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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 #675

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675. To this I will append the following account:

I saw a piece of paper sent down by the Lord through heaven into a society of Englishmen - though that society was one of their smallest - in which there were also two bishops. The piece of paper contained an exhortation to acknowledge the Lord as God of heaven and earth, as He Himself taught (Matthew 28:18 1 ), and to turn away from a doctrine of faith that justifies apart from works of the law, because the doctrine is wrong.

Many of the people read the piece of paper and made copies of it, and they thought and spoke rationally about what it contained from an interior power to judge, so that they were enlightened by the Lord and received that enlightenment with a clarity of sight more innate in the English than in others.

After their acceptance of these ideas, however, they said to each other, "Let us ask the bishops."

And they asked the bishops, but the bishops contradicted the ideas and disapproved them. However, the bishops there were some of those who in the world had become callous with respect to the spiritual aspects of faith and charity, owing to a love of dominion over the sanctities of the church and a love of their eminence in consequence of them also in political affairs. After a brief consultation with each other, therefore, they sent the piece of paper back to the heaven from which it came.

When the bishops did this, most of the laity, after some murmuring, turned away from their earlier acceptance, and their light in spiritual matters, which before had shone, was suddenly extinguished.

Then, after they were warned a second time, but in vain, I saw that society sink down - though how deeply I did not see - so that it disappeared from the sight of angels, who worship the Lord only and reject faith alone.

[2] Several days later I saw as many as a hundred people ascend from the lower earth to which that small society had sunk. They came over to me, and a wise man among them said, "Listen to this amazing thing. When we sank down, the place looked to us at first like a lake, but a little while later like dry land, and afterward like a small city, in which we each had his own house, though a poor one.

"The next day we took counsel with each other as to what we should do. Many said we should go to the two bishops and gently blame them for sending the piece of paper back to the heaven from which it descended, on which account this has befallen us.

"They chose some representatives who went to the bishops," and the wise man speaking with me said he was one of them. "And then some of the wiser among us spoke to the bishops," he said, "as follows:

"'Hear us, you church fathers. We believed that more than others we had a church among us that deserved to be called foremost in the Christian world, and a religion that deserved to be called great. But we were given an enlightenment from heaven, and in that enlightenment a perception that there is no longer any church in the Christian world today, and no longer any religion.'

[3] "The bishops said, 'What are you saying? Does the church not exist where the Word is found? Where Christ the Savior is known? And where the sacraments are celebrated?'

"To this our spokesman replied, 'These things embody the church and they form the church, but they do not form it around a person but within a person.'

"Going on then he said, 'As regards the church: Can the church exist where people worship three gods? Can the church exist where its entire doctrine rests on a single saying of Paul misinterpreted, and so not on the Word? Can the church exist when people do not turn to the Savior of the world, and where they divide Him in two?

"'As for religion: Who can deny that religion consists in refraining from evil and doing good? Is there any religion where people are taught that faith alone saves, and not charity? Is there any religion where people are taught that charity emanating from people is nothing but moral and civic charity? Who does not see that in such charity there is no religion? Is there any deed or work in faith alone? And yet religion consists in doing.

"'In the entire world is there any nation having in it some religion that excludes anything saving from goods of charity, which are good works, even though everything connected with religion consists in goodness, and everything connected with the church consists in doctrine, which ought to teach truths, and through truths, goodness?

"'See, church fathers, what glory we would have if a church that does not now exist and if a religion that does not now exist should begin and arise with us.'

[4] "The bishops then replied, 'You speak too arrogantly. Faith in act, the faith that fully justifies and saves, is it not the church? And faith in state, the faith that emanates and perfects, is it not religion? Apprehend that, my children.'

"But then the wise Englishman said, 'Listen, you church fathers. A person who produces faith in act, does he not do so like a log? Does the church exist in a log that is, according to your notion, then brought to life? Is not faith in state but a continuation and extension of faith in act? And since, according to your notion, everything saving resides in faith, and nothing in the good of charity issuing from a person, where then is religion?'

"At that the bishops said, 'Friend, you speak as you do because you do not know the mysteries of justification by faith alone, and someone who does not know these does not know the path of salvation from within. Your path is an external and untutored way. Go that way if you wish, but provided you know that all good comes from God and none from man, and that in spiritual matters a person can therefore do nothing at all of himself.'

