New Christian Bible Study

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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 #315

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

I once saw, not far from me, an atmospheric wonder. I saw a cloud break up into smaller clouds, some of them light blue, and some dark; and as I watched they seemed to be colliding into each other. Rays of light began to flash in streaks between them, appearing now as sharp as rapiers, now blunted like swords broken. One moment these streaks would race out to strike, the next moment retreat back, altogether like boxers. These different colored little clouds thus looked as though they were fighting with each other, but in sport.

Now because this phenomenon appeared not far from me, I raised my eyes and looked more intently; and I saw boys, young men and older men going into a house, which was built out of marble with a foundation of porphyry. It was over this house that that phenomenon was occurring.

I then spoke to one of the people going in and asked what was happening there.

To that he replied, "It is a school where young men are introduced into various matters having to do with wisdom."

[2] Hearing this, and being in the spirit, that is, in a state like that of people in the spiritual world, who are called spirits and angels, I went in with them. And behold, in that school I saw up front a ceremonial chair; in the central part a number of benches; around the sides some more seats; and over the entrance a balcony. The ceremonial chair was for the young men when it became their turn to respond to the question that would then be put to them. The benches were for those who were there to listen. The seats along the sides were for those who had already answered wisely on previous occasions. And the balcony was for the older men who would be the referees and judges. In the middle of the balcony stood a dais, where a wise man sat whom they called Headmaster; it was he who posed the questions for the young men to respond to from the ceremonial chair.

So then, after all were assembled, the man rose from his dais and said, "Please give your reply now to the following question and explain it if you can: What is the soul, and what is the nature of it?"

[3] On hearing this they were all stunned and began to murmur. And some in the throng on the benches cried out, "What person, from the age of Saturn to our present time, has been able, by any deliberation of reason, to see and lay hold of what the soul is, not to mention what the nature of it is. Is this not beyond the realm of anyone's understanding?"

However, to that the men in the balcony replied, "It is not beyond human understanding, but within its scope and ability to see. Just respond to the question."

So the young men chosen to ascend the chair that day and respond to the question stood up. There were five of them, whom the older men had examined and found proficient in intelligence, and who were then sitting on long, cushioned seats to the sides of the ceremonial chair. Moreover, these afterwards ascended the chair in the order in which they were seated; and as each one ascended it, he would put on a tunic of opal-colored silk, and over that a gown of soft wool inwoven with flowers, and in addition a cap whose peak bore a rosette surrounded by little sapphires.

[4] Accordingly I saw the first one thus dressed ascend the chair. And he said, "What the soul is and what the nature of it is has not been revealed to anyone from the time of creation, being a secret locked away in repositories belonging to God alone. Only this much has been disclosed, that the soul dwells in a person like a queen. But where her court is, this a number of learned seers have guessed at. Some have supposed that it is located in the little protuberance between the cerebrum and cerebellum called the pineal gland. They have imagined the seat of the soul to be there on the ground that a person is governed in his entirety by the cerebrum and cerebellum, which in turn are directed by that gland; consequently that that which directs those two parts of the brain to its bidding also directs the entire person from head to heel."

But he said, "Although this appeared as true or likely to many in the world, in a later age it was rejected as a fiction."

[5] After he had spoken, he took off the gown, tunic and cap, and the second of the young men selected put them on and placed himself in the chair. His statement concerning the soul was as follows:

"No one, in all of heaven and in all the world, knows what the soul is and what the nature of it is. We know only that it exists, and that it exists in a person; but where is a matter of conjecture. This much is certain, that it exists in the head, since that is where the intellect thinks and where the will wills, and it is there in the face in the forepart of the head that a person's five senses are located. Nothing else gives life to these but the soul which is seated somewhere inside the head. But where exactly its court is there I would not venture to say, though I have agreed at different times with those who assign it a seat in the three ventricles of the brain, with those put it in the corpora striata there, with those who put it in the medullary substance of the cerebrum and cerebellum, with those who put it in the cortical substance, and at times with those who put it in the dura mater; for arguments have not been lacking to prompt affirmative votes, so to speak, in support of each of these as the seat.

