plainly continuations of creation; for creation can have only one source, namely, Divine love acting by Divine wisdom in Divine use. All things in the universe are therefore procreated and formed from use, in use, and for use.”
[6] Then those seated on the grassy banks asked the angels, “Whence are the innumerable and ineffable delights of marital love?” The angels answered, “From the uses of love and wisdom. This may be seen from the fact that as far as one loves to be wise for the sake of real use, he is in the vein and potency of marital love, and that as far as he is in these, he is in delights. Use brings this about. For love and the wisdom by which it acts, delight in each other and sport together like little children, and as they mature, enter into a productive union, as though by betrothals, nuptials, marriages and propagations, which continue with variety to eternity. This takes place between love and wisdom inwardly in use. In their beginnings these delights are imperceptible, but become more and more perceptible as they descend by degrees and enter the body. By degrees they pass from the soul into the interiors of the mind, thence into its exteriors, thence into the inmost bosom, and from this into the genital region.
[7] In the soul these heavenly nuptial sports are not in the least perceived, as we have said, but in the interiors of the mind they appear under the form of peace and innocence; in the exteriors of the mind in the form of blessedness, pleasantness and joy; in the inmost bosom, under the form of the delights of inmost friendship; and in the genital region, by influx continuous even from the soul, in the very sense of marital love, or as the delight of delights. These nuptial sports of love and wisdom in use, high in the soul, in proceeding to the inmost bosom settle and present themselves sensibly there under an infinite variety of delights; then, by virtue of the wonderful communication of the inmost bosom with the genital region, they become the delights of marital love, which are exalted above all delights in heaven and earth, because the use of marital love is the paramount use, the procreation of the human race coming thereby, and from the human race the angelic heaven.”
[8] The angels added, “Those who are not in the love of becoming wise from the Lord for the sake of use, know nothing of the varied and innumerable delights which belong to true marital love. As such men do not love to become wise from genuine truths, but love rather to be insane from falsities, and through this insanity do evil uses from some love, in them the way to the soul is closed. The result is that the heavenly nuptial sports of love and wisdom in the soul, being checked more and more, cease, and along with them marital love ceases with its vein, potency and delights.”
To this the auditors responded that they perceived that marital love is according to the love one has from the Lord of becoming wise for the sake of use. The angels replied, ‘So it is.” Then garlands of flowers appeared on the heads of some of them. Asked what this meant, the angels said, “They have comprehended the more profoundly.” With the garlanded in the midst, all then left the garden.
* These Memorabilia occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 693.
184. VIII
THE CHANGE IN STATE OF LIFE MADE IN MEN AND WOMEN BY MARRIAGE
What is meant by states of life and by changes in them is very well known to the learned and wise, but unknown to the unlearned and simple. Something on the subject shall therefore be premised. The state of a man’s life is its quality. And as there are two faculties in every one, which make life, called understanding and will, a man’s state of life is its quality as to understanding and will. It is plain, then, that by changes in the state of life are meant changes of quality in what is of the understanding and of the will. We undertake to show in this chapter that every human being is continually changing in respect of these two, but differently before and after marriage-which will be done in this order:
i. One’s state of life continually changes from infancy to the very close of life and afterwards to eternity.
ii. One’s internal form, which is that of one’s spirit, changes likewise.
iii. These changes are of one kind in men and of another in women, because by creation men are forms of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom, and women forms of the love of these with men.
iv. In men there is an elevation of the mind into higher light, and in women an elevation of the mind into higher heat; and the woman feels the delights of this heat in the man’s light.
v. States of life are different with men and women before and after marriage.
vi. After marriage the states of life with partners change and follow one another according to the conjunctions of their minds by marital love.
vii. Marriages also induce other forms on the souls and minds of partners.
viii. The woman is actually formed into the man’s wife according to the description in the Book of Creation.
ix. This formation is effected by the wife in secret ways, which is meant by the woman’s being formed while the man slept.
x. This formation is effected by the wife through the conjunction of her will with the man’s internal will.
xi. The object is that the wills of the two may be made one, and the two, one human being.
xii. This formation is effected by the wife through the appropriation of the husband’s affections.
xiii. This formation is effected by the wife through reception of the propagations of the husband’s soul, with the delight arising from the fact that she desires to be the love of her husband’s wisdom.
xiv. Thus a young woman is formed into a wife, and a young man into a husband.
xv. In a marriage of one man with one wife between whom is true marital love, the wife becomes more and more a wife, and the husband more and more a husband.
xvi. Thus their forms are also gradually perfected and ennobled from within.
xvii. Offspring born of two in true marital love derive from the parents the marital inclination of good and truth, whence they have an inclination and faculty, if a son, to perceive the things of wisdom, if a daughter, to love what wisdom teaches.
xviii. This takes place because the soul of the offspring is from the father, and its covering from the mother.
We proceed to the explanation of these propositions.
[3] When this arcanum of the original creation of woman from man is understood, one can see that in like manner in marriage the woman is as it were created and formed from the man. This is done by the wife, or rather by the Lord through the wife, for He infuses into women the inclination for bringing it about. For the wife receives in herself the man’s image through appropriating his affections to herself (see above, n. 173); through conjoining the man’s internal will with hers, of which in what follows; and also through making over to herself the propagations of his soul, of which also in what follows. Hence it is plain that the woman is formed into a wife according to the description in the Book of Creation interiorly understood, and by such things as she takes from the husband and his bosom, and inscribes on herself.
* Nn. 151r, 182.
I
Some time later* I was looking toward the city of Athens, of which there was mention in earlier Memorabilia, and heard a queer clamor thence. I heard laughter, and in this some indignation, and in this again some sadness. Yet the outcry was not discordant, but harmonious, because one element did not accompany the other but was within it. In the spiritual world the various affections commingled in sound are severally perceived.
At a distance still, I asked, “What is the matter?” They said:
“A messenger has come from the place where newcomers from Christendom first arrive, saying that he heard from three of them there that in the world they had believed with others that the blessed and happy after death would enjoy absolute rest from labor; and, as administrations, offices and employments are labor, they would enjoy rest from these.
“The three newcomers have been brought here by our a conference it was decided to show them, not like the earlier newcomers into the palladium on Parnassus, but into the great auditorium there, to tell their news from the Christian world. Men have been deputed to introduce them properly.”
[2] As I was in the spirit, and with spirits distances are according to the states of their affections, and as I then had an affection for seeing and hearing the newcomers, I seemed to myself present there, and saw them introduced, and heard them speak. The older or wiser men were seated at the sides of the auditorium, the rest in the middle; at the front was a raised platform. To this platform, up through the middle of the auditorium, some young men ceremoniously conducted the three strangers with the messenger. When silence had been obtained, they were greeted by one of the elders, who asked:
“What news from the earth?”
They answered, “There is much news. But tell us, please, on what subject?”
The elder replied, “What news is there from the earth about our world and about heaven?”
They answered, “On first coming into this world we heard that here and in heaven there are administrations, ministries, employments, business, all kinds of learned studies, and amazing handicraft. We had supposed, however, that on removal or transition from the natural world to this spiritual world we should enter into eternal rest from labor; but what are employments if not labor?”
[3] To this the elder replied, “By eternal rest from labor, you did not understand, did you, eternal idleness, in which you would continually be sitting or lying down, inhaling delights into your bosoms, and drinking in joys with the mouth?” Smiling complacently, the three strangers said that they had supposed something of the kind. Then answer was made them:
“What have joys and delights and happiness therefrom in common with idleness? In idleness the mind collapses instead of being extended, and a man is deadened, and not quickened. Imagine a person sitting in complete idleness, hands limp, eyes closed and dreaming, and suppose him enveloped at the same time by an agreeable atmosphere, would not lethargy seize head and body? Would not the face lose its lifelike look? And at length, with fibers relaxed, would the man not fall to nodding until he sank to the earth? What keeps the whole bodily system expanded and taut but intentness of mind? And whence comes intentness of mind but from administrations and work, when done with delight? Let me therefore give you news from heaven! There are administrations there, ministries, higher and lower courts of justice, and also trades and handicrafts.”
[4] On hearing that there are higher and lower courts of justice in heaven, the three newcomers said, “Why should there be courts there? Are not all in heaven inspired and led of God? Do they not therefore know what is just and right? What need is there then of judges?”
The elder replied, “We have to be instructed and must learn what is good and true, just and equitable, in this world as in the natural world. We do not learn directly from God but mediately through others. Every angel, like every man, thinks truth and does good as of himself, and his thought and action are more or less pure according to his state. Among angels there are also simple and wise, and the wise must judge, when the simple in their simplicity or ignorance are in doubt about what is just or depart from it. But you are new to this world; if it meets your pleasure, come with me into our city, and we will show you everything.”
[5] They left the auditorium, accompanied by some of the elders. They first visited a great library, subdivided into smaller libraries according to the different branches of knowledge. The three newcomers, seeing so many books, were astounded and exclaimed:
“Books, too, in this world! Whence have you parchment and paper? And pen and ink?”
To this the elders replied, “We perceive that in the former world you believed that this world, being spiritual, is empty. You believed so because you thought of the spiritual as abstract from the material, and regarded what is abstract from the material as nothing and thus empty. In truth, here is a fullness of all things. Every thing here is substantial, not material; the material takes its origin from the substantial. We ourselves are spiritual men, being substantial and not material. Hence all things to be found in the natural world are to be found here in perfection, even books and manuscripts and much else.”
When the three newcomers heard the substantial so spoken of, they began to think it must be so; they saw the written books before them and they had heard the statement that material things originate from things substantial. For further assurance, they were taken to the
houses of scribes who were making copies of works composed by wise men of the city. They inspected the writing and admired its neatness and elegance. [6] After this they were conducted to museums, schools and colleges; and to places where literary sports were held. Some of these sports were called sports of the Heliconians; others, sports of the Parnassians, or of the Athenians, or of the Virgins of the Fountain. These last sports, they were told, are so named because virgins signify the affections of knowledges; according to these affections one has intelligence. These so-called sports are spiritual exercises and trials of skill. Later they were conducted about the city to the rulers and administrators and their subordinates, who showed them wonderful productions wrought in the spiritual manner by artisans.
[7] After they had seen all these things, the elder spoke with them again about the eternal rest from labor into which the blessed and happy enter after death. He told them:
“Eternal rest is not inactivity. From inactivity come only languor, torpidity, stupor, and drowsiness of the mind and thence of the whole body. These are death, not life, still less the eternal life in which the angels of heaven are. Eternal rest is of a kind to dispel languor and drowsiness, and quicken men; it must be something which uplifts the mind. It is in some study or work that the mind is aroused, enlivened and delighted; and this takes place according to the use from, in, and toward which it is working. Hence all heaven in the Lord’s sight is a theater of uses; every angel is an angel according to his use. His pleasure in his use bears an angel along as a favoring current does a ship. It causes him to be in eternal peace, and in the rest of peace. This is what is meant by eternal rest from labor. That an angel is alive according to the zeal of his mind in a use, is attested by the fact that every angel has marital love, with its vigor, potency and delights, according to the zeal with which he pursues the genuine use in which he is.”
[8] When the three strangers felt well assured that eternal rest is not idleness, but joy in doing some useful work, some young women came and presented them with articles they had spun and embroidered with their own hands. And as the novitiate spirits departed the young women sang an ode, in which they expressed in angelic melody the affection for useful work with its pleasures.
* These Memorabilia occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 694.
They said, “This very day! It spread its wings, too! We surmised you must be near and would ask us to disclose one more arcanum about marital love.”
I asked, “Why do you say one, when I have come to learn many?”
[2] They replied, “They are arcana; and some of them so far surpass your wisdom that the understanding of your thought cannot grasp them. You exult over us on account of your wisdom, but we do not exult over you on account of ours; and yet ours excels yours, in that it enters into your inclinations and affections, and sees, perceives and feels them. You know nothing at all about the inclinations and affections of your love, although it is from and according to these that your understanding thinks, and from and according to them, therefore, that you are wise. But wives know the inclinations and affections of their husbands so well that they behold them in their faces, hear them in the tones of their speech, yes, feel them on their breasts, arms, and cheeks. But from the zeal of love for your happiness, and at the same time for our own, we feign not to know them; and yet we modulate them so prudently that we follow whatever is to the liking, pleasure and will of our husbands, permitting and bearing, bending their will on occasion, but never constraining it.”
[3] I asked, “Whence have you this wisdom?”
They answered, “It is implanted in us by creation and so by birth. Our husbands liken it to instinct; but we say it is of the Divine Providence to the end that men may be made happy by their wives. We have heard from our husbands that the Lord wills that the man shall act from freedom according to reason; and that to this end the Lord Himself from within regulates his freedom, including that of the inclinations and affections, and from without does so by means of his wife; and that thus He forms the man along with his wife into an angel of heaven. And besides, love, when coerced, changes its essence and does not become marital love. But we shall be more explicit. We are moved to this, that is, to prudence in modulating the inclinations and affections of our husbands so that they appear to themselves to act from freedom according to their reason, all the more because we take delight in their love, and we love nothing more than that they shall find their delights in ours; if these become cheap to them, they grow dull with us.”
[4] Having said this, one of the wives went into her chamber, and on returning said, “My dove still flutters its wings, which is a sign that we may disclose more.” And they added, “We have observed various changes in the inclinations and affections of men. When they think vain thoughts against the Lord and the Church, husbands are cold to their wives; they are cold also when in the pride of their own intelligence, when they look upon other women from lust, when their attention is directed by their wives to love, and at other times. They are also cold with a varying coldness. We observe it in a shrinking back of the sense from their eyes, ears and body at the presence of our senses. From these few things you can see that we know better than they whether it is well or ill with them. If they are cold to their wives it is ill with them, and if they are warm towards their wives it is well with them. Wives are therefore continually meditating means whereby their husbands shall be warm and not cold towards them, and doing so with a penetration inscrutable to the men.”
[5] After these words a sound was heard as if the dove moaned; and the wives said, “This is an intimation to us that though we would divulge profounder arcana, we must not do so. Perhaps you will tell men those which you have heard?”
I answered, “I had planned to do so. Will it do harm?”
After conferring about it the wives said, “Publish the arcana if you wish. We are not in the dark about the power of persuasion which wives possess. For they will say to their husbands, ‘The man is making game. These are fables. He makes a jest of appearances, with the usual masculine drollery. Do not believe him, believe us. We know that you are loves and we, obediences.’ Publish the arcana then if you wish. But husbands will not hang upon your lips, but upon the lips of their wives which they kiss.”
* These Memorabilia occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 694.
209. IX
UNIVERSALS ABOUT MARRIAGES
There are so many things to say about marriage that, were they told in detail, they would swell this small work into a large volume. For we might discuss in detail: likeness and unlikeness in partners; the elevation of natural marital love into spiritual, and their conjunction; the increase of the one and the decrease of the other; the varieties and the diversities of each of these loves; the intelligence of wives; the universal marital sphere from heaven, and its opposite from hell; the influx and reception of these spheres; besides much else. Were each topic given a chapter, this work would grow into a volume so large it would tire the reader. For this reason, and to avoid pointless prolixity, these topics are gathered into one chapter on “Universals about Marriages.” But, like former topics, they are considered in separate propositions, as follows:
i. The sense of touch is the especial sense of marital love.
ii. The faculty of growing wise increases with those in true marital love, but decreases with those not in marital love.
iii. The joy of living together increases with those in true marital love, but decreases with those not in marital love.
iv. With those in true marital love conjunction of minds increases, and friendship with it, but both decrease with those not in marital love.
v. Those in true marital love continually wish to be one human being, while those not in marital love wish to be two.
vi. Those in true marital love look to eternity in marriage; contrariwise those not in marital love.
vii. Marital love resides with chaste wives, but still their love depends on the husbands.
viii. Wives love the bonds of marriage provided the husbands do.
ix. The intelligence of women in itself is modest, refined, pacific, yielding, gentle, and tender; but men’s intelligence in itself is serious, rough, hard, spirited, and license-loving.
x. Wives have no excitation such as men have, but a state of preparation for reception.
xi. Men have ability according to the love of propagating the truths of their wisdom and according to the love of doing uses.
xii. Determinations are at the husband’s good pleasure.
xiii. There is a marital sphere which flows from the Lord through heaven into each and all things of the universe to the outmost things.
xiv. This sphere is received by the feminine sex, and transmitted by it to the masculine; and not the other way about.
xv. Where true marital love exists, this sphere is received by the wife, and by the husband through the wife alone.
xvi. Where the love is not marital, this sphere is received by the wife, of course, but not by the husband through her.
xvii. True marital love may exist with one partner and not with the other.
xviii. There are various internal and external likenesses and unlikenesses in partners.
xix. Various likenesses can be conjoined, but unlikenesses cannot.
xx. For those who desire true marital love the Lord provides a likeness, and if it is not given on earth, He provides one in the heavens.
xxi. In the measure of the absence or loss of marital love, man approximates the nature of a beast.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
Two partners were with me once from heaven by leave granted them, and their idea of eternity about marriage was spirited away by a certain rascal who talked astutely. Thereupon they began to lament, saying they could not live any longer and that they had never felt so wretched before in their lives. When fellow-angels perceived this in heaven, the rascal was removed and cast down. This done, the idea of what was eternal at once returned to them, at which they were glad indeed at heart and most tenderly embraced each other. [3] I have also heard two partners who cherished the idea of what is eternal about their marriage at one moment, and at the next an idea of what is temporal. This was because there was inner unlikeness between them. When they were in the idea of what is eternal, they were glad of each other, but when in the idea of the temporal, they said, “It is no longer a marriage”; and the wife, “I am no longer a wife, but a concubine,” and the man, “I am no longer a husband, but an adulterer.” When therefore their internal unlikeness was disclosed to them, the man left the woman, and the woman the man; later, as each had entertained an idea of eternity about marriage, they were allied with companions like themselves.
[4] It is to be seen from this that those in true marital love look to eternity, and that if this slips from the inmosts of thought, they are disunited in marital love though they may not be at the same time as to friendship, for this dwells in externals, but that in the internals. The like is true of marriages on earth. Here, too, partners who love each other tenderly, contemplate eternity for the covenant and by no means any termination of it by- death, or if they do, are grieved until they are revived by hope at the thought of its continuance after death.
216r. (vii) Marital love resides with chaste wives, but still their love depends on the husbands. For wives are born loves, and hence there is implanted in them the wish to be one with their husbands, and from this thought of their will they continually nourish their love. To recede from the endeavor to unite themselves to the husbands, would therefore be to recede from themselves. It is different with husbands. They are not born loves, but recipients of marital love from wives, and therefore as far as they receive, the wives enter with their love; but so far as they do not receive, the wives stand outside with their love and wait; but this is the fact with chaste wives; it is otherwise with the unchaste. From this it is plain that marital love resides with wives, but that their love does depend on the husband.
[2] How much the nature of men differs from the nature of women even from birth was obvious to me from some groups of boys and girls I once saw. I watched them at times from my window, in a great city square where more than twenty gathered daily. The boys played together in keeping with the disposition born in them, tumbling, shouting, fighting, striking and throwing stones at one another; but the girls sat quietly in the housedoors, some of them playing with babies, some dressing dolls, some embroidering small pieces of linen, some kissing each other; and what I wondered at, they watched those noisy boys with pleased looks. From this it was plain to see that man is born understanding, and woman love; also what understanding and love are like at first; furthermore, what the understanding would be like as it advanced if it was not united with feminine love and finally with marital love.
I have asked how what is feminine is propagated from the male soul. I received the answer that this takes place from intellectual good, for this in its essence is truth. For the understanding can think that a thing is good, or that it is true that a thing is good. The will is otherwise; it does not think good and truth, but loves and does them. Hence by “sons” in the Word are meant truths, and by “daughters” goods (see above n. 120); and by “seed” in the Word is meant truth (Apocalypse Revealed, n. 565).
* Cf. n. 316 [3].
I
I once heard outcries which seemed to gurgle up from the lower regions through water�a shout on the left, “Oh, how just!” another on the right, “Oh, how learned!” and a third from behind, “Oh, how wise!” My thought halted at the idea of any just, learned, and wise in hell, and I wanted to see whether there were any. I was told from heaven, “You shall see and hear.”
In the spirit I left the house, and saw an opening in the ground before me. I went to it and looked down, and lo! a ladder. By this I descended, and reaching the bottom, I saw level plains covered with shrubs, with which thorns and nettles were mixed. I asked if this was hell.
I was told that it was the lower earth next above hell.
I made my way to the outcries in turn. I came to the first, “Oh, how just!” and saw a company of men who had been judges in the world for friendship and gifts; then to the second, “Oh, how learned!” and saw a group of men who in the world had been reasoners; and to the third cry, “Oh, how wise!” and saw a company of men who in the world had been confirmers.
[2] But I turned back to the first outcry where were the judges for friendship and gifts, who were proclaimed to be just. To one side I saw what looked like an amphitheater built of brick and roofed with black tiles, and was told that it was called the Tribunal. It had three entrances on the north side and three on the west, but none on the south and east sides, a token that their judgments were not just but arbitrary judgments. In the middle of the amphitheater a fireplace appeared, into which the servants tending the hearth were throwing sulphurous and bituminous pitch-pine torches; the dancing light from them sketched images of birds of evening and of night upon the plastered walls. The fireplace and the dancing light in the shapes of those images were representations, however, of their judgments, for they could throw a light of any color on the subject matter in question and give it a form to suit them. [3] After half an hour I saw old men and young entering in pallia and praetextae, who laid their caps aside and took their places in chairs at the tables to sit in judgment. I listened and perceived how skillfully and cleverly, with an eye on friendship, they warped and inverted judgments into an appearance of justice. They did this so thoroughly that they themselves saw the unjust to be no other than just, and the just to be no other than unjust. Their persuasions about just and unjust were evident in their faces and audible in their speech. Enlightenment was given me from heaven at the time, whereby I could perceive whether the several judgments rested in right or not. I saw how assiduously they obscured the unjust and gave it the look of justice; and how they selected out of the laws what was favorable and drew the rest their way by adroit reasonings. After the judgment the decisions were conveyed to their client friends and favorers. These, to requite them for their favor, shouted for a long way, “Oh, how just! Oh, how just!”
[4] After this I spoke with angels of heaven about these men and related some of the things which I had seen and heard. The angels told me that such judges seem to others to be endowed with a most penetrating acuteness of understanding, when as a matter of fact they do not in the least see what is just and equitable. If you take away their friendship for given persons they sit in judgment mute like statues and only say, “I assent, I am of your opinion.” The reason is that all their judgments are prejudices. Prejudice follows a cause with partiality from beginning to end. Hence they see only their friend’s case; everything against him they set aside, and if they recur to it, they entangle it in reasonings as a spider does its captives in the threads of its web, and do away with it. Only in following the web of their prejudice do they see anything of the right. They were explored as to whether they could see, and it was found that they could not.
“The inhabitants of your world,” said the angels, “will be surprised that this is so; but tell them that it is the truth, tested by the angels of heaven. Because such judges see nothing of what is just, we in heaven consider them not men but monsters, in whom considerations of friendship make the head, injustice makes the breast, items of confirmation make the feet, and justice makes the soles, and if it does not favor a friend, it is forced aside and trampled under foot. But you shall see how they appear to us in heaven; for their end is near.” [5] Suddenly the ground opened, the tables tumbled upon one another, and the judges were swallowed up with the whole amphitheater and thrust into caverns and imprisoned.
I was asked, “Do you wish to see them there?” And behold, they looked as if they had faces of polished steel, with a body from neck to loins like graven stone garbed in leopard pelt, and feet like snakes. The law books which they had laid on the tables I saw turn into playing cards; and now, instead of presiding over court, they were put at making vermilion into rouge, for daubing the faces of harlots and transforming them into beauties.
[6] After seeing these things I wanted to leave for the two other assemblies, the one where were mere reasoners, and the other where were mere confirmers. But I was bidden, “Rest a little. Angel companions will be given you from the society next above them. Through them light will be given you by the Lord and you will see strange things.”
* Also to be found in True Christian Religion, nn. 332-334.
232. II
After some time I heard again from the lower earth the cries I had heard before, “Oh, how learned!” and “Oh, how wise!” I looked around to see any angels who might be present, and saw some from the heaven immediately over the men who were crying, “Oh, how learned!” I mentioned the outcry. They said, “These `learned’ are such as only reason whether a thing is or is not, and rarely think that a thing is so. They are therefore like winds which blow and pass, or like the bark of trees without pith, or like almond shells without a kernel, or fruit rinds without pulp. Their minds are without interior judgment and are united only with the bodily senses. If therefore the senses themselves do not judge, they can come to no conclusion. In a word, they are merely sensuous. We call them ‘reasoners’ because they never come to a conclusion but, picking up what they hear and discussing whether it is, quibble endlessly. They like nothing more than to attack essential truths and to rend them by bringing them into dispute. Such are the men who believe themselves learned above all others in the world.”
[2] Hearing these things I asked the angels to guide me down to them. They led me to a cavern from which steps ran down to the lower earth. We descended and followed the shout, “Oh, how learned!” And there stood some hundreds at one spot, stamping the ground with their feet.
Struck first by this, I asked, “Why do they stand and stamp the ground with the soles of their feet?” and remarked, “They may hollow out the ground.” At this the angels smiled and said, “They seem to stand thus, because they do not think concerning anything that it is so, but only think and discuss whether it is. As the thought makes no progress they seem to tread and trample the very same clod, and not to move.” But then I approached the group, and now they seemed to me not unhandsome and to be well dressed. But the angels said, “They appear so in their own light, but if light from heaven flows in, their faces and garments change.” And it was so. They then appeared swarthy of countenance and clothed in black sackcloth. But when the light was withdrawn, they looked as before.
Presently I spoke to some of them and said, “I heard the crowd around you shouting ‘Oh, how learned!’ Perhaps you will permit me to discuss with you some subjects of the highest learning?”
[3] They answered, “Name your subject and we will gratify you.”
I asked them, “What must the religion be like by which a man is saved?”
They replied, “We shall divide the question into several, on which we must reach a conclusion before we can answer. The first inquiry must be whether religion is anything; the second, whether there is such a thing as salvation or not; the third, whether one religion effects more than another; the fourth, whether there is a heaven and a hell; the fifth, whether there is eternal life after death; besides others.”
I asked about the first point, “Whether religion is anything.” With a wealth of arguments they began to discuss whether there is religion and whether what is so called is anything. I begged them to refer the point to the gathering. They did so; and the general answer was that the proposition needed so much investigation that it could not be finished within the evening.
I asked, “Can you finish it within a year?” One of them said it could not be done in a hundred years.
I remarked, “Meanwhile you do without religion.”
He replied, “Should it not first be shown whether there is religion�whether what is so called is anything? If it is, it must be for the wise also. If not, then it must be only for the common people. We know that religion is called a bond; but we ask, ‘For whom?’ If only for the common people, in itself it is nothing. If also for the wise it is something.”
[4] Hearing these arguments I said to them, “You are anything but learned, for you can only think whether a thing is and turn it this way and that. Who can become learned unless he knows something for certain, and advances in it as a man moves step by step, and thus gradually arrives at wisdom? Otherwise you do not so much as touch truths with the finger-tip, but hold them more and more out of sight. Reasoning only whether a thing is, is like arguing about a cap or shoe without ever trying it on. What results except that you do not know whether there is anything,�that is to say, whether there is salvation, whether there is eternal life after death, whether one religion is more effective than another, whether there is a heaven and a hell? How can you have any thoughts on these subjects as long as you stick fast in the first step and thresh the sand there and never put one foot before the other or go forward? Beware lest your minds, while they stand thus at the doors outside judgment, indurate within and turn into statues of salt, and you become companions of Lot’s wife.”
[5] With these words I left, and in indignation they threw stones after me. They appeared to me then like stone images, with nothing of human reason in them. I asked the angels about their lot. They said, “They are let down by an abyss into a desert, and are driven to carrying packs. Being unable to produce anything from reason, they chatter and talk nonsense. At a distance they look like asses heavily laden.”
233. III
After this one of the angels said, “Follow me to the place where they are shouting, ‘Oh, how wise!’ ” He added, “You will see human monstrosities. You will see faces and bodies such as men have, and yet they are not men.”
I asked, “Are they beasts then?”
He answered, “They are not beasts but beast-men. They are such as are wholly unable to see whether truth is truth or not, but can make whatever they will to be truth. We call such men confirmers.”
Following up the shouting, we reached the place, and found a group of men surrounded by a crowd. In the crowd some of noble blood, hearing the men confirm everything they said and favoring them with such manifest agreement, turned and cried, “Oh, how wise!”
[2] But the angel said to me, “Instead of going to them, let us call one of them out of the group.” We did so, and going to one side with him, advanced various propositions. He confirmed them all, so that they appeared altogether true. We asked him whether he could also confirm their opposites. He replied, “Just as well.”
Then without disguise and from the heart he said, “What is truth? Is there anything true in the nature of things, other than what a man makes true? Make me any statement you please and I will make it true.”
I said, “Make this true, ‘Faith is the all of the Church.'” This he did so adroitly and skillfully that the learned standing around admired and applauded. Afterwards I asked him to make it true that charity is the all of the Church, and he did so; and after that, that charity is nothing of the Church. Finally he dressed both propositions up and decked them in such plausibility that the bystanders glanced at one another and said, “Is he not wise!”
