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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

 

Conjugial Love #294

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294. The second account:

Several days later I again saw the same seven wives in a rose garden, but in a different one from the one previously. It was a magnificent garden, the like of which I had never seen before. It was laid out almost in a circle, and the roses in it formed a kind of rainbow-like arc. Purple-colored roses or flowers formed its outmost ring; golden-yellow ones the next ring in; dark-blue ones the ring inside that; and bluish-green or bright-green ones the inmost ring. And enclosed within that rainbow-like rose garden was a little pool of clear water.

Those seven wives, previously called maidens of the spring, were sitting there, and seeing me at my window they again called me over. Then, when I arrived, they said, "Have you ever seen anything more beautiful on earth?"

"Never," I said.

So they said, "A marvel like this is created by the Lord in instant, and it represents a new development on earth, for everything created by the Lord represents something. But divine if you can what that is. We are guessing that it is the delights of conjugial love."

[2] On hearing this I said, "What are the delights of conjugial love, of which you spoke with so much wisdom and also so much eloquence last time? After I left you, I related what you said to wives living in our world, and I told them, 'Having now been instructed, I know that you feel delights in your hearts arising from your conjugial love, which you are able to communicate to your husbands in accordance with their wisdom. I also know that from morning to evening you therefore continually contemplate your husbands with the eyes of your spirit and consider how to turn and guide their hearts to becoming wise, in order that you may realize those delights.' I further reported what you meant by wisdom, saying that it is a spiritual-rational and spiritual-moral wisdom, and that as regards marriage it is to love only one's wife and to rid oneself of all desire for other women.

"But to this the wives in our world responded with laughter, saying, 'What are you talking about? What you have said is preposterous. We do not know what conjugial love is. If our husbands experience anything of it, still we do not. How then do its delights originate with us? Indeed, when it comes to the delights which you call the end delights, we sometimes resist vehemently, for to us they are repugnant, in almost the same way as acts of rape. In fact, if you look, you will not see one sign of any such love in our faces. Therefore you are either talking nonsense or joking if, like those seven wives of yours, you too say that we think about our husbands from morning to evening and continually give attention to their wishes and pleasures, in order that we may gain from them delights such as those!'

"I have retained from the responses of those wives these declarations, to report them to you, since they call into dispute and even more entirely contradict the discourse I heard from you by the spring, which I listened to so eagerly and also believed."

[3] To this the wives sitting in the rose garden replied, "Dear friend, you do not know the wisdom and prudence of wives, because they hide it altogether from men and keep it hidden precisely in order to be loved by them. For every man who is not spiritually rational and moral but only naturally so possesses a coldness towards his wife, such a coldness being inherent in him in his inmost elements. This coldness a wise and prudent wife acutely and keenly notices, and she then conceals her conjugial love, withdrawing into her heart so much of it and hiding it there so deeply that not the least bit of it appears in her face, her tone of voice, or gesture. She does this, because to the extent her love appears, to that extent a man's coldness with respect to marriage pours forth from the inmost elements of his mind where it resides and descends into its outmost expressions, producing a total frigidity in the body and an urge to separate himself therefore from the bed and bedroom."

[4] I asked them then, "What causes such coldness, which you call coldness with respect to marriage."

"It comes from a lack of rationality on their part in matters of the spirit. Every man who is irrational in matters of the spirit is inmostly cold to his wife and inmostly warm toward harlots. And because conjugial love and licentious love are opposed to each other, it follows that conjugial love becomes cold whenever licentious love is warm. Then, when coldness reigns in a man, he cannot endure any feeling of love or even therefore any whisper of it from his wife. That is why a wife so wisely and prudently conceals it; and to the extent she does this by denying and resisting, to that extent a wanton atmosphere flows in which revives and restores the man's interest. As a result the wife of a man like that does not experience any delights of the heart such as we do, but only physical gratifications, which on the man's part have to be termed pleasures of insanity, because they are the pleasures of a licentious love.

