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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 #421

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421. And to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. This symbolizes their hell opened.

A key symbolizes the power to open, and also to close (nos. 62, 174, 840). And a bottomless pit symbolizes hell, where those people reside who have affirmed in themselves justification and salvation by faith alone, all of whom come from the Protestant Reformed Church. Here, however, they are people who appear in their own eyes and so in the eyes of many others to be educated and erudite - even though in the sight of angels in heaven they appear to be bereft of intellect as regards matters having to do with heaven and the church, since people who affirm such a faith, even so far as to affirm its inner tenets, close the higher constituents of their intellect, and this at last to such an extent that they can no longer see any spiritual truth in any light. The reason is that an affirmation of falsity constitutes a denial of the truth. Consequently, whenever they hear some spiritual truth, namely, a truth of the Word serviceable for doctrine and life for people of the church, they keep their mind in the falsities they have affirmed; and then they either shroud the truth they have heard in falsities or reject it as nothing but words, or they yawn at it and turn away, and this the more conceited they are owing to their erudition. For conceit glues the falsities together until they at last stick together, like solidified sea foam. The Word is therefore hidden from them, like a book sealed with seven seals.

[2] I will describe, furthermore, their character, and the character of their hell, because it has been given me to see it and speak with the inhabitants there, and also to see the locusts that issued from it:

That pit, which is like the mouth of a furnace, appears in the southern zone, and the abyss beneath it extends a great distance toward the east. The inhabitants in it have light, but if light from heaven is let in, the hell becomes dark. Consequently the pit is closed above.

Seen there are huts with arched roofs, built seemingly of brick, which are divided into several small rooms, and each room has in it a table, with sheets of paper lying on it, along with some books. At each table sits someone who in the world affirmed justification and salvation by faith alone, making charity a merely natural moral act, and deeds of charity simply those of civil life by which people are able to achieve rewards in the world; but if people should do those deeds for the sake of salvation, they condemn those deeds, and some of them do so severely, because the deeds have in them human reason and human will.

All the people in this abyss were educated and erudite in the world. And among them are some metaphysicians and scholastics who are held in higher esteem than the rest there. I recognized several when it was granted me to speak with them.

[3] Their fate, however, is this: When they are first admitted there, they sit in the first small rooms; but as they argue for faith to the exclusion of works of charity, they leave their former seats and go into little rooms nearer the east, and this repeatedly until they reach the end, where those people reside who use the Word to defend those tenets. And because they cannot help but falsify the Word then, their huts vanish, and they see themselves in a desert; and at that point they undergo such experiences as described in no. 153 above.

There is also another abyss beneath that abyss, where the residents are people who have similarly argued for justification and salvation by faith alone, but who within themselves, in their spirit, have denied God, and at heart have laughed at the sanctities of the church. They do nothing but argue there, tearing their garments, climbing up on the tables, stamping their feet and battling each other with invectives. And because no one is permitted to do physical harm there, they threaten vocally and shake their fists.

The environment there is unclean and squalid. But this a subject for another time.

  
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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

 

True Christian Religion #388

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388. The fourth experience.

I talked with some of those who are meant in Revelation by the dragon, and one of them said: 'Come with me, and I will show you what delights our eyes and hearts.'

So he took me through a dark wood and up a hill, from which I could watch the pleasures of the dragons. I saw an amphitheatre constructed in the shape of a ring surrounded by benches running up in tiers, on which the spectators were sitting. Those sitting on the lowest benches looked to be from a distance like satyrs and priapi 1 ; some had clothing to conceal their private parts, and some without it were totally naked. On the benches above them sat fornicators and prostitutes, as it appeared to me by the gestures they made.

Then the dragon said to me: 'Now you will see our sport.' I saw let into the space in the ring what looked like calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs; and when they were inside, a gate was opened and in rushed what looked like young lions, panthers, tigers and wolves. These furiously attacked the cattle, tore them in pieces and massacred them. After this bloody slaughter the satyrs sprinkled sand over the place where they had been killed.

[2] Then the dragon said to me: 'These are the sports which delight our minds.' 'Away with you, demon,' I replied, 'in a short while you will see this amphitheatre turned into a lake of fire and brimstone.' He laughed at this and went away. But afterwards I began to reflect why such things are permitted by the Lord. I received a reply in my heart, that they are permitted so long as people are in the world of spirits; but once their time in that world is up, such theatrical scenes are turned into the torments of hell.

[3] Everything which I saw had been the product of the dragon's imagination. So they were not really calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs, but they made the genuine kinds of good and truth in the church, which they hated, appear in this form. The lions, panthers, tigers and wolves were the forms taken by the desires of the people who looked like satyrs and priapi. The ones with no clothing around their private parts were those who believed that evils were not manifest to God; those who had some clothing were those who believed that evils were manifest, but did not damn a person so long as he had faith. The fornicators and prostitutes were those who falsify the truths of the Word, for fornication means the falsification of truth. In the spiritual world everything at a distance looks like what it corresponds to, and when these take visible form they are called representations of spiritual things in the form of objects resembling those in the natural world.

[4] Later on I saw them emerging from the wood, the dragon in the midst of satyrs and priapi, with servants and camp-followers, who were the fornicators and prostitutes, coming after them. The column they formed grew as they went, and then I heard what they were discussing.