“But,” I said, “do you not know that to live well is charity, and that to believe well is faith? Does not he who lives well also believe well? Thus faith is of charity and charity is of faith. Do you not see that this is true?”
He replied, “Let me make it true and I shall see.” He did so, and said, “Now I see.” But presently he made its opposite true, and said, “I see that this also is true.”
At this we smiled and said, “Are they not contraries? How can two contraries be regarded as truths?”
He replied indignantly, “You are mistaken. Each is true, for nothing is true but what a man makes true.”
[3] Nearby stood a man who had been a diplomat of the first rank in the world. He was amazed at all this, and said, “I am aware that there is reasoning like this in the world; still you are not sane. Make it true if you can that light is darkness, and darkness light.”
He replied, “I can do it easily. What are light and darkness but states of the eye? Does not light change to dimness when the eye comes out of strong sunshine?
Again, when it gazes into the sun? Who does not know that the state of the eye changes then, and that it is from this that light appears as shade? On the other hand, when the first state of the eye returns, the shade appears as light. Does not an owl see the darkness of night as the light of day, and the light of day as the darkness of night, and the sun itself as an opaque and dusky globe? If a man had eyes like an owl, which would he call light, and which darkness? What then is light but a state of the eye? And if it is a state of the eye, is not light darkness and darkness light? Therefore the one is true, and the other is true.”
[4] The diplomat then asked him to make it true that the raven is white and not black.
He responded: “That also I can do readily,” and said: “Take a needle or a razor and open the feathers or quills of a raven. Are they not white inside? Then pluck the feathers and quills and look at the skin of the raven. Is it not white? What is the black around it but shadow, by which one is hardly to decide the raven’s color. As for black being shadow only, consult experts in the science of optics and they will affirm it. Or pulverize black stone or glass and you will see that the powder is white.”
“But,” replied the diplomat, “does not the raven appear black to the sight?”
“And are you,” responded the confirmer, “who are a man, going to think according to the appearance of a thing? From appearance you can indeed say that the raven is black, but you cannot think it. For example, you can say from appearance that the sun rises, moves and sets, but as you are a man you cannot think it, because the sun stands still and the earth moves. So with the raven. Appearance is appearance. Say what you will the raven is white as can be. It also grows white as it ages�which I have seen.”
[5] We then asked him to tell us honestly whether he was jesting or believed that nothing is true but what a man makes true.
He answered, “I swear that I believe it.”
After that the diplomat asked him if he could make it true that he himself was insane. He said, “I can, but I do not choose to do so. Who is not insane?”
This universal confirmer was afterwards sent to angels who explored him to see what kind of man he was. After the examination they said that he possessed not a grain of understanding, because everything above the rational in him was closed and only what was below the rational was open. Above the rational is heavenly light and below the rational is natural light, which latter light is such that it can confirm whatever one pleases. If heavenly light does not flow into natural light, a man does not see that any truth is true, or that anything false is false. To see these is of heavenly light in natural light; and heavenly light is from the God of heaven, who is the Lord. This universal confirmer is therefore neither man nor beast, but a beast-man.
[6] I asked the angel about the lot of such men, and whether they can associate with the living; because man has life from heavenly light, and his understanding is from the same light. He said that such men when alone are not able to think anything or to speak, but stand dumb like machines and as if in deep sleep, but awake as soon as a sound strikes the ear. He added that those who are inmostly evil become such. Heavenly light from above cannot flow into them, but only something spiritual through the world, from which they have the faculty of confirming.
[7] Thereupon I heard a voice from the angels who examined the man, saying to me, “Form a universal conclusion from what you have heard.” I formed this conclusion: To be able to confirm whatever one pleases is not the mark of an intelligent man. To be able to see that truth is truth and falsity is falsity and to confirm it, is the mark of an intelligent man.
After this I looked towards the assemblage where the confirmers stood, around whom the crowd was shouting, “Oh, how wise!” and lo! a dark cloud covered them, and in the cloud screech-owls and bats were flying. I was told, “The screech-owls and bats flying in the dark cloud are the correspondences and therefore appearances of their thoughts. For confirmations of falsities to the point that they appear like truths are represented in this world under the forms of birds of night, whose eyes are lighted by a fatuous light within, by which they see objects in the dark as if in light. Such fatuous spiritual light is in those who confirm falsities until they seem to be truths and who afterwards say and believe that they are truths. All these are in posterior vision and not in any prior* sight.”
* On the meaning of these terms see n. 408.
234. X
CAUSES OF COLD, SEPARATION AND DIVORCE IN MARRIAGE
While we consider causes of cold in marriage we shall take the occasion to consider causes of separation and divorce as well, for all these are closely connected. Separations come wholly from cold gradually engendered after marriage or from causes disclosed after marriage which give rise to cold. Divorces result from adulteries; adulteries are wholly opposite to marriages, and this opposite again induces cold, if not in both partners, at least in one. Hence we assemble the causes of cold, separation and divorce in one chapter. The close connection among them will be better perceived if we view things in a series, as follows:
i. There is spiritual warmth, and spiritual cold, spiritual warmth being love, and spiritual cold the absence of love.
ii. Spiritual cold in marriage is disunion of souls and disjunction of minds, whence come indifference, discord, contempt, disgust, and aversion, which lead at length with many to separation from bed, chamber and house.
iii. Causes of cold in order one after another are many, some internal, some external, and some accessory.
iv. Internal causes of cold concern religion.
v. The first of these causes is the rejection of religion by both partners.
vi. The second, that one partner has religion, and the other has not.
vii. The third, that one is of one religion, the other of another.
viii. The fourth, an imbued falsity of religion.
ix. These are causes of internal cold, yet not at the same time, with many, of external.
x. External causes of cold are also many; and the first of them is unlikeness of minds and ways.
xi. The second is that marital love is deemed to be one with scortatory love, only that the latter is by law illicit, and the former licit.
xii. The third is striving for the upper hand between partners.
xiii. The fourth, no devotion to any concern or business, whence a wandering desire.
xiv. The fifth, inequality of state and condition in externals.
xv. The causes of separation are also several.
xvi. The first of them is vitiation of mind.
xvii. The second is vitiation of body.
xviii. The third is impotence before marriage.
xix. Adultery is the cause of divorce.
xx. Accessory causes are also many; and the first of them is commonness from constant access.
xxi. The second, that living together with the partner under covenant and law seems forced and not free.
xxii. The third, protestation and talk of love by the wife.
xxiii. The fourth, thought on the man’s part day and night about his wife, that she is willing; and in turn thought on the wife’s part about the man that he is not willing.
xxiv. Present in the mind, cold is also present in the body; furthermore, as it increases, the externals of the body are closed up.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
[2] External likeness and unlikeness, however, is not of the souls but of the minds. By minds are meant the external affections and the inclinations from them, especially such as are insinuated by education, associations and habits. For we say, “I have a mind to do this or that,” by which we understand affection and inclination for the particular action. Preferences formed for one or another kind of life are also wont to form the lower minds. Hence there are inclinations to enter on marriage with those not one’s equals, and also to refuse marriage with one’s equals. But still these marriages, after a period of living together, are altered according to the likenesses or unlikenesses induced by heredity and also by upbringing; and the unlikenesses bring on cold. [3] Similarly unlikenesses in people’s ways, as when an uncouth man or woman unites with a cultivated woman or man, a clean man or woman with an unclean, a contentious person with a peaceable, or an ill-bred person with a well-bred. Marriages between such dissimilitudes are not unlike conjunctions of diverse kinds of animals, as of sheep and goats, stags and mules, hens and geese, sparrows and noble birds, yes, cats and dogs, which do not associate because of their unlikenesses. But in the human race, habits and not faces are the index to the incompatibilities from which cold arises.
* For the meaning with which this word is used see n. 252e; at n. 470 the word is differently used, and there “just” is used with the meaning of “legitimate” here.
** Chap. XIX.
That any one who puts away his wife except for whoredom, and marries another, commits adultery (Matthew xix. 9).
He says that if a man puts away his wife except for whoredom and marries again, he commits adultery, because the putting away for the cause named is the absolute separation of minds which is called divorce; but the other dismissals for their causes are the separations of which we have just treated; if on a separation a man marries again, he commits adultery, but not on divorce.
* For meaning see in n. 294 [4, 6e].
* Nn. 155r, 208; 293, 294.
I
In* an upper northeast quarter in the spiritual world are places of instruction for boys and youths and also for men and old men. Thither are sent not only all who die in infancy, to be reared in heaven; but any just come from the world who desire knowledge about heaven and hell. The district is toward the east in order that all may be instructed by influx from the Lord, who is the east, being in the sun there. The sun is pure love from Him; hence the warmth of that sun in essence is love, and the light in its essence is wisdom. These are inspired in men by the Lord from that sun and are inspired according to reception, which is according to the love of becoming wise. After the periods of instruction, those who have become intelligent are sent out and are called disciples of the Lord. They are sent to the west first; and those who do not remain there, to the south, and some by the south into the east, and so all are led into societies where their homes are to be.
[2] As I was meditating once on heaven and hell, I began to desire a universal knowledge of the state of each, knowing that if one has a knowledge of universals one can then comprehend the particulars, for these are in universals as parts are in a whole. With this desire I looked toward that district in the northeast where the places of instruction were, and by a way then opened to me I proceeded thither, and entered one of the schools where young men were. I approached the head teachers who were giving the instruction, and asked them if they knew the universals about heaven and hell.
[3] They replied that they had a little knowledge of them, “but if we will look eastward to the Lord, we shall be enlightened and know.” They did so and said, “The universals of hell are three, and are diametrically opposite to those of heaven. The universals of hell are three loves�the love of ruling from love of self; the love of possessing the goods of others from love of the world; and scortatory love. The diametrically opposite universals of heaven are also three loves�the love of ruling from the love of use; the love of possessing the goods of the world from the love of doing uses by means of them; and true marital love.”
Bidding them farewell, I left and returned home. There I was bidden from heaven, “Examine these which are the three universals overhead and below, and we shall behold them later in your hand.” They said “in your hand” because all that a man examines with the understanding appears to the angels as if inscribed on the hands.
* These Memorabilia occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 661.
[3] Among politicians this love soars until they want to be kings and emperors, and if possible to dominate over all the world, and to be called kings of kings and emperors of emperors. Among ecclesiastics the same love mounts to the point where they want to be gods, and as far as possible to rule over all things of heaven, and to be called gods of gods. It will be seen in what follows that neither of these at heart acknowledge any God. On the other hand, those who desire to rule from the love of uses do not wish to rule from themselves but from the Lord�for the love of uses is from the Lord and is the Lord Himself. They regard position only as a means of doing uses. They put use far above place, whereas the former put place far above use.
Suddenly, at the left, the earth opened and I saw a devil emerging from hell, with a square cap on his head crushed down over the forehead even to the eyes, a face full of blisters from a high fever, ferocious eyes, and a bosom swollen out of shape. From his mouth belched the fumes of an oven; his loins were all aflame; instead of feet he had ankle bones without flesh; and from his body exhaled a stinking and unclean heat. [2] Terrified at the sight of him, I cried to him:
“Come no nearer! Tell me, whence are you?”
He answered hoarsely, “From the lower regions where I am in a society of two hundred which is supreme over all other societies. We are all emperors of emperors, kings of kings, dukes of dukes, and princes of princes. No one is just an emperor, or just a king, duke, or prince. We sit on thrones of thrones and issue mandates into all the world and beyond.”
I said to him, “Do you not see that you are insane with an hallucination of preeminence?”
He replied, “How can you say that? We seem to have such preeminence, and our companions acknowledge we have.”
Hearing this, I did not wish to say again, “You are insane,” for in his phantasy he really was insane. I was informed that in the world this devil had been only the steward of some one’s house, but was so elated in spirit that he despised the whole human race in comparison with himself and indulged the phantasy that he was worthier than a king or even an emperor. In this arrogance he had denied God and accounted all the holy things of the Church as nothing to him, if still of some account to the stupid multitude.
[3] At length I asked him, “How long will you two hundred boast thus among yourselves?” He said, “To eternity. But those of us who torment others for denying our supereminence sink underground. We are allowed to boast, but not to injure any one.”
I asked again, “Do you know what the lot is of those who sink underground?” He said, “They sink into a kind of prison where they toil and are called viler or vilest of the vile.”
Then I said to this devil, “Better take heed lest you also sink down.”
“Why do you do that?” I asked.
He replied, “He is God of heaven and earth and is omnipotent.”
I asked the other, “What do you say to this?”
He replied, “What should I say? I have all power over heaven and hell. The fate of all souls is in my hand.”
I asked again, “How can this man who is ’emperor of emperors’ abase himself so, and how can you receive his worship?”
He replied, “But he is my slave. What is an emperor before God? In my right hand is the thunderbolt of excommunication.”
[2] I then said, “How can you be so insane? In the world you were only an ecclesiastic; but laboring under the delusion that you also had the keys and hence the power of binding and loosing, you brought your spirit to such a pitch of madness that now you believe you are God Himself.”
Incensed at this, he swore that he was God and that the Lord had no power in heaven. “He has committed it all to us. We need only to command, and heaven and hell obey in awe. The devils immediately receive any one whom we send to hell, the angels any one whom we send to heaven.” I asked further, “How many are there in your society?” He said, “Three hundred; and we are all gods there; but I am the god of gods.”
[3] After this the earth opened under their feet and they sank far down, each into his hell. I was given to see that under their hells are workhouses into which those sink who inflict harm on others. Every devil in hell is left to his phantasy and boasting, but he must not hurt another.
Such are the inhabitants of these hells because man is then in his spirit, and with separation from the body the spirit comes into the full liberty of acting according to its affections and the thoughts thence.
[4] Afterwards it was granted me to look into their hells. The hell where were the “emperors of emperors” and “kings of kings,” was full of every uncleanness; the people looked like various wild beasts with ferocious eyes. Similarly in the other hell where were the “gods” and “the god of gods.” There, flying about the devils, appeared dreadful birds of night, called ochim and ijim.* So the images of their phantasies appeared to me. From these experiences it was evident what the politician’s and what the ecclesiastic’s love of self are like�the one desires to be a god and the other an emperor; as far as rein is given to these loves, men so desire and strive to be.
* Swedenborg’s transliterations of two Hebrew words; the former is found at Isaiah xiii. 21 and the other at Isaiah xiii. 22, xxxiv. 44, and Jeremiah l. 39. The creatures meant have not been identified with certainty by Bible students, but Swedenborg characterizes them as birds of night when he does so at all. At n. 430 Swedenborg also alludes to tsiim (also unidentified), considering them birds, too (tsiim is found at Isaiah xiii. 21, xxiii. 13, xxxiv. 14, Jeremiah l. 39, and Psalms lxxii. 9, lxxiv. 14).
They replied, “We were sent here from heaven at the Lord’s command, to speak with you about the blessed lot of those who desire to rule from the love of uses. We are worshipers of the Lord. I am the prince of a society. My companion is the high priest there.”
[2] The prince said he was the servant of his society, serving it by performing uses. The other said he was the minister of the Church there, and that in serving the people, he administered holy things for the uses of their souls. Both of them, they said, are in perpetual joys from the eternal happiness which is theirs from the Lord.
They remarked that all things in their society are splendid and magnificent, splendid for gold and precious stones, and magnificent for palaces and paradises. “The reason is that our love of ruling is not from love of self but from the love of uses, and as the love of uses is from the Lord, all good uses in the heavens are resplendent and refulgent. All of us in our society are in this love, and therefore the atmosphere appears golden from the light which partakes of the flamy quality of the sun. The flamy quality of the sun corresponds to that love.”
[3] At these words I saw such a sphere about them, and perceived an aromatic odor therefrom, as I also told them. I begged them to add something more to what they had said about the love of uses.
They continued: “We did strive to attain the dignities in which we are, but for no other end than that we might fulfil our uses better and extend them farther. We are also surrounded with honor, and we accept it not on our own account but for the good of the society. Our brethren and associates among the masses of the people scarcely know but that the honors attaching to our dignities are in us, and hence that the uses we perform are from ourselves. We, however, feel otherwise. We feel that the honors of high place are outside us and are like garments with which we are clothed; but the uses we render are from a love for them which we have from the Lord, and this love has its blessedness from sharing with others through uses. We know by experience that as far as we perform uses from a love for them the love increases, and with the love the wisdom by which the sharing is accomplished; but that so far as we keep the uses to ourselves, and do not share them, the blessedness perishes. Thereupon the uses become like food clogging the stomach, which does not, by being distributed, nourish the body and its parts, but remains undigested and produces nausea. In a word the whole of heaven is nothing but a containant of uses, from first to last. What is use but love of the neighbor fulfilled? And what holds heaven together except this love?”
[4] Hearing this I asked, “How can one know whether he is performing uses from the love of self or from the love of uses? Every man, good or evil, does uses and does them from some love. Suppose there were in the world a society composed entirely of devils, and a society composed entirely of angels, I am of the opinion that the devils in their society, from the fire of self-love and the glamour of their own glory, would perform as many uses as the angels in theirs. Who then can know from which love or from which source the uses are?”
[5] To this the two angels replied, “Devils do uses for the sake of themselves and for the sake of fame in order to achieve honors or to amass wealth. But not for these ends do angels perform uses, but for the sake of the uses from love of them. Man cannot distinguish between these uses, but the Lord does. Every one who believes in the Lord and shuns evils as sins does uses from the Lord; but every one who does not believe in the Lord and does not shun evils as sins, performs uses from himself and for the sake of himself. This is the distinction between uses done by devils and uses done by angels.”
Having spoken so the two angels departed, and were taken up into their heaven. At a distance they seemed to be conveyed like Elijah in a chariot of fire.
267. II
After some time* I entered a certain grove where I walked meditating on those who are in the lust and thence in the phantasy of possessing the things of the world. At a distance I saw two angels conversing, who from time to time glanced my way. I therefore went nearer. As I approached they addressed me and said, “We perceive within us that you are meditating on the subject of which we are speaking, or that we are speaking on the subject of your meditation. This comes from a mutual sharing of affections.”
[2] So I asked them what they were talking of. They said, “Of phantasy, lust, and intelligence, and at the moment about those who delight in the hallucination and imagination that they possess all things in the world.” I then asked them to express their minds on the three subjects: lust, phantasy, and intelligence.
Beginning their discourse they said that every one is inwardly in lust by birth, but outwardly in intelligence by education. No one is in intelligence, still less in wisdom inwardly or as to the spirit, except from the Lord. “For every one is withheld from the lust of evil and kept in intelligence according as he looks to the Lord and at the same time is united with Him. Short of this, man is nothing but lust. In externals or as to the body, however, he is in intelligence by education. For while man lusts after honors and riches, or eminence and wealth, he does not attain them unless he appears moral and spiritual, thus intelligent and wise; therefore from infancy he learns to appear so. That is why, as soon as he comes among men or into company, he inverts his spirit, withdraws it from lust, and speaks and acts from the idea of what is decorous and honorable which he has learned from infancy and which he retains in the memory of his body, taking every care that nothing of the insanity of lust in which his spirit is, shall betray itself. [3] Hence every one who is not inwardly led by the Lord is a dissembler, flatterer and hypocrite, and thus seemingly a man and yet not a man. It may be said of him that the shell or body is wise and the kernel or spirit insane; or the external, human but the internal, bestial. Such men look upward with the back of the head and downward with the face, and walk as if oppressed with a load, with the head drooping and the face prone. When they put off the body and become spirits and have their freedom, they become the insanity of their own lust. For those in self-love have a burning desire to rule over the universe, indeed to extend its limits in order to amplify their dominion. They never see the end.
“Men who are in love of the world desire to possess all things thereof, and grieve and feel envy if any treasures are sequestered with others. To the end therefore that such may not become mere lusts and thus not men, it is given them in the natural world to think from fear of the loss of reputation and thus of honor and gain, and also from fear of the law and its penalty. And it is also given them to apply the mind to some study or occupation, by which they are kept in their externals, and thus in a state of intelligence, however delirious and insane they are inwardly.”
[4] I then asked whether all who are in a lust are also in the phantasy of it. They replied that those who think inwardly within themselves, and over-indulge their imagination by talking with themselves, are in the phantasy of their lust. These practically sever their spirit from connection with the body, submerge the understanding in illusion, and fatuously delight themselves as if with universal possession. Into such delirium is the man let after death who has abstracted his spirit from the body, and who was unwilling to withdraw from the delight of his delirium by reflecting from religion upon evils and falsities, especially upon unbridled love of self, realizing how destructive it is of love of the Lord, and upon unbridled love of the world, realizing how destructive this is of love towards the neighbor.
* These Memorabilia, through n. 268, occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 662.
Their dwelling-place was under the earth beneath our feet, yet above hell. An opening appeared, and a ladder, by which we descended. We were told that these people would have to be approached from the east, if we were not to enter into the dark cloud of their phantasy and find our own understanding and vision darkened. [2] We saw a house built of reeds, and full of chinks, standing in a thick cloud which continually drifted like smoke from the chinks on three sides. Entering, we saw fifty here and fifty there sitting on benches.; turned away from the east and south, they faced the west and north. Before each stood a table, on each table were bulging. purses, and around the purses heaps of gold coins.
We asked, “Are these the riches of all in the world?” They replied, “Not of all in the world, but of all in the kingdom.”
Their speech was sibilant; they appeared of a rotund face, which had a reddish glow like a snail-shell; and the
pupil of the eye seemed to glitter from the light of phantasy against a ground of green.
We took our stand in the midst of them and asked, “Do you believe that you possess all the riches of the kingdom?”
They responded, “We do possess them.”
Then we asked, “Which of you?” They answered:
“Each of us.” And we asked, “How so? You are many.”
They said, “Each of us knows that all he has is the other’s. No one is permitted to think, still less to say
`Mine is not yours,’ but he may think and say ‘Yours is mine.'”
The coins on the table looked like pure gold even to us.
But when we let in light from the east, they proved to be tiny grains of gold which in their joint phantasy these spirits magnified. They said that every one who enters has to bring some gold with him, which they divide into small bits, and these into little grains which by dint of their common phantasy they enlarge into coins of higher denomination.
[3] Then we said, “Were you not born reasonable men? Whence have you this visionary foolishness?”
They said, “We know that it is an imagined vanity, but it delights the interiors of our minds; so we come here and delight in the possession seemingly of all things. We remain only a few hours and then leave, and each time a sound mind returns to us. Still, our visionary pleasure overtakes us at intervals and makes us come in and go out by turns, so that we are alternately wise and insane. We also know that a hard lot awaits those who by craft deprive others of their goods.”
We asked, “What is their lot?”
They said, “They are engulfed and thrust naked into an infernal prison where they are forced to work for clothing and food, and afterwards for a few small coins, which they hoard and on which they set their heart’s joy. If they do evil to their companions they pay a part of their tiny coins as a fine.”
[2] “There are three universal loves of which every man is constituted by creation: the love of the neighbor, which is also the love of doing uses; the love of the world, which is also the love of possessing wealth; and the love of self, which is also the love of ruling over others. Love of the neighbor or the love of doing uses is a spiritual love; but love of the world, which is also the love of possessing wealth, is a material love; and love of self or the love of ruling over others is a corporeal love. [3] Man is man when love of the neighbor or the love of doing uses makes the head, love of the world makes the body, and love of self, the feet. But if love of the world forms the head, man is not a man�other than as it were a hunchback; and if love of self makes the head, he is not a man standing on his feet but on his palms, with the head downward and the haunches up. If love of the neighbor forms the head, and the other two loves in order make the body and feet, man appears from heaven of an angelic countenance with a beautiful rainbow about his head; if love of the world makes the head he appears from heaven with the pallid countenance of a dead person, with a yellow circle about his head; but if love of self makes the head he appears from heaven of a dusky countenance, with a white circle around the head.”
On this I asked what the circles about the head represented. They answered, “Their intelligence. A white circle around the head with a dusky countenance means that the man’s intelligence is in things external or is circumferential, while in things internal or within him is insanity. Such a man also is sane while he is in the body, but insane when in the spirit. No man is sane in the spirit except from the Lord, which is the case when he is born again or created anew from Him.”
[4] After these things were said the earth opened at the left, and I saw a devil rising through the opening having a very white circle around his head, and I demanded: “Who are you?”
He said, “I am Lucifer, Son of the Morning.** Because I made myself like the Most High I was cast down.” He was not that Lucifer, but believed he was.
I said, “Having been cast down, how can you rise again out of hell?”
He replied, “There I am a devil, but here I am an angel of light. Do you not see my head encircled with a lucid sphere? You will also see, if you wish, that I am super-moral among the moral, super-rational among the rational, yes, super-spiritual among the spiritual. I can preach, too, and have done so.”
I asked, “What have you preached?”
He said, “Against defrauders, adulterers and all infernal loves. Indeed, I, Lucifer, then called myself a devil, and perjured him�or myself!�and was lauded to heaven for it. That is why I am called the Son of the Morning. Strange to say, when I was in the pulpit I thought no otherwise than that I was speaking rightly and properly. But I have discovered to myself the reason. It was because I was in externals, which were then separated from my internals; but though I discovered this to myself, I could not change myself, for out of pride I did not look to God.”
[5] I then asked him, “How could you speak in this way when you yourself are a defrauder, adulterer and devil?”
He replied, “I am one person when in externals or in the body, and another when in internals or in the spirit. In the body I am an angel, but in the spirit a devil. For in the body I am in the understanding, but in spirit in the will, and my understanding bears me upward, butthe will bears me downward. When I am in the understanding this white zone encircles my head, but when the understanding makes itself over to my will and becomes its understanding�which is our final lot�then the zone grows dim and dies. When that happens we can no longer rise into this light.”
He went on to speak more rationally than any one else about his double state, external and internal; but suddenly, catching sight of the angels with me, he was inflamed in face and voice, turned black, even to the zone about his head, and sank into hell through the opening by which he had come up.
The onlookers concluded from what they had seen that a man is such as his love is, and not such as his understanding is, because the love easily bears the understanding its way and subordinates it.
[6] I then asked the angels, “Whence have devils such rationality?”
They said, “From the glory of self-love. For self-love is encircled with glory, and glory raises the understanding even into the light of heaven. For the understanding can be raised with every man according to his knowledge, but the will only by a life according to the truths of the Church and of reason. Hence even atheists who are in the glory of reputation from the love of self, and thence in the pride of their own intelligence, rejoice in a sublimer rationality than many others; but that is when they are in the thought of the understanding, and not when they are in the affection of the will. The affection of the will has possession of the internal of man, but the thought of the understanding of his external.”
The angel also gave the reason why man is constituted of the three loves mentioned above�the love of uses, the love of the world, and the love of self�namely, in order that he may think from God but still as if from himself. He said that the highest things in man are turned upward to God, the intermediate things outward to the world, and the lowest things downward to himself, and because the last-named are turned downward man thinks just as if from himself, although from God.
* This paragraph occurs again, with slight changes, in True Christian Religion, n. 507.
** Isaiah xiv. 12.
270. III
One morning after sleep I was plunged deep in thought about some of the arcana of marital love, finally about this: in what region of the human mind true marital love resides and hence in what region marital cold resides. I knew that there are three regions of the human mind, one above another, and that natural love inhabits the lowest region, spiritual love the higher, and celestial love the highest, and that in each region there is a marriage of good and truth; and as good is of love and truth is of wisdom, that in each region there is a marriage of love and wisdom; and that this marriage is the same as the marriage of the will and the understanding, since the will is the receptacle of love and the understanding is the receptacle of wisdom.
[2] While I was deep in the thought, I beheld two swans flying northward, and presently two birds of paradise flying southward, and also two turtledoves flying in the east. As my gaze followed their flight I saw that the two swans bent their way from the north to the east, likewise the two birds of paradise from the south; and that they joined the two turtledoves in the east and together they flew to a certain lofty palace there, surrounded by olive trees, palms and beeches. The palace had three rows of windows one above another; and as I watched I saw the swans fly into the palace through the opened windows of the lowest row, the birds of paradise through the opened windows of the middle row, and the turtledoves through the opened windows of the top row. [3] As I looked an angel presented himself, and said:
“Do you understand what you have seen?” I replied, “In some small measure.”
He said, “This palace represents the dwelling-places of marital love in the human mind. The highest part of the palace, into which the turtle-doves entered, represents the highest region of the mind, where marital love dwells in the love of good with its wisdom. The middle part to which the birds of paradise betook themselves represents the middle region, where marital love dwells in the love of truth with its intelligence. The lowest part to which the swans betook themselves represents the lowest region of the mind, where marital love dwells in the love of what is just and right with its knowledge. [4] The three pairs of birds have a similar significance�the pair of turtledoves signify the marital love of the highest region, the pair of birds of paradise marital love of the middle region, and the pair of swans marital love of the lowest region. The three kinds of trees around the palace�the olives, palms and beeches�have the same significance. We, in heaven, call the highest region of the mind celestial, the middle spiritual, and the lowest natural. We also conceive of these regions as habitations in a house, one above another, with an ascent from one to the other by degrees as by stairs; and in each part are as it were two apartments, one for love, the other for wisdom; and in front is a bedchamber, as it were, where love with its wisdom, or good with its truth, or, what is the same, where the will with its understanding consociate in bed. All the arcana of marital love appear in that palace as in effigy.”
