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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #294

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294. To this I will append the following narrative account:

In the natural world people possess two levels of speech, because they possess two levels of thought, one inward and one outward. For a person can speak from his inner thought and at the same time then from his outer one, or he can speak from his outer thought and not from his inner one, and even contrary to his inner one. This is what makes possible pretenses, flatteries, and hypocrisies.

In the spiritual world, however, people do not possess two levels of speech, but a single one. A person there speaks as he thinks. Otherwise his voice becomes grating and hurts the ears. Still, he can remain silent and so not divulge the thoughts of his mind. Consequently, when a hypocrite comes into the company of people who are wise, either he goes away, or he hurries to a corner of the room and makes himself inconspicuous, and sits silent.

[2] Many spirits once gathered in the world of spirits and discussed this circumstance with each other, saying that being unable to speak as one thinks in the company of good spirits was a hardship for those who had not thought correctly about God and the Lord.

At the center of the gathering were the Protestant Reformed, and many of their clergy, and next to them Roman Catholics with some monks. Both groups said at first that it was not a hardship. What need is there to speak otherwise than as one thinks? And if perchance one does not think correctly, can he not purse his lips and remain silent?

Moreover, one of the clergy said, "Who does not think correctly about God and the Lord?"

But some of the gathering said, "Still, let's put it to the test."

And regarding God, there were some who had confirmed themselves in a trinity of persons - particularly because of the statement in the Athanasian doctrine,

The person of the Father is one person, that of the Son another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another.

And,

As the Father is God, so is the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God.

These were told to say "one God." But they could not. They contorted their lips and twisted them into many convolutions, but they could not articulate the sound into any other words than those in keeping with the ideas of their thought, which were ideas of three persons and so of three Gods.

[3] Moreover, those who had affirmed a faith divorced from charity were told to say the name Jesus. But they could not, even though they could all say Christ, and also God the Father. They were surprised at this, and inquiring into the reason, they found that they prayed to God the Father for the sake of the Son, and did not pray to the Savior Himself. For Jesus means Savior.

[4] They were further told to speak from their thought about the Lord's humanity and say, "Divine humanity." But none of the clergy present there could do so, though some of the laity could, and therefore the subject was presented for a serious ventilation.

So then, 1. They had read to them these statements in the Gospels:

The Father... has given all things into (the Son's) hand. (John 3:35)

(The Father has) given (the Son) authority over all flesh... (John 17:2)

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father. (Matthew 11:27)

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. (Matthew 28:18)

They were then told to retain in thought therefore the idea that Christ is God of heaven and earth, both in respect to His Divinity and in respect to His humanity, and so to utter the term, "Divine humanity." But still they could not. And they said that they even retained from the quotations some thought of the idea from an understanding of it, but nevertheless without any acknowledgment of it, and that for that reason they could not.

[5] 2. After that they had read to them statements from Luke 1:32, 34-35, 1 saying that the Lord in respect to His humanity was the Son of Jehovah God, and statements showing that in respect to His humanity He is everywhere in the Word called the Son of God, and also the only-begotten. 2 And the examiners asked them to retain this idea in their thought, along with the idea that the only begotten Son of God born into the world could not but be God, as the Father is God, and to utter the term, "Divine humanity."

But they said, "We cannot, because our spiritual thought, which is the inner one, does not allow into the thought nearest our speech any other than like ideas."

They said, too, that they perceived from this that it is now not possible to keep separate their levels of thought as in the natural world.

[6] 3. Next they had read to them the Lord's words to Philip:

Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father...." (And the Lord) said to him, ."..He who sees Me has seen the Father... Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?" (John 14:8-11)

And moreover other passages, saying that the Father and He are one (John 10:30, and elsewhere). And they were told to retain this idea in thought and then say "Divine humanity." But because their thought was not rooted in an acknowledgment that the Lord was God even in respect to His humanity, therefore they could not. They contorted their lips into convolutions to the point of becoming irate, and they tried to force their mouths into uttering it and to spit it out. But without success. The reason was that mental ideas flowing from an acknowledgment unite with spoken words in people who live in the spiritual world; and when those ideas do not exist, words are lacking, for ideas become words when uttered in speech.

[7] 4. Then they had read to them statement from the church's doctrine accepted throughout the world, saying that the Divine and human in the Lord are not two but one, indeed one person, united altogether like soul and body - statements from the Athanasian Creed. And they were told, "You may take from this an idea in keeping with your acknowledgment, that the Lord's humanity is Divine, because His soul is Divine, for it comes from your church's doctrine which you acknowledged in the world. Moreover the soul is the underlying essence and the body the form, and the essence and form are united, like being and expression, or like the efficient cause of an effect and the effect itself."

