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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 #752

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752. To this I will append the following account:

I was given to speak with Pope Sixtus V. 1 He came from a society in the west to my left. He told me that he had been put as chief governor over a society composed of Catholics who more than others excelled in judgment and industry. He said he had been made their chief governor because he had believed during the last half year before his death that the vicariate was an invention in order to gain dominion, and that the Lord the Savior, being God, was the only one who should be venerated and worshiped. He also said that the Holy Scripture is Divine and thus more holy than the edicts of popes. Pope Sixtus said that he had continued to believe in these two principal tenets of religion to the end of his life.

Pope Sixtus also said that their saints are of no account. He was surprised when I told him that it had been decided in council and confirmed by a bull that saints should be invoked.

He said that he led an active life as he had in the world, and that every morning he proposes to himself nine or ten things that he wishes to be accomplished by the end of the evening.

I asked him where he had obtained in so few years the great treasury he had placed in the Castelo del Angelo. He replied that he had written with his own hand to the prefects of wealthy monasteries, telling them to send him as much of their wealth as in their judgment they could, as it was for a holy purpose, and because they feared him, they sent it in abundance.

Moreover, when I said that the treasury still exists, he said, "Of what use is it now?"

[2] While speaking with him, I reported that since his time the treasury at Loreto had been immensely increased and enriched, and so, too, the treasuries in some monasteries, primarily in Spain, but not so much today as in earlier centuries. I added also that these treasuries are preserved for no other useful purpose than the pleasure of possessing them. Moreover, when I reported this, I said, too, that those who possessed them were thus like the gods of the underworld that the ancients called Plutos. 2

When I mentioned Plutos, Pope Sixtus responded, "Hush! I know."

Pope Sixtus said again that the only people admitted into the society over which he presides are those who excel in judgment, and who can accept that the Lord alone is God of heaven and earth, and that the Word is holy and Divine. Moreover, under the Lord's auspices he is perfecting that society daily, he said.

He also said that he has spoken with some so-called saints, but that they become foolish when they are told and believe that they are holy.

He even called stupid those popes and cardinals who wish to be venerated like Christ, even if they are not venerated in person, and who do not acknowledge the Word to be actually holy and Divine, which alone is what people ought to live by.

[3] Pope Sixtus wishes me to tell people who are alive today that Christ is God of heaven and earth, that the Word is holy and Divine, and that it is not the Holy Spirit that speaks through someone's mouth, but Satan, who wishes to be venerated as God.

Moreover, he said that people who do not pay attention to his words go away, as stupid, to their own kind, and after a time are cast down into hell to people who labor under the fantasy that they are gods, where the only life they have is the that of a wild animal.

At this I said, "Your words are perhaps too harsh for me to write."

But he replied, "Write them and I will sign them, because they are true."

And he went away from me then into his society and signed a copy, and sent it as a bull to other societies committed to the same religion.

Footnotes:

1. Born Felice Peretti, 1521-1590, Italian ecclesiastic, Pope 1585-1590.

2. The Roman deity Pluto, god of the underworld, was in later times often confused with the minor Greek deity Plutus (Plou'to"), god of abundance and wealth, a confusion reflected also here and elsewhere in the writer's works.

  
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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 #663

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663. 1 The third experience.

I was once in company with angels and listened to their conversation. They were talking about intelligence and wisdom, saying that a person has no other feeling and perception but that intelligence and wisdom are both in him, and so whatever he wills and thinks comes from him. Yet in fact not a scrap of either comes from the person, apart from the ability to receive them. Among the many things they said was this, that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden stood for a belief that intelligence and wisdom were from man, and the tree of life stood for a belief that intelligence and wisdom were from God. It was because Adam was persuaded by the serpent to eat from the former tree, believing that he would be or become God, that he was ejected from the garden and damned.

[2] While the angels were discussing this, two priests arrived accompanied by a man who in the world had been a country's ambassador. I repeated to them what I had heard from the angels about intelligence and wisdom, and on hearing this the three of them began to argue about these two subjects and also about prudence, whether they were from God or from man. It was a fierce argument. All three believed alike that these came from man, because their actual feeling and so their perception supported this view; but the priests, being then under the influence of theological zeal, insisted that no part of intelligence and wisdom, and so of prudence, came from man. They found confirmation of that in these passages of the Word:

A man cannot take anything, unless it is given him from heaven, John 3:27.

Jesus said to the disciples, Without me you can do nothing, John 15:5.

[3] But the angels allowed me to perceive that, however much the priests talked like this, they still at heart held similar beliefs to the ambassador's. So the angels said to them: 'Take off your clothes and put on those of ministers of state, and believe that is what you are.' They did so, and then they thought from their interiors, and in talking used the arguments they inwardly supported; these were that all intelligence and wisdom reside in man and are his. 'Who,' they said, 'has ever felt that these flow in from God?' They looked at each other and backed each other up.

It is a special feature of the spiritual world that a spirit thinks himself to be what the clothes he wears indicate. The reason is that it is the understanding which clothes each person there.

[4] At that instant a tree was seen near them, and they were told: 'It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; beware of eating from it.' Yet they were so infatuated with their own intelligence that they had a burning desire to eat from it, and they said to each other: 'Why shouldn't we? Isn't the fruit good?' So they went up to it and ate the fruit.

When the ambassador noticed this, they got together and became bosom friends. Then together, holding hands, they took the way of their own intelligence, which leads to hell. However I saw them brought back from there, because they were not yet prepared.

Footnotes:

1. This section is repeated from Conjugial Love 353-354.

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

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