New Christian Bible Study

Commentary

 

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

 

Conjugial Love #231

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

231. To this I will append three narrative accounts. Here is the first:

I once heard some clamorings from below, which sounded as though they were gurgling up through water. I heard one clamor to the left crying, "Oh, how just!" Another to the right crying, "Oh, how learned!" And a third one behind me crying, "Oh, how wise!" Then, because it struck me to wonder whether there are any just, learned or wise people in hell, I began to feel a wish to see if people of this sort might be found there; and it was told me from heaven, "You will both see and hear."

So I left home in the spirit, and I saw in the ground before me an opening. I went over to it and looked down, and behold, it had a stairway in it. I went down this stairway, and when I reached the bottom, I saw fields covered with bushes intermixed with thorns and nettles. When I asked whether I was in hell, the people said it was a lower earth just above hell.

I then proceeded in the direction of each of the clamors in turn. Going first to the place where they were crying, "Oh, how just!" I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been judges swayed by partiality and gifts. Going next to the place where they were crying, "Oh, how learned!" I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been reasoners. And going third to the place where they were crying, "Oh, how wise!" I saw a gathering of people who in the world had been confirmers.

[2] I turned back from these, however, to the first place, where the judges were who were swayed by partiality and gifts and who were proclaimed as just. There, over to one side, I saw a kind of amphitheater, built out of bricks and having a roof of black tiles; and I was told that they called it the Tribunal. It had three entrances opening into it on the north side, and three more on the west side, but none on the south or east sides - an indication that their judgments were not judgments having to do with justice but arbitrary rulings.

Inside I saw in the middle of the amphitheater a fireplace, into which the keepers of the hearth were throwing torches covered with sulfur and pitch. Shafts of light flickered out from these on to the plastered walls and formed silhouetted images of birds of the evening and night. At the same time, this fireplace, and the shafts of light flickering out into silhouettes of these images, were representations of their judgments, reflecting their ability to illumine the issues in any case with colored hues and to shape them as they pleased.

[3] After a half-hour had passed, I saw some older and younger men entering in gowns and robes; and laying aside their caps, they seated themselves at tables, ready to sit in judgment. I then heard and observed how skillfully and cleverly they avoided any appearance of favoritism, turning their judgments into semblances of justice, and this to the point that they themselves viewed injustice as nothing other than just, and justice, conversely, as unjust. Their persuasions in regard to these matters were apparent to the eye from their faces and discernible to the ear from their comments.

I was given at that point enlightenment from heaven, which enabled me to perceive in each case whether the rulings were in accordance with the law or not; and I saw to what lengths they went to camouflage injustice and give it the guise of justice, picking out from the laws some one that might support them and drawing the rest to their side through clever reasonings.

After rendering their judgments, the judges would have their verdicts conveyed out to their clients, friends and supporters; and to repay them for their favor, these would cry out for some distance along the road, "Oh, how just! Oh, how just!"

[4] I afterwards spoke with angels of heaven about these events and told them some of the things I had seen and heard. The angels said to me that judges like that appear to others as though endowed with an exceptional keenness of understanding, when in fact they do not have the least inkling of what is just and fair.

"If you take away their partiality for one side or the other," they said, "they sit on their benches as mute as statues, saying only, I agree, I go along with this person or I go along with that person. That is because all their judgments are prejudgments, and their prejudgment pursues each case from beginning to end with a biased one-sidedness. Consequently they see only the side which involves a friend. Every point that is against him they move to the periphery; and if they take it up again, they entangle it in reasonings, as a spider does its prey in the threads of its web - and so destroy it.

"That is why, if they do not follow the web of some prejudgment of theirs, they do not have any inkling of the law. They have been examined to see whether they might have some inkling of it, and it was found that they did not. The inhabitants of your world will be surprised that such is the case, but tell them it is a truth investigated by angels of heaven.

"Since these judges lack any sight of justice," they continued, "in heaven we view them as being not human but monsters, whose heads are shaped by elements of partisanship, their breasts by elements of injustice, and their feet by matters of confirmation - with only the soles of their feet being formed by matters of justice, which they step on and trample into the ground if these do not favor some friend of theirs.

"However, you will see for yourself how they look to us from heaven, for their end is near."

[5] And lo, suddenly then the ground opened, so that tables after tables went tumbling down, and they and their whole amphitheater were swallowed up. And they were cast into caverns and made prisoners there.

Then the angels said to me, "Would you like to see them now?"

And behold, in respect to their faces they appeared as though made of burnished steel. In respect to their bodies from the neck to the loins they looked like figures carved out of stone, dressed in leopard skins. And in respect to their feet they looked like serpents. I also saw the lawbooks, which they had had lying on their tables, turned into playing cards. And now, instead of judging, they were given the task of processing pigments into cosmetics with which to paint the faces of harlots and so turn them into beauties.