The spirits retained this idea and tried in accord with it to utter the term, "Divine humanity." But they could not, for their inner idea of the Lord's humanity dismissed and expunged this novel new idea, as they called it.

[8] 5. Again they had read to them the following from John:

...the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh... (John 1:1, 14)

And the following from Paul:

...in (Christ Jesus) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)

And they were told to think hard that God, who was the Word, became flesh, and that all the Divine dwells in Him bodily. "Perhaps," they were told, "you can then utter the term, 'Divine humanity.'"

But they could not, saying openly that they could not entertain the idea of a Divine humanity, as God is God and man is man, and God is a spirit, "and we can think of a spirit only as being like a puff of wind or bit of ether."

[9] 6. Finally they were told, "You know that the Lord said, "Abide in Me, and I in you... He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)" And because some of the English clergy were present, they had read to them also something from one of their prayers before Holy Communion:

For, when we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink the blood, then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us.

"If you now think that this would not be possible unless the Lord's humanity is Divine, utter then the term, "Divine humanity," from an acknowledgment in the thought."

But still they could not. For they had the idea so deeply impressed on them that the Lord's Divinity was one thing and His humanity another, so that His Divinity was like the Divinity of the Father, and His humanity like the humanity of any other man.

The examiners said to them, however, "How can you think so? Is it possible for a rational mind ever to think that God is three and the Lord two?"

[10] 7. After that the examiners turned to the Lutherans, saying that the Augsburg Confession and Luther taught that the Son of God and the Son of Man in Christ are one person, that He is also in respect to His human nature the true, almighty and eternal God, and that being in respect to that nature at the right hand of almighty God, He governs everything in heaven and on earth, fills everything, is present with us, and dwells and acts in us. Moreover, there is no difference in any worship of them, since through the nature that is seen, the Divinity that is not seen is worshiped. Thus in Christ, God is man, and man is God.

Hearing this, the Lutherans replied, "Is that right?" And having looked around, they presently said, "We have not known this before. Consequently we cannot."

But one or two of them said, "We have read this and written it, yet when we have thought about it to ourselves on our own, the words were still only words, of which we could not form an interior idea."

[11] 8. Finally, turning to the Roman Catholics, the examiners said, "Perhaps you can pronounce the term 'Divine humanity,' because you believe that Christ is wholly present in the bread and wine of your Eucharist and in every particle of it, and you also worship Him as God when you present the host and distribute it, and you call Mary the mother of God. Consequently you acknowledge that she gave birth to God, which is to say, to His Divine humanity."

They then tried to utter the term in accord with those mental ideas they had of the Lord. But they could not, because of the physical idea they had of His body and blood, and because of their assertion that it was human power and not Divine power that He conferred on the Pope.

A monk then rose and said that he could think of the term "Divine humanity" as applying to the Virgin Mary, mother of God, and also to the patron saint of his monastery.

And another monk came forward saying, "I can, in accord with my mental idea of it, say 'Divine humanity' as a term applying to our most holy Pope rather than to the Christ."

But at that other monks pulled him back and said, "Shame on you."

[12] After that I saw heaven opened, and I saw little flame-like tongues descending and flowing into some of those present, and they then began to celebrate the Lord's Divine humanity, saying, "Put aside the idea of three Gods and believe that in the Lord dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that the Father and He are one as a soul and body are one, and that God is not a puff of wind or bit of ether, but human, and you will then be conjoined with heaven, and the Lord will enable you thereby to say the name Jesus and utter the term, "Divine humanity."

Footnotes:

1. "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David... Then Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I do not know a man?' And the angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.'"

2. John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #315

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315. To this I will append two narrative accounts. Here is the first:

I once saw, not far from me, an atmospheric wonder. I saw a cloud break up into smaller clouds, some of them light blue, and some dark; and as I watched they seemed to be colliding into each other. Rays of light began to flash in streaks between them, appearing now as sharp as rapiers, now blunted like swords broken. One moment these streaks would race out to strike, the next moment retreat back, altogether like boxers. These different colored little clouds thus looked as though they were fighting with each other, but in sport.

Now because this phenomenon appeared not far from me, I raised my eyes and looked more intently; and I saw boys, young men and older men going into a house, which was built out of marble with a foundation of porphyry. It was over this house that that phenomenon was occurring.

I then spoke to one of the people going in and asked what was happening there.

To that he replied, "It is a school where young men are introduced into various matters having to do with wisdom."