[6] "Some people have voted in favor of the three ventricles of the brain on the ground that they are receptacles of all the brain's animating essences and fluids. Some have voted in favor of the corpora striata on the ground that they form the medulla through which the nerves exit and through which the cerebrum and cerebellum are continued into the spine, from which medulla and spine issue the fibers of which the whole body is woven. Some have voted in favor of the medullary substance of the cerebrum and cerebellum on the ground that it is a conglomeration and mass of all the fibers which constitute the initial elements of the entire person. Some have voted in favor of the cortical substance on the ground that this is where the first and last terminations of a person are, from which come the beginnings of all the fibers and thus of all sensations and movements. Still others have voted in favor of the dura mater on the ground that it is the overall covering of the entire brain, and extends from there by a kind of continuation around the heart and other internal organs of the body.

"For my part, I do not think any more of one theory than another. I leave it to you to please judge for yourselves and pick which is better."

[7] So saying he descended from the chair and handed the tunic, gown and cap to the third one in line; and mounting the chair the third young man made the following response:

"What business do I have at my young age with so lofty a subject? I appeal to the learned gentlemen sitting here at the sides. I appeal to you wiser men in the balcony. Indeed, I appeal to the angels of the highest heaven. Can anyone, by any rational light of his own, gain for himself any idea of the soul?

"As for its seat in a person, however, concerning this I can, like the others, offer a speculation. And I speculate that it is in the heart and from that in the blood. I come to this speculation because the heart by its blood governs both body and head; for it sends out the great artery called the aorta to the whole of the body, and the arteries called the carotids to the whole of the head. It is universally agreed therefore that it is from the heart by means of the blood that the soul sustains, nourishes and animates the entire organic system of both body and head.

"Adding to the plausibility of this assertion is the fact that the Holy Scripture so often mentions the soul and heart - as for example that you should love God with all your soul and with all your heart, and that God creates in man a new soul and new heart (Deuteronomy 6:5, 10:12, 11:13, 26:16; Jeremiah 32:41; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30,33; Luke 10:27; and elsewhere 1 ); and saying straight out that the blood is the soul of the flesh (Leviticus 17:11,14)."

When they heard this, some of them lifted up their voice, saying, "Masterful! Masterful!" - they being members of the clergy.

[8] After that the fourth in line took from him the vestments and put them on, and having placed himself in the chair, said:

"I, too, suspect that no one is possessed of such fine and polished genius that he can discern what the soul is and what the nature of it is. I judge accordingly that anyone who tries to investigate it only wastes the cleverness of his intellect in vain endeavors. Nevertheless, from childhood I have maintained a belief in an opinion held by the ancients, that a person's soul dwells in his whole being and in every part of it, thus that it dwells both in the head and its individual parts and in the body and its individual parts; and that it was a conceit invented by modern thinkers to assign it a seat here or there and not everywhere. The soul is furthermore a spiritual essence, to which is ascribed neither dimension nor location but indwelling and repleteness. Who, too, does not mean life when he refers to the soul? And does life not exist in the whole and in every part?"

At these words, many in the hall expressed approval.

[9] After him the fifth speaker arose, and outfitted in the same regalia, he presented from the chair the following statement:

"I do not take the time to say where the soul is - whether it resides in any one part or everywhere in the whole; but from my fund and store of knowledge I will declare my mind on the question of what the soul is and what the nature of it is. No one thinks of the soul except as a pure entity which may be likened to ether, air or wind, in which the vital force is from the rationality which human beings have over animals. I base this opinion on the fact that when a person expires or breathes his last, he is said to give up the ghost or soul. For this reason the soul that lives after death is also believed to be such an exhalation, in which is the cognitive life which we call the soul. What else can the soul be?

"However, because I heard you men in the balcony say that the question of the soul - what it is and what the nature of it is - is not beyond human understanding but within its scope and ability to see, I ask and implore you to lay open this eternal mystery yourselves."

[10] At that the older men in the balcony looked at the headmaster who had posed the question. And understanding from the motions of their heads that they wished him to go down and explain, he immediately descended from his dais, crossed the hall and placed himself in the chair. Then stretching out his hand there he said:

"Pay attention, please. Who does not believe the soul to be the inmost and finest essence of a person? And what is an essence without a form other than a figment of the imagination? The soul therefore is a form; but what the nature of the form is remains to be told. It is a form embracing all elements of love and all elements of wisdom. We call all the elements of love affections; and we call all the elements of wisdom perceptions. These perceptions, flowing from the affections and thus together with them, constitute a single form, which contains an endless number of constituent elements in such an order, series and connection that they may be said to be one and indivisible. They may be said to be one and indivisible because nothing can be taken from the whole or added to it without changing its character. What else is the human soul but such a form? Are not all the elements of love and all the elements of wisdom in a person the essential constituents of that form, these being in the soul, and in the head and body from the soul?