[6] After seeing this, I was ready to go on to the other two gatherings, to the one where the people were merely reasoners, and to the other where they were merely confirmers. But at that point the angels said to me, "Rest a while. You will be given angels from the society just above those places to accompany you. Through them you will receive light from the Lord, and you will see some astonishing sights."

  
/ 535  
  

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 #81

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

81. While we were talking in sorrow about these things, suddenly a burst of light shone about us, dazzling my eyes. I looked up, therefore, and behold, the whole sky above us appeared lit up, and we heard a glorification echoing across it in long succession from the east to the west.

Then the angel said to me, "The glorification you hear is a glorification of the Lord on account of His Advent, and it is coming from angels of the eastern and western heavens." (From the southern and northern heavens we heard only a polite murmur.)

Moreover, since he understood it all, the angel told me, first, that glorifications and celebrations of the Lord are taken from the Word, because then they come from the Lord, inasmuch as the Lord is the Word, in the sense that He is the essential Divine truth in the Word.

Then the angel said, "Specifically now, they are glorifying and celebrating the Lord with these words which were spoken by the prophet Daniel:

You saw iron mixed with miry clay; they will mingle together through the seed of man, but they will not cohere.... But (in those days) the God of heaven will make to rise a kingdom which for ages shall not perish...; it shall crush and consume all these kingdoms, while it shall stand for ages. (Daniel 2:43-44)"

[2] After this I heard what seemed to be the sound of singing, and deeper in the east I saw a burst of light more brilliant than the first. And I asked the angel what they were glorifying there.

The angel said that they were glorifying the Lord with these words in Daniel:

I was seeing in the visions of night, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, was One like the Son of man.... And to 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 which shall not perish. (Daniel 7:13-14)

In addition, the angel said, they are celebrating the Lord with these phrases taken from the book of Revelation:

To (Jesus Christ) be glory and might.... Behold, He is coming with clouds.... (He is) the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last..., who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. I, John...heard...(this from the Son of Man from out of) the midst of the seven lampstands.... (Revelation 1:5-7; 22:13; 1:8-13; taken also from Matthew 24:30-31)

[3] I looked again into the eastern sky, and a light shone over to the right, whose glow extended into the southern hemisphere. Hearing as well a sweet sound, I asked the angel what aspect of the Lord they were glorifying there.

The angel said they were quoting these words in the book of Revelation:

I saw a new heaven and a new earth.... And I...saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride...for her husband.... And (an angel) talked with me and said, "Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife." And he carried me away in the spirit on to a great and high mountain, and showed me the...city, the holy Jerusalem.... (Revelation 21:1-2,9-10)

Also these words:

I, Jesus...am...the Bright and Morning Star. And the Spirit and the bride shall say, "Come!".... (And He said,) "I also am coming quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:16-17,20)

[4] After these and other things, we heard a general glorification echoing across the sky from the east to the west and also from the south to the north, and I asked the angel, "What is happening now?"

He said they were quoting these verses from the Prophets:

Let all flesh know that I, Jehovah, am your Savior and your Redeemer.... (Isaiah 49:26)

Thus said Jehovah, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, Jehovah of Hosts: "I am the First and the Last, and beside Me there is no God." (Isaiah 44:6)

It will be said in that day: "Behold, this is our God, whom we have waited for to free us. This is Jehovah, whom we have waited for." (Isaiah 25:9)

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of Jehovah...." ...Behold, the Lord Jehovih comes in strength.... He will feed His flock like a shepherd. (Isaiah 40:3,10-11)

Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given..., whose name shall be...Wonderful, Counselor, God, Hero, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

Behold, the days will come..., and I will raise to David a righteous Branch, who shall reign, a King.... And this is His name...: JEHOVAH OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. (Jeremiah 23:5-6; 33:15-16)

Jehovah of Hosts is His name, and your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. He shall be called God of the whole earth. (Isaiah 54:5)

In that day...Jehovah shall become King over all the earth. In that day there will be one Jehovah and His name will be one. (Zechariah 14:8-9)

[5] When I heard these things and understood their meaning, as a result my heart leapt, and I went home filled with joy. And there, returning from the state of my spirit into a bodily state, I wrote down what I had seen and heard. To which I now add this, that following His Advent the Lord will revive conjugial love, such as it was among ancient peoples. For conjugial love comes only from the Lord, and it is found in people who are made spiritual by Him through His Word.

  
/ 535  
  

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

©2024 New Christian Bible Study Corporation. All rights reserved. Printed from newchristianbiblestudy.org