[5] Hearing these things, and kindled with a desire to see the palace, I asked whether one could enter and view it, inasmuch as it was a representation. He answered:
“Only those in the third heaven can do so, for to them every representative of love and wisdom becomes real. I heard from them what I have related to you. Also this, that true marital love dwells in the highest region in the midst of mutual love in the marriage chamber or apartment of the will, and in the midst of perceptions of wisdom in the marriage chamber or apartment of the understanding; and that they are consociated in bed in the bedchamber which is toward the front and east.”
I asked, “Why are there two marriage chambers?” He said, “The husband is in the marriage chamber of the understanding, and the wife in the marriage chamber of the will.”
[6] And I asked, “Since marital love dwells there, where then does marital cold dwell?”
He answered, “That also dwells in the highest region, but only in the marriage chamber of the understanding, when the marriage chamber of the will is closed. For the understanding can ascend at will with its truths by a spiral stairway into the highest region to its marriage chamber; but if the will does not ascend at the same time with the good of its love into the allied marriage chamber, the latter is shut and cold comes in the other, and this is marital cold. When there is such cold toward the wife, the understanding looks down from this highest region to the lowest, and, if not restrained by fear, also descends to be warmed by illicit fire.”
Having said this, he would have recounted still more about marital love from its effigies in that palace, but said:
“Enough for the present. First inquire whether these things are above the general understanding. If they are, why say more? But if they are not, more will be disclosed.”
271. XI
CAUSES OF APPARENT LOVE, FRIENDSHIP AND FAVOR IN MARRIAGES
Having considered the causes of cold and separation, we must consider next in order the causes of apparent love, friendship and favor in marriages. For it is common knowledge that partners live together and procreate despite the fact that at the present day cold separates their minds. This could not be, were there not also apparent loves, at times resembling, at times emulating the warmth of genuine love. It will be seen in what follows that these apparent loves are necessities and utilities and that neither the home nor society would hold together without them. Conscientious persons, furthermore, may be preyed upon by the idea that the dissidences of mind between them and the partner, and the resulting inward estrangements, are their own fault and are chargeable to them, and on this account may grieve at heart. But as it is not in their power to relieve internal dissidences, it is enough if they quiet the qualms which arise from conscience with apparent love and favor. So, too, friendship in which marital love is latent, may return on the one side if not on the other. In view of the many-sidedness of the subject matter, this discussion will be distinguished like the preceding into propositions. The propositions are these:
i. In the natural world nearly all can be united as to external affections, but not as to internal if these disagree and appear.
ii. In the spiritual world all are united as to internal affections, but not as to external except as these make one with the internal.
iii. It is external affections in accord with which matrimony is generally contracted in the world.
iv. But if internal affections are not present, conjoining the minds, the bond of matrimony is loosed in the house.
v. Nevertheless matrimony in the world is to continue to the end of the partner’s life.
vi. In matrimonies in which internal affections do not conjoin, external are possible which simulate the internal and consociate.
vii. Hence come apparent love and apparent friendship and favor between partners.
viii. These appearances are marital simulations which are commendable because useful and necessary.
ix. These marital simulations in the case of a spiritual man united to a natural are inspired by justice and judgment.
x. With a natural man these marital simulations are inspired by prudence for various reasons.
xi. Marital simulations are for the sake of amendment and of mutual adaptation.
xii. They are for the sake of maintaining order in domestic affairs, and for the sake of mutual helpfulness.
xiii. They are for the sake of unanimity in the care of little ones and toward the children.
xiv. They are for the sake of peace in the home.
xv. They are for reputation’s sake outside the home.
xvi. They are for the sake of various favors expected from the partner or from his kindred; and thus for fear of the loss of them.
xvii. They are for the sake of excusing blemishes and of avoiding ill-repute.
xviii. They are for the sake of reconciliation.
xix. If favor does not cease with the wife when ability does with the man, a friendship emulating marital friendship may arise as they grow old.
xx. Various sorts of seeming love and friendship are possible between partners one of whom is subjugated and so a slave to the other.
xxi. There are infernal marriages in the world between partners who inwardly are the bitterest enemies and outwardly like the closest friends.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
The Pharisees approached, saying to Jesus, May a man put away his wife for any cause at all? And when Jesus answered that a man may not put his wife away and take another except for whoredom, they replied that Moses nevertheless commanded to give her a bill of divorcement and to put her away; and the disciples said. If the case of a man is so with his wife, it is not expedient to marry (xix. 3-10).
[2] Since therefore the covenant of marriage is for life, it follows that appearances of love and friendship between partners are necessities. It is of the Divine law that matrimonies, once contracted, should continue to the end of life in the world, and being of the Divine law, it is of rational law, too, and hence of civil. It is of the Divine law that one may not put away one’s wife and take another save for whoredom, as above. It is of rational law, because this is founded on the spiritual, for Divine law and rational law are one law. From the two laws together, or by the rational from the Divine, a large number of the enormities and social catastrophes may be descried which would ensue upon the dissolution of marriages before death and on the dismissal of wives at the husbands’ good pleasure. A number of these enormities and social catastrophes are adverted to in the Memorabilia (nn. 103-114) in which companies from nine kingdoms discuss the origin of marital love. We do not need to add further arguments. The reasons for the maintenance of matrimony to the end of life do not, however, obstruct the permission of separations for their own causes (of these above, nn. 252-254); or of concubinages (of which in Part II ).
As for two natural partners, however, no inward love is possible between them, for each of them is in cold; if they grow ardent, it is from what is unchaste. Still, though they are of separate minds, they can live together in the house, and although their higher minds are discordant, also assume looks of love and friendship for each other. With these partners, external affections (mainly affections for wealth and possessions or honor and station) can supply the ardor; and as this ardor brings fear for the loss of such things, marital simulations are necessities to them, chiefly the necessities enumerated below in propositions xv-xvii. The other causes enumerated below�causes moving the spiritual man (n. 280)�may operate to some extent with the natural man, too; but only if his prudence partakes of intelligence.
In the case of partners, however, of whom neither is spiritual, but both of whom are natural, there may be similar effort, but for other ends: if toward amendment and adaptation, the end is either to reduce the other into conformity with one’s own ways and subject him to one’s desires, or it is to turn good offices to one’s advantage, or it is peace within the home or reputation outside it, or favors hoped for from the partner or from his relatives, besides other objects. These efforts come with some from their reasoned prudence, with some from an inborn civility, with some from fear of losing enjoyments to which the desires have been accustomed from birth, and so on; favors done then as from marital love and toward such ends become more or less feigned. There are also favors extended as if from marital love outside the house, but not at home; these have the reputation of each in view, or else are mockeries.
The real cause of a wife’s dominating by such arts is that man acts from the understanding and woman from the will; the will can be obstinate but the understanding cannot. I have been told that the worst women of this sort, inwardly consumed by the ambition to rule, can hold tenaciously to their obstinacies even to a struggle for life. [3] I have also heard the excuses of such women for engaging in these artful practices. They would not have engaged in them, they said, if they had not foreseen utter contempt and future rejection and hence ruin if they were subjugated by their husbands; of necessity therefore they took up these their weapons. They added this admonition to men, that they should leave to wives their rights, and that when at times they are in cold they should not count them meaner than slaves. They also said that many of their sex are not in position to employ this art from innate timidity. But I added, “From innate modesty.” These experiences make known what is meant by infernal marriages in the world between married partners who inwardly are the bitterest enemies and outwardly are like the closest friends.
I
I looked out of my window toward the east on a time and saw seven women sitting in a rose-garden beside a certain fountain, drinking the water. I gazed intently to see what they were doing, and the intentness of my gaze affected them. Whereupon one of them beckoned to me, and I left the house and hastened toward them. Reaching them, I asked politely whence they were.
They said, “We are wives, and are conversing about the delights of marital love. We conclude from much confirmation that these delights are also the delights of wisdom.”
This answer so delighted my mind that I seemed to myself to be in the spirit, and in a more interior and clearer perception than on any previous occasion. Whereupon I said to them:
“May I address some questions to you on these pleasantnesses?”
They nodded assent, and I asked, “Why do you feel sure that the delights of marital love are the same as the delights of wisdom?”
[2] They replied, “We know it because of the correspondence between wisdom in our husbands and the delights of marital love in us. For the delights of this love in us are heightened or diminished and qualified invariably according to wisdom in our husbands.”
On hearing this I asked them, saying, “I know that you are affected by the endearments of your husbands and the vivacity of their minds, and that you delight with all your heart therein, but I am surprised that you say their wisdom has this effect. But tell me, what is wisdom? And what wisdom has this effect?”
[3] To this the wives replied indignantly, “You think we do not know what wisdom is, and what this wisdom in particular is, and yet we continually reflect on it in our husbands and learn it daily from their lips. For we wives think about the state of our husbands from morning to evening. Hardly a brief hour slips by in the day in which our intuitive thought is absolutely withdrawn or absent from them. On the other hand, our husbands think very little during the day about our state. Hence it is that we know what wisdom of theirs takes pleasure in us. Our husbands call it spiritual-rational and spiritual-moral wisdom. Spiritual-rational wisdom they say is of the understanding and of knowledge, and spiritual-moral wisdom, of the will and the life. They conjoin the two and make them one; and conclude that the pleasures of this wisdom are translated from their minds into delights in our bosoms, and’ from ours into their bosoms, thus returning to wisdom, their source.”
[4] I then asked them what more they knew about the wisdom of their husbands which finds its pleasures in them. They said, “This. There is spiritual wisdom, and from it a rational and moral wisdom. Spiritual wisdom is to acknowledge the Lord the Savior as God of heaven and earth, and to acquire from Him the truths of the Church (which is done through the Word and by preaching from it), whence comes spiritual rationality, and from Him to live according to those truths, whence comes spiritual morality. Our husbands call these two the wisdom which in general brings about true marital love. We have also heard from them the reason. The interiors of their mind and thence of their body are opened by this wisdom, and free passage is provided from firsts to lasts for the pulse of love, on the afflux, sufficiency and strength of which marital love depends and lives. Our husbands’ spiritual-rational and moral wisdom in reference to marriage has for its end and object to love the wife only and to put off all lust for others. In so far as this is done, that love is heightened in degree and perfected in quality. The more distinctly and exquisitely, too, do we feel within ourselves the delights which correspond to the joys of our husbands’ affections and to the pleasantnesses of their thoughts.”
[5] Then I asked whether they knew how the communication is effected.
They said, “In all conjunction by love there must be action, reception, and reaction. The delighted state of our love is the agent or action. The state of wisdom in our husbands is the recipient or reception; it is also the reactive or reaction as perceived by us. We perceive this reaction in bosom delights, in a state steadily expanded and made ready to receive what in some measure attends on and proceeds from the husband’s virility and our own full state of love.” They continued: “Be careful not to understand by the delights we have mentioned the ultimate delights of marital love. We never speak of these, but of our bosom delights, which are in constant correspondence with the state of the wisdom of our husbands.”
[6] Thereupon a dove seemed to be flying in the distance with a leaf of a tree in its mouth; but as it came near, a little boy appeared in the place of the dove, with a paper in his hand. Approaching us he handed me the paper, and said, “Read this to the virgins of the fountain.”
I read as follows: “Tell the earth-dwellers with whom you are that there is a true marital love, the delights of which are myriad, scarcely any of them known as yet to the world; the world will know them when the Church betroths herself to her Lord and marries.”
I asked, “Why did the boy call you ‘virgins of the fountain’?” They replied, “We are called virgins when we are sitting at this fountain because we are affections of the truths of our husbands’ wisdom, and the affection of truth is called a virgin. A fountain also signifies the truth of wisdom, and a rose-garden like this signifies its delights.”
[7] Then one of the seven wound a wreath of roses, sprinkled it with water from the fountain, and placed it on the boy’s cap around his little head, saying, “Receive the delights of intelligence. Know that the cap signifies intelligence, and the wreath from this rose-bed signifies delights.” So adorned, the boy took his leave, and at a distance looked once more like a dove flying, but now with a garland on its head.
294. II
Some days later I saw the seven wives again in a rosary, but not in the same one as before. It was a magnificent rosary, the like of which I had never seen. It was circular, and its roses formed as it were a rainbow arch, roses or flowers of a purple hue its outmost band, others of a golden yellow the band next within, and others of a deep blue within these, and innermost of all flowers leek-green or bright green; within all, this rainbow rosary encircled a small lake of limpid water. The seven wives sitting there, previously called the virgins of the fountain, on seeing me at the window, called me to them again. When I came they said, “Did you ever see anything more beautiful on earth?” I said, “Never!”
“A marvel like this,” they said, “is created by the Lord in a moment and represents something new on earth, for everything created by the Lord represents something. Divine, if you can, what it represents! We divine that it is the delights of marital love.” Hearing this I said:
[2] “What! The delights of marital love? About which you spoke so fully, with wisdom and eloquence, too? After I left you, I repeated what you said to wives dwelling in our region, and remarked that now, being instructed, I know that you have bosom delights arising from your marital love and can impart them to your husbands according to their wisdom; and that therefore you regard your husbands with the eyes of your spirit continually, from morning to evening, and study to incline and lead their minds to seek wisdom, to the end that you may capture those delights. I related also what you mean by wisdom, namely spiritual-rational and moral wisdom, and with respect to marriage, the wisdom of loving the wife alone and putting off all lust for others.
“But the wives of our region greeted this with laughter, saying, ‘What? All you say means nothing. We do not know what marital love is. If our husbands have any, still we have none. Whence then its delights with us? As for delights which you call ultimate, sometimes we refuse them forcibly, for they are unpleasant to us, scarcely other than violations. Indeed, if you will observe us you will see no sign of such love in our faces. You trifle, too, or jest, if, like the seven wives, you say that we think from morning till evening about our husbands and are constantly attentive to their will and wish, in order to obtain such delights from them.’ I have retained so much of what they said, to repeat it to you, as it contradicts, in fact, is plainly contrary to what I heard you say at the fountain, which I received with so much avidity, and also believed.”
[3] To this the wives sitting in the rosary replied, “Friend, you little know the wisdom and prudence of wives, for they conceal it from men altogether, and do so to no other end than to be loved. The man who is not spiritually but only naturally rational and moral, is cold toward his wife. Cold is latent in his inmosts. This the wise and prudent wife exquisitely and keenly observes, and she conceals her marital love so completely, and drawing it into her bosom, hides it there so deeply, that not the least of it shows in face, voice or gesture. The reason is that in the degree that the love appears, the marital cold of the man is diffused from the inmosts of his mind where it resides, into its ultimates, and induces a total frigidity of the body, and a consequent effort toward separation from bed and chamber.”
[4] Then I asked, “Whence is this cold which you call marital cold?”
They answered, “From the insanity of men in spiritual things. Every man who is insane in spiritual things is inmostly cold to his wife, and inmostly warm toward harlots. Marital love and scortatory love are opposite; it follows that marital love becomes cold when scortatory love is warm; and when the cold rules in him a man cannot bear from his wife any feeling or slightest breath of love. For this reason the wife wisely and prudently conceals it by denying and refusing, and so far as she does, so far relish is restored in the man by the inflowing meretricious sphere. Hence the wife of such a man has no bosom delights such as we have, but only pleasures, which on the part of the man must be called pleasures of insanity, because they are the pleasures of scortatory love. [5] Every chaste wife loves her husband, even though he is unchaste; but because only wisdom is receptive of that love, the wife makes every effort to turn his insanity into wisdom, that is, that he may not lust after others besides herself. She does this in a thousand ways, taking the greatest care that none shall be detected by the man; for she knows well that love cannot be constrained but is insinuated in freedom. Women are therefore given to know every state of mind of their husbands by sight, hearing and touch; husbands, on the other hand, are not given to know any state of mind of their wives. [6] A chaste wife can regard her husband with austere eyes, speak harshly to him and even be angry and quarrel, and yet cherish a kind and tender love for him in her heart. But these angry outbursts and dissimulations have wisdom, and hence the reception of love by the husband for an end, as is plain from the fact that she becomes reconciled in a moment. Wives possess these means of concealing the love inherent in their heart and marrow to the end, too, that marital cold may not break out in the man and, extinguishing the fire of his scortatory heat, turn him from green wood into a lifeless stump.”
[7] After the seven wives had said these and many more things of the kind, their husbands came with clusters of grapes in their hands, some of which had a delicious flavor and some a loathsome; and the wives said, “Why have you brought bad or wild grapes, too?” The husbands replied:
“Because we perceived in our souls, with which yours are united, that you were speaking with this man about true marital love, and saying that its delights are delights of wisdom; and also about scortatory love, saying that its delights are the pleasures of insanity. The latter are the grapes of loathsome flavor or wild grapes, but the former are the grapes of delicious flavor.” And they confirmed what their wives had said, adding, “The pleasures of insanity seem in externals like the delights of wisdom, but not in internals, quite like the good and the bad grapes which we have brought. For the chaste and the unchaste have a like wisdom in externals but utterly unlike in internals.”
[8] After this the little lad came again with a paper in his hand, and handing it to me, said, “Read.” I read as follows: “Know ye that the delights of marital love rise to the highest heaven, and on the way and there, too, conjoin themselves with the delights of all heavenly loves, and thus enter into their felicity which endures to eternity. This is for the reason that the delights of that love are also the delights of wisdom. Know also that the pleasures of scortatory love sink even to the lowest hell, and on the way and finally there conjoin themselves with the pleasures of all infernal loves, and thus enter into their infelicity, which consists in the deprivation of all joys of heart. The reason is that the pleasures of that love are also the pleasures of insanity.”
After this the husbands left with .their wives and accompanied the little boy as far as his path up into heaven. They knew the society from which he had been sent, and were aware that it was a society of the new heaven with which the new Church on earth is to be conjoined.
295. XII
BETROTHALS AND WEDDINGS
We treat now of betrothals and weddings and the attendant ceremonies, doing so chiefly from reasoned understanding. For what we have said in this book has for its object that the reader may see truths from his own reasoning and thus may assent. For so his spirit is convinced; and the things of which the spirit is convinced are allotted a place above those which enter on authority and by faith in authority without participation by the reason. For these things enter no more deeply than the memory, where they mix with fallacies and falsities, and thus are below the reasoned conclusions of the understanding. Every man can speak from them with seeming reason, but invertedly, thinking then as a crab walks, with the sight following the tail. It is another matter if he thinks from understanding; then the reason’s vision selects from the memory suitable things by which it confirms truth as seen in itself. [2] Many things are cited in this chapter, therefore, which are accepted customs; as that choice lies with the man; that parents are to be consulted; that pledges are to be given; that previously to the wedding a marriage contract is to be made; that this contract is to be consecrated by a priest; likewise that the nuptials should be celebrated; besides many other customs, adduced to the end that one may see by his own reason that such things are inscribed on marital love as requisites promoting and fulfilling it. The propositions into which we divide our discussion are as follows:
i. Choice belongs to the man, not to the woman.
ii. The man should court and ask the woman in marriage, and not the woman the man.
iii. The woman ought to consult her parents or those in loco parentis, and then deliberate with herself, before she consents.
iv. After the declaration of consent pledges are to be given.
v. Consent is to be assured and established by a solemn betrothal.
vi. By betrothal each is prepared for marital love.
vii. By betrothal the mind of the one is united with the mind of the other, so that a marriage of the spirit is effected before that of the body is.
viii. This happens with those who think chastely of marriages, but not with those who think unchastely.
ix. During betrothal it is not allowable to be united bodily.
x. On the completion of the period of betrothal, the wedding should take place.
xi. Before the celebration of the wedding a marriage covenant should be concluded in the presence of witnesses.
xii. Marriage is to be consecrated by a priest.
xiii. The nuptials should be celebrated with festivity.
xiv. After the wedding, the marriage of the spirit becomes one of the body, too, and thus full.
xv. Such is the order of marital love with its steps from its first warmth to its first torch.
xvi. Precipitated without order and the steps belonging to it, marital love burns out the marrows and is consumed.
xvii. The states of mind arising in each flow in successive order into the state of the marriage; in one way with the spiritual, however, in another with
the natural.
xviii. For there is successive order and there is simultaneous order, and the latter is from the former and according to it.
Explanation of these propositions now follows.
As for the first reason why choice belongs to men, namely, that men are born for understanding, this is because the understanding can perceive suitability and unsuitability and discriminate between them, and with judgment select what is compatible. It is otherwise with women, as they are born for love. They do not possess the clear-sightedness of that light, and determinations of theirs on marriage would be only from inclinations of their love; if they have the knowledge for discerning among men, still their love is swayed by appearances.
[2] With regard to the second cause why men and not women have the choice, namely, that love of the sex prevails with men but love for one of the sex with women; men, having love of the sex, have freedom in looking about and freedom of decision, too; it is not so with women, in whom love for one of the sex is implanted. If you wish confirmation, you have only to ask the men you meet about monogamous and polygamous marriage; rarely will you find one who does not reply in favor of polygamous marriage; this is also love of the sex. But ask women, and almost all except prostitutes will reject polygamous marriages. It is clear from this that women have love for one of the sex, thus marital love.
[3] As for the third reason, that it is not unseemly for men to speak of love or to propose, whereas it is for women, this is self-evident. It follows that declaration belongs to men, and if declaration, then choice, too. Women, of course, have the power to choose from among their suitors, but this kind of choice is restricted and limited, while that of men is extended and not limited.
But it is quite otherwise with the unchaste, who are those who do not think from religion about marriage and its sanctity; with them there is a marriage of the body, but none of the spirit. If during the state of betrothal something of a marriage of the spirit appears, still, ascend though it may by elevation of the thoughts about marriage, it falls back into the lusts of the flesh in the will, and by unchaste things there drops headlong into the body and defiles the ultimate expression of love with a seductive ardor. It burns out, therefore, as suddenly as at first it flamed up, and goes off into a wintry cold; all this hastens its failure. With such persons the state of betrothal hardly serves to do anything but fill their lusts with things lascivious, thereby sullying what is marital in love.
These things have been premised that it may be perceived why the minds or spirits are first to be united as it were in marriage before two persons are united bodily, namely, in order that when marriage becomes of the body it may be a marriage of the spirit, consequently that partners may love each other from the spirit and thence in the body.
[2] With this in mind, let us look at marriage. When marital love conjoins and forms the minds of the two for marriage, it then also conjoins and forms their bodies for it. For, as was said, the form of the mind is also inwardly the form of the body, with the single difference that the latter is organized outwardly to effect that to which the inward form of the body is determined by the mind. But the mind, formed under marital love, is not only inwardly everywhere in the body, but is also inwardly in the organs devoted to generation, which are situated in a region of their own below the other parts of the body; in these, the forms of the mind are terminated with those who are united by marital love. Hence the affections and thoughts of their minds are determined thither. In this respect the activities of their minds under other loves are different; those activities do not reach thither. It is to be concluded that such as is the marital love in the minds or spirits of the two, such it is inwardly in these its organs. It is self-evident that the marriage of the spirit after the wedding becomes one of the body, too, thus full; consequently, that if the marriage in the spirit is chaste and partakes of holiness there, it is the same in its fullness in the body; and the reverse, if the marriage in the spirit is unchaste.
It can be sufficiently established and elucidated to the reason from things known and visible in the world that all order proceeds from firsts to lasts, and that what is last becomes the first of any succeeding order, likewise that all things of a mediate order are the last things of a prior and the first things of a succeeding order, and that in this way ends are continually progressing by causes to effects. But our subject here is the order by which marital love moves from its first station to its first goal; its order subsequently we pass by, only remarking that such as the order of this love is from its first warmth to its first goal, such for the most part it is and remains in its ensuing development. It continues to unfold in keeping with what the first warmth was. If this was chaste, the chaste is strengthened in it in the further progress; but if unchaste, then the unchaste in it grows until the love is deprived of all the chaste which it had possessed outwardly, though not inwardly, from the time of the betrothal.
It can be seen from this that the states of mind of each partner, arising in successive order, flow into the state of the marriage. Partners after marriage are wholly ignorant of the successive developments which lie insinuated in their minds from what has gone before. Yet those developments are what give marital love its form, and make the state of their minds, from which they act toward each other. [3] A different state from a different order is formed with the spiritual than with the natural, for the reason that the spiritual proceed in true order, and the natural do not. For the spiritual look to the Lord, who foresees and guides the order, but the natural look to themselves and so proceed in inverted order. The state of their marriage therefore is inwardly full of unchastities. As many, moreover, as are the unchastities, so many are the colds, and equally numerous then are the obstructions of the inmost life, as a result of which love’s vein is obstructed, and its fountain dried.
[2] There are in heaven and in the world a successive order and a simultaneous. In successive order one thing follows another from the highest down to the lowest; but in simultaneous order one thing is next to another from inmost even to outmost. Successive order is like a column in segments from top to bottom, but simultaneous order like a work coherent from center to surface. Successive order turns simultaneous in its last in this way: highest things in the successive order become the inmost things of the simultaneous order; and the lowest things in the successive order become the outermost in the simultaneous. Relatively it is as if the column in segments were made to subside into a body assembled on one level. Thus the simultaneous is formed from things successive; and this in each and all things of the spiritual world, and in each and all things of the natural world. (Nn. 38, 65; also see many things on the subject in Angelic Wisdom about the Divine Love and Wisdom, nn. 205-229.)
[3] The like is true of successive order leading to marriage and of simultaneous order in marriage; namely, that the latter is from the former, and according to it. One who knows the influx of successive order into simultaneous, will comprehend why angels can see in a man’s hand all the thoughts and intentions of his mind; also why wives can feel from their husbands’ hands on their breasts their affections (something which has been mentioned several times in the Memorabilia). The reason is that the hands are the human being’s “last things,” in which the movements and conclusions of the mind terminate, and in which they form what is simultaneous. Hence the saying* in the Word that a thing is “written on the hands.”
* Cf. Isaiah xlix. i6, Revelation xiii. 16, xx. 4.
I
I saw* an odd meteor once not far from me. A cloud broke up into small clouds, some blue and some dark; they seemed to me to be clashing together. Streaky rays shot across them, now sharp like swordpoints, then blunt like broken swords; at one moment darting at one another, the next retreating, quite like pugilists. These small varicolored clouds, seemingly fighting one another, were only sporting. As the meteor appeared at no great distance from me, I raised my eyes, and, gazing intently, made out boys, and young and old men, entering a house built of marble with a foundation of porphyry. The phenomenon was over this house.
I addressed one of those entering and asked: “What is happening?”
The man answered, “This is a school where youths are initiated into various matters relating to wisdom.”
[2] Hearing this I entered with them, being in the spirit, that is, in a state like that of men in the spiritual world, who are then called spirits and angels. Inside I found a rostrum up forward, benches in the center, seats at the sides, and over the entrance a balcony. The rostrum was for the youths who, one after another, were to address themselves to the problem to be propounded; the benches were for the auditors; the seats at the sides for those who had answered wisely on previous occasions; and the balcony for the elders, who were to be arbiters and judges. In the center of the balcony was a dais where sat a wise man whom they called the chief teacher; he put the questions to which the young men were to respond from the rostrum.
When all had assembled, the man on the dais arose and said, “Address yourselves now, I pray, to this problem, and solve it if you can: What is the soul, and what is its nature?”
[3] There was a murmur of surprise at the problem. Some of the auditors on the benches exclaimed, “What mortal from the age of Saturn to our own has been able to see and grasp with any rational thought what the soul is, still less what its nature is? Is this not above the sphere of everybody’s understanding?”
But the judges in the balcony replied, “The subject is not above the understanding, but within its grasp and view; only answer.”
Then the young men chosen for that day arose, who were to mount the rostrum and speak to the problem. There were five of them; they had been examined by the elders and found to excel in sagacity. They were sitting on divans at the sides of the rostrum, and went up in the order in which they sat. Each, on going up, put on a tunic of silk of an opal color, over this a toga of soft wool on which flowers were woven, and on his head a cap, on the crown of which was a rosette encircled with small sapphires.
[4] I saw the first youth thus clothed ascend. He said, “What the soul is, and what its nature is, has been revealed to no one since the day of creation. It is a secret in the treasury of the one God. It is known that the soul dwells within man like a queen; but as to where her palace is, learned seers have only conjectured; some, that it is in a small tubercle between cerebrum and cerebellum, called the pineal gland. They have supposed that the seat of the soul is there, because the whole man is governed from those two brains and these the tubercle in turn disposes; what disposes the brains at will must rule the man from head to foot.” He added, “To many in the world this view seemed to be the truth or the probability; but after a time it was rejected as a figment.”
[5] So concluding, he put off toga, tunic and cap, and the second of the chosen put them on, and stepped onto the rostrum. His statement about the soul was as follows:
“In all heaven and in all the world it is unknown what the soul is, and what its nature is. It is known that it exists, and that it is within man, but where, is a matter of conjecture. So much is certain, that it is in the head, for there the understanding thinks, and there the will purposes, and man’s five organs of sense are at the front of the head, in the face. Only the soul which resides in the head gives life to all these. But where in all these, its court is, I do not myself venture to say. At different times I have agreed with those who place its seat in the three ventricles of the brain; with those who place it in the corpora striata there; with those who put it in the medullary substance of each brain; with those who place it in the cortical substance, and with those who place it in the dura mater. [6] Votes have not been wanting in support of each seat�votes for the three ventricles in the brain, because they are receptacles of the animal spirits and of all the lymphs of the brain; votes for the corpora striata, because these form the medulla through which the nerves go forth, and through which each brain is continued into the spine, and from one and the other proceed the fibers out of which the whole body is woven together; votes for the medullary substance of each brain, because this is a collection and assemblage of all the fibers which are the rudiments of the whole man; votes for the cortical substance, because first and last ends are there, and thence are the beginnings of all the fibers, and thus of the senses and motions; votes for the dura mater, because it is the common covering of each brain and extends thence by a kind of continuation over the heart and over the viscera of the body. As for me, I do not decide for any one of these conjectures more than for another. I beg you to decide and choose which you prefer.”