[5] "Every chaste wife loves her husband, even a husband who is unchaste; but because wisdom is the only quality that receives her love, therefore a wife spends every effort to turn his insanity into wisdom, at least to the point that he does not desire any other women but her. This she accomplishes in a thousand ways, taking especial care that none of these ways be detected by her husband; for she well knows that love cannot be compelled, but is subtly infused in a state of freedom. For that reason it is granted to women to discern from sight, hearing and touch their husbands' every state of mind, while it is not granted to men conversely to discern any of their wives' states of mind.

[6] "A chaste wife can look at her husband with a stern expression, speak to him in a sharp voice, and even be angry at him and fight with him, and yet at the same time in her heart cherish a gentle and tender love for him. The object, however, of these expressions of anger and concealments of love is wisdom and a consequent reception of love on the part of her husband, as is clearly apparent from how quickly she can be placated. Wives furthermore have such ways of concealing the love implanted in their heart and marrows in order by these means to keep a man's coldness with respect to marriage from breaking out in him and extinguishing even the fire of his licentious heat, the result of which would be to turn him from green wood into a dry stick."

[7] After those seven wives made these statements and a number of others like them, their husbands came with clusters of grapes in their hands, some of which had a delicious flavor and some an offensive one. So the wives said, "Why did you bring bad or wild grapes, too?"

"Because," replied their husbands, "your souls being united with ours, we perceived in our souls that you were speaking with this man here about truly conjugial love, saying that its delights are delights of wisdom, and also about licentious love, saying that its delights are pleasures of insanity. The grapes with the delicious flavor are the first kind of delights, while the offensive-tasting or wild grapes are the second kind."

The husbands then confirmed what their wives had said, adding that the pleasures of insanity appear in outward respects similar to the delights of wisdom, but not in their inner qualities - "just like the good and bad grapes that we brought," they said. "For both chaste and unchaste men are capable of a similar wisdom in outward respects, but in its inner qualities their wisdom is entirely different."

[8] After that the little boy came again with a piece of paper in his hand, and he held it out to me, saying, "Read."

So I read as follows:

Be advised, all who read this, that the delights of conjugial love ascend up to the highest heaven, and on the way and in that heaven they join with the delights of all heavenly loves, and so enter into their felicity, which lasts to eternity. That is because the delights of that love are also delights of wisdom.

Be advised, too, that the pleasures of licentious love descend down to the lowest hell, and on the way and in that hell they join with the pleasures of all hellish loves, and so enter into their misery, which consists in a frustration of all the heart's delights. That is because the pleasures of that love are also pleasures of insanity.

The husbands subsequently departed with their wives, and accompanying the little boy as far as the path he took to ascend to heaven, they discovered that the society he had been sent from was a society of the New Heaven, the heaven with which the New Church on earth will be affiliated.

  
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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

 

Apocalypse Revealed #484

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484. To this I will append three accounts of events that occurred in the spiritual world.

The first event: I once heard in the spiritual world what sounded like the noise of a mill. It was in the northern zone there. I wondered at first what it was, but then I remembered that in the Word a mill and the grinding of grain means to seek from the Word something usable for doctrine (no. 794). Therefore I went over to the place that I heard the sound coming from, and when I drew near, the sound died away, and I saw a kind of domed structure over the earth, with an entrance leading into it through a cave. Seeing this, I went down and entered, and lo, I found a room in which I saw an elderly man sitting, surrounded by books, holding a copy of the Word in front of him and seeking from it something he could use for his doctrine. He had slips of paper lying all around, on which he recorded the texts he found. In an adjoining room there were clerks who would collect the slips of paper and copy them onto a whole sheet.

I began by asking him about the books he had around him. He said that they all dealt with justifying faith, profoundly so those from Sweden and Denmark, more profoundly those from Germany, and still more profoundly those from Britain, but most profoundly those from the Netherlands. And he added that though they differed on various points, they were all in agreement on the article of justification and salvation by faith alone.