They were saying they had seen in a meadow a flock of sheep with lambs, and this was a sign that close by was one of the Jerusalem cities, where charity is the leading characteristic. 'Let us go,' they said, 'and capture that city, expel the inhabitants and plunder their property.' So they approached, but there was a wall around it, and angels on the wall to guard it. So then they said: 'Let us capture it by a trick. Let us send them someone skilled in sophistry, who can make black appear white and white black, and put a colourable gloss on anything.'

So they found someone who was an expert in metaphysics, able to turn real ideas into terminological ones, conceal the facts under forms of words, and so fly off like a hawk with its prey beneath its wings. He was told what to say to the people in the city, that they were co-religionists and should be let in. He went up to the gate and knocked, and when it was opened he said that he wished to speak with the wisest person in the city. He went in and was taken to someone, whom he addressed in these words: 'My brethren are outside the city, begging to be admitted. They are your co-religionists, for you and we both make faith and charity the two essentials of religion. The only difference is, that you put charity first and derive faith from it, and we put faith first and derive charity from it. What does it matter which is put first, when we believe in both?'

[5] The wise citizen replied: 'Let us not discuss this subject by ourselves, but in the presence of a larger audience who can act as umpires and judges. Otherwise we shall not reach a decision.' So more people were soon summoned, and they were addressed by the dragon's ambassador in similar words to those he had previously used.

Then the wise citizen made his reply: 'You have said that it is much the same whether charity or faith is regarded as the leading matter in the church, so long as there is agreement that either of them constitutes the church and its religion. Yet the difference is like that between prior and posterior, cause and effect, principal and instrumental, and essential and formal. I use these terms because I notice that you are an expert on metaphysics, a subject we call mere sophistry, and some people call magic formulas. But let us drop these terms. The difference is like that between what is above and what is beneath. Or rather, if you will believe me, it is the difference between the minds of those in this world who live on the upper level and the minds of those on the lower level. For the leading point constitutes the head and chest, and what is derived from it the feet and the soles of the feet. But first of all let us agree on the definition of charity and faith. Charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of God, salvation and everlasting life; and faith is thinking from a trust in God, salvation and everlasting life.

[6] But the ambassador said: 'I agree that this is the definition of faith, and I also agree that charity is that affection for the sake of God, because it is for the sake of His commandment, but not for the sake of salvation and eternal life.' After this partial agreement and partial disagreement, the wise citizen said: 'Is not affection or liking the leading point, and thought derived from it?' The dragon's ambassador said: 'This I deny.'

But he was answered: 'You cannot deny it. Surely anyone thinks as the result of some liking. Take away the liking, and can he think at all? It is exactly as if you removed the sound from speech; if you took away the sound, could you say anything? Sound too is the product of the affection of some love or other, and speech is the product of thought, for love makes a sound and thought puts it into words. It is also like a flame and light; if you take away the flame, is not the light extinguished? It is much the same with charity, because this is the product of love, and with faith, because this is the product of thought. Can you not thus grasp that the leading point is all-important for the secondary, exactly as the flame is for the light? It is obvious from this that if you do not put the leading point first, you cannot have the second either. Therefore, if you put faith, which is in the second place, in first place, you cannot fail to appear in heaven as upside down, with your feet uppermost and your head down, or like a clown who walks upside down on the palms of his hands. When you look like this in heaven, what then will your good deeds look like, which are charity in action? They can only be the sort of things the clown does with his feet, since he cannot do them with his hands. That is why your charity is natural rather than spiritual, since it is upside down.'

[7] The ambassador understood this, since every devil can understand truth when he hears it; but he is unable to keep it in his memory, because the affection for evil, which is essentially the longing of the flesh, on its return expels thought of the truth. Afterwards the wise citizen showed at some length what is the nature of faith when it is taken as the leading point, namely, that it is purely natural, a conviction devoid of any spiritual life, and in consequence no faith at all. 'And I can almost say that there is no more spirituality in your faith, than there is in thinking about the Mogul empire, the diamond mine in it, and the treasury or court of that emperor.' On hearing this the dragon's man went off in anger and reported to his companions outside the city. When they heard it had been said that charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of [God,] 2 salvation and everlasting life, they all shouted: 'This is a lie!', and the dragon himself cried: 'Ah, what a crime! Surely all charitable deeds if they are done for the sake of salvation, are merit-seeking?'

[8] Then they said to one another: 'Let us summon still more of our people, and lay siege to this city, and let us expel these paragons of charity.' But when they attempted this, a sudden flash of fire from heaven consumed them. But the fire from heaven was a manifestation of their anger and hatred directed against the people in the city, since they had cast down faith from first to second place, or rather to the lowest place beneath charity, since they claimed that it was no faith. The reason they appeared to be consumed by fire was that hell opened up beneath their feet, and they were swallowed up. Similar events to this occurred in many places on the day of the Last Judgment; this too is the meaning of the following passage in Revelation:

The dragon will come forth to lead astray the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, to assemble them for war; and they went up on the surface of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. But fire came down from God out of heaven and consumed them, Revelation 20:8-9.

Footnotes:

1. Priapus, a Roman god of lechery.

2. Restored from Apocalypse Revealed 655.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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