[7] Having spoken so he descended and handed tunic, toga and cap to the third, who mounted the rostrum and said:
“What have I, a young man, to do with so sublime a theme? I appeal to the learned men sitting at either side, I appeal to you wise men in the balcony, yes, I appeal to the angels of the highest heaven, whether one can gain an idea of the soul by one’s own rational light. Like the others I can conjecture, however, about its seat in man. I opine that it is in the heart and thence in the blood. The reason for my opinion is that the heart by its blood governs both the body and the head. By the great vessel called the aorta it reaches into all the body and by the vessels called carotids into all the head. There is universal agreement, therefore, that from the heart and by means of the blood the soul sustains, nourishes and vivifies the whole organic system of the body and of the head. It lends credibility to this view that “soul” and “heart” are so often coupled in Sacred Scripture:
Thou shalt love God with all the heart and with all the soul; and God creates in man a new soul and a new heart (Deuteronomy vi. 5; x. 12; xi. 13; xxvi. 16; Jeremiah xxxii. 41; Matthew xxii. 37; Mark xii. 30, 33; Luke x. 27; and other places).
It is plainly said, too:
The blood is the soul of the flesh (Leviticus xvii. 11, 14).”
On hearing this some raised their voices and exclaimed, “Learned! Learned!” They were ecclesiastics.
[8] Then the fourth, having put on the garments of the previous speaker, stepped onto the rostrum, and said:
“I also surmise that no one possesses a genius subtle and refined enough to discover what the soul is and what its nature is. I am therefore of the opinion that one who seeks to pry into this subject wastes subtlety on the impossible. Yet I have persisted from boyhood in the opinion of the ancients that the soul of man is in the whole of him and in every part�in the head, therefore, and in its least parts, and in the body and its least parts. I think the moderns originated the groundless notion of fixing the seat of the soul somewhere, and not everywhere. The soul is a spiritual substance of which neither extension nor place is predicable, but indwelling and impletion. Moreover, when one speaks of the soul, does one not mean the life? And is not the life in the whole and in every part?”
Many in the auditorium favored this opinion.
[9] Then the fifth youth arose, and adorned with the same insignia, spoke thus from the rostrum:
“I do not stop to say where the soul is, whether in some part or everywhere in the whole. But from my stock and store I open my mind on the question, What is the soul? And what is its nature? The soul is conceived by every one to be a pure something, comparable to ether, air or wind, in which is something vital from the reason which man has above the beasts. I base this opinion upon the fact that when a man expires he is said to breathe out or give up the soul or spirit. Hence also the soul living after death is believed to be such a breath, in which is the thought-life called the soul. What else can the soul be? But as I heard you say from the balcony that the problem of what the soul is and what its nature is, is not above the understanding but within its grasp and view, I beg and pray that you yourselves will unveil this eternal arcanum.”
[10] Then the elders in the balcony looked toward the chief teacher who had proposed the question. Understanding from their regard that they wished him to descend and teach them, he quit his platform in the balcony and, passing through the auditorium mounted the rostrum. With hand extended, he said:
“Listen, if you will. Who does not believe that the soul is the inmost and subtlest essence of the human being? But essence without form is a mere creation of the reason. The soul then is a form. But what form? It is the form of all things of love and all things of wisdom, all things of love being what are called affections, and all things of wisdom being what are called perceptions. From and with the affections the perceptions constitute a single form, in which are innumerable things in such order, series, and coherence, that they can be called one. They can be called one because nothing can be subtracted and nothing can be added if the form is to remain what it is. What is the human soul but such a form? Are not all things of love and all things of wisdom essentials of that form? And with man they are in the soul, and from the soul in the head and in the body. [11] You are called spirits and angels. In the world you believed that spirits and angels are like winds or ethers, and thus minds and breaths. Now, however, you see clearly that you are really and actually men, who in the world lived and thought in a material body. You know that the material body does not live and think, but the spiritual substance in that body, and this you called the soul, whose form you did not know. Now you have seen it and see it. You yourselves are all souls, about the immortality of which you have heard, thought, spoken and written so much; being forms of love and wisdom from God, you cannot die to eternity. The soul then is the human form, from which nothing can be subtracted and to which nothing can be added. It is the inmost form of all forms in the entire body; the outer forms have both essence and form from the inmost. Therefore you, as you appear to yourselves and to us, are souls. In a word, the soul is the man himself, being the inmost man; its form is the human form in fullness and perfection. Still the soul is not life, but the first receptacle of life from God; thus it is God’s dwelling-place.”
[12] Many applauded these words, but some said, “We will think it over.”
I then started home. And now, instead of the former phenomenon, there appeared over the school a bright white cloud without the belligerent streaks or rays, and this cloud penetrated the roof and illuminated the walls. I heard that inscriptions sprang into sight on the walls, this among others:
Jehovah God breathed into man’s nostrils the soul of lives and man became a living soul (Genesis ii. 7).
* These Memorabilia occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 697.
316. II
Once as I was strolling in tranquillity of spirit and pleasant peace of mind, I saw in the distance a grove, through which an avenue stretched to a small palace, into which I saw young men and women and husbands and wives passing. In the spirit I approached the grove, and asked a guard standing at the entrance whether I, too, might go in. He studied me. I asked him, “Why do you look at me so intently?”
“To see,” he said, “whether the delight of peace in your face partakes at all of the delight of marital love. At the end of this avenue is a small garden in the center of which is a house where live two newly wedded partners, on whom friends of both sexes are calling today to wish them happiness. I am not acquainted with those whom I am to admit, but shall know them, I am told, by their faces. If I see the delight of marital love in their faces, I am to admit them, otherwise not.”
All angels can perceive the heart’s delights of others from the face. He saw the delight of marital love in my face because I was meditating on that love, and my meditation shone forth from my eyes and irradiated my face from within. He told me therefore that I might enter.
[2] The avenue by which I entered consisted of fruit-trees which with their interlaced boughs formed a continuous wall of trees on either side. From the avenue I passed into the small garden, the shrubs and flowers in which exhaled a pleasant fragrance. These shrubs and flowers stood in pairs; I heard that gardens of the kind appear around houses where there are or have been weddings and are therefore called nuptial gardens.
I passed into the house and saw the two married partners, holding each other by the hand and talking together in true marital love. I was granted to observe the very likeness of marital love in their faces, and its animation in their conversation.
With others, I offered my congratulations and wished the pair happiness, and then returned into the little nuptial garden. Over to the right I saw a company of young men, toward whom all hastened who came from the house. They hastened thither because the talk was about marital love, and talk on that subject attracts all by a certain hidden power. I listened to a sage who was speaking on the subject, and what I heard was in brief this:
[3] “The Divine Providence* of the Lord over marriage and in marriage in the heavens is most detailed and thence most universal, for all heaven’s joys spring from the delights of marital love, as sweet waters from the sweet current of a fountain. The Lord provides therefore that marital pairs be born. They are educated steadily for marriage, neither the boy nor the girl knowing it. After the completed time, the marriageable maiden and the youth ready for marriage meet and see each other somewhere, as if by fate. Instantly, as by some instinct, they know that they are mates, and from a kind of internal dictate they think within themselves, the young man, `She is mine,’ and the maiden, ‘He is mine.’ When this conviction has had time to grow upon them both, they deliberately address each other and are betrothed. It is said, as if by ‘fate’ and `instinct,’ but the meaning is by the Divine Providence, because Providence, when unknown appears so.”
That marital pairs are born and, unconsciously to both, are educated for marriage, he confirmed by the marital likeness visible in their faces, also by the inmost and eternal union of their natures and minds, which could not be what it is in heaven were it not foreseen and provided by the Lord.
[4] After the wise man had spoken and been applauded by the company, he said further:
“There is what is marital in the very minutest particulars with man, both in the male and in the female. The marital is one thing in the male and another in the female, however; and in the masculine marital there is something conjunctive with the feminine marital, and vice versa, even in the most minute particulars.” This he confirmed by the marriage of the will and the understanding in each human being. “These two,” he said, “act together in the very smallest particulars of the mind and in the very smallest particulars of the body, from which it may be seen that the marital is in every substantial thing, even the least. The fact is manifest in composite substances which are combinations of simple substances. There are two eyes, for example, two ears, two nostrils, two cheeks, two lips, two arms with hands, two loins, two feet; and inside man, two hemispheres of the brain, two ventricles of the heart, two lobes of the lungs, two kidneys, two testicles. And where there are not two, a thing is yet divided in two. There are two because one is of the will and the other of the understanding, and they act upon each other marvelously so as to make a one. The two eyes therefore make one sight, the two ears one hearing, the two nostrils one smell, the two lips one speech, the two hands one labor, the two feet one walking, the two hemispheres of the brain one habitation of the mind, the two chambers of the heart one life of the body by means of the blood, the two lobes of the lungs one respiration, and so on. Similarly, the masculine and feminine united by true marital love make one fully human life.”
[5] When he had said this, a red lightning appeared on the right, and on the left a white lightning; both were soft and entered the eyes to illuminate the mind, too. On the lightning followed thunder, like a low murmur rolling down from the angelic heaven and growing louder. At the sight and sound, the wise man said:
“These are a signal and admonition to me that I should go on to add this: The right-hand member of such pairs as I have named signifies the good in them, and the left the truth. This comes of the marriage of good and truth, which is inscribed upon man as a whole and upon his every least part, good relating to the will and truth to the understanding, and both together to a one. Hence it is that in heaven the right eye is the good of vision, and the left is the truth of it; the right ear is the good of hearing, and the left is the truth of it; the right hand is the good of man’s power, and the left is the truth of it; and similarly with other pairs. Because right and left have these significations, the Lord said:
If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off (Matthew v. 29, 30);
by which He meant that if good becomes evil it is to be cast out. So also He bade His disciples
Cast the net on the right side of the ship; and when they did so, they took an immense multitude of fishes (John xxi. 6, 7)
by which He meant that they should teach the good of charity and then would win men.”
[6] After these words the red and white flashes of lightning appeared again, even gentler than before. At the same time it was manifest that the lightning on the left derived its brilliant whiteness from the ruddy fire of the lightning on the right. Seeing this, he said, “It is a sign from heaven confirming what I have said. For in heaven the fiery is good, and shining white is truth. The fact that the lightning on the left visibly took its shining white from the red fire of the lightning on the right demonstrates that the brilliant whiteness of light, or light, is nothing else than fire shining.”
On hearing this, all started for home, kindled with the good and truth of gladness by those lightning-flashes and by the discourse about them.
* See n. 229.
317. XIII
REMARRIAGE
It may be asked whether the marital love of one man and one wife is separable from a partner who has died, or can be transferred, or added to; also whether remarriage does not come to have something in common with polygamy, thus whether it is not to be called successive polygamy; besides much else which is wont to multiply scruples with reasoners. In order, therefore, that masters of casuistry who reason in the shade about remarriage may see some light, I have thought it worth while to present to the judgment the following propositions on the subject, namely:
i. Contracting matrimony again after the partner’s death depends on the preceding marital love.
ii. It also depends on the state of marriage in which the two had lived.
iii. With those who were in no true marital love, there is no obstacle or hindrance to contracting matrimony again.
iv. Those who have lived together in true marital love do not want to marry again, except for reasons aside from marital love.
v. The state of marriage of a young man with a virgin is one thing, of a young man with a widow another.
vi. The state of marriage of a widower with a virgin is also one thing, and that of a widower with a widow another.
vii. The variety and diversity of these marriages as to love and its attributes are beyond number.
viii. The state of a widow is more grievous than that of a widower.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
[2] In the case of such partners there is no obstacle or hindrance to contracting marriage again, for the reason that the essentials of marriage did not exist with them, and hence none exist with them after separation by death. They are therefore wholly at liberty, widower or widow, to bind their sensuous affections with any one else as they please and the law allows. They think of marriages only naturally and consider them advantageous for various needs and external utilities which can be supplied again by another partner in the place of the one deceased. If their inward thoughts were seen into, as they are in the other world, probably it would be found that they make no distinction between marital unions and extra-marital copulations. [3] For the reason just given, such people can marry repeatedly. Conjunctions wholly natural dissolve and fall apart of themselves at death: external affections at death follow the body and are buried with it; only those persist which cohere with internal.
But it is to be known that inwardly conjoining marriages can hardly be entered into on earth, because the choice of inward likenesses there cannot be provided by the Lord as in the heavens, being restricted in many ways�to equals in station and condition, for instance, in the same district, city or village, and even there, for the most part, external things and not internal bind the two together. Internal things emerge only after a period of marriage, and become known only as they present themselves in externals.
[2] But by diversity we mean the opposite to this variety, which is found in hell. For there each and all are diametrically opposite to those in heaven, and hell is held together among them as one by the variety among them entirely opposed to the variety in the heavens, thus by perpetual diversity. Hence it is evident what is intended under infinite variety, and what under infinite, diversity. The like is true of marriages: there is infinite variety with those in true marital love, and infinite variety with those in scortatory love; and thence there is infinite diversity between the latter and the former. The conclusion follows that the variety and diversity in marriages of whatever class and species, whether of young man and maiden, or of young man and widow, or of widower and maiden, or of widower and widow, exceed all number. Who can count infinity?
I
When* the problem of the soul had been discussed and solved in the school, I saw the people filing out, the head teacher leading the way, behind him the elders, with the five youths in the midst of them who had made answer, and behind these, the rest. Once outside, they withdrew to the sides of the house, where were walks lined with shrubs. Arrived there, they broke up into small groups, so many companies of youths talking about the things of wisdom. In each group was one of the wise men from the balcony.
Seeing them from my lodging I came into the spirit, and in the spirit went out to them. I approached the head teacher, who a little while ago had proposed the question about the soul.
When he saw me he said, “Who are you? I have been puzzled, watching you approach, that one moment you came into my sight and the next moment passed out of it. At one moment you were visible to me and the next became invisible. You certainly cannot be in the state of life native to us.”
To this I answered, smiling, “I am not a juggler or tumbler! I am alternately now in your light, now in your shade; thus both an alien and a native.”
[2] At this the head teacher stared at me and said, “You speak strange and amazing things. Tell me, who are you?”
I said, “I am in the world in which you once were and from which you departed, called the natural world; and I am also in the world into which you have come and in which you now are, called the spiritual world. I am therefore in a natural state and in a spiritual state at the same time; in the natural state with men on earth, and in the spiritual state with you. In the natural state I am not visible to you, but in the spiritual state I am. My state is a privilege I enjoy from the Lord. You, O enlightened man, are aware that the man of the natural world does not see the man of the spiritual world, nor the reverse. When therefore I lowered my spirit into the body I was not visible to you, and when I raised it out of the body I became visible. In the instruction you gave in the school you said that you are souls, and that souls see souls, because they are human forms. You know that you did not see yourselves, that is, your souls within your bodies, when you were in the natural world; and this comes from the distinction between spiritual and natural.”
[3] When he heard of a distinction between the spiritual and the natural, he said, “What is the distinction? Is it not one of purer and less pure? Is the spiritual anything but a purer natural?”
I replied, “The distinction is not of that kind, but is like that between prior and posterior, between which there is no finite ratio, for the prior is within the posterior like a cause within its effect; and the posterior is from the prior like an effect from its cause. Hence the one does not appear to the other.”
To this the head teacher responded, “I have thought and pondered upon this distinction, but in vain so far. Would that I could perceive it!”
I said, “You shall not only perceive it, but even look on it.” And I continued, “You are yourself in a spiritual state when with your associates, but in a natural state when with me. For with your associates you speak in the spiritual language which is common to spirits and angels; but with me you speak in my mother tongue. For every angel and spirit talking with a man speaks his language�French, for instance, with a Frenchman, English with an Englishman, Greek with a Greek, Arabic with an Arab, and so on. To realize, then, the distinction between the spiritual and the natural with respect to language, do this: Join your associates and say something to them, keep the words in mind, and come back and say them to me.”
[4] He did so and returned to me with the words on his tongue, and spoke them, but did not himself understand a single one (the words were wholly strange and foreign, occurring in no language of the natural world). This experiment, several times repeated, made it very evident that all in the spiritual world have a spiritual language, which has nothing in common with any language of the natural world, and that every one comes into that language instinctively after death. He also discovered at the same time that the very sound of spiritual language is so different from the sound of natural language that spiritual sound, though loud, cannot be heard at all by the natural man; nor natural sound by the spiritual man.
[5] Then I asked the head teacher and the bystanders to go in among their own and write some sentence on a piece of paper, and to come out and read the paper to me. They did so and returned holding a paper; but when they read it, they could not understand a thing, for the writing consisted merely of certain letters of the alphabet with marks over them, each letter signifying some conception of the subject. (Because every letter of the alphabet has its significance in the spiritual world, it is evident whence it is that the Lord is said to be “the Alpha and the Omega.”**) When repeatedly they had retired, written something, and returned, they appreciated that their writing involved and comprehended things without number which no natural writing can ever express. They were told that this is because the spiritual man thinks thoughts which are incomprehensible and ineffable to the natural man; and that these cannot flow into or be rendered by any other writing or language.
[6] Then, as the bystanders were unwilling to comprehend that spiritual thought so greatly excels natural thought as to be relatively ineffable, I said to them, “Try an experiment. Enter your spiritual society and think something, retain it, and return and utter it before me.” They went in, thought, kept it in mind, came out, but when they tried to utter what they had thought they could not, for they found no idea of natural thought adequate to any idea of spiritual thought, and thus no word to elicit it; for the ideas of thought become the words of speech. [7] Once more they retired and returned, and assured themselves that spiritual ideas are supernatural, inexpressible, ineffable, and incomprehensible to the natural man. They said that spiritual ideas or thoughts, being so super-eminent, are relatively to the natural the ideas of ideas, and the thoughts of thoughts. They therefore express qualities of qualities and affections of affections. Spiritual thoughts are consequently the beginnings and origins of natural thoughts. It is plain thence that spiritual wisdom is the wisdom of wisdom and thus is imperceptible to any wise man in the natural world. They were told then from the third heaven that there is a still more interior or higher wisdom, called celestial, related to spiritual wisdom as this is to natural; and that these inflow in order through each heaven from the Lord’s Divine wisdom, which is infinite.
* These Memorabilia, as far as through n. 328, are repeated in True Christian Religion, n. 280.
** Revelation i. 11, xxii. 13.
Thereupon a voice was heard from the higher heaven saying to the head teacher, “Come up hither.” He ascended and on his return said that like himself the angels had not previously known the differences between the spiritual and the natural, because no opportunity for comparison had presented itself in a man who was at the same time in both worlds, and apart from such comparison the differences cannot be learned.
[3] I then related how I was thinking once about the essence and omnipresence of God from eternity, that is, about God before the creation of the world, and how troubled I became because I could not yet remove space and time from the ideas of my thought, and the idea of nature entered in place of God. But I was told, “Remove ideas of space and time, and you will see.” I was helped to remove them, and I saw. From that time I could think of God from eternity, and not at all of nature from eternity, because God in all time is above time, and in all space is above space, but nature in all time is in time, and in all space is in space. Nature with its time and space could not but begin and arise, but not God Who is above time and space. Nature is therefore from God, not from eternity but in time, that is, together with its time and at the same time with its space.
* Corinthians xii. 4.
[2] They remarked that the little creature nevertheless looked to them like a simple substance.
“And yet there are innumerable things in it,” I replied. “I tell you this that you may know that the same thing is true of every object which looks to you like one simple and least thing, whether in what you do or in your affections and thoughts. I can assure you that every particle of your thought and every drop of your affection is divisible even to infinity. Indeed you are wise in so far as your ideas are divisible! Know that everything divided is more and more manifold and not more and more simple, because being divided over and over it approaches nearer and nearer to the infinite, in which are all things infinitely. I tell you something new and unheard of.”
[3] Upon this, the boys left me to go to the head teacher and requested him to propose sometime as a problem in the school something “new and unheard of.” He asked, “What?”
They said, “That everything divided is more and more manifold and not more and more simple, because it approaches nearer and nearer to the infinite, in which are all things infinitely.”
He promised to do so, and remarked, “I see this, because I have perceived that one natural idea contains innumerable spiritual ideas; indeed, one spiritual idea contains innumerable celestial ideas. Hence the difference between celestial wisdom in which the angels of the third heaven are, and spiritual wisdom in which the angels of the second heaven are; and also between these and natural wisdom in which the angels of the lowest heaven and also men are.”
330. II
I once listened to a good-natured discussion which some men were holding about the female sex: whether a woman who is in love with her own beauty, that is, who loves herself for her form, can love her husband. They agreed, first: that women have a twofold beauty, one natural which is of the face and body, and the other spiritual which is of the love and manners. They also agreed that the two kinds of beauty are quite often sundered in the natural world but invariably united in the spiritual world. For beauty in the spiritual world is the form of the love and manners; it very often happens after death, therefore, that ill-shaped women become beauties and beautiful women become deformed.
[2] While the men were discussing the subject, some wives came and said, “Permit us to attend, because knowledge teaches you what you are discussing, but experience teaches us. What you know about the love of wives, moreover, is so little, it is scarcely anything. Do you know that it is the prudence of a wife’s wisdom to hide her love for her husband in her inmost breast and deep in her heart?”
The discussion began and the first conclusion on the part of the men was as follows: “Every woman wishes to appear beautiful in face and in her ways because she is born an affection of love, and beauty is the form of this affection. A woman who does not desire to be beautiful is therefore not a woman who wishes to love and be loved, and hence is not truly a woman.”
To this the wives said, “Woman’s beauty dwells in soft tenderness and therefore in exquisite sensibility. Thence is the love of woman for man and the love of man for woman. You probably do not understand this.”
[3] The second conclusion of the men was this: “Before marriage a woman wishes to be beautiful for men, but after marriage, if she is chaste, only for one man and not for men.”
To this the wives said, “After a husband has enjoyed his wife’s natural beauty he no longer sees it, but sees her spiritual beauty and for this loves her anew; still, he recalls the natural but under a new aspect.”
[4] The third conclusion from their discussion was as follows: “If after marriage a woman desires to appear beautiful in like manner as before, she loves men and not the one man. A woman loving herself for her own beauty is continually desirous that her beauty be enjoyed, and as this no longer appears to the one man, as you have said, she wishes it to be enjoyed by the men to whom it does appear. Obviously she has love for the sex, not love for one of the sex.”
At this the wives fell silent. Still they murmured: “What woman is so free from vanity that she does not wish to seem beautiful to other men as well as to her only one?”
Some wives from heaven, who were beautiful because they were heavenly affections, had overheard, and they endorsed the three conclusions of the men, but added, “Only let women love their beauty and its charm for the sake of their husbands and from them.”
To this the men replied: “Perhaps a wife unites herself with the man’s ability.” At this the wives laughed, saying, “Ability is not lacking so long as the man loves the wife from intelligence, but it is lacking if he loves from insanity. Intelligence is to love the wife only and this love does not lack ability; but to love, not the wife, but the sex, is insanity, and this love lacks ability. Do you comprehend this?”
[2] The second conclusion was: “We women are born into love of the masculine intelligence. If, then, men themselves love their intelligence, it cannot be united with the genuine love for it which is with the wife. And if the man’s intelligence is not united with its own genuine love which is with the wife, it becomes insanity from pride, and marital love turns cold. What woman can unite her love with cold? And what man can unite the insanity of his pride with the love of intelligence?”
“But,” said the men, “whence has a man honor from his wife if he does not prize his own intelligence?” The wives answered, “From love; for love pays honor. Honor cannot be severed from love; but love can be severed from honor.”
[3] Afterwards they came to this third conclusion: “You seem to love your wives, and do not see that you are loved by your wives and that you love in return, and that your intelligence is the receptacle. If then you yourselves love your own intelligence, that becomes the receptacle of your love; and the love of one’s self, tolerating no equal, never becomes marital love, but as long as it prevails, remains scortatory.”
At this the men were silent, but murmured, “What is marital love?”
Certain husbands in heaven heard all this and from heaven endorsed the three conclusions of the wives.
332. XIV
POLYGAMY
No one who seeks the reason for the utter condemnation of polygamy in the Christian world can see the cause plainly, no matter with what gift of insight into a subject he may be endowed by nature, if he has not first learned that there is a true marital love; that this love is possible only between two; that between two it is possible only from the Lord; and that on this love heaven is inscribed with all its felicities. Unless such information precedes and is, as it were, the foundation stone, the mind will exert itself in vain to elicit from the understanding any reasons for that condemnation, with which it can feel satisfied, and on which it can rest like a house on its foundation stones. It is common knowledge that the institution of monogamy is founded on the Lord’s Word, that
Whoever puts away his wife except for whoredom and marries another, commits adultery, and that from the beginning or from the first establishment of marriage it was intended that
The two should become one flesh: and that man should not put asunder what God has joined together (Matthew xix. 3-11).
[2] These words the Lord indeed dictated from the Divine law inscribed on marriage. Nevertheless, if the understanding cannot support the Divine law with a reason of its own, it will circumvent it by customary twists and sinister interpretations, and render it obscure and ambiguous and at length affirmative-negative-affirmative in that the law is taken to be the civil law, indeed, but negative in that it is not according to their own rational sight. To this the human mind will come if it has not first been instructed in the knowledges just mentioned, which would serve the understanding to reach reasons of its own, the knowledge, namely: that there is a true marital love; that it is possible only between two, and possible between two only from the Lord; and that heaven with all its felicities is inscribed on this love. But we shall demonstrate this and much else about the condemnation of polygamy in Christendom by the following propositions in turn:
i. Except with one wife there can be no true marital love, nor, consequently, any true marital friendship, trust or potency, nor such a conjunction of minds that the two are one flesh.
ii. Except with one wife, therefore, the celestial blessedness, spiritual joy and natural pleasures are impossible which from the beginning have been provided for those who are in true marital love.
iii. None of these joys can exist save from the Lord alone, and they are bestowed only on those who approach the Lord alone and live according to His precepts.
iv. True marital love with its felicities can therefore exist only with those who are of the Christian Church.
v. Hence a Christian may not marry more than one wife.
vi. If a Christian marries more than one wife, he commits not only natural adultery, but spiritual adultery, too.
vii. The people of Israel were permitted to marry several wives, inasmuch as there was no Christian Church with them, and true marital love was not possible.
viii. Mohammedans are permitted today to marry several wives because they do not acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ to be one with Jehovah the Father and thus the God of heaven and earth, and hence cannot receive true marital love.
ix. The Mohammedan heaven is outside the Christian heaven and is divided into two heavens, a lower and a higher. Only those are raised into their higher heaven who give up concubines and live with one wife and acknowledge our Lord, to whom the dominion over heaven and earth is given, as equal with God the Father.
x. Polygamy is lasciviousness.
xi. Marital chastity, purity and holiness are not possible in polygamists.
xii. The polygamist, while he remains a polygamist, cannot become spiritual.
xiii. Polygamy is not a sin in those with whom it is of religion.
xiv. Polygamy is not a sin in those who are ignorant of the Lord.
Among these those are saved, though they are polygamists, who acknowledge God and for religion’s sake live according to the civil laws of justice.
xvi. But none of the latter or of the former can be associated with angels in the Christian heavens.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
By Him all things were made that were made (John i. 3);
He is God of heaven and earth (Matthew xxviii. 18);
Never was any form of God the Father seen, nor His voice heard, except in Him (John i. 18, v. 37, xiv. 6-11).
It is plain from these and a host of other passages in the Word that the marriage of love and wisdom (or of good and truth), in which marriages have their sole origin, proceeds from Him alone. Hence it follows that this love with its felicities is bestowed only on those who approach Him and live according to His precepts, for with such He is conjoined through love (John xiv. 21-24).
That one may not put away his wife, because from the beginning they are created to be one flesh; and that if one puts her away without just cause and marries another, he commits adultery (Matthew xix. 3-11);
Much more, then, one who does not put his wife away, but keeps her and adds another. The law on marriage thus delivered by the Lord has its internal cause in spiritual marriage. Whatever the Lord spoke was in itself spiritual, which is the point of the saying,
The words that I speak to you are spirit and are life (John vi. 63).
The spiritual content here is this: polygamy in Christendom profanes the marriage of the Lord and the Church and the marriage of good and truth; it also profanes the Word and with the Word the Church; and the profanation of these is spiritual adultery (see it confirmed in Apocalypse Revealed, n.134, that the profanation of the good and truth of the Church from the Word corresponds to adultery, and is spiritual adultery; and that the falsification of good and truth is such adultery, too, but in less degree). Polygamous marriages among Christians profane the marriage of the Lord and the Church for the reason that there is a correspondence between Christian marriages and that Divine marriage (see above nn. 83-102). This correspondence perishes if wife is added to wife, and when it perishes, the partner is no longer a Christian. [2] Again, polygamous marriages among Christians profane the marriage of good and truth because marriages on earth are derived from this spiritual marriage; the marriages of Christians differ from those of other peoples in this, that as good loves truth and truth good and are a one, so are wife and husband. If then a Christian adds wife to wife, he rends this spiritual marriage in himself, hence profanes the origin of his marriage and so commits spiritual adultery. See above (nn. 116-131) that marriages on earth are derived from the marriage of good and truth. A Christian also profanes the Word and the Church by polygamous marriage for the reason that the Word viewed in itself is a marriage of good and truth, and the Church is, too, so far as it is from the Word (see above, nn. 128-131). Now, because a man who is a Christian knows the Lord, has the Word, and the Church is his from the Lord by the Word, obviously he has a power beyond that of the non-Christian of being regenerated and so of becoming spiritual, and also of attaining true marital love, for these are bound together. Inasmuch, then, as those from among Christians who marry more wives than one, commit not only natural adultery but also spiritual, a greater condemnation falls on polygamous Christians after death than on such as commit only natural adultery. To a query about their state after death, I heard the reply that heaven is tightly shut against them. They also appear in hell to be lying in hot water in a bath, so appearing at a distance, though they are standing on their feet or walking about. This befalls them from intestine madness. Some of them are hurled into abysses at worlds-ends.*
* Cf. Arcana Coelestia, n. 9582, Earths in the Universe, n. 128.