[2] Hearing this, and being in the spirit, that is, in a state like that of people in the spiritual world, who are called spirits and angels, I went in with them. And behold, in that school I saw up front a ceremonial chair; in the central part a number of benches; around the sides some more seats; and over the entrance a balcony. The ceremonial chair was for the young men when it became their turn to respond to the question that would then be put to them. The benches were for those who were there to listen. The seats along the sides were for those who had already answered wisely on previous occasions. And the balcony was for the older men who would be the referees and judges. In the middle of the balcony stood a dais, where a wise man sat whom they called Headmaster; it was he who posed the questions for the young men to respond to from the ceremonial chair.

So then, after all were assembled, the man rose from his dais and said, "Please give your reply now to the following question and explain it if you can: What is the soul, and what is the nature of it?"

[3] On hearing this they were all stunned and began to murmur. And some in the throng on the benches cried out, "What person, from the age of Saturn to our present time, has been able, by any deliberation of reason, to see and lay hold of what the soul is, not to mention what the nature of it is. Is this not beyond the realm of anyone's understanding?"

However, to that the men in the balcony replied, "It is not beyond human understanding, but within its scope and ability to see. Just respond to the question."

So the young men chosen to ascend the chair that day and respond to the question stood up. There were five of them, whom the older men had examined and found proficient in intelligence, and who were then sitting on long, cushioned seats to the sides of the ceremonial chair. Moreover, these afterwards ascended the chair in the order in which they were seated; and as each one ascended it, he would put on a tunic of opal-colored silk, and over that a gown of soft wool inwoven with flowers, and in addition a cap whose peak bore a rosette surrounded by little sapphires.

[4] Accordingly I saw the first one thus dressed ascend the chair. And he said, "What the soul is and what the nature of it is has not been revealed to anyone from the time of creation, being a secret locked away in repositories belonging to God alone. Only this much has been disclosed, that the soul dwells in a person like a queen. But where her court is, this a number of learned seers have guessed at. Some have supposed that it is located in the little protuberance between the cerebrum and cerebellum called the pineal gland. They have imagined the seat of the soul to be there on the ground that a person is governed in his entirety by the cerebrum and cerebellum, which in turn are directed by that gland; consequently that that which directs those two parts of the brain to its bidding also directs the entire person from head to heel."

But he said, "Although this appeared as true or likely to many in the world, in a later age it was rejected as a fiction."

[5] After he had spoken, he took off the gown, tunic and cap, and the second of the young men selected put them on and placed himself in the chair. His statement concerning the soul was as follows:

"No one, in all of heaven and in all the world, knows what the soul is and what the nature of it is. We know only that it exists, and that it exists in a person; but where is a matter of conjecture. This much is certain, that it exists in the head, since that is where the intellect thinks and where the will wills, and it is there in the face in the forepart of the head that a person's five senses are located. Nothing else gives life to these but the soul which is seated somewhere inside the head. But where exactly its court is there I would not venture to say, though I have agreed at different times with those who assign it a seat in the three ventricles of the brain, with those put it in the corpora striata there, with those who put it in the medullary substance of the cerebrum and cerebellum, with those who put it in the cortical substance, and at times with those who put it in the dura mater; for arguments have not been lacking to prompt affirmative votes, so to speak, in support of each of these as the seat.

[6] "Some people have voted in favor of the three ventricles of the brain on the ground that they are receptacles of all the brain's animating essences and fluids. Some have voted in favor of the corpora striata on the ground that they form the medulla through which the nerves exit and through which the cerebrum and cerebellum are continued into the spine, from which medulla and spine issue the fibers of which the whole body is woven. Some have voted in favor of the medullary substance of the cerebrum and cerebellum on the ground that it is a conglomeration and mass of all the fibers which constitute the initial elements of the entire person. Some have voted in favor of the cortical substance on the ground that this is where the first and last terminations of a person are, from which come the beginnings of all the fibers and thus of all sensations and movements. Still others have voted in favor of the dura mater on the ground that it is the overall covering of the entire brain, and extends from there by a kind of continuation around the heart and other internal organs of the body.

"For my part, I do not think any more of one theory than another. I leave it to you to please judge for yourselves and pick which is better."

[7] So saying he descended from the chair and handed the tunic, gown and cap to the third one in line; and mounting the chair the third young man made the following response:

"What business do I have at my young age with so lofty a subject? I appeal to the learned gentlemen sitting here at the sides. I appeal to you wiser men in the balcony. Indeed, I appeal to the angels of the highest heaven. Can anyone, by any rational light of his own, gain for himself any idea of the soul?

"As for its seat in a person, however, concerning this I can, like the others, offer a speculation. And I speculate that it is in the heart and from that in the blood. I come to this speculation because the heart by its blood governs both body and head; for it sends out the great artery called the aorta to the whole of the body, and the arteries called the carotids to the whole of the head. It is universally agreed therefore that it is from the heart by means of the blood that the soul sustains, nourishes and animates the entire organic system of both body and head.