[5] "Annoyed at that, the Englishman speaking with them said, 'I know your mysteries of justification better than you, and I tell you plainly that I have seen in your interior mysteries nothing but phantoms. Does religion not involve acknowledging and loving God and shunning and hating the devil? Is God not good itself, and the devil evil itself? Who in the entire world, if he has any religion, does not know this? To acknowledge and love God - is that not to do good because it is of God and from God? And to shun and hate the devil - is that not to refrain from evil because it is of the devil and from the devil?

"'Your faith in act, which you say is faith that completely justifies and saves, or to say the same thing, your act of justification by faith alone - does it teach the doing of any good that is of God and from God? And does it teach the shunning of any evil that is of the devil and from the devil? Not in the least, because you have determined that there is no salvation in either.

"'Your faith in state, which you say is faith that emanates and perfects - unless it is the same as faith in act, how can that faith in state be perfected when you exclude from it any good issuing from a person as though originating from him, saying, "How can a person be saved by any good issuing from him, when salvation is by grace? And what is good issuing from a person but merit-seeking? And yet the merit of Christ is everything. Consequently to do good for the sake of salvation would be to attribute to self what is Christ's alone, and therefore it would be to try to justify and save oneself. Moreover, how can anyone do good when the Holy Spirit accomplishes everything without the least help of the person? What need then is there for any additional good on the person's part, when any good issuing from the person is in itself not good. And so on."

[6] "'Are these not your mysteries? But in my eyes they are nothing but sophistries and shams concocted in order to set aside good works that are works of charity so as to establish your faith alone. And because you do this, you view people in relation to those works, and in relation to everything spiritual in general having to do with the church and religion, as being like logs or inanimate statues, and not as human beings created in the image of God, to whom have been given, and are continually given, the faculties of understanding and willing, of believing and loving, and of speaking and acting, entirely as though of themselves, especially in spiritual matters, because they are what make a person human. If a person did not think and act in spiritual matters as though of himself, what then would faith be, what then would charity be, and what then would worship be - indeed, what then would the church and religion be?

"'You know that to do good to the neighbor out of love is charity. But you do not know what charity is, even though charity is the soul, life force and essence of faith. And because charity is all of that, what then is faith divorced from charity but lifeless? And a lifeless faith is nothing but a phantom. I call it a phantom, because the Apostle James calls faith without good works not only lifeless but also the faith of demons.' 2

[7] "When he heard his faith called lifeless, the faith of demons, and a phantom, then one of the two bishops became so enraged that he snatched the miter from his head and threw it onto the table, saying, 'I will not take it up again until I have taken vengeance on the enemies of the faith of our church.' And he shook his head, muttering to himself and saying, 'That James! That James!'

"His miter had on it a plaque, which had engraved on it, 'FAITH ALONE.'

"And suddenly then a monster rising up from the earth appeared, with seven heads, having feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion, altogether like the beast described in Revelation 13:1-2, an image of which was made and worshiped, verses 14, 15, in the same chapter.

"This phantom took the miter from the table, and widening the lower part, placed it on its seven heads. At that the earth opened under its feet and it sank into hell.

"Seeing this, the bishop cried out, 'A violation! A violation!'

"We then departed from them, and suddenly we saw a stairway before us, by which we ascended and returned above ground into the sight of heaven, where we were before."

This is the account the wise Englishman related to me.

Footnotes:

1. "And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.'"

2. James 2:14-26

  
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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 #326

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

After the question concerning the soul had been discussed in the school and answered, 1 I saw the people going out in order, the headmaster in front, after him the older men, with the five young men who had responded to the question in the midst of them, and after them the rest. As they left the building, they went around to the sides, where there were walkways surrounded by bushes. And gathering there, they broke up into small groups, all of them circles of young men conversing on matters of wisdom, with one of the wiser men from the balcony in each.

Seeing them from my place of lodging, I entered a state of the spirit and in the spirit went out to them. And there I went over to the headmaster, who a little before had posed the question concerning the soul.

When he saw me he said, "Who are you? As I watched you approaching on the way here, I was astonished to see that one minute you would pop into view, the next minute drop out of sight, so that one moment I would see you and suddenly then not. Surely you are not in the same life-state as our people."

Gently laughing at this I replied, "I am not a marionette, nor a chameleon, but I am one who alternates, being sometimes in your light and sometimes not, so that I am an alien and at the same time a native."

[2] At this the headmaster looked at me and said, "These are strange and extraordinary things you are saying. Tell me who you are."

So I said, "I live in the world in which you once lived and from which you have departed, which is called the natural world; and I live as well in the world into which you have come and in which you are now living, which is called the spiritual world. I am as a result in a natural state and at the same time a spiritual one - in a natural state when I am with people on earth, and in a spiritual state when I am with you. Moreover, when I am in a natural state, I am not visible to you; but when I am in a spiritual state, I am. To be as I am is something I have been given by the Lord.