In general it must be remembered that the human being is born natural to become spiritual. As long as he remains natural he is as it were in the night or in a sleep about things spiritual, and does not know even the distinction between the external natural man and the internal spiritual. [2] We know from the Word that there was no Christian Church with the people of Israel. For they awaited a Messiah, as they do still, who was to exalt them above all other peoples and nations in the world. Had they been told, therefore, and were they to be told now, that the kingdom of the Messiah is over the heavens and thence over all peoples, they would make light of it. Not only did they fail to acknowledge the Christ or the Messiah, our Lord, therefore, when He came into the world; they cruelly put Him out of the world. It is evident then that there was no Christian Church with that nation, even as there is none today. Those with whom there is no Christian Church are natural men, both in external and internal, and polygamy is not prejudicial to them, being inscribed on the natural human being. For love in marriage the natural man perceives only what is of lust. This is meant in the Lord’s words,
That Moses on account of the hardness of their hearts had permitted them to put away their wives, but that it was not so from the beginning (Matthew xix. 8).
He said that “Moses permitted it,” in order that it may be known it was not the Lord who did so. [3] The Lord, too, addressed the internal spiritual man, as is known from His precepts and from the abrogation of the ceremonials which had served a purpose only with the natural man. This is plain from His precepts:
About washing, that it is purification of the internal natural man (Matthew xv. 1, 17-20; xxiii. 25, 26; Mark vii. 14-23);
About adultery, that it is lust of the will (Matthew v. 28);
About divorce, that it is not allowed; and about polygamy, that it is not in conformity with the Divine law (Matthew xix. 3-9).
These things and more, which are of the internal spiritual man, the Lord taught, for He alone opens the internals of human minds, renders them spiritual, and plants them in the natural, so that this too may have a spiritual essence. This takes place when He is approached and when a man lives according to His precepts, which in brief are to believe in Him, to shun evils because they are of the devil and from the devil, likewise to do goods, because these are from the Lord and of the Lord, and to do each as of himself and at the same time to believe they are done through him by the Lord. [4] The deep reason why the Lord alone opens the internal spiritual man and sets it in the external natural man, is that every human being thinks and acts naturally, and therefore could not perceive anything spiritual and receive it in his natural, had not God assumed the Human Natural and made it, too, Divine. From these things now the truth is plain that the I sraelitish people were permitted to marry more wives than one because there was no Christian Church with them.
This has been said so that it may be known why Mohammedans were permitted to marry more wives than one. It was because true marital love, which is between one man and one wife only, was impossible, for they did not from religion recognize the Lord as equal to God the Father and thus as God of heaven and earth. See above, n.130, and many times in what precedes, that marital love exists with a person according to the state of the Church in him.
[2] First, something on the origin of idolatries. Before Mohammedanism there was idol-worship throughout the world. The reason was that the Churches before the Lord’s advent were all representative Churches. The Israelitish Church was such a Church. The tabernacle in it, Aaron’s garments, the sacrifices, all things of the Jerusalemite temple and the statutes, too, were representative. The ancients, moreover, possessed a knowledge of correspondences, which is also a knowledge of representatives; this was the special knowledge of the wise, cultivated by the Egyptians in particular�hence their hieroglyphics. As a result of this knowledge the ancients appreciated what animals of all kinds signified, likewise what trees of every kind meant, as also what mountains did, and hills, rivers, fountains; sun, moon and stars. They were acquainted with spiritual things by way of this knowledge, since the things represented were the origin, and are such things as belong to spiritual wisdom with the angels. [3] And as all their worship was representative, consisting wholly of correspondences, they held it on mountains and hills and also in groves and gardens; they consecrated springs, and faced the rising sun in their adorations; they made images of horses, cows, calves, and lambs, yes, of birds, fish, and snakes, and placed these images in their homes and elsewhere in the order of the spiritual things of the Church, to which they corresponded or which they represented. They also placed similar sculptures in their temples, to put themselves in remembrance of the sacred things of worship, signified by them. In the course of time, when the knowledge of correspondences was obliterated, their posterity began to worship the sculptured images as holy, not knowing that their ancient forbears saw nothing holy in them, but only that they represented and hence signified holy things according to correspondences. So idolatries arose which filled the whole world, both Asia with the adjacent islands, and Africa and Europe.
[4] In order that all these idolatries might be uprooted, it happened under the Lord’s Divine Providence that a new religion began, accommodated to the genius of the orientals, having something from each Testament of the Word, and teaching that the Lord had come into the world and that He was a very great prophet, the wisest of all men and the Son of God. This was effected through Mohammed, from whom that religion was named. Hence it is plain that Mohammedanism was raised up under the Lord’s Divine Providence and, as we said, was accommodated to the genius of the orientals, in order that it might blot out the idolatries of so many peoples and give them some knowledge of the Lord before they should come, as all do on death, into the spiritual world. This religion would not have been accepted by so many kingdoms and could not have rooted out their idolatries, had it not been agreeable to their ideas, in particular had not polygamy been permitted. Furthermore, without that concession, orientals would have burned more than Europeans in filthy adultery and would have perished.
If you were blind, you would not have sin; but now you say that you see; therefore your sin remains (John ix. 41 ).
Since polygamy cannot convict them of sin, they have their own heavens after death (n. 342); and there they enjoy delights in accord with their life.
[3] It can be seen from this that pagans who acknowledge God and live according to the civil laws of justice are saved. It is not their fault that they know nothing of the Lord, consequently nothing of the chastity of marriage with one wife. It is contrary to Divine justice that any should be condemned who acknowledge God and from religion live according to the laws of justice, which are to shun evils because they are against God and to do goods because they are in accord with God.
I
I was once* among some angels, listening to their conversation. It was about intelligence and wisdom. “A man does not perceive but that both these are in himself. Thus whatever he thinks from the understanding or intends from the will he thinks is from himself, when yet not the least thereof is from the man, but only the faculty of receiving from God the things which are of the understanding and of the will. Inasmuch as every man is inclined by birth to love himself, therefore lest he perish from love of himself and conceit of his own intelligence, provision was made from creation that this, the man’s love, should be transcribed into the wife, and that in her there should be implanted by birth a love for the intelligence and wisdom of her man and thus for the man. By this means the wife continually takes to herself the man’s pride in his intelligence, extinguishing it with him and vivifying it with herself. She thus turns it into marital love and fills it with pleasures beyond measure. This is provided by the Lord in order that the man’s conceit of his own intelligence may not infatuate him until he believes he is intelligent and wise of himself and not from the Lord. For this is to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and to believe oneself like God and even to be God, as the serpent (which is the love of one’s own intelligence) said and persuaded. After eating of that tree man was therefore cast out of paradise, and the way to the tree of life was guarded by a cherub.”
A paradise, spiritually, is intelligence; to eat of the tree of life, spiritually, is to understand and have wisdom from the Lord; and to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, spiritually, is to understand and be wise of one’s self.
* These Memorabilia with slight changes occur again in True Christian Religion, n. 663.
But, as it was perceived in heaven that the three were in similar belief, the ambassador was bidden, “Put on the garments of a priest and believe yourself to be a priest, and then speak.”
He put on the garments and in the belief he was a priest, declared roundly that there is never any intelligence or wisdom or prudence except from God. He demonstrated the fact with the usual eloquence, full of rational arguments.
It is a peculiarity of the spiritual world that a spirit thinks himself to be such as is the garment he is wearing. The reason is that in the spiritual world the understanding clothes every one.
Then the two priests were bidden from heaven, “Put off your garments and put on the garments of ministers of state, and believe yourselves to be such.”
They did so. At once they thought from their interior selves and spoke from the reasonings, cherished by them inwardly, in favor of man’s own intelligence.
At that moment a tree appeared beside the road. They were told, “This is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Take care not to eat of it.”
Infatuated by their own intelligence, however, all three burned with desire to eat of it. Saying to one another, “Why not? Is the fruit bad?” they went up to it and ate.
Immediately the three, being in similar faith, became bosom friends, and started on the way of one’s own intelligence which tends toward hell; but I saw them come back, for they were not yet prepared.
355. II
I was looking abroad in the world of spirits on a time and in a meadow saw some men clothed like men in the world, from which I knew that they were recently come from the world. I approached and stood beside them to hear what they were saying; they were talking about heaven. One of them, who had some knowledge of heaven, said:
“There are wonderful things in heaven, never to be believed unless one has seen them. There are gardens like paradises, magnificent palaces architecturally constructed because by the pure art itself, resplendent as if with gold, with silver pillars in front, on which are precious stones in heavenly patterns. There are houses of jasper and sapphire, with majestic porticos in front through which the angels enter; in the houses are decorations which no art nor language can describe. [2] As for the angels themselves, they are of both sexes, young men and husbands, and young women and wives�young women so beautiful that there is nothing like such beauty in the world. But the wives are even more beautiful and appear as the very effigies of heavenly love. Their husbands also appear as effigies of heavenly wisdom and are all in the bloom of early manhood. What is more, no other love of the sex is known there than marital love; and, what you will wonder at, the husbands have a perpetual faculty of enjoyment.”
The newly arrived spirits smiled at each other when they heard that there is no love of the sex there other than marital love, and that there is a perpetual faculty of enjoyment, and said, “You tell things past belief. There is no such faculty. Perhaps you are relating fables.”
[3] But a certain angel from heaven unexpectedly appeared among them, and said, “Hear me, if you will. I am an angel of heaven, and have lived with my wife a thousand years now. During all those years I have been in the flower of age as you see me now. This comes to me from marital love with my wife. I can assure you that there has been and is perpetual faculty with me. But I perceive that you believe this is impossible, and will therefore speak to you of the matter from reason according to the light of your understanding. You know nothing of the early state of mankind, called by you the state of integrity. In that state all the interiors of the mind were open even to the Lord and as a result were in the marriage of love and wisdom or of good and truth. But good of love and truth of wisdom love each other perpetually, and perpetually will to be united, and when the interiors of the mind are open, that spiritual marital love with its perpetual effort flows down freely and brings that faculty. [4] Man’s very soul, being in the marriage of good and truth, is in perpetual effort not only after that union, but also after fructification and the reproduction of its own likeness. And as the interiors of man are opened by that marriage even from the soul, and all interiors continually look to an effect in ultimates in order to come forth, the soul’s perpetual effort to fructify and produce a likeness of itself becomes an effort of the body; and as with two married partners the final expression of the soul’s activity in the body is in the ultimates of love there, depending on the state of the soul, it is plain whence angels have unceasing faculty. [5] There is perpetual fructification, too, because a universal sphere of generating and propagating celestial things which are of love, spiritual things which are of wisdom, and hence natural things which are offspring, proceeds from the Lord and fills all heaven and the whole world. That heavenly sphere fills the souls of all men, descends through their minds into the body, even to its ultimates, and gives this power of generation. But it can be given only to those with whom the passage is open from the soul through the higher and lower parts of the mind into the body, down to its ultimates, which is the case with those who suffer themselves to be led back by the Lord to the early state of creation. I can affirm that with me, now for a thousand years, neither faculty nor strength nor ability has ever failed; and that I have known nothing at all of any diminution of powers. For they are constantly renewed by the continually inflowing universal sphere of which I have spoken; and the spirit is gladdened then and not saddened, as with those who suffer the loss of them. [6] True marital love, moreover, is like the warmth of spring, under the influence of which all things breathe germination and fructification. There is no other warmth in our heaven, so that for married partners in heaven it is always springtime with its perpetual effort; and from this perpetual effort that ability comes. But fructification with us in the heavens is different from that on earth, being spiritual fructification, which is of love and wisdom or of good and truth. The wife, from her husband’s wisdom, receives in herself love for it; and the husband, from his wife’s love for it, receives in himself wisdom. In fact, the wife is actually formed into the love of her husband’s wisdom, which is effected by reception of the propagations of his soul, with delight arising from the fact that she wills to be the love of his wisdom. In this way from a virgin she becomes a wife and a likeness. As a result, love with its inmost friendship with the wife, and wisdom with its felicity with the husband, perennially increase, and this to eternity. This is the state of the angels of heaven.”
[7] When the angel had spoken so, he looked upon those newly come from the world and said to them, “You know that when you have been in the vigor of love, you loved your married partners, and that after the delight you turned away. But you do not know that in heaven we do not love our married partners from that vigor, but have the vigor from love, and because we love our married partners perpetually it is perpetual in us. If then you can invert your state, you can comprehend this. Who that perpetually loves his married partner does not love her with his whole mind and body? For love turns all things of the mind and of the body toward what it loves; and the fact that this is reciprocal conjoins them so that they become as it were one.”
[8] He said further: “I shall not speak to you of the marital love implanted in male and female from creation and of their inclination to legitimate conjunction; or of the faculty of procreation in the male which makes one with the faculty of multiplying wisdom from love of truth; or of the fact that as far as a man loves wisdom from love of it, or loves truth from good, he is in true marital love and in its attendant vigor.”
The angel answered, “Shun adulteries as infernal and come to the Lord, and you will have it.”
They replied, “We will shun them as infernal and come to the Lord.”
But the angel answered, “Unless you shun all other evils likewise, you cannot shun adulteries as infernal evils, for adulteries are the complex of them all; unless you shun them, you cannot come to the Lord. The Lord receives no others.”
Thereupon the angel departed and the new spirits went away sorrowful.
357. XV
JEALOUSY
We treat of jealousy, too, because it also pertains to marital love. There are, however, a right and a wrong jealousy�a right jealousy with partners who love each other (with them it is a right and prudent zeal lest their marital love be violated and therefore a right grief, if it is); but a wrong jealousy with partners who are naturally suspicious or mentally ill because of viscous and bilious blood. All jealousy indeed is considered a vice by some, especially by whoremongers, who hurl vituperations at even a right jealousy. Still the word zelotypia (jealousy) comes from “type of zeal,” and there is a type or form of right zeal and one of wrong zeal; but these distinctions will be unfolded in what now follows. We shall pursue the following order:
i. Viewed in itself, zeal is as it were the fire of love blazing.
ii. This blazing or flaming of love, which is zeal, is a spiritual blazing or flaming, arising from infestation of love and from attack on it.
iii. A man’s zeal is such as his love is, one thing, therefore, with the man whose love is good, and another with the man whose love is evil.
iv. The zeal of a good love and the zeal of an evil love resemble each other in externals, but are utterly unlike in internals.
v. The zeal of a good love hides love and friendship in its internals, but the zeal of an evil love hides hatred and revenge in its internals.
vi. The zeal of marital love is called jealousy.
vii. Jealousy is like a blazing fire against those infesting the love of the partner, and like a horrid fear of losing that love.
viii. Jealousy is spiritual with monogamists, and natural with polygamists.
ix. In partners who love each other tenderly, jealousy is a right anxiety from sound reason lest marital love be sundered and thus perish.
x. In partners who do not love each other jealousy has a number of causes, arising with some from various kinds of mental illness.
xi. Some feel no jealousy at all, which is also from various causes.
xii. There is jealousy over mistresses, too, but not such as there is for wives.
xiii. Beasts and birds also feel jealousy.
xiv. Jealousy in men and husbands is different from jealousy in women and wives.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
Jealousy varies with those in spiritual love, because their love is various; no love, spiritual or natural, is ever precisely the same in two persons, still less in more than two. [2] Spiritual jealousy, or jealousy with the spiritual, is like a fire blazing out at those who infest their marital love, because their love starts in the internals, and thence pursues its derivations even to ultimates, by which and by first things at the same time the intermediates of the mind and the body are held in loving connection. Being spiritual, such partners in their marriage look to union as an end, and in that union to spiritual repose and its pleasantnesses. Because they have shut disunion out of their thoughts, their jealousy is like a fire stirred up and darting out against infesters. [3] It is also like a horrid fear because their spiritual love is set upon their being one. If there is a threat or appearance of separation, a dreadful fear ensues, as if two united parts were to be torn asunder. This description of jealousy was given me from heaven by those in spiritual marital love. For there is natural marital love, spiritual marital love and celestial marital love. The natural love and the celestial and their jealousy will be spoken of in the two divisions to follow.
[2] As concerns the first reason�the imprisonment and stifling of thought about the spiritual things of the Church: how this must result can be concluded from what we showed above, that one’s marital love is according to the state of the Church in him, and as the Church is from the Lord, that this love is to be had only from the Lord (nn. 130, 131). When therefore, instead of the Lord, human beings living and dead are approached and supplicated, there is no state of the Church with which marital love can act as one; still less when people’s minds are frightened into that worship by threats of a cruel prison. So it comes to pass that thought together with speech is forcibly imprisoned and stifled. When this happens, there inflows what is either against the Church or for it but imaginary. Either influx abounds only in heat toward harlots and frigidity toward one’s partner; from the two together in one person there issues this ungovernable fire of jealousy.
[3] As for the second reason, which is an intestine lust for vengeance, this absolutely checks, absorbs and overwhelms the influx of marital love and turns its enjoyment which is heavenly into the enjoyment of revenge, which is infernal; this revenge is directed first of all at the wife. The malignity of the climate impregnated in these districts with virulent exhalations from the land, also seems to be a supplementary cause of jealousy.
I
Once* I was feeling amazement at the vast number of men who ascribe creation and hence all things under and above the sun to nature, saying from an acknowledgment of the heart, when they look at a thing, “Is it not the work of nature?” Asked why they say it is nature’s work and not God’s, when yet they sometimes say with the generality of people that God created nature, and therefore could as easily say that the things they see are God’s as that they are nature’s, they reply in a smothered, almost inaudible voice, “What is God but nature?” In their persuasion that the creation of the universe is nature’s work, and in this insanity which seems wisdom, they all appear pretentious; so much so that they look on all who acknowledge that the universe was created by God as if they were ants creeping on the ground and keeping to the beaten way, or butterflies fluttering in the air. They call their doctrines dreams, because they see what really they do not see, and ask, “Who has seen God, and who has not seen nature?”
[2] As I felt astounded at the number of such men, an angel appeared beside me and said to me, “What are you meditating about?”
I replied, “About the multitude of those who believe that nature created the universe.”
The angel said to me, “All hell consists of such men, where they are satans or devils�those being called satans who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature and hence have denied God, and those being called devils who have lived iniquitously and so have rejected all acknowledgment of God from their hearts. But I will conduct you to the schools in the southwest quarter where such men are to be found before they enter hell.”
He took me by the hand and led me. I saw some small buildings in which were the schools, and in the midst of them one which appeared to be the headquarters building. This was built of pitch-black stone, overlaid with thin glass-like plates sparkling as if from gold and silver, like what is called glacies Mariae, and interspersed here and there were shells, which glittered, too. [3] We approached this building and knocked, and presently a man opened the door and said, “Welcome.” He ran to a table and fetched four books. “These books,” he said, “are the wisdom which a number of nations are applauding today. Many in France applaud this book or wisdom; many in Germany, this book; some in Holland, this book; and this, some in Britain.” He continued, “If you care to see it, I will make these four books shine before your eyes.” He poured and shed around them the glamour of his reputation, whereupon the books flashed as with light. But the light vanished at once before our eyes.
Then we asked, “What are you writing about at present?” He replied that he was drawing forth and expounding from his treasuries matters of inmost wisdom, in brief these: (1) Is nature derived from life or life from nature? (2) Is a center derived from its expanse or
the expanse from its center? (3) What are the center and the expanse of nature and of life?
[4] So saying, he sat down again at the table. We walked about in his school, a spacious one. He had a candle on the table, for the light in the place was not the diurnal light of the sun but the nocturnal light of the moon. To my surprise, the candle seemed to move about the room and illuminate it, although, not having been snuffed, it gave only a little light. As the man wrote, we saw images of different shapes flying from the table to the walls, which in that nocturnal moonlight looked like beautiful Indian birds; but when we opened the door, in the solar daylight they looked like birds of evening with weblike wings. For they were semblances of truth, made into fallacies by being confirmed, and these he wove ingeniously into a series.
[5] Having watched this phenomenon, we went to the table and asked him what he was writing about now. He said, “About the first problem, Is nature derived from life or life from nature?” Of this he said that he could confirm either idea and make it true; but that as something lurked within which excited his fears, he ventured to confirm only this, that nature is of, that is, from life, and not that life is of, that is, from nature.
We asked courteously what it was he feared which lay hidden within. He said it was that he might be called a naturalist and thus an atheist by the clergy, and a man of unsound reason by the laity, “for both these are either believers from a blind faith or see from the sight of those who confirm blind faith.”
[6] But then we addressed him in some indignation of zeal for the truth, saying, “Friend, you are very much mistaken. Your wisdom, which is a literary skill, has seduced you, and the glamour of reputation has led you to confirm what you do not believe. Do you not know that the human mind is capable of being raised above sensuous things or such things as are in the thoughts from the bodily senses; and that, thus elevated, it sees the things of life above, and the things of nature beneath? What is life but love and wisdom? And what is nature but the receptacle of these, by which they elaborate their effects or uses? Can these be one except as principal and instrumental? Can light be identical with the eye? Or sound with the ear? Are not their sensations from life, while their forms are from nature? What is the human body but an organ of life? Are not each and all things in the body organized to do what love wills and understanding thinks? Are not the organs of the body from nature, but love and thought from life? Are they not quite distinct from each other? Raise the insight of your skill a little higher still, and you will see that it is the property of life to be affected and to think, and that to be affected is from love and to think is from wisdom, and both are from life; for, as we said, love and wisdom are life. If you raise your faculty of understanding yet a little higher, you will see that there can be no love and wisdom without an origin somewhere, and that this origin is love itself and wisdom itself, and hence life itself, which are God, from whom is nature.”
[7] Afterwards we talked with him about the second problem, Is a center derived from its expanse or the expanse from its center? We asked him why he took this up. He replied that he did so in order to come to a conclusion about the center and the expanse of nature and of life, thus about the origin of the one and the other. When we asked what his opinion was, he made similar answer as before, that he could confirm either idea, but that for fear of damaging his reputation he would confirm the idea that an expanse is of, that is, from its center, “although I know,” he said, “that there was something before the sun, and this was everywhere in the universe, and that these things flowed together into order, thus into centers, by themselves.”
[8] Again we addressed him in an indignant zeal and said, “Friend, you are insane.” At this he pushed his chair back from the table and looked at us fearfully. Then he lent an ear, but with a smile, and we proceeded: “What is more insane than to say that center is from expanse and thus that the universe came into existence apart from a sun? For by your center we understand the sun, and by your expanse we understand the universe. Does not the sun make nature and give it all its properties? which are dependent solely on the heat and light proceeding from the sun by its atmospheres. Where were all things of nature before? [Whence they are we shall tell in the following discussion.] Are not the atmospheres and all things on the earth like surfaces, and the sun the center of them? What are they all apart from the sun? Could they subsist for one moment? What then were they all before there was a sun? Could they have subsisted? Is not subsistence a perpetual coming into existence? Since, therefore, the subsistence of all things of nature is from the sun, it follows that their coming into existence is also from the sun. This every one sees and acknowledges from his own observation. [9] As the posterior exists from the prior, does it not also subsist from the prior? If the surfaces were prior and the center posterior, would not the prior subsist from the posterior? But this is contrary to the laws of order. How can things posterior produce things prior? Or exteriors produce interiors? Or things grosser, things purer? How then can surfaces, which constitute the expanse, produce centers? Who does not see that this is against the laws of nature? We have brought forward these arguments from rational analysis to establish that an expanse exists from its center, and not the contrary, although every one who thinks rightly sees it without these arguments. You said that the expanse flows together of itself into the center; did it then by chance flow into such a wonderful and stupendous order that one thing serves another, and each and all serve man and man’s eternal life? Can nature, from any love by any wisdom, provide such things, and make angels of men, and form a heaven of angels? Suppose this, and reflect, and your idea of the existence of nature from nature will fall to pieces.”
[10] Then we asked him what he had thought and what he now thought about the third topic, The center and the expanse of nature and of life; did he believe the center and the expanse of life to be identical with the center and expanse of nature? He said he hesitated. He had previously thought that the interior activity of nature was life, and that from this are the love and wisdom which essentially make man’s life; and that they are produced by the fire of the sun through its heat and light, the atmospheres serving as means. But now on account of what he had heard about man’s eternal life he was in doubt. The doubt swayed his mind now upward and now downward; when upward he acknowledged a center of which he had known nothing before, and when downward he saw a center which he had believed was the only one. Life (he said) is from the center of which he had not known before, and nature from the center which he had believed was the only one, and each center has an expanse about it.
[11] To this we said, “Good! If only you would also view the center and the expanse of nature from the center and expanse of life, and not contrariwise.” We informed him that above the angelic heaven is a sun which is pure love, in appearance fiery like the sun of the world. From the heat which proceeds from that sun angels and men have will and love, and from the light from it they have understanding and wisdom. Further, the things which are of life are called spiritual, and those which proceed from the sun of the world are containants of life and are called natural. Then (we went on), the expanse of the center of life is called the spiritual world which subsists from its own sun, and the expanse of nature is called the natural world, which subsists from its sun. Now, as spaces and times cannot be predicated of love and wisdom, but rather states, the expanse about the sun of the angelic heaven is not an extended area, and yet is within the domain of the natural sun, and is with animate subjects there according to reception, which is according to the form.”
[12] “But then,” he asked, “whence is the fire of the sun of the world or of nature?”
We answered, “From the sun of the angelic heaven, which is not fire but Divine love, proximately proceeding from God who is Love itself.”
As he marvelled at this, we explained it in this way: “Love in its essence is spiritual fire. Hence in the Word, in its spiritual sense, fire signifies love; priests in temples accordingly pray that heavenly fire, by which they mean love, may fill the heart. The fire of the altar and the fire of the candlestick in the tabernacle with the Israelites represented nothing else than Divine love. The heat of the blood, or the vital heat of men and of animals in general, has no other source than the love which makes their life. A man is enkindled, waxes warm, and is inflamed, therefore, when his love is intensified into zeal, anger, and wrath. This fact, that spiritual heat, which is love, produces natural heat in men, even kindling and inflaming face and limb, assures one that the fire of the natural sun came into existence from no other source than the fire of the spiritual sun, which is Divine love. [13] Now, as an expanse springs from its center and not the reverse, as we said before; and as the center of life, which is the sun of the angelic heaven, is Divine love proximately proceeding from God, who is in the midst of that sun; and as the expanse of that center, called the spiritual world, is thence; and as from that sun the sun of the world came into existence, and from it its expanse, called the natural world, it is clear that the universe is created from the one God.”
Thereupon we left, and he accompanied us out of the schoolyard, talking with us about heaven and hell and about the Divine auspices with a new sagacity in his genius.
* These Memorabilia also occur in True Christian Religion, n. 35.
381. II
Once as I was looking about in the world of spirits, I saw in the distance a palace, surrounded and seemingly besieged by a crowd. I also saw many running toward it. Wondering at this, I hurried from the house and asked one of those running what was going on. He replied that three newcomers from the world had been taken up into heaven, where they had seen magnificent things, and maidens and wives of amazing beauty; and having been let down from that heaven they had come to this palace, and were relating what they had seen, especially the beauties, such as their eyes had never seen, nor could see unless illumined with the light of the aura of heaven. They said that they had been orators in the world and came from France, had bestowed care upon eloquence, and now were seized with a desire to speak on the origin of beauty. Word of this in the neighborhood had brought the multitude together to hear.
On hearing this, I also hastened to the palace and entered. I saw the three men standing in the midst, clad in togas of a sapphire color, which glistened like gold at every movement from the golden threads woven into them. The men were standing behind a sort of pulpit, ready to speak. Presently one of them mounted the pulpit steps to declaim on the origin of the beauty of the female sex. This was his pronouncement:
When the third had concluded, the company broke into applause and cried, “He has won.” At once a flamy light, which is also the light of marital love, filled the building with splendor and their hearts at the same time with pleasure.