After that he told me that he was now collecting from the Word texts in support of this first tenet of justifying faith, that God the Father turned away from grace toward the human race on account of its iniquities, and that to save the human race there arose a Divine need for someone to take upon himself the condemnation required by justice, in order to effect satisfaction, reconciliation, propitiation, and mediation, and that only His Son could possibly accomplish this. He said, too, that after that, a means of approach to God the Father was opened for the sake of the Son. Moreover he said, "I have seen and still see that this accords with all reason. How could God the Father be approached except by faith in this merit of the Son? I have also now found that this accords as well with Scripture."

[2] Listening to this, I was astounded to hear him say that it accorded with reason and with Scripture, when in fact it is contrary to reason and contrary to Scripture, and I also frankly told him so. At that his zeal moved him to hotly retort, "How can you say that?"

Therefore I told him my opinion, saying, "Is it not contrary to reason to think that God the Father turned away from grace toward the human race and rejected mankind? Is not Divine grace an attribute of the Divine essence? To turn away from grace, then, would be to turn away from His own Divine essence, and to turn away from His Divine essence would mean He was no longer God. Can God be estranged from Himself? Believe me, grace on the part of God - as it is infinite, so is it eternal. The grace of God can be lost on mankind's part if people do not accept it, but never on God's part. If grace should depart from God, it would be all over with the whole of heaven and with the whole human race, to the point that people would no longer be in the least bit human. Therefore grace on the part of God continues to eternity, not only toward angels and people, but also toward the devil himself.

"Since this accords with reason, why do you say that the only means of approach to God the Father is through faith in the merit of the Son, when in fact there is a continuing approach through grace?

[3] "Furthermore, why do you call it a means of approach to God the Father for the sake of the Son, and not to God the Father through the Son? Is not the Son the Mediator and Savior? Why do you not approach the Mediator and Savior Himself? Is He not God and man? Who on earth goes directly to some emperor, king, or prince? Must one not find a deputy or someone to introduce him? Do you not know that the Lord came into the world to Himself introduce people to the Father, and that the only means of approach is through Him? Search the Scripture now, and you will see that this accords with it, and that your way to the Father is as contrary to Scripture as it is contrary to reason. I say to you also that it is an act of impudence to climb up to God the Father directly 1 and not through Him who is in the bosom of the Father 2 and who alone is in Him. 3 Have you not read John 14:6?" 4

When he heard this, the elderly man became so angry that he leapt from his chair and shouted to his clerks to throw me out. And when I immediately left of my own accord, he threw out through the exit after me a book that his hand chanced upon, and that book was the Word.

[4] The second event: After I left, I heard the noise again, but this time it sounded like the noise of two millstones crashing into each other. I went in the direction of the sound and it died away, and I saw a narrow entryway leading gradually down to a kind of domed building divided into little compartments, in each of which two men were sitting, who were also collecting from the Word proof texts in support of faith. One of them would find them, and the other would write them down, and this by turns.

I went to one of the compartments and, standing in the doorway, asked, "What texts are you collecting and writing down?"

They said, "Texts about the act of justification or faith in act, which is faith itself, justifying, vivifying and saving - the principal tenet of doctrine in Christianity."

And at that I said to one of them, "Tell me some sign of the act when that faith is introduced into a person's heart and soul."

He replied, "A sign of the act exists the moment a person is moved, by grief at his being damned, to think about Christ as having taken away the condemnation of the Law, and when, conscious of that merit of Christ, with confidence in it, he turns with it in mind to God the Father and prays."

[5] "So that is how the act occurs," I said then, "and that is the moment."

And I asked, "How am I to understand what we are told about the act, that nothing in a person cooperates with it any more than if he were a stock or a stone? Or that as regards the act a person cannot initiate, will, understand, think, do, or contribute anything to it, and cannot conform or accommodate himself to it?