"Adding to the plausibility of this assertion is the fact that the Holy Scripture so often mentions the soul and heart - as for example that you should love God with all your soul and with all your heart, and that God creates in man a new soul and new heart (Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 26:16; Jeremiah 32:41; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30,33; Luke 10:27; and elsewhere 1 ); and saying straight out that the blood is the soul of the flesh (Leviticus 17:11,14)."

When they heard this, some of them lifted up their voice, saying, "Masterful! Masterful!" - they being members of the clergy.

[8] After that the fourth in line took from him the vestments and put them on, and having placed himself in the chair, said:

"I, too, suspect that no one is possessed of such fine and polished genius that he can discern what the soul is and what the nature of it is. I judge accordingly that anyone who tries to investigate it only wastes the cleverness of his intellect in vain endeavors. Nevertheless, from childhood I have maintained a belief in an opinion held by the ancients, that a person's soul dwells in his whole being and in every part of it, thus that it dwells both in the head and its individual parts and in the body and its individual parts; and that it was a conceit invented by modern thinkers to assign it a seat here or there and not everywhere. The soul is furthermore a spiritual essence, to which is ascribed neither dimension nor location but indwelling and repleteness. Who, too, does not mean life when he refers to the soul? And does life not exist in the whole and in every part?"

At these words, many in the hall expressed approval.

[9] After him the fifth speaker arose, and outfitted in the same regalia, he presented from the chair the following statement:

"I do not take the time to say where the soul is - whether it resides in any one part or everywhere in the whole; but from my fund and store of knowledge I will declare my mind on the question of what the soul is and what the nature of it is. No one thinks of the soul except as a pure entity which may be likened to ether, air or wind, in which the vital force is from the rationality which human beings have over animals. I base this opinion on the fact that when a person expires or breathes his last, he is said to give up the ghost or soul. For this reason the soul that lives after death is also believed to be such an exhalation, in which is the cognitive life which we call the soul. What else can the soul be?

"However, because I heard you men in the balcony say that the question of the soul - what it is and what the nature of it is - is not beyond human understanding but within its scope and ability to see, I ask and implore you to lay open this eternal mystery yourselves."

[10] At that the older men in the balcony looked at the headmaster who had posed the question. And understanding from the motions of their heads that they wished him to go down and explain, he immediately descended from his dais, crossed the hall and placed himself in the chair. Then stretching out his hand there he said:

"Pay attention, please. Who does not believe the soul to be the inmost and finest essence of a person? And what is an essence without a form other than a figment of the imagination? The soul therefore is a form; but what the nature of the form is remains to be told. It is a form embracing all elements of love and all elements of wisdom. We call all the elements of love affections; and we call all the elements of wisdom perceptions. These perceptions, flowing from the affections and thus together with them, constitute a single form, which contains an endless number of constituent elements in such an order, series and connection that they may be said to be one and indivisible. They may be said to be one and indivisible because nothing can be taken from the whole or added to it without changing its character. What else is the human soul but such a form? Are not all the elements of love and all the elements of wisdom in a person the essential constituents of that form, these being in the soul, and in the head and body from the soul?

[11] "You are called spirits and angels, and in the world you believed that spirits and angels were like bits of wind or ether and so were disembodied minds and hearts. But now you clearly see that you are truly, really and actually whole people - people who in the world lived and thought in a material body, and who knew then that the material body does not live and think, but the spiritual essence in that body, which you called the soul whose form you did not know. And yet now you have seen it and do see it. You are all souls, whose immortality you have heard, thought, spoken and written so much about. And it is because you are forms of love and wisdom from God that you can never hereafter die.

"So then, the soul is a human form, from which nothing can be taken away, and to which nothing can be added, and it is the inmost form in all the forms of the entire person. Moreover, because the forms which exist outwardly take both their essence and their form from the inmost one, therefore you, as you appear to yourselves and to us, are souls.

"The soul, in short, is the person himself, because it is the innermost person. Consequently its form is a fully and perfectly human form. Yet it is not life, but the most immediate recipient vessel of life from God and thus the dwelling place of God."

[12] At this many in the hall applauded; but some said, "We will have to think about it."

I then departed for home; and lo, over that school, in place of the earlier phenomenon, I saw a white cloud without the rays or streaks of light combating with each other. Then, penetrating through the roof, the cloud entered the hall and lighted up the walls; and I heard that they saw inscriptions, and included among them also this one:

Jehovah God breathed into the man's nostrils the breath of life, 2 and the man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)

Footnotes:

1. E.g. Deuteronomy 30:6; Psalms 51:10; Ezekiel 11:19.

2. Literally, soul of life. Hebrew: breath, spirit.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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