385. XVI
THE CONJUNCTION OF MARITAL LOVE WITH LOVE FOR CHILDREN
There are indications to show that marital love and love for children, which is called storge, are conjoined. There are also indications leading one to believe that they are not conjoined. For love of children is to be found both with partners who love each other from the heart and with partners who clash at heart. In fact, it is to be found with the separated, and at times is stronger and more tender with them than with others. But love for children is always conjoined with marital love, as is plain from the origin whence it flows. With whatever variation in recipients, the two loves still remain inseparable, as surely as a first end is to be found in the final end or effect. The first end of marital love is the procreation of offspring, and the final end (or the effect) is the offspring procreated. In a rational view of the progress of ends and causes in due order to effects, it can be seen that the first end passes into the effect, and exists and persists there as it was in its beginning. But the reasoning of the mass of people, instead of beginning with causes and proceeding analytically from these to effects, commences with effects and proceeds from effects to a consequence or two. The rational things of light are sure then to become the obscurities of a cloud, whence come departures from truth, based on appearances and fallacies. In order that it may be seen that marital love and love for children are inwardly conjoined even when outwardly disjoined, we shall demonstrate the fact in this order:
i. Two universal spheres proceed from the Lord to preserve the universe in its created state, one of which is a sphere of procreating and the other a sphere of protecting what is procreated.
ii. These two universal spheres make one with the sphere of marital love and with the sphere of love for children.
iii. These two spheres flow in general and in detail into all things of heaven and of the world, from first to last.
iv. The sphere of love for children is a sphere of tutelage and support of those who cannot protect and support themselves.
v. This sphere affects the evil as well as the good, and disposes all to love, protect and support their progeny out of self-love.
vi. This sphere affects the female sex primarily, thus mothers, and through them the male sex, or fathers.
vii. This sphere is also a sphere of innocence and peace from the Lord.
viii. The sphere of innocence flows into children, and by them into parents, and affects them.
ix. It also flows into the souls of parents, and conjoins itself with the same sphere in infants; and is insinuated especially through touch.
x. In the degree in which innocence recedes with children, parental affection and conjunction also slacken, and this successively even to separation.
xi. There is a reasoned state of innocence and peace in parents toward children, which rests on the fact that the latter know and can do nothing of themselves, but only from others, particularly from father and mother; and this state also departs successively as the children learn and can do for themselves instead of from others.
xii. This sphere advances in order from ends by causes to effects, and establishes periods, by means of which creation is preserved in the state foreseen and provided.
xiii. Love for children descends, and does not ascend.
xiv. Wives have one state of love before conception and another after it up to the birth.
xv. Spiritual causes and natural ones thence conjoin marital love in parents with love for children.
xvi. Love of infants and children is one thing with spiritual partners, and another with natural.
xvii. With the spiritual this love is from what is interior or prior, but with the natural from what is exterior or subsequent.
xviii. Hence it is that this love is found with partners who love each other and also with partners who have no love for each other.
xix. Love for children remains after death, especially with women.
xx. Children are educated by them under the Lord’s auspices, and grow in stature and intelligence as in the world.
xxi. It is there provided by the Lord that the innocence of infancy with them shall become the innocence of wisdom, and that thus the children shall become angels.
Explanation of these propositions follows:
“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you” (John xiv. 27).
The same is meant by the peace with which the disciples were to greet a city or home on entering it; if it was worthy, peace should come on it, and if not worthy, their peace would return to them (Matthew x. 11-13). Hence also the Lord is called “The Prince of Peace” (Isaiah ix. 6). Innocence and peace are the inmost things of heaven for the further reason that innocence is the esse of all good, and peace the blessedness in every enjoyment of what is good. See the work Heaven and Hell, “The State of Innocence of the Angels of Heaven” (nn. 276-283); and “The State of Peace in Heaven” (nn. 284-290).
With natural fathers and mothers, the love of children is from innocence, too, but they receive this innocence only to wrap it about their self-love. Hence they love their children both for the innocence and from self-love, kissing and embracing them, carrying, snatching them to the bosom, and fondling them immoderately, all the time regarding them as part of themselves. Later, during childhood to puberty and beyond, when innocence no longer operates, they do not love them for any fear of God and practical piety or piety of life, or for any rational and moral intelligence; they pay little or no thought to their internal affections or to their virtues and sound habits, but solely to external things which they like�to these they adjoin, fix and glue their love. So they shut their eyes to their faults, excusing and countenancing them. The reason is that their love for their progeny is also self-love. Self-love clings externally to a loved one, and does not enter into him, as it does not into itself.
Permit the little children to come to Me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens. Truly I say to you that he who has not received the kingdom of the heavens as a little child shall not enter therein (Mark x. 14, 15; Luke xviii. 16, 17).
In this, as in other passages in the Word, infants signify those who are in innocence. Good is good as far as it has innocence in it because all good is from the Lord, and innocence consists in being led by Him.
One morning,* rousing from sleep, and not yet entirely awake, I lay meditating in the serene morning light. From my window I noticed what seemed to be flashes of lightning and presently I heard as it were rolling thunder. As I was wondering whence this was, I heard from heaven the words: “Some men not far from you are reasoning sharply about God and nature. The vibrations of light like lightning and the rumbling of the air like thunder are correspondences and hence appearances of the conflict and clash of arguments in favor of God on one side and in favor of nature on the other.”
The cause of this spiritual conflict was this. Certain satans in hell had said to one another, “Would that we might be permitted to speak with angels of heaven! We would show them once for all that nature is what they call God from whom all things are, and thus that God is only a word unless nature is meant.”
As the satans believed this with their whole heart and soul and did long to speak with angels of heaven, it was granted them to ascend out of the mire and darkness of hell, and to speak with two angels then descending from heaven. All were in the world of spirits, which is intermediate between heaven and hell.
[2] Catching sight of the angels, the satans ran up to them at once, and in a voice of rage exclaimed, “Are you the angels of heaven with whom we are permitted to engage in reasoning about God and nature? You are called wise because you acknowledge God; but oh! how simple you are! Who sees God? Who understands what God is? Who grasps how God governs or can govern the universe and everything in it? Aside from the common people and the rabble, who acknowledges anything he does not see and understand? What is more obvious than that nature is all in all? Who has seen anything but nature with the eye? Heard anything but nature with the ear? Perceived anything but nature with the nostrils? Tasted anything but nature with the tongue? Felt anything but nature with the hand or the body? Are not our bodily senses the only witnesses of truth?: Who cannot swear by them that a thing is so? Are not your heads in nature? Whence do the thoughts of the head inflow except from nature? Take nature away and can you think anything?” Besides much else of the sort.
[3] Hearing this the angels replied, “You speak in this way because you are merely sensuous. All in the hells have immersed the ideas of their thought in the bodily senses, and cannot elevate the mind above them. We therefore excuse you. A life of evil and the attendant belief in what is false have so closed the interiors of your minds that elevation above sensuous things is impossible to you, except in a state removed from evils of life and falsities of faith. For a satan can understand truth as well as an angel when he hears it, but does not retain it, because evil obliterates truth and introduces falsity. But we perceive that you are now in a state thus detached, and that it is possible for you to understand the truth which we speak. So give attention to what we say.”
The angels continued, “You were in the natural world and died there, and are now in the spiritual world. Did you know anything before about a life after death? Did you not deny it, and put yourselves on a level with beasts? Did you know anything then about heaven and hell? Or about the light and heat of this world? Or about the fact that you would no longer be within nature, but above it? For this world and all things pertaining to it are spiritual; and spiritual things are above natural, so that not even the least of nature can flow into this world. But having believed nature to be a god or goddess, you believe that the light and heat of this world are the light and heat of the natural world; when in fact it is not so at all, for natural light is thick darkness here and natural heat is cold. Did you know anything about the sun of this world from which our light and heat proceed? Did you know that this sun is sheer love, and the sun of the natural world is mere fire? And that it is the sun of the world, which is mere fire, from which nature exists and subsists? And that it is the sun of heaven, which is sheer love, from which life itself, or love together with wisdom, exists and subsists? And thus that nature, which you make a god or goddess, is absolutely dead? [4] You can ascend with us into heaven if a guard is granted you; and we, if a guard is granted us, can descend with you into hell. In heaven you will see things magnificent and splendid; but in hell things squalid and unclean. The differences come from the fact that in heaven all worship God, and in hell all worship nature. The magnificent and splendid things in the heavens are correspondences of the affections of good and truth; and the squalid andunclean things in the hells are correspondences of the lusts of the evil and false. Judge now from these contrasting things whether God or nature is all in all.”
To this the satans replied, “In the state in which we now are, we are able to conclude from what we have heard that there is a God; but when the delight of evil takes possession of our minds we see nothing but nature.”
[5] The two angels and the two satans were standing not far from me on the right, so that I could see and hear them.
Around them I saw also many spirits who in the natural world had been noted for learning. I was surprised that these learned men stood now beside the angels, now beside the satans, standing beside those whom they favored. I was told that their changes of place were changes of mind, favoring now one side, now the other; “For they are vertumni. We will tell you a mystery. We have looked down upon earth at those noted for learning who have thought about God and nature according to their own judgment, and have found six hundred out of a thousand in favor of nature, and the rest in favor of God; even these were in favor of God because they had frequently declared (not from any understanding, but only from having heard it) that nature is from God. Frequent speech from memory and recollection, even if it is not at the same time from thought and intelligence, induces a sort of faith.”
[6] Thereupon the satans were given a guard and ascended with the two angels into heaven and saw magnificent and splendid things. Illumined by the light of heaven as they were, they acknowledged that there is a God; that nature is created to serve the life which is in God and from God; and that nature in itself is dead, and so does nothing of itself, but is actuated by life. Having seen and perceived these things, they descended; and as they did, the love of evil returned, closing their understanding above and opening it beneath. Over their understanding appeared what looked like a veil, with infernal fire flashing through it. The moment their feet touched the earth the ground opened under them, and they sank down to their own.
* This paragraph occurs again with slight changes in True Christian Religion, n. 77.
They came and asked me to read to them what I had written about God and nature. I read the following selections:*
“Those who believe in Divine activity in the details of nature are able by very many things they see in nature to confirm themselves in favor of the Divine as fully as others confirm themselves in favor of nature, indeed more fully. [2] Those who confirm themselves in favor of the Divine consider the wonders to be noted in the production both of plants and of animals. In the production of plants: how out of a small seed cast into the earth a root goes forth, a stem by means of the root, and branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit in succession, even to new seeds, just as if the seed knew the order of succession and the process by which it is to renew itself. Can any rational man think that the sun which is mere fire has this knowledge? Or that it can empower its heat and light to effect such things? And that it can form the wonderful things within them and intend use? A man whose rational mind is elevated cannot but think, on seeing and contemplating these things, that they are from Him who has infinite wisdom, that is, from God. So also do they see and think who acknowledge the Divine. But those who do not acknowledge, do not see and think so, because they will not. They let the rational mind so far down into the sensuous that it derives all its ideas from the light in which the bodily senses are and confirms the fallacies of the senses, and then they say, ‘Do you not see the sun accomplishing these things by its heat and light? What is that which you do not see? Is it anything?’
“Those who confirm themselves in favor of the Divine, consider also the wonders to be observed in the production of animals. To speak here of eggs only: within them lies hidden a chick in its seed or inception, with everything it needs until it is hatched from the shell and also for its development after it leaves the shell until it becomes a bird or flying thing in the form of its parent. If one takes notice of the form, it is such that it must excite amazement if one thinks deeply. For in the least form of life as well as in the greatest, indeed in the invisible as in the visible, that is, in the minutest insects as in the large birds and beasts, there are organs of sense, of sight, smell, taste and touch; and organs of motion which are muscles, for they fly and walk; and viscera also around the heart and lungs which are set in action by brains. The fact that even common insects enjoy such organs is known from their anatomy as described by some writers, especially by Swammerdam in his Biblia Naturae. [3] Those who ascribe all things to nature see these things, of course, but only think that they exist, and say that nature produces them. They say this because they have turned their mind away from thinking of the Divine, and those who have done this, when they behold the wonderful things in nature cannot think rationally, much less spiritually; they think sensuously and materially. Thus they think in nature from nature and not above it, in like manner as do those who are in hell. They differ from the animal only in having the power of rationality, that is, in being able to understand and therefore to think otherwise if they choose.
[4] “They who have turned away from thought of the Divine, and thereby have become sensuous, on beholding wonderful things in nature, fail to reflect that the sight of the eye is so gross that it sees many minute insects as one indistinct object, when yet each of these is organized to feel and to propel itself, and so is provided with fibers and vessels and a little heart and pulmonary tubes and minute viscera and brains, woven together out of the purest things in nature; they fail to reflect that these structures correspond to the life by which the minutest of them are severally actuated. Since the sight of the eye is so gross that many such creatures, with the innumerable things in each, look like a small indistinct object, and yet it is this vision by which the sensuous think and judge, it is manifest how gross their mind has become, and hence in what thick darkness they are about spiritual things.
* From Divine Love and Wisdom, nn. 351-357; also used in True Christian Religion, n. 12.
* In the work from which this was being read, published in 1763 and written in 1762, the number of years is given as nineteen, and the statement here has in some editions been changed to make it conform to that. This not only appears unwarrantable, but a substantial error. The author, in making new use of this material, simply brings the time of this remarkable experience down to the then present, which was about 1768, the date of this work. A year later, in using yet again some of the same material and referring to the same experience (in True Christian Religion, n. 12) he extends the period another year, and makes it twenty-six years.
* For the substance of this paragraph see Divine Love and Wisdom, n. 350.
423. PART TWO
SCORTATORY LOVE: ITS INSANE PLEASURES
XVII
THE OPPOSITION OF SCORTATORY LOVE TO MARITAL LOVE
At this threshold we have first to explain what we mean in the present chapter by scortatory love. We do not mean fornicatory love before marriage or following it after the partner’s death; nor concubinage* entered upon for legitimate, just and weighty reasons; nor do we mean the milder kinds of adultery, nor the graver kinds of which a man actively repents, for the latter kinds cease to be opposite, and the former are not fully opposite to marital love (see in what follows, where each is treated, that they are not opposite). But by scortatory love opposite to marital love we mean in this chapter such an adulterous love that adultery is not considered a sin, or an evil and immorality in the eyes of reason, but as allowable in reason’s eyes. This scortatory love not only identifies marital love with itself, but also overthrows, destroys and finally nauseates it. We treat in this chapter of the opposition of this love�and not of any other�to marital love, as appears plainly from what follows on fornication, concubinage and the different kinds of adultery.
But, to be plain to rational sight, this opposition is to be demonstrated in the following sequence:
i. To know what scortatory love is like, one must know what marital love is like.
ii. Scortatory love is the opposite of marital love.
iii. Scortatory love is opposite to marital love as the natural man, viewed in himself , is to the spiritual man.
iv. Scortatory love is opposite to marital love as the mating of evil and falsity is to the marriage of good and truth.
v. Hence scortatory love is opposite to marital love as hell is to heaven.
vi. The uncleanness of hell is from scortatory love, and the cleanness of heaven from marital love.
vii. Similarly uncleanness in the Church, and cleanness there.
viii. Scortatory love more and more renders the human being not human and not a man, and marital love makes him more and more a human being and a man.
ix. There is a sphere of scortatory love, and a sphere of marital love.
x. The sphere of scortatory love ascends from hell, and the sphere of marital love descends from heaven.
xi. The two spheres meet in each world, but do not conjoin.
xii. There is equilibrium between the two spheres, and the human being is in the equilibrium.
xiii. Man can turn himself to either sphere, as he wishes, but as far as he turns to one, he turns away from the other.
xiv. Each sphere brings delights with it.
xv. The delights of scortatory love begin in the flesh and are of the flesh even in the spirit, but the delights of marital love begin in the spirit and are of the spirit even in the flesh.
xvi. The delights of scortatory love are pleasures of insanity, but the delights of marital love are delights of wisdom.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
* This term is used by Swedenborg with a special meaning; see nn. 463, 467.
* See note at n. 264 [4].
On account of the correspondence of filthy loves with ordure and filth, the children of Israel were commanded
To carry a paddle with them with which to cover their excrement, lest Jehovah God walking in the midst of their camp see the nakedness of the thing, and turn back (Deuteronomy xxiii. 13, 14).
This was commanded because the camp of the children of Israel represented the Church, and those unclean things corresponded to the lascivious things of whoredom. By Jehovah God’s walking in the midst of their camp, His presence by angels was signified. The reason for the word “cover” is that all the places in hell where droves of such spirits live are covered and closed up, wherefore, too, it is said “lest He see the nakedness of the thing.” I was enabled to observe that all such places in hell are closed up, and when they were opened, which was done when a new demon entered, such an offensive odor exhaled thence that it assailed my stomach with heaviness. Amazing to relate, those stenches are as delightful to them as ordure is to swine. It is plain from this how it is to be understood that the unclean in the Church is from scortatory love, and the clean from marital love.
[2] The contrary befalls adulterers, just as a result of the oppositeness of adultery and marriage of which we have been treating in this chapter: as that (i) Adulterers are not spiritual, but in the lowest degree natural; and the natural man separated from the spiritual is a human being only in point of the understanding, but not of the will. The will is immersed in the body and in the lusts of the flesh, and the understanding along with it at such times. That the man is then only half a man, he himself can see from the reason of his understanding if he elevates it. (ii) Adulterers are not wise, save in speech and bearing when in the company of those of especial dignity, known learning, and some morality; alone with themselves they are insane, flouting the Divine and holy things of the Church, and defiling the moralities of life with things shameless and unchaste, as we shall show in the chapter on adulteries. Who does not see that those who behave so are human beings only in external figure, but not in inward form? (iii) Observation of them in hell has served me for manifest confirmation that adulterers cease more and more to be human beings. For there they are demons whose faces, when seen in heaven’s light, are as it were pustulous, their bodies humped, their speech rasping, and their manner hollow.
[3] It* is to be known, however, that it is adulterers of set purpose, not adulterers undesignedly, who are such as I have described. For there are four kinds of adulterers, of whom we shall say more in the chapter on adultery and its degrees. Adulterers from purpose are adulterers from lust of the will; adulterers from confirmation are adulterers by persuasion of the understanding; adulterers not undesignedly, act on the allurement of the senses; and adulterers undesignedly, are those unable or not free to consult the understanding. It is adulterers of the first two kinds who cease more and more to be human beings; but adulterers of the two latter kinds become human beings as they withdraw from their errors and afterwards are wise.
* This paragraph in the original is enclosed in quotation marks.
But the contrary befalls those who are adulterers from purpose or from confirmation (of whom just above, n. 432e). As is known but little divulged, the faculty or strength called virile is enfeebled in them even to nothing, and then coldness to the sex sets in, whereupon later a loathing follows which grows to nausea. That these adulterers are such in hell I have heard at a distance from sirens�who are worn-out lusts of venery-and also from brothels there.
The conclusion from this is that scortatory love makes man more and more not a human being and not a man, while marital love makes him more and more a human being and a man.
After I had finished my meditations on marital love, and had begun meditations on scortatory love, two angels suddenly presented themselves and said, “We perceived and grasped what you meditated upon previously, but the things on which you are meditating now elude us and we do not perceive them. Let them be, for they are of no account.”
But I answered, “This love on which I am now meditating, is of some account, for it exists.”
“How can there be a love,” they protested, “which is not from creation? Is not marital love from creation? Is it not between two who can become one? How can there be a love which divides and separates? Can a young man love any other virgin than the one who returns his love? Must not the love of the one recognize and hail the love of the other, so that they unite spontaneously when they meet? Who can love the unloving? Is not marital love alone mutual and reciprocal? If not reciprocal, does it not recoil and cease?”
[2] On hearing this I asked the two angels from what society in heaven they came. “We are from the heaven of innocence,” they said. “We entered this heavenly world as infants and were brought up under the Lord’s auspices. When I became a young man, and my wife, here beside me, became a marriageable girl, we were betrothed and pledged, and united at the first omens. Not having known of any other love than true wedded and marital love, we did not comprehend at all when ideas about a strange love directly opposite to our love were communicated to us from your thought. We have therefore descended to ask you why you meditate on imperceptible things. Tell us, how can there be a love which is not only not from creation, but actually contrary to creation? We regard things opposite to creation as having no reality.”
[3] As he spoke so, I felt glad at heart that I had the privilege of speaking with angels of such innocence that they knew not at all what whoredom is. I mustered speech and explained, therefore, saying:
“Do you not know that there is good and evil? and that good but not evil is from creation? Viewed in itself, evil is not, however, nothing, although it is nothing of good. Good is from creation, both good in the greatest degree and the minimum good; and when this least becomes none, beyond it evil springs up. There is therefore no relation or progression of good to evil; but a relation and progression of good to greater or less good, and of evil to greater or less evil; for at each and all points they are opposites. As good and evil are opposites, there is an intermediate where there is equilibrium, in which evil acts against good; not prevailing, it still persists as endeavor. Every man is brought up in this equilibrium, which is a spiritual equilibrium, obtaining as it does between good and evil or (what is the same) between heaven and hell, and gives freedom to those who are in it. In this equilibrium the Lord draws all to Himself, and leads the man who follows freely, out of evil into good and thus into heaven. So it is with love, especially with marital love and scortatory love. The latter is evil and the former good. The Lord introduces every man who hears His voice and who follows freely, into marital love and into all its delights and satisfactions; but the man who does not hear and follow introduces himself into scortatory love, into what are its delights at first, but afterwards into its undelight and finally into all its wretchedness.”
[4] When I had said this the two angels asked:
“How could evil come to be when from creation nothing but good existed? For a thing to come into existence it must have an origin. Good could not be the origin of evil, because evil is nothing of good, ousting it, rather, and destroying it. Still, as it exists and is felt, evil is not nothing but something. Tell us, then, whence comes this something after nothing.”
To this I replied, “This arcanum cannot be explained unless it is known that no one is good but God only, and that there is nothing good which is good in itself except from God. He who looks to God, therefore, and wills to be led by God, is in good; but he who averts himself from God and wills to be led of himself is not in good, for the good which he does is either for himself or for the sake of the world; thus is either self-righteous or simulated or hypocritical. Plainly, then, man himself is the origin of evil. Not that this origin was implanted in him from creation, but that he brought it on himself by turning away from God to himself. This origin of evil was not in Adam and his wife, but when the serpent said:
In the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall be as God (Genesis iii. 5);
and they turned away from God and turned to themselves as to a god, they made in themselves the origin of evil. ‘To eat of that tree’ signifies to believe that one knows good and evil and is wise of oneself and not from God.”
[5] Thereupon the two angels asked, “How could man avert himself from God and turn to himself, when yet he cannot will, think and therefore cannot do anything except from God? Why did God permit this?”
“Man was so created,” I replied, “that all he wills, thinks, and does appears to him as if it were in himself and thus of himself. Without this appearance man would not be man, for he could not receive, retain and as it were appropriate to himself anything of good and truth or of love and wisdom. It follows that without this living appearance, to call it so, man would have no conjunction with God, and therefore no eternal life. But if, as a result of this appearance he induces on himself the belief that he wills, thinks, and therefore does good of himself, and not from the Lord with all the appearance of doing so of himself, he then turns good into evil in him, and thus makes in himself the origin of evil. This was the sin of Adam.
[6] “But let me put the matter a little more clearly. The Lord looks at every one in the forehead, and this regard passes through to the back of the head; beneath the forehead is the cerebrum and at the back is the cerebellum. The cerebellum is dedicated to love and its goods, and the cerebrum to wisdom and its truths. He who turns his face to the Lord, therefore, receives wisdom from Him, and through wisdom love; but he who looks backward from the Lord receives love but not wisdom, and love without wisdom is love from man and not from the Lord. This love, conjoining itself with falsities, does not acknowledge God but itself as a god; and this it tacitly confirms by that faculty of understanding and of becoming wise as if of oneself which is implanted in man from creation. It is this love, then, which is the origin of evil. The fact can be demonstrated to the eye. I will call hither some evil spirit who averts himself from God, and will speak to him from behind or into the back part of his head, and you will see that what I say will be turned into its opposite.” [7] I called such a spirit. He presented himself, and I spoke to him from behind, saying:
“Do you know anything about hell, damnation and the torment there?”
Then, after he had turned toward me, I asked, “What did you hear?” He replied, “This: ‘Do you know anything about heaven, salvation and the happiness there?’ ” Again, when the latter words were spoken to him behind his back he said that he had heard the former. Thereupon he was asked from behind his back, “Do you know that those who are in hell are insane from falsities?” When I asked him what he had heard this time, he said, “I heard ‘Do you know that those who are in heaven are wise from truths?'” Again, when the latter words were spoken from behind his back he said that he heard, “Do you know that those who are in hell are insane from falsities?” And so on. Is it not therefore manifest that when the mind turns away from the Lord, it turns to itself and perceives things opposite? This is the reason why in this spiritual world, as you know, no one is allowed to stand behind another and speak to him. For thus a love is inspired in him which his own intelligence favors and obeys from delight, but which, because it is from man and not from God, is a love of evil or of falsity. Let me tell you also of another similar thing. [8] Several times I have heard goods and truths let down from heaven into hell; in the descent they were gradually turned into their opposites, good into evil, and truth into falsity. The cause of this phenomenon is undoubtedly the same, that all who are in hell avert themselves from the Lord.”
Having heard these things the two angels thanked me, and said, “As you are now meditating and writing upon a love which is the opposite of our marital love, and the opposite to this love saddens our minds, we will take our leave.”
And when they said, “Peace to you,” I begged them not to tell their brothers and sisters in heaven anything about that love, because it would hurt their innocence.
I can affirm for a certainty that those who die in infancy grow up in heaven; when they attain the stature of youths of eighteen in the world and of girls of fifteen years of age, they remain of that stature; marriages are then provided for them by the Lord; and further, both before and after marriage, they are entirely ignorant of what whoredom is or that such a thing can be.
XVIII
FORNICATION
444r. By fornication is meant the lust of an adolescent or of a young man before marriage, with a loose woman. Lust with a woman not a harlot, that is, with a virgin or another’s wife, is not fornication; with a virgin it is debauchery, and with the wife of another, it is adultery. No reasoning man can see how debauchery and adultery differ from fornication unless he sees love for the sex clearly in its degrees and diversities, seeing on the one side its chaste and on the other its unchaste growth, analysing each by kinds and species, and so making distinctions. Else the differences of more or less chaste and of more or less unchaste will not stand out in one’s thought. Without these distinctions, moreover, all proportion and with it clear-sighted judgment in such matters perish. The understanding is then involved in such shade that it does not know how to distinguish fornication from adultery, still less how to distinguish milder instances of fornication from graver, and the like of adultery. It confuses evils, therefore, and of diverse evils makes one hodgepodge, and of diverse goods another agglutination. In order, then, that love for the sex may be distinctly known on the side on which it tends and advances toward scortatory love directly opposite to marital love, it is expedient that the beginning of it, which is fornication, be examined. This shall be done in the following order:
i. Fornication is of love for the sex.
ii. This love commences when the adolescent begins to think and act from his own understanding, and his voice begins to turn masculine.
iii. Fornication is of the natural man.
iv. Fornication is lust, but not the lust of adultery.
v. In some men love for the sex cannot without damage be totally restrained from issuing in fornication.
vi. Therefore brothels are tolerated in populous cities.
vii. The lust of fornicating is light as one looks to marital love and prefers it.
viii. The lust of fornicating is serious as one looks to adultery.
ix. The lust of fornicating is still more serious as it verges on the desire for variety and the desire to deflower.
x. The sphere of the lust of fornicating, such as this is at the outset, is midway between the sphere of scortatory love and the sphere of marital love, and makes an equilibrium.
xi. Care is to be taken lest marital love be destroyed through immoderate and inordinate fornication.
xii. For the marital tendency of one man to one wife is the jewel of human life and the repository of the Christian religion.
xiii. In men who for various causes cannot as yet enter marriage and who for salacity cannot govern their lusts, this marital capacity may be preserved if love of the sex is restricted to one mistress.
xiv. Pellicacy is preferable to roving lust provided it is not contracted with more than one, or with a virgin or undeflowered woman, or with a married woman, and is held away from marital love.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
It is altogether otherwise with the libidinous and obscene love of adultery which, as we showed, is the opposite of marital love and the destroyer of it (see the foregoing chapter on “The Opposition of Scortatory Love to Marital Love”). If therefore an adulterer from purpose or by confirmation for any of several reasons enters the marriage bed, the reverse is true; concealed within lurks the natural with its lasciviousness and obscenity, while an appearance of the spiritual outwardly veils it. The reason can see from this that lust in limited fornication compared to lust in adultery is like the first chill in the air compared to the cold of midwinter in the far north.
Judge not, that you may not be condemned (Matthew vii. 1).
* Related again at n. 527 [3].
These things are not said for those who can control the heat of lust; or for those who can enter into marriage as soon as they come to manhood, and can offer and devote the first fruits of manly power to a wife.
I once spoke* with a novitiate spirit who in the world had meditated much on heaven and hell. (By novitiate spirits are meant men recently deceased, who, being spiritual beings then, are called spirits.) As soon as he entered the spiritual world, he began to meditate as before on heaven and hell. Thinking about heaven he seemed to himself in joy, and thinking about hell in sadness. As soon as he realized that he was in the spiritual world he asked where heaven and hell were, and what they were, and what the nature of each was. He was told, “Heaven is above your head and hell beneath your feet. For you are at present in the world of spirits, which is intermediate between heaven and hell. But we cannot describe in a few words what they are and what the nature of each is.”
As he burned with a desire to know, he threw himself on his knees and prayed devoutly to God for instruction. Suddenly an angel appeared at his right hand, raised him up, and said,
“You have supplicated to be instructed about heaven and hell. Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know.” Having said these words, the angel was taken up. [2] The novitiate spirit then said to himself:
“What is this? ‘Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know what heaven and hell are, and their nature.'”
Leaving that place he wandered about, and asked those whom he met,
“Pray tell me, if you please, what delight is.”
Some said, “What a queer question! Who does not know what delight is? Is it not joy and gladness? Delight then is delight; one delight is like another; we know no difference.”