"Being an enlightened man, you know that an inhabitant of the natural world does not see an inhabitant of the spiritual world, or vice versa. Therefore when I conveyed my spirit into my body, you did not see me; but when I conveyed it out of my body, you did.

"You also taught in your school exercise that you are souls, and that souls see souls because they are human forms. But you know that you did not see yourselves or your souls within your bodies when you were in the natural world. This fact is due to the difference that exists between something spiritual and something natural."

[3] When he heard me mention a difference between something spiritual and something natural, he said, "What is the difference? It is not like the difference between something more pure and something less so? So what is something spiritual but a purer form of something natural."

But I replied, "That is not what the difference is, but it is as the difference between something prior and something subsequent, between which there is no finite relationship. For the prior is in the subsequent, as a cause in its effect, and the subsequent exists from the prior, as an effect from its cause. That is why the one is not visible to the other."

To this the headmaster said, "I have reflected and ruminated on the difference, but so far in vain. I would like to have some concept of it."

[4] So I said, "You shall not only have a concept of the difference between something spiritual and something natural, but you will even witness the difference." Whereupon I spoke to him as follows:

"You are in a spiritual state when you are with your own people, but in a natural state with me; for you speak with your associates in spiritual language, the common language of every spirit and angel, whereas with me you speak in my native tongue. Indeed, every spirit or angel in speaking with a mortal person uses the person's customary language, thus speaking French with a Frenchman, English with an Englishman, Greek with a Greek, Arabic with an Arab, and so on.

"So then, to learn the difference between something spiritual and something natural in terms of languages, do the following: Go over to your associates, say something there and remember the words. Then with these memorized, come back and repeat them to me."

So he did as I said, and returned to me with the words in his mouth, but when he uttered them he did not know what any of them meant. The words were altogether strange and unfamiliar, being words not found in any language of the natural world.

After he repeated this experiment several times, it became clearly apparent to him that people in the spiritual world all speak a spiritual language which has nothing in common with any language of the natural world, and that every person comes automatically into use of that language after death. At the same time he also then discovered that the very intonation of spiritual language is so different from the intonation of natural language that the intonation of spiritual language, even when loud, is not at all audible to a natural person, nor the intonation of natural language to a spiritual person.

[5] After that I asked the headmaster and some others standing by to go over to their associates and write down some thought on a piece of paper, and with that piece of paper come back to me and read it. They did as I said, and they returned with the piece of paper in hand; but when they went to read it, they were unable to make out what any of it meant, since the writing consisted only of some alphabetic letters with curly lines over them, each of which carried some meaning connected with the subject. (Because every letter of the alphabet carries some meaning there, it is apparent from what origin the Lord is called the Alpha and the Omega.) 2 As they again and again withdrew, wrote and returned, they discovered that their writing included and contained a countless number of elements which no natural writing could ever express. But they were told that this is because a spiritual person thinks thoughts incomprehensible and inexpressible to a natural person, and these cannot descend or be put into any other form of writing or language.

[6] Then, because the others standing by were unwilling to believe that spiritual thought so far surpasses natural thought as to be inexpressible in comparison, I said to them, "Try an experiment. Go over into your spiritual association, think on some subject, and holding the thought come back and express it to me."

So they went, thought, held the thought, and came back; but when they went to express what they had thought, they could not. For they did not find any natural mental concept equivalent to any spiritual concept. So neither did they find any word to express their thoughts, since ideas of the mind take form as words in speech. At that they then began to withdraw and return, to prove to themselves that spiritual ideas were higher than natural ones, being inexpressible, ineffable and incomprehensible to the natural man. And because spiritual ideas are so transcendent, they began to say that spiritual ideas or thoughts compared to natural ones were the essences of ideas and the essences of thoughts, and that they therefore expressed the essences of qualities and the essences of affections; consequently that spiritual thoughts were the germs and origins of natural thoughts. It also became evident from this that spiritual wisdom was the essence of wisdom, thus unintelligible to any person of wisdom in the natural world.

They were then told from the third heaven that there is a still more interior or higher wisdom, called celestial, which has a similar relationship to spiritual wisdom as spiritual wisdom does to natural wisdom; and that these levels of wisdom flow in succession in accordance with the heavens from the Lord's Divine wisdom, which is infinite.

Footnotes:

1. This account follows on the one related in no. 315 above.

2. In Revelation 1:8,11, 21:6, 22:13. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, in the language in which Revelation was written.

  
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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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