"Tell me how this agrees with what you said, that the act happens when a person thinks about the judgment of the Law, about his damnation having been taken away by Christ, about the confidence with which he is conscious of that merit of Christ, and with it in mind turns to God the Father and prays? Does the person not do all these things as though of himself?"

But he said, "The person does not do them actively, but passively."

[6] And I replied, "How can anyone think, have confidence, and pray passively? Take away a person's active or reactive participation - do you not also take away his receptivity, thus everything his own, and with that the act as well? What then does that act of yours become but something purely theoretical, which we call a figment of the imagination?

"I know that you do not believe in agreement with some that an act of this kind is possible only with those people predestined to it, who are not at all aware of the infusion of faith in them. These may as well cast dice to find out if it has occurred.

"Therefore believe, my friend, that in matters of faith a person operates and cooperates as though of himself, and that without that cooperation the act of faith, which you call the principal tenet of doctrine and religion, is no more than the pillar into which Lot's wife was turned, having the faint sound of nothing but salt when scratched with a writer's pen or fingernail (Luke 17:32 5 ). I say this because as regards that act you makes yourselves to be like statues."

When I said that, the man arose and picked up the lamp violently to throw it at my face. But suddenly then the lamp went out and the room became dark, so that he hurled it at the forehead of his companion. And I went away laughing.

[7] The third event: I heard in the northern zone of the spiritual world what sounded like the rushing of water. I went therefore in that direction, and when I drew near, the rushing sound stopped, and I heard what sounded like a gathering of people. Moreover a house full of holes then appeared, surrounded by a wall, from which I heard the sound coming. I approached and found there a doorkeeper, and I asked him who were inside. He said that they were the wisest of the wise, who were coming to conclusions together about metaphysical subjects.

He spoke as he did out of the simplicity of his faith, and I asked if I might be permitted to enter. He said that I could, provided that I not say anything.

"I can let you in," he said, "because I have permission to let in the gentiles here who are standing with me at the door."

I went in therefore, and lo, I found an amphitheater with a rostrum in the middle of it, and the company of the so-called wise were discussing mysteries of faith. The matter or proposition submitted for discussion then was whether the good that a person does in a state of justification by faith, or in the progress of that state after the act, constitutes the good of religion or not. They were unanimous in saying that the good of religion means good that contributes to salvation.

[8] It was an acrimonious discussion, but those prevailed who said that any good that a person does in a state of faith or its progression is only moral, civic, or political good, which contributes nothing to salvation, but that only faith contributes anything. They established this as follows:

"How can any work of man be coupled with something free? Is not salvation bestowed gratis? How can any good work of man be coupled with the merit of Christ? Is not Christ's merit the only means of salvation? And how can any operation of man be coupled with the operation of the Holy Spirit? Does not the Holy Spirit accomplish everything without the help of man? Are not these three elements the only saving ones in any act of faith? And not do these three also continue to be the only saving ones in the state or progression of faith?

"Therefore any additional good that a person does can by no means be called a good of religion, a good which, as we said, contributes to salvation. If, however, someone does that good for the sake of salvation, it must rather be called an evil of religion."

[9] Two of the gentiles were standing by the doorkeeper in the vestibule, and having heard this, they said to each other, "These people do not have any religion. Who does not see that to do good to the neighbor for God's sake, thus in association with God and impelled by God, is what we call religion." And one of them said, "Their faith has made them foolish." And they asked the doorkeeper who the people were.

The doorkeeper said, "They are wise Christians."

To which they replied, "Nonsense. You are wrong. They are buffoons. That is how they talk."

I then went away. And when after a time I looked back at the place where the house had stood, behold, it was a marsh.

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[10] These events that I saw and heard, I saw and heard while awake in both body and spirit, for the Lord has so united my spirit to my body that I am present in both simultaneously.

My visiting those houses, and the people's deliberations on those matters then, and its happening as described, came about under the Lord's Divine auspices.

Footnotes:

1. Cf. John 10:1.

2. John 1:18.

3. John 10:38.

4. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

5. "Remember Lot's wife."

  
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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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