Others said that delight is laughter of the mind. “For when the mind laughs the face is merry, the speech jolly, the behavior playful, and the whole man is in delight.”
Others said, “Delight is nothing but to feast and eat dainties, to drink and be intoxicated with generous wine, and to chat about various topics, especially about the sports of Venus and Cupid.”
[3] The novitiate spirit was indignant at these replies and said to himself, “These are ill-bred and unstudied answers. Such delights are not heaven or hell. Would that I might meet some wise men!”
He went on, asking, “Where are there wise men?” Thereupon he was noticed by a certain angelic spirit, who said, “I perceive that you are kindled with a desire to know what the universal of heaven and hell is; it is delight. I will lead you up a hill where men assemble daily who either study effects, or investigate causes, or explore ends; there are three companies. Those who study effects are called spirits of knowledge and, abstractly, knowledges; those who investigate causes are called spirits of intelligence and, abstractly, intelligences; and those who explore ends are called spirits of wisdom and, abstractly, wisdoms. Directly over them in heaven are angels who see causes from ends, and effects from causes. The three companies receive enlightenment from those angels.”
[4] Taking the novitiate spirit by the hand, he led him up the hill to the company of those who explore ends and are called wisdoms. The novitiate said to them, “Pardon me for climbing up to you, but I have meditated from boyhood upon heaven and hell, and have recently come into this world. Some with whom I have been thrown have said that heaven is above my head here and hell beneath my feet. But what the nature and quality of each is, they did not inform me. Having become anxious from constant thought about it, I prayed to God, and then an angel appeared and said, ‘Inquire and learn what delight is, and you will know.’ I have inquired, but so far in vain. I beg you therefore to teach me, if you will, what delight is.”
[5] To this the wisdoms responded, “Delight is the all of life to all in heaven, and the all of life to all in hell. To those in heaven, it is the delight of good and truth; but to those in hell, the delight of what is evil and false. For all delight is of love, and love is the esse of man’s life. Therefore, as man is man according to the quality of his love, he is man according to the quality of his delight. The activity of love produces the sense of delight. In heaven love acts with wisdom; in hell, with insanity. In either case it brings its subjects delight. But the heavens and the hells are in opposite delights, being in opposite loves; the heavens are in the love and attendant delight of doing good, but the hells, in the love and attendant delight of doing evil. If then you know what delight is, you know what and of what nature heaven and hell are. But inquire and learn further what delight is from those who investigate causes and are called intelligences. You will find them to the right from here.”
[6] The novitiate left and went to the intelligences, and told them why he had come, and asked them to teach him what delight is. Pleased with the question, they said:
“It is true that one who knows what delight is knows what heaven and hell are, and the nature of them. The will, by virtue of which man is man, is not moved an inch except by delight. Viewed in itself, will is nothing but the inclination and effect of some love, thus of delight, for something pleasing, grateful, and pleasurable causes one to will. And as the will moves the understanding to think, there is no least idea of thought but from an in-flowing delight of the will. The reason for this is that the Lord, by influx from Himself, actuates all things of the soul and mind in angels, spirits and men, doing so by the influx of love and wisdom. This influx is the very activity from which all delight comes, which in its origin is called blessed, joyous and happy, and in its sequence, delight, pleasantness and pleasure; in a universal sense, good. But infernal spirits pervert all things with themselves, good into evil and truth into falsity, delight always continuing; for without the continuance of delight they would have no will and no sensation, thus no life. It is manifest from these considerations what, and of what kind and whence the delight of hell is; and what, and of what kind and whence the delight of heaven is.”
[7] After hearing these things, the novitiate was conducted to the third company, of those who study effects and are called knowledges. These said to him, “Go down into the lower earth; also ascend into the higher earth. In the higher you will perceive and feel the delights of the angels of heaven, in the lower the delights of the spirits of hell.”
At some distance from them the ground gaped open. Through the chasm three devils came up, appearing aflame with the delight of their love. The associates of the novitiate spirit perceived that the three devils had come up out of hell providentially, and said to them, “Come no nearer, but from where you are tell us something about your delights.”
They said, “Know that every one, whether good or evil, is in his own delight, a good man in the delight of good and an evil man in the delight of evil.”
The companions of the novitiate spirit asked, “What is your delight?”
They answered that they were in the delight of whoring, stealing, defrauding and blaspheming. They were asked:
“What is the quality of these delights?”
They said, “They are perceived by others as fetid odors from excrement, as the stench from dead bodies, as the rank smell from stagnant urine.”
And they were asked, “Are these delightful to you?” They answered, “Most delightful.”
The others said, “Then you are like unclean beasts�they spend their lives in such things.”
They replied, “If we are, we are; but such things are the delights of our nostrils.”
[8] And the others asked, “What else?”
They answered, “Every one is allowed to be in his own delight, even in the most unclean, so-called, provided he does not infest good spirits and angels. In our delight we cannot but infest them, however, and then are thrown into workhouses where we suffer hard things. The prohibition and repression of our delights there is what is called the torment of hell. It is interior pain, too.”
Then they were asked, “Why do you infest the good?”
They said that they could not help doing so. Fury seems to overwhelm them when they see an angel and feel the Divine sphere about him. Whereupon the others said:
“Then you are like wild beasts, too.”
On catching sight of the angels with the novitiate spirit the devils were seized with a fury which seemed like hatred’s own fire. Therefore, lest they should do harm, the devils were cast back into hell.
Then angels appeared who see causes from ends, and effects through causes, and who were in the heaven over the three companies. They appeared in a brilliant white light, which wound downward in spiral turnings, bringing with it a circular wreath of flowers, which was dropped upon the head of the novitiate spirit. Out of the light a voice sounded, saying to him: “You are awarded this laurel for having meditated from childhood on heaven and hell.”
* These Memorabilia are used again in True Christian Religion, n. 570.
462. XIX
CONCUBINAGE
In the preceding chapter, where fornication was the subject, we also treated of pellicacy, by which was meant a union arranged by a single man with a woman; here by concubinage is meant a union similarly arranged by a married man with a woman. Those who do not distinguish kinds, use the two terms indiscriminately as though they had a single meaning and force. But these are two different relationships. The term pellicacy fits the first (because a mistress (pellex) is an immoral woman), and the term concubinage fits the other (since a concubine is a substituted partner of the bed); therefore in the interests of discrimination, we call the ante-nuptial pact with a woman pellicacy, and the post-nuptial pact concubinage. We take up the subject of concubinage here for the sake of order. For from order it is discoverable what the nature of marriage is on the one hand and what the nature of adultery is on the other. We first showed (in the opening chapter of Part II) that marriage and adultery are opposites; how thoroughly and in what way they are opposites is to be gathered only from the intermediates which intervene, among which is also concubinage. There are two kinds of concubinage, however, which are to be carefully distinguished from each other, and we therefore distribute this chapter, like earlier ones, into its parts, as follows:
i. There are two kinds of concubinage which, differ decidedly from each other; one together with a wife, the other apart from the wife.
ii. Concubinage together with a wife is altogether unlawful to Christians and is detestable.
iii. It is polygamy, and polygamy should be condemned, as it is, by the Christian world.
iv. It is whoredom, destroying the marital inclination which is the precious treasure of Christian life.
v. Concubinage apart from the wife, when it takes place for lawful, just and truly weighty causes, is not impermissible.
vi. The causes of lawful divorce, when despite divorce the wife is retained in the home, constitute the lawful causes of this concubinage.
vii. The just causes of separation from the bed constitute the just causes of this concubinage.
viii. Weighty causes of this concubinage are real and unreal.
ix. Weighty causes which are also real are such as rest on what is just.
x. But weighty causes not real are such as do not rest on justice, though they seem to do so.
xi. Those who are in this concubinage from lawful, just and weighty causes, may at the same time be in marital love.
xii. While this concubinage lasts, actual union with one’s wife is not permissible.
Explanation of these propositions follows .
* See n. 466 [3].
[2] As for the second point, that simultaneous concubinage or concubinage together with the wife deprives a man of all the faculty and inclination for the married life which Christians have by birth: this may be seen from the following considerations. As far as love for the partner is transcribed into love for the concubine, so far love for the wife is torn away, drawn upon and emptied out (as was shown just above). This comes to pass through the closing of the interiors of his natural mind and the unclosing of its lower parts, as is plain from the seat of the inclination which Christians have for loving one of the sex�in the inmosts�and from the fact that this seat can be closed up, but not uprooted. An inclination to love one of the sex, and the faculty, too, of receiving that love, have been implanted in Christians by birth, for the reason that that love is from the Lord alone, and has become a matter of religion, and in Christendom the Divine of the Lord is acknowledged and worshiped, and religion is from His Word; so the Christian marital tendency is engrafted and also transplanted from generation to generation. We have said that this Christian marital tendency perishes in polygamous whoredom, but by this we mean that it is shut in and obstructed in a Christian polygamist, but still can be restored in his posterity, just as the likeness of grandfather or great grandfather may recur in grandson or great grandson. Hence this marital capacity is called the treasure of Christian life, and (above, nn. 457, 458) the jewel of human life and the repository of the Christian religion. [3] That this marital capacity is destroyed by polygamous whoredom in a Christian, is very plain from the fact that he cannot, like a Mohammedan polygamist, love concubine and wife equally, but that as far as he loves the concubine or is ardent toward her, he does not love his wife or is cool to her. What is still more detestable, so far also he at heart regards the Lord as a natural human being only, and as the Son of Mary, and not at the same time as the Son of God; and so far he also flouts religion. But it should be appreciated that this is the case with those who add a concubine to the wife and join themselves bodily to both; and not at all the case with those who for legitimate, just and really weighty causes separate themselves and in respect of actualized love keep apart from the wife and in her place put a woman kept for use. Our consideration of this kind of concubinage now follows.
I heard a certain spirit, a young man fresh from the world, boasting of his whoredoms and affecting praise because he was a more masculine man than others. Among other boastful insolences, he gave vent to this: “What is drearier than to imprison one’s love and live with only one woman? What is more delightful than to emancipate the love? Who does not tire of one only? Who is not enlivened by many? What is sweeter than promiscuous liberty, variety, deflowerings, the deceiving of husbands, and scortatory hypocrisies? Do not these things, contrived by subtleties, craft and intrigues, delight the inmosts of the mind?”
[2] Bystanders, on hearing these things, said, “Better not talk so. You do not know where you are or with whom you are. You have only just come here. Under your feet is hell and above your head is heaven. You are now in the world which is intermediate between heaven and hell, called the world of spirits. All who die in the world arrive here, are mustered, explored as to their quality, and prepared, the evil for hell and the good for heaven. Perhaps you still recollect from what you were told by priests in the world that whoremongers and harlots are cast down into hell, and that chaste married partners are taken up into heaven.”
The novitiate laughed at this and said, “What are heaven and hell? Is it not heaven where one is free? Is he not free who can love as many as he likes? And is it not hell where one is a slave? Is he not a slave who must cleave to one?”
[3] But a certain angel looking down from heaven heard all this, and cut him off, that he might not further profane marriage, and said to him, “Come up hither! I will show you to the life what heaven and hell are, and what hell is like to confirmed whoremongers.”
The angel pointed out the way and the young man went up. He was received and taken first into a paradisaical garden where were fruit-trees and flowers, the beauty, pleasantness and fragrance of which filled the mind with the delights of life. On seeing them he greatly admired them. He was still in the external sight, however, in which he had been when he saw analogous things in the world. In this sight he was rational. But in his internal sight, in which whoredom was the chief instinct, filling every particle of thought, he was not rational. His external sight was closed, therefore, and his internal sight opened. Thereupon he cried, “What do I see! Only straw and dry wood? What do I perceive now? Is it not an evil odor? Where have those paradisaical objects gone?” The angel said, “They are right before you, but do not appear to your internal sight, which is scortatory, for this turns heavenly things into infernal and sees only the opposite. Every man has an internal and an external mind, and so an internal and an external sight. With evil men the internal mind is insane and the external is sane; but with the good the internal is sane and from it the external also. As the mind is, so in the spiritual world does one see objects.”
[4] Thereupon the angel, by a power given him, closed the young man’s internal sight and reopened his external, and conducted him through the portals into the very center of the habitations. Here he beheld magnificent palaces of alabaster, marble and various precious stones, with porticos and columns round about, overlaid and embellished with astonishing decorations and ornamentation. Seeing these, he was amazed and said:
“What do I see? I see magnificent things which are magnificence itself! and works of architecture done in the very art!”
Once more the angel closed his external sight and opened his internal sight, which was evil because it was foully scortatory. Whereupon he exclaimed:
“What is this I see? Where am I? What has become of the palaces, and of all those magnificent things? I see ruins, rubbish, places full of caverns!”
[5] But presently he was recalled to his external and was conducted into one of the palaces, where he saw the decorations of the gates, windows, walls and ceilings; especially of the utensils, with heavenly forms of gold and precious stones on and around them, such as no words can describe nor any art portray; they transcended all verbal grasp and artistic gift. Seeing them, he exclaimed again:
“These are marvels never before seen!”
Once more his internal sight was opened and the external closed. Asked what he saw now, he replied:
“Nothing but walls of rushes here, of straw there, and of firebrands yonder!”
[6] Yet again he was brought into his external state of
mind, and young women, who were beauties, being images of heavenly affection, came and addressed him with the sweet voice of their affection. Just on seeing and hearing them, his countenance changed and he slipped back into his internals, which were scortatory, and because these could not endure anything of heavenly love, and on the other hand could not be endured by heavenly love, all vanished, the virgins from the man’s sight and the man from their sight.
[7] Thereupon the angel informed him whence the inversions of his state of vision came, saying, “I perceive that in the world from which you have come you were double, one man in internals and another in externals. In externals you were a civil, moral and rational man, while in internals you were neither civil nor moral nor rational, because you were a whoremonger and adulterer. Such men as you, when they are allowed to ascend into heaven, are able, as long as they are kept in their externals, to see heavenly things there; but when their internals are opened, instead of heavenly things they see infernal things. [8] Know then that externals are closed and internals opened by turns with them here; in this way they are prepared for heaven or for hell. The evil of whoredom befouls the internals of the mind more than any other evil, and therefore you are inevitably brought down to the filthy things of your love, which are to be found in hells where the caverns stink of ordure. Who cannot know from reason that the unchaste and lascivious is the impure and unclean of the spiritual world, and that nothing pollutes and befouls a man more, or so surely spreads the infernal in him? Take care therefore to glory no more in your whoredoms in the thought that you are a more masculine man than others. I predict that you will become so enfeebled, you will scarcely know where to turn for manhood. Such is the lot in store for those who glory in the potency of whoredom.”
After hearing this, the young man descended and returned to the world of spirits and to his former associates there, with whom he spoke modestly and chastely, but not for long.
478. XX
ADULTERIES: KINDS AND DEGREES
No one can know that there is any evil in adultery who judges of it only from externals, for externally it is like marriage. When such superficial judges hear internals mentioned and are told that externals get their good or evil from internals, they say within themselves, “What are internal things? Who sees them? Is this not mounting above the sphere of everybody’s intelligence?” They are like those who accept all pretended good for genuine and willed, and like those who view a man’s wisdom from elegance of utterance or esteem the man for his fine clothing and for his travelling in a handsome carriage, and not for his internal character, which calls for judgment from an affection for the good. It is also like judging of a tree’s fruit or of anything edible by sight and touch only, and not judging of its goodness from taste and knowledge. So do all who are unwilling to see anything of the internal things of man. Hence comes the insanity of many today, that they see no evil in adulteries, indeed place marriages and adulteries in the same bed-chamber, that is, make them alike, merely because of the seeming likeness in externals. [2] The following proof from experience has convinced me that there are many who do so. Angels once called together some hundreds from the European world from among those who had been noted for skill, learning and wisdom, and inquired of them the difference between marriage and adultery, asking them to consult their reasoned understanding. After consultation all but ten replied that public law alone draws the distinction for the sake of an advantage which of course is recognizable but is a device of civic prudence. They then were asked whether they saw anything good in marriage and anything evil in adultery. They replied, “Not any rational evil and good.” Asked whether they saw any sin, they said, “In what? Is not what is done the same?” The angels were astounded at these replies, and exclaimed, “Amazing! The grossness of this age!” Whereupon the companies of the wise turned and, laughing among themselves, said, “Is this grossness? Is there any wisdom to convince us that to love another man’s wife merits eternal damnation?”
[3] We have shown, however, in the first chapter of Part II, on “The Opposition of Scortatory Love to Marital Love,” that adultery is a spiritual and hence a moral and civic evil, and is diametrically opposite to the wisdom of reason; and that the love in adultery is from hell and returns to hell, while the love in marriage is from heaven and returns to heaven. But as all evils like all goods assume breadth and height, and according to breadth have their kinds and according to height their degrees, therefore, that adulteries may be known in each dimension, they shall be divided first into their kinds and then into their degrees. This shall be done in the following order:
i. There are three kinds of adulteries: simple, double, and triple.
ii. Simple adultery is of a single man with another’ s wife or of an unwedded woman with another’s husband.
iii. Double adultery is of a husband with anther’s wife, or the reverse.
iv. Triple adultery is with blood relatives.
v. There are four degrees of adulteries, in accord with which predications, inculpations and, after death, imputations of them are made.
vi. Adulteries of the first degree are adulteries of ignorance, done by those who do not yet consult or cannot consult the understanding and hence restrain them.
vii. Adulteries committed by these are mild.
viii. Adulteries of the second degree are adulteries from lust, committed by those who are able, indeed, to consult the understanding, but for contingent reasons cannot at the moment.
ix. Adulteries committed by these are imputable as the understanding afterwards favors or does not favor them.
x. Adulteries of the third degree are adulteries of the reason, done by those who with the understanding confirm themselves in the position that adulteries are not evils of sin.
xi. Adulteries done by these are serious and are imputed in accord with confirmations.
xii. Adulteries of the fourth degree are adulteries of the will, done by those who make them permissible at one’s pleasure, of not enough moment to merit consulting the understanding about them.
xiii. Adulteries with this origin are in the highest degree serious, and are imputed to men as evils of purpose, and remain in them as guilt.
xiv. Adulteries of the third and fourth degrees are evils of sin, in the measure and quality of the understanding and will in them, whether done in act or not.
xv. Adulteries from willed purpose and adulteries from confirmed understanding render men natural, sensual and corporeal.
xvi. And this to such a degree that at length these men reject all things of the Church and of religion.
xvii. Nevertheless they still possess human rationality like others.
xviii. They employ that rationality when they are in externals, but abuse it when in their internals.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
Certain spirits, from practice in the bodily life, infested me with peculiar skill, doing so by a very soft and wave-like influx, such as the influx of upright spirits is wont to be. But I perceived that there was cunning and the like in these spirits, to entrap and deceive.
I finally spoke with one of them, who, I was told, had been an army general on earth. Perceiving that there was something lascivious in the ideas of his thought, I talked with him in the spiritual language of representatives, which conveys one’s meaning fully and many things in a moment.
He said that in the life of the body in the former world he had considered adulteries nothing.
But I was able to tell him that adulteries are iniquitous although, to men like himself, on account of the delight which they have taken in them and their persuasion thence, they do not seem so, but even seem allowable. He might know that adulteries are iniquitous from the fact that marriages are the seminaries of the human race and hence also of the heavenly kingdom, and are therefore not to be violated but to be held holy. From this fact, too (which he ought to know, being in the spiritual world and in a state of perception), that marital love descends from the Lord through heaven, and from that love as from a parent mutual love is derived, which is heaven’s foundation. And from the further fact, that adulterers, only drawing near to heavenly societies, become aware of their own stench and cast themselves headlong toward hell. At least he might know that to violate marriages is against Divine laws, against the civil laws of all kingdoms, likewise against the genuine light of reason and hence contrary to the laws of nations, being against both Divine and human order; besides much else. But he answered that he had not thought so in the former life. He wanted to reason whether it was so.
He was told that the truth admits of no reasonings; reasonings only defend the delights of the flesh against the delights of the spirit, of the nature of which he knew nothing. First he should think of what had just been told him, because it is truth; or should think from the principle well known in the world that no one should do to another what he would not be willing that another should do to him. Suppose a man had beguiled his wife in like manner, whom he had loved in the world (every one does love his wife at the outset of marriage), and suppose he, the general, had given vent to the anger which he would have felt, would not he, too, have detested adulteries? And having a resourceful mind, would he not have confirmed himself more than others in opposition to adulteries to the point of damning them to hell? As the general of an army with able men available, would he not, to ward off disgrace, either have slain the adulterer or have cast the adulteress out of his house?
* See Arcana Coelestia, n. 2733, Heaven and Hell, n. 385, and Spiritual Diary, n. 4405.
I heard in that world that some married men have a lust for whoredom with undeflowered women or virgins, some with deflowered women or harlots, some with married women or wives, some with such as are of noble stock, and some with such as are of common stock. I have been confirmed in the fact by many in that world from various kingdoms.
While meditating on the variety of such lusts, I asked whether there are those who find all their delight in the wives of others, and none in unmarried women. That I might know there are such, therefore, several out of a certain kingdom were brought to me, who were constrained to speak according to their lustfulness. They said that their one pleasure and joy was and is to commit adultery with the wives of others, and that they look out such as are beautiful and hire them at a large price according to their means, and for the most part bargain over the price with the woman alone.
I asked why they did not hire unmarried women for themselves.
They said that this was common to them, cheap in itself, and devoid of joy.
I also asked whether the wives afterwards return to their husbands and live with them. They answered that they either do not return or do so coldly, having become harlots.
Afterwards I asked them solemnly whether they had ever thought or think now that this is double adultery, inasmuch as they are married men who commit it, and that such double adultery lays a man waste of every spiritual good. But most of them laughed at this, saying, “What is spiritual good?” But I persisted, saying, “What is more abominable than to mingle one’s soul with the husband’s soul in a wife? Do you not know that a man’s soul is in the seed?”
At this they turned away and muttered, “What harm if it is?”
Finally I said, “Though you do not fear Divine laws, do you not fear the civil?”
They answered that they did not,�”only some of the church’s ministry, but from them we conceal what we do; and if we cannot, we use them well.”
Afterwards I saw them sorted into companies and some of the companies cast into hell.
* Spiritual Diary, nn. 6103[2], 6110[71] and 6110[73].
[2] We treated of the marriage of good and truth in Part I of this work and adduced many things about will and understanding and the various attributes and predicates of each, things which, I think, those, too, perceive who had not thought distinctly of will and understanding (for the human reason is such that it understands truths from their light though it had not previously distinguished them). In order that the distinctions between understanding and will may be still more clearly perceived, I shall therefore present some particulars to make plain what adulteries of the reason or understanding are, and afterwards what adulteries of the will are. [3] The following points will serve for better knowledge about them: 1. The will does nothing by itself, but does what it does through the understanding. 2. In turn, the understanding does nothing by itself, but does whatever it does from the will. 3. The will flows into the understanding, but not the understanding into the will; the understanding does, however, teach what is good or evil, and advises the will in choosing between the two and doing what is pleasing to it. 4. A twofold conjunction then takes place: in one, the will acts from within and the understanding from without, and in the other, the understanding acts from within and the will from without. Adulteries of the reason, of which we are treating now, are thus distinguished from adulteries of the will, which we shall consider next. They are to be distinguished because one is more serious than the other; adultery of the will is more serious than adultery of the reason. For in an adultery of the reason the understanding acts from within and the will from without, but in an adultery of volition the will acts from within and the understanding from without. The will, moreover, is the man himself, whereas the understanding is the man only so far as it is from the will. Furthermore, that which acts within dominates over that which acts without.
It has been said by those of old time, Do not commit adultery; but I say to you that if a man looks on the woman of another to lust after her, he has already committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew v. 27, 28).*
Committing adultery in the heart is doing so in the will. [2] There are many reasons which bring it about that a man is not an adulterer actually, though he is in will and understanding. There are those who abstain from the act of adultery for fear of the civil law and its penalties; for fear of the loss of reputation and so of honor; for fear of diseases from them; for fear of upbraidings at home from the wife and hence intranquillity of life; for fear of vengeance by husband or relative, thus also for fear of being flogged by the servants; from poverty or from avarice; from weakness arising from disease or abuse or age or impotence, and thus for shame. If one refrains from adulteries in act for these or other like reasons, and yet favors them in will and understanding, he is still an adulterer. For he still believes that they are not sins, makes them in his spirit not illicit before God, and thus commits them in the spirit though not in the world’s sight in the body. He therefore speaks openly in favor of them when after death he has become a spirit.
* See note at n. 153.
[3] Adulterers of the third and fourth degrees (they are those who have made themselves adulterers from purpose of the will and by confirmation of the understanding) are wholly natural and become progressively sensual and corporeal, for the reason that they immerse their will’s love and with it their understanding in the uncleannesses of scortatory love and are delighted with them, as unclean birds and beasts are with stenches and filth, as though they were delicacies and dainties. The effluvia surging up from the flesh fill the mind’s dwelling-place with their grossnesses, and cause the will to feel nothing more delicate or dainty. It is these who after death become corporeal spirits, and from whom issue the uncleannesses of hell and of the Church (of which above, nn. 430, 431).
I heard a great tumult once in the world of spirits. Thousands had gathered and were shouting. “Punish them! Punish them!”
I went nearer and asked, “What is the matter?”
A man who had stepped out of the crowd told me that they were in a white rage against three priests who were travelling about, preaching against adulterers and saying that there is no acknowledgment of God with adulterers, that heaven is closed and hell is opened to them, that in hell they are unclean devils, appearing at a distance like swine wallowing in ordure; and that the angels of heaven abominate them.
“Where are the priests?” I asked. “And why is there such an outcry on that account?”
“The three priests,” he replied, “are in the midst of them under guard. It is an assemblage of those who believe adulteries are not sins, and who assert that the acknowledgment of God is to be found with adulterers as it is with those who are faithful to their wives. They all come from the Christian world. The angels made a visitation to see how many among these believed adulteries to be sins and found less than a hundred in a thousand who did.”
[2] He proceeded to tell me that the nine hundred speak as follows about adulteries:
“Who does not know that the delight of adultery far excels the delight of marriage? That adulterers are in perpetual heat, and thence are more alert, industrious, and active in life than those who live with only one woman? On the other hand, that love with a married partner grows cold, sometimes to such a degree that at length scarcely a word of converse and companionship with her has any life? Not so with harlots: the life deadened with a wife for lack of potency is restored and quickened by whoredom. Is not what restores and vivifies of more worth than what deadens? What is marriage but legalized whoredom? Who knows any distinction? Can love be forced? And yet love with a wife is forced by the covenant and the laws. Is not a partner’s love, sexual love? So universal is this love, it exists even among birds and beasts. What is marital love but love for the sex? And sexual love is possible toward every woman. There are civil laws against adultery because the proponents of our laws have believed that this would be for the public good; and yet these very proponents and judges sometimes commit adultery, and tell each other, ‘He that is without sin let him first cast a stone.’* Only the simple and religious believe that adulteries are sins; not so the intelligent who, like us, view them in the light of nature. [3] Are not offspring born from adulteries as well as from marriages? Are not those of illegitimate birth just as fit and useful in offices and employments as the legitimate? And besides, families, otherwise unfruitful, are provided for. Is this not a benefit, and no injury? How does it harm a wife if she admits several rivals? Or the man? It is a frivolous notion from fancy that the man is dishonored. That adultery is contrary to the laws and statutes of the Church is given out by the ecclesiastical order for the sake of power. But what has the theological and spiritual to do with a merely corporeal and carnal delight? Are there not clerics and monks who are adulterers? Can they not for all that acknowledge and worship God? Why then do these three preach that there is no acknowledgment of God with adulterers? We will not tolerate such blasphemies. Let them therefore be judged and punished.”
[4] I then saw them call judges whom they asked to impose penalties on the priests. But the judges said:
“This does not pertain to our office; it concerns the acknowledgment of God and sin, and thus salvation and damnation. Judgment about these must come from heaven. But we will advise you how you may know whether these three priests have been preaching the truth. There are three places of which we judges know, where such things are discovered and revealed, in each place differently. One is where a way to heaven stands open to all; but on entering heaven adulterers themselves perceive what their quality is with respect to acknowledgment of God. The second place is where again a way stands open into heaven; but no one can enter the way unless he has heaven in him. The third place is where there is a way to hell; those who love infernal things enter that way of their own accord, doing so from delight. To these places we judges send all who demand of us judgment respecting heaven and hell.”
[5] Hearing this, those assembled said: “Let us visit those three places.”
As they were proceeding to the first, where a way into heaven stands open to all, darkness suddenly fell. Some of them lighted torches and held them in front of them.
The judges with them remarked, “All do that as they go to the first place! As they draw near, however, the light of the torches grows fainter, and at the place is extinguished by the inflowing light of heaven�a sign that they are there. This is because heaven is closed to them at first, and then opened.”
They came to the place, and as the torches went out, saw a way tending obliquely upward into heaven. Those hot with anger against the priests entered it, among the first those who were adulterers from purpose, after them those who were adulterers by confirmation. As they ascended, those ahead cried out, “Come on,” and those behind cried, “Hurry”; and all pushed forward.
[6] After a time they were all within the heavenly society. A chasm appeared between them and the angels, and the light of heaven, sweeping across the chasm into their eyes, opened the interiors of their minds, constraining them to speak as they inwardly thought. Thereupon they were asked by the angels whether they acknowledged that there is a God.
The first, who were adulterers from purpose of the will, answered, “What is God?” They gazed about and asked: “Who of you has seen Him?”
The second, who were adulterers from confirmation by the understanding, said: “Are not all things of nature? What is there above nature but the sun?”
Then the angel said to them: “Depart from us. You yourselves perceive now that you have no acknowledgment of God. When you descend, the interiors of your mind will be closed and its exteriors opened, and then you can speak contrary to the interiors and say that there is a God. Be assured that as soon as a man becomes an adulterer in fact, heaven is closed to him, and when heaven is closed, God is not acknowledged. Hear the reason! From adulteries all the uncleanness of hell comes, and it stinks in heaven like the rotting mire of the streets.”
Hearing this, they turned and descended by three ways. Once below, the first and second, talking together, said, “The priests have conquered there. But we know that we as well as they can speak of God. Do we not also acknowledge Him when we say that He exists? These interiors and exteriors of the mind, of which the angels spoke, are inventions. But let us go to the second place named by the judges, where a way is open into heaven for those who have heaven in them, that is, for those who are going to heaven.”
[7] As they approached, a voice called out from that heaven, “Shut the gates! There are adulterers near!”
Forthwith the gates were closed, and guards with staves in their hands drove the crowd away. And the guards released from custody the three priests against whom the outcry had been made, and led them into heaven. The moment the gate was opened for the priests, the delight of marriage breathed out of heaven upon the rebels, and being chaste and pure almost deprived them of breath. For fear of fainting from suffocation they hurried away to the third place from which the judges had said there was a way leading to hell. Thence there breathed forth the delight of adultery. Those who were adulterers of purpose and those who were adulterers by confirmation were so enlivened thereby that they seemed to descend dancing, and immersed themselves there like swine in unclean things.
* John viii. 7
501. THE LUST OF DEFLOWERING
The lusts of which we treat in the four chapters beginning herewith not only are lusts of adultery but are still more serious, for they come only of adulteries, being resorted to after these have grown tiresome; such as the lust of deflowering to be considered now, which cannot arise earlier with any one; likewise the lust for variety, the lust of violation, and the lust of seducing innocences (of which in what follows). We speak of lusts because such things are made one’s own in the measure and nature of the lust for them. As for the lust of deflowering in particular, its heinousness will be made plain to conviction under the following heads:
i. The state of the virgin or undeflowered woman before marriage and after marriage.
ii. Virginity is the crown of chastity and the token of marital love.
iii. Deflowering with no purpose of marriage is the atrocious act of a robber.
iv. The lot after death of those who are confirmed in the view that the lust of deflowering is not an evil of sin, is grievous.
Explanation of these propositions follows.
506. XXII
THE LUST FOR VARIETY
By the lust for variety of which we treat here, we do not mean the lust of fornication, which we considered in a chapter of its own. Although the latter is wont to be promiscuous and roving, still it does not occasion a lust for variety except when it exceeds all measure and the fornicator looks to a number and in his passion boasts of a number; it is this tendency which initiates the lust. But one cannot perceive distinctly what the lust becomes like in its progress, except in some sequence, which shall be this:
i. By the lust for variety is meant an utterly dissolute lust of whoredom.
ii. This lust is at once love and loathing for the sex.
iii. This lust utterly annihilates marital love in men.
iv. Their lot after death is wretched, since they have no inmost life.
Explanation of the propositions follows.
[2] Later, when it has been ascertained that this lust is so inbred in them that they cannot be withdrawn from it, they are conveyed to a spot which is just over the hell assigned to them, where they seem to themselves to fall into a swoon, and to others as though they were sinking with the face upturned; indeed, the ground actually opens under their backs and they are engulfed and sink down into a hell where their like are; so they are gathered to their own.
I was allowed to see them there and also to speak with them. Among themselves they look like human beings, which is granted them that they may not be a terror to one another. But at some distance they seem to have unvaryingly white faces of skin only, and this because there is no spiritual life in them, which every one has according to the marital inclination planted in him. [3] Their speech is dispirited, parched and sad. When they are hungry, they wail, and their wailings have a peculiar rumbling sound. They have tattered garments and wear breeches pulled up above the belly around the chest, as they have no loins, the ankles of their feet starting at the lowest part of the belly. The reason is that the loins with human beings correspond to marital love, and this they have not. They said that, having no potency, they loathe the sex. They still can reason among themselves about various matters, as if from rationality, but being cutaneous, they reason from fallacies of the senses. This hell is in the western quarter toward the north. But in the distance the same beings do not look like men or like monsters, but like frozen things. It is to be noted, however, that this is a description of those who have indulged this lust to such a degree that they have torn the human marital inclination to pieces in themselves and annihilated it.
511. XXIII
THE LUST OF VIOLATION
The lust of violation does not mean the lust of defloration. It is a violation of virginities, but not of virgins when it is done with consent. The lust of violation now under discussion subsides at consent and is excited by refusal; it is the passion for violating women who utterly refuse and forcibly resist, whether they are virgins, widows or wives. Men in this lust are like robbers and pirates who delight in rapine and spoils, and not in gifts and things justly acquired; and like malefactors who pant after the illicit and forbidden and disdain the licit and conceded. These violators are repelled by consent and impassioned by resistance. If they notice that the resistance is not meant, the ardor of their lust is at once extinguished, like a fire by water thrown on it.
It is known that wives do not submit themselves freely to their husbands’ wills in the ultimate acts of love, and that from prudence they offer resistance as if to violations in order to remove from the husbands the cold which arises from what is common because regularly permitted, and which also arises from lascivious ideas about such things.
These resistances, however, though they enkindle, are not the cause but only the beginnings of this lust. The cause of it is that marital love and scortatory love also, having become spent by exercise, wish to be fired by outright resistance in order to be restored. So begun, this lust grows, and as it grows, spurns and bursts all the limits of love for the sex and destroys itself. From a lascivious bodily and carnal love, it becomes a cartilaginous and bony one, and then from the periostea, which enjoy acute sensibility, it becomes acute. This lust is rare, however, existing only with those who have entered marriage and then have practiced whoredom until this has staled. Besides this natural cause for the lust there is a spiritual one, too, of which something shall be said in what follows.
513. XXIV
THE LUST OF SEDUCING INNOCENCES
The lust of seducing innocences is not the lust of defloration or the lust of violation, but a peculiar and separate lust by itself. It is found especially with deceivers. The women whom these men consider innocences are women who regard the evil of whoredom as a monstrous sin and who devote themselves therefore both to chastity and to piety; toward them these men grow warm. In Roman Catholic countries it is the conventual virgins; believing these to be pious innocences above all others, they regard them as the dainties and delicacies of their lust. Being deceivers, to seduce such women they first contrive a procedure, and, having imbued their whole nature with it, undeterred by shame, put it into execution with all naturalness. The schemes are chiefly simulations of innocence, love, chastity and piety. By these and other artifices they enter into the interior friendship of such women and then into their love, and by various persuasions and at the same time suggestions they turn their love from spiritual to natural, then carnal by bodily contacts, and thus take possession of them at their pleasure. Having accomplished this, they are jubilant and laugh the violated women to scorn.
515. XXV
THE CORRESPONDENCE OF WHOREDOM WITH THE VIOLATION OF SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE
I might premise something here about what correspondence is, but the subject does not belong to the present work. The reader may see above (n. 76 and n. 342) in a brief summary what correspondence is; and in Apocalypse Revealed from beginning to end, that there is correspondence between the natural and the spiritual sense of the Word. We showed in Doctrine of the New Jerusalem on the Sacred Scripture (especially at nn. 5-26 there) that there is a natural sense in the Word and a spiritual, and correspondence between them.
My sight was opened and I saw a dark forest and in it a crowd of satyrs. The satyrs had hairy chests; some had feet like calves, some like panthers, and some like wolves; and they had the claws of wild beasts on their feet instead of toes. They were running about like wild beasts, and shouting, “Where are there women?” Thereupon harlots appeared, who had been awaiting them. They, too, were monstrous in various ways. The satyrs ran up to them and seizing them, bore them into a cavern, which was deep down under the earth in the middle of the forest. On the ground around the cavern lay coiled a great serpent, breathing its venom into the cave. In the branches of the trees above the serpent, gloomy birds of night croaked and screeched. [2] But the satyrs and harlots did not see these things, for these were correspondences of their lewdness and thus were the customary appearances at a distance. Later the satyrs abandoned the cavern and entered a sort of low hut, which was a brothel. There, away from the harlots, they engaged in talk, to which I gave ear, for in the spiritual world conversation can be heard at a distance as if it were occurring in one’s presence, because spatial extension there is only an appearance. They were talking about marriages, nature, and religion.
Those who seemed to have feet like calves, were speaking of Marriages, and said, “What are marriages but legalized adulteries? And what is sweeter than scortatory hypocrisies and making game of husbands?” At this the others laughed aloud and clapped their hands.
The satyrs who seemed to have feet like panthers, spoke of Nature and said, “What is there besides nature? What difference is there between man and beast except that a man can speak articulately while a beast only utters sounds? Do they not both have life from heat and understanding from light by the operation of nature?” At this the rest exclaimed, “Ah! you speak with judgment.”
Those who seemed to have feet like wolves, spoke of Religion, and said, “What is God or the Divine but the innermost activity of nature? What is religion but an invention to ensnare and bind the common people?” To this the others cried out, “Bravo!”
[3] Some moments afterwards they rushed out. As they did, they descried me in the distance, intently observing them. Angrily they came running out of the wood and with menacing looks raced up to me, and said:
“Why are you standing here, listening to our whisperings?”
“Why not?” I replied; “what was to hinder me? It was audible talk.” And I repeated what I had heard. Their minds quieted, that is, quieted for fear lest what they had said might be divulged. They began to speak modestly and to act becomingly, from which I recognized that they were not of the common crowd but of good family. I then told them that I had seen them in the wood looking like satyrs, twenty like calf satyrs, six like panther satyrs, and four like wolf satyrs; there were thirty of them.
[4] They were astonished at this, for they had seemed to themselves like men there, just as they did here with me.
I informed them that they appeared so from a distance because of their scortatory lust, and this satyrlike semblance is the form of dissolute adultery, and not of the person. “The cause,” I said, “is that every evil concupiscence presents its own likeness in a certain form, which is not visible to the person but to those standing at a distance.” And I said, “That you may be assured, send some from among you into the forest, while you remain here and look at them.”
They did so and sent two, and beheld them near the brothel-but looking exactly like satyrs. And when they returned they saluted them as satyrs and cried, “O what sights!”
While they laughed, I made a jest of various things with them, telling them I had seen adulterers as swine; and recalled the myth of Ulysses and Circe, how she sprinkled the companions and servants of Ulysses with enchanter’s herbs and touched them with her magic wand and turned them into swine, probably into adulterers, for by no art could she turn a man into a hog.
When they had stopped laughing at this and other like things, I asked them if they knew to what kingdoms of the world they had belonged. They said they had belonged to different kingdoms, and named Italy, Poland, Germany, England and Sweden. I asked whether they had seen any one from Holland among them. “Not one,” they said.
[5] After this I turned the conversation to serious things and asked whether they had ever thought that adultery is a sin.
They replied, “What is sin? We do not know what that is.”
I asked whether they ever remembered that adultery is against the sixth* commandment of the Decalogue.
They replied, “What is the Decalogue? The Catechism, is it not? What have we men to do with that childish document?”
I inquired whether they ever thought at all about hell. They answered, “Who has ever come up thence and told anything?”
I asked whether in the world they had given any thought to a life after death.
“As we did to that of beasts,” they replied. “Or sometimes as we did to specters, which if they are exhaled from dead bodies, drift off.”
Again I asked whether they had heard anything about one or another of these things from priests.
They answered that they gave attention only to the sound of their voices and not to the subject. “And what is that?”
[6] Astounded at these answers, I said to them, “Turn your faces and eyes toward the middle of the forest, where the cavern is in which you were.”
They turned around and saw that huge reptile in a spiral coil around the cavern, breathing its venom into it, and also, the dismal birds in the branches above the serpent.
I asked, “What do you see?”
But they were terror-stricken, and made no answer. And I said, “You saw the monster, did you not? Know that it is a representation of adultery in the enormity of its lust.”
Suddenly a certain angel stood by, who was a priest. He opened the hell in the western region where such men are finally gathered together, and said, “Look!” They beheld a lake as it were of fire, and recognized some friends there whom they had known in the world, who invited them to join them.
On seeing and hearing these things they turned away, rushed from my sight and went farther from the forest; but I watched for them; they only feigned to make off, and returned to the forest by a roundabout way.
Then I heard a voice from heaven, “Enter into your chamber and shut the door, and give yourself to the work begun on the Apocalypse, and prosecute it to a conclusion within two years.”
* See footnote at n. 79 [6].
523. XXVI
THE IMPUTATION OF EACH LOVE, SCORTATORY AND MARITAL
The Lord says,
Judge not, that you may not be condemned (Matthew vii. 1).
This certainly cannot refer to judgment on a person’s moral and civil life in the world, but must refer to judgment on his spiritual and celestial life. Who does not see that if we were not allowed to judge of the moral life of those living with us in the world, society would go to pieces? What society would there be if there were no public judiciary, and if one could not have his own judgment about another? But when it comes to judging what the inward mind or the soul in a man is, thus what his spiritual state is, and hence his lot after death, of this, because it is known to the Lord alone, we may not judge. Nor does the Lord reveal what it is until after death, in order that every man may do what he does in freedom and may choose what good or evil shall come from him or be in him, and so may live on his own account and be his own to eternity. The mind’s interiors, hidden in the world, are revealed after death because it is important and a matter of moment to the societies into which a man comes then, for they are all spiritual there. It is plain from these words of the Lord that interiors are then revealed:
There is nothing concealed which shall not be revealed, or hidden which shall not be made known; therefore what you have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and what you have spoken into the ear in chambers, shall be preached from the roofs (Luke xii. 2, 3).
A general judgment is in order, such as this: “If in internals you are what you appear to be in externals, you will be saved or condemned,” but a specific judgment is not in order, like this: “You are such and such a man in internals; you will therefore be saved or you will be condemned.” Judgment upon a man’s spiritual life or the internal life of his soul is what we mean by the imputation treated of here. What man knows who is a whoremonger at heart or who is a faithful partner at heart? And yet it is the thoughts of the heart or the purposes of the will which judge every one. But this will be expounded in the following order:
i. The evil in which one is, is imputed to one after death; similarly, the good.
ii. The transcription of one person’s good into another person is impossible.
iii. If by imputation such transcription is meant, it is an empty word.
iv. Evil is imputed to every one according to the nature of his will and the nature of his understanding; good, similarly.
v. Thus is scortatory love imputed to any one.
vi. Marital love is imputed similarly.
Explanation of the propositions follows.
a) It is known that every one has his own life or a life distinct from that of another. For there is perpetual variety and no one thing is the same as another; hence each has what is his own. The fact is very manifest from human faces, in that no one’s face is absolutely like that of another and cannot be to eternity. The reason is that minds are not alike, and the face is from the mind. For the face, according to the common saying, is the type of the mind, and the mind derives its origin and form from the life. [2] If a man did not have his own life as he has a mind and a face of his own, no one after death would have a life separate from that of another. Indeed, heaven would not be, for it consists of people perpetually different. Its form is solely from the varieties of souls and minds disposed into such an order that they make one, which they do from the One Being whose life is in each and all in heaven as the soul is in man; unless it were, heaven would be dispersed, because the form would be dissolved. The One Being from whom there is life in each and all and from whom the form coheres, is the Lord. Every form in general consists of different items and is such as is the harmonious coordination and disposition of them all into one. Such is the human form. Hence it is that although man consists of so many members, viscera and organs, his sole sensation is that what is in him or from him is one thing.
[3] b) The fact that every one’s own life remains with him after death, is known in the Church from the Word, as from these passages there:
The Son of man shall come … and shall render then to every one according to his deeds (Matthew xvi. 27);
I saw the books opened, and all were judged according to their works (Revelation xx. 12, 13).
In the day of judgment God shall render to every man according to his works (Romans ii. 6, 2 Corinthians v. 10).
The works according to which judgment is rendered to every one are the life, for the life does them, and they are in accord with the life. As I have been enabled to commune with angels for many years and to speak with those coming from the world, I can testify for a certainty that every one is examined there as to what his life has been and that the life which he contracted in the world remains with him to eternity. I have spoken with men who lived ages ago and whose life was known to me from history, and I have found it like the description. I have also heard from angels that no one’s life can be changed after death inasmuch as it has been organized in accord with his love and hence with his works, and that if it were changed, the organism would be torn apart, which could never be; likewise that an alteration in organization is possible only in the material body, and not at all in the spiritual body, after the other has been cast off.
[4] c) To an evil man the evil of his life is then imputed and to a good man the good of his life. Imputation of evil is not accusation, incrimination, inculpation and judgment as in the world, but is a process of the evil itself. For those who are evil separate of their own free will from the good, for the two cannot be together. The delights of an evil love are averse to the delights of good love, and delights in the other world exhale from every one like odors from a plant on earth; for they are no longer absorbed and concealed by a material body, but flow forth freely from their loves into the spiritual aura. Inasmuch as evil is perceived there as in its odor, it is this which accuses, incriminates, inculpates and judges, not before a judge, but before every one who is in good. This is what is meant by imputation. Moreover an evil man chooses companions with whom he may live in his delight, and being averse to the delight of good, he betakes himself of his own accord to his like in hell. [5] Imputation of good is accomplished similarly. This takes place with those who had acknowledged in the world that all good in them is from the Lord and none from themselves. After these have been prepared, they are admitted into the interior delights of good, and then a way is opened to them into heaven to the society whose enjoyments are homogeneous with theirs. This is done by the Lord.
* See the same material in Brief Exposition, n. 110.
a) It is known in the Church that every human being is born in evil. The saying is that this evil is by inheritance from Adam, but it is from parents. Every one derives a nature from his parents, which is inclination. Reason and experience demonstrate the fact. For resemblance to parents in face, nature and manners comes out in the immediate children and in their descendants. Many thus recognize whole families and judge of their character. It is therefore the evils which the parents have contracted and passed by procreation to their progeny, into which human beings are born. The reason of the belief that Adam’s guilt has been inscribed on the whole race, is that few men reflect on and hence know any evil in themselves. They therefore suppose that it is so deeply hidden that it does not appear except before God.
[2] b) Man is led into good through regeneration at the Lord’s hands. It is plain from words of the Lord’s (in John iii. 3, 5) that there is such a process as regeneration and that one cannot enter heaven unless one is regenerated. It is bound to be known in the Christian world that regeneration is purification from evils and thus a renewal of life. For reason sees this, too, after it acknowledges that every one is born in evil and that evil cannot be washed and wiped away as filth can with soap and water, but only through repentance.
[3] c) Man is led into good by the Lord through a life according to His commandments. The commandments of regeneration are five (see above, n. 82). Among them are these: Evils are to be shunned because they are of the devil and from the devil, and goods are to be done because they are of God and from God, and the Lord is to be approached, that He may lead men to do them. Let every one take counsel and consider whether man has good from elsewhere; and if he has not good, he has not salvation.
[4] d) Good, when thus implanted, cannot be transcribed. By transcription we mean the transcription of one person’s good into another person. From what was said above it follows that the human being is made altogether new in spirit by regeneration, and that this is accomplished by a life according to the Lord’s commandments. Who does not see that this renewal can be accomplished only in the process of time, much as a tree gradually takes root and grows from seed and is perfected? Those who conceive of regeneration otherwise, know nothing of man’s state nor do they know about evil and good that these two are entirely opposite, and that good cannot be implanted except in the measure that evil is removed. Nor do they know that as long as one is in evil he is averse to good which in itself is good. If then one person’s good were to be transferred into any one in evil, it would be as if a lamb were flung to a wolf or as though a pearl were fastened on the snout of a pig. It is plain from these considerations that transcription is impossible.
* See Brief Exposition, n. 111.
* See Brief Exposition, n. 112.
I have encountered many in the spiritual world who had all lived alike in the natural world, dressing well, faring sumptuously, doing business for gain, attending the theater, joking about love affairs as though from lust, besides other similar habits; and yet the angels charged some with these things as evils of sin, and some they did not charge with them as evils; they pronounced these guiltless and those guilty. To the question why they did so, when yet all had done similar things, they replied that they view all action from the purpose, intention or end, and make distinctions accordingly, and that therefore they excuse or condemn those whom the end excuses or condemns, since all in heaven pursue an end of good and all in hell an end of evil.
* Recounted previously at n. 453, and occurring again in True Christian Religion, n. 523 and Brief Exposition, n. 113.
* Also found in Brief Exposition, n. 113, and see True Christian Religion, n. 523.
[2] I will relate an arcanum that this may be understood. Heaven is distinguished into innumerable societies, likewise, over against it, hell. Every man’s mind according to his will and understanding actually inhabits a society and resolves and thinks like those there. If the mind is in some society of heaven, it intends and thinks similarly with those there; if in some society of hell, similarly with those there. As long as a man lives in the world, however, he migrates from one society to another in keeping with the changes in his will’s affections and in his mind’s thoughts. But after death his journeyings are summed up, and from the aggregate a place is designated him, in hell if he is evil, in heaven if he is good. [3] Now because all in hell have a will of evil, they are all viewed from it, and as all in heaven have a will of good, all there are viewed from that. Therefore imputations after death are made in keeping with the character of every one’s will and understanding. It is the same with whoredoms, whether they are fornications, or pellicacies, or concubinages, or adulteries; for these are not imputed to any one according to the deeds, but according to the state of mind in the deeds; the deeds follow the body to the grave, but the mind rises again.
From all this issues the final conclusion: Not from the look of marriages nor from the look of whoredoms is it to be concluded about any person that he has marital love or has it not. Therefore,
Judge not, that you may not be condemned (Matthew vii. 1).
I was once conveyed in spirit into an angelic heaven, and into one of its societies, whereupon some of the wise there approached me and asked, “What news is there from the earth?”
I said to them, “There is this news! The Lord has revealed arcana which for excellence surpass the arcana revealed from the beginning of the Church until now.”
They asked, “What are they?”
I replied, “They are these. (1) There is a Spiritual Sense in each and all things of the Word, corresponding to the natural sense; and through that sense men of the Church have conjunction with the Lord and consociation with the angels; and the holiness of the Word resides therein. [2] (2) The Correspondences in which the spiritual sense of the Word consists have been disclosed.”
The angels asked, “Did not the inhabitants of the globe know about correspondences before?”
“Nothing at all,” I replied. “Correspondences have lain hidden now for some thousands of years, that is, from the time of Job. And yet, among those who lived at that time and earlier, the knowledge of correspondences was the knowledge of knowledges, from which they had wisdom, because they had knowledge thereby concerning spiritual things, which are the things of heaven and hence of the Church. That knowledge was made idolatrous, however, and therefore in the Lord’s Divine Providence was blotted out and destroyed until no trace of it was left. But it has now been disclosed by the Lord in order that men of the Church may have conjunction with Him and consociation with the angels, which is effected through the Word, in which each and all things are correspondences.”
The angels rejoiced greatly that the Lord had been pleased to reveal this great arcanum, so deeply hidden for several thousand years, and said that it was done in order that the Christian Church, which is founded upon the Word and is now at its end, may revive again** and draw breath through heaven from the Lord. They asked whether through this knowledge it was disclosed at this day what baptism and the holy supper signify, about which men have thought so variously hitherto.
I answered that this also had been disclosed.
[3] (3) I said further that the Lord has made a revelation at this day about life after death.
“About life after death?” said the angels. “Who does not know that man lives after death?”
I replied, “Men know and they do not know. They say it is not the man but his soul which survives, and that this lives as a spirit, of which they cherish an idea as of wind or ether. They also say that man does not live until after the last judgment-day, and that then the body’s parts, left behind in the world, though eaten by worms, mice, and fish, will be reassembled and joined into a body, and that thus men will rise again.”
“What!” said the angels. “Who does not know that man lives as a human being after death, with the sole difference that he lives then as a spiritual man? Who does not know that the spiritual man sees the spiritual man as the material man sees the material? And that men are aware of no difference except that they are in a more perfect state?”
[4] (4) The angels asked, “What do they know about our world and about heaven and hell?”
I said, “They know nothing. But the Lord has now disclosed the nature of the spiritual world in which angels and spirits live, and thus the nature of heaven and of hell, as also the fact that angels and spirits are in conjunction with men, and many other wonderful things about them.”
The angels were glad that the Lord had been pleased to make such things known, so that man may no longer for ignorance be in uncertainty about his immortality.
[5] (5) I said further: “At this day the Lord has revealed that in your world there is a sun other than the one in our world, and that the sun of your world is sheer love, and the sun of our world is pure fire. And that therefore all which proceeds from your sun, because it is sheer love, partakes of life; and that all which proceeds from our sun, because it is pure fire, partakes not at all of life, and that thence is the difference between the spiritual and the natural�a difference hitherto unknown, which has also been disclosed now. It has therefore been made known whence the light is which enlightens the human understanding with wisdom, and whence the heat is which enkindles the human will with love. [6] (6) It has been made known, furthermore, that there are three degrees of life; and that hence there are three heavens; and that the human mind is distinguished into three degrees, and hence man corresponds to the three heavens.”
“Did they not know this before?” the angels asked.
I answered that men knew of degrees between greater and less, but nothing of the degrees between prior and subsequent.
[7] (7) The angels asked whether more things than these had been revealed.
I said, “Many more. Much about the Last Judgment; about the Lord, that He is the God of heaven and earth; that God is one both in Person and in Essence, in whom is a Divine Trinity, and that He is the Lord; about a new Church to be established by Him, and about the doctrine of that Church; much about the holiness of Sacred Scripture. The Apocalypse, too, has been revealed, which could not have been revealed, not even as to one small verse, except by the Lord. Much has been made known also about the inhabitants of the planets and about the earths in the universe: besides many striking Memorabilia out of the spiritual world, by which many things pertaining to wisdom have been revealed from heaven.”
* To be found also in True Christian Religion, nn. 846-849.
** See n. 26e.
I said, “Because although the arcana revealed today by the Lord surpass in excellence and worth the knowledges hitherto made known, they are nevertheless considered on earth as of no value.”
The angels were astounded at this and entreated the Lord for permission to look down into the world. They looked down, and lo! only darkness there! They were told to write those arcana on paper, and to let the paper down to the earth, and they would see a marvel. They did so. The paper on which the arcana were written was then let down from heaven, and behold, in its descent while still in the spiritual world it shone like a star; but as it dropped down into the natural world the light disappeared, and by degrees, as it descended, was veiled in darkness. And when it was let down by the angels into companies where there were learned and accomplished men�from among clergy and laity�a murmur was heard from many of them, in which were these words:
“What is this? Is it anything? What does it matter whether we know these things or do not know them? Are they not offspring of the brain?”
It seemed as if some of them took the paper and folded, and rolled, and unrolled it with their fingers, to obliterate the writing. And it seemed as if some tore it to pieces, and as if some wanted to trample it under foot. They were withheld by the Lord from that outrage, however, and the angels were commanded to withdraw the paper and guard it. And as the angels grew sad and were thinking, “How long will this be?” there was a proclamation:
For a time, and times, and half a time (Revelation xii. 14).
“What is that?” they asked.
I said, “Something about true marital love and its heavenly delights.”
The angels said, “Who does not know that the delights of marital love surpass the delights of all other loves? Who cannot see that all the blessedness, satisfaction and delight which can ever be conferred by the Lord are brought together into some love? And that the receptacle of those states is true marital love, which can receive and perceive them even to full sensation?”
I answered that men do not know this because they have not approached the Lord and lived according to His commandments, shunning evils as sins, and doing good. True marital love with its delights is from the Lord alone, and is given to those who live according to His commandments. It is given to those, therefore, who are received into the Lord’s new Church, which is meant by “the New Jerusalem” in the Apocalypse. I added that I am in doubt whether men in the world are willing today to believe that this love is in itself a spiritual love and hence is from religion, for the reason that they cherish only a corporeal idea concerning it.
They then said to me, “Write about it and follow out the revelation. We shall then let the book written about it down out of heaven, and shall see whether men receive the things in it, and at the same time whether they are willing to acknowledge that this love is of a piece with a man’s religion, spiritual with the spiritual, natural with the natural, and merely carnal with adulterers.”
I asked, “Are these not miracles?”
They answered, “No!”
“What miracles will you have then?” I asked. “Discover and reveal things to come, and we will have faith.”
“But,” I replied, “such things are not given from heaven. For as far as man knows the future, his reason and understanding, with his prudence and wisdom, fall into inaction, become torpid and decay.” I asked again, “What other miracles am I to do?”
And they clamored, “Do miracles like those done by Moses in Egypt.”
To this I replied, “You might harden your hearts at them like Pharaoh and the Egyptians.”
They answered that they would not.
Again I said, “Assure me that you will not dance around the golden calf and worship it, as the posterity of Jacob did within the space of a month after they had seen Mount Sinai all afire, and had heard Jehovah Himself speaking out of the fire, thus after the miracle which was the greatest of all.” (“A golden calf,” in the spiritual sense, is the pleasure of the flesh.)
The answer from below was, “We shall not be like the posterity of Jacob.”
But I heard them being told from heaven, “If you believe not Moses and the Prophets, that is, the Word of the Lord, you will no more believe on account of miracles than the sons of Jacob did in the wilderness, no more indeed than they believed when they saw with their eyes the miracles which the Lord Himself wrought when He was in the world.”
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