[11] "You are called spirits and angels, and in the world you believed that spirits and angels were like bits of wind or ether and so were disembodied minds and hearts. But now you clearly see that you are truly, really and actually whole people - people who in the world lived and thought in a material body, and who knew then that the material body does not live and think, but the spiritual essence in that body, which you called the soul whose form you did not know. And yet now you have seen it and do see it. You are all souls, whose immortality you have heard, thought, spoken and written so much about. And it is because you are forms of love and wisdom from God that you can never hereafter die.

"So then, the soul is a human form, from which nothing can be taken away, and to which nothing can be added, and it is the inmost form in all the forms of the entire person. Moreover, because the forms which exist outwardly take both their essence and their form from the inmost one, therefore you, as you appear to yourselves and to us, are souls.

"The soul, in short, is the person himself, because it is the innermost person. Consequently its form is a fully and perfectly human form. Yet it is not life, but the most immediate recipient vessel of life from God and thus the dwelling place of God."

[12] At this many in the hall applauded; but some said, "We will have to think about it."

I then departed for home; and lo, over that school, in place of the earlier phenomenon, I saw a white cloud without the rays or streaks of light combating with each other. Then, penetrating through the roof, the cloud entered the hall and lighted up the walls; and I heard that they saw inscriptions, and included among them also this one:

Jehovah God breathed into the man's nostrils the breath of life, 2 and the man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)

Footnotes:

1. E.g. Deuteronomy 30:6; Psalms 51:10; Ezekiel 11:19.

2. Literally, soul of life. Hebrew: breath, spirit.

  
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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 #875

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875. To this I will append the following accounts:

On awakening from sleep one morning I saw two angels descending from heaven - one from the south of heaven and the other from the east of heaven - both in carriages to which white horses were harnessed. The carriage in which the angel from the south of heaven rode shone as though made of silver. And the carriage in which the angel from the east of heaven rode shone as though made of gold. The reins which they held in their hands glistened too, as though with the blazing light of dawn.

Thus did the two angels appear to me at a distance, but when they drew nearer, I saw them not in a carriage, but in their angelic form, which is a human one. The one who came from the east of heaven was dressed in a shiny crimson garment, and the one who came from the south of heaven in a shiny blue garment.

When these angels arrived beneath heaven in the region below, each ran to the other, as though endeavoring to see which would be first to reach the other, and they embraced and kissed each other. I was told that when these two angels lived in the world, they were bound together by an interior friendship, but one was now in the eastern heaven, the other in the southern heaven. The angels in the eastern heaven are ones impelled by love from the Lord, while those in the southern heaven are ones impelled by wisdom from the Lord.

[2] After talking a while about the magnificent sights in their heavens, they began to consider whether heaven in its essence is one of love or one of wisdom. They agreed right away that the two are inseparable, but discussed which one is the origin of the other.

The angel from the heaven of wisdom asked what love is, and the other replied that love originating from the Lord as a sun constitutes the vital warmth of angels and men so as to be their life; that offshoots of that love are called affections; and that these produce perceptions and thus thoughts.

"It follows from this," he said, "that wisdom in its origin is love, consequently that thought in its origin is an affection of that love, and one can see from its derivations examined in turn that thought is nothing else than a form of affection. This is not known, because thoughts are seen, whereas affections are matters of warmth, and people reflect on their thoughts, therefore, but not on their affections.

"The case is the same as with sound and speech. That thought is nothing else than a form of affection can be illustrated by speech, as being nothing else than a form of sound. The case is the same, too, because the sound or tone corresponds to affection, and speech to thought. Consequently it is affection that utters sounds, and thought that speaks.

"This can also be clearly seen when the proposition is put, "Take away sound from speech. Is there any speech left? Similarly, take away affection from thought. Is there any thought left?

"It is now apparent, therefore, that love is everything in wisdom, consequently that the essence of the heavens is love, which expresses itself as wisdom. Or what is the same, that the heavens exist from Divine love, and take manifest form from Divine love by means of Divine wisdom. Accordingly the two are, as we said before, inseparable."

[3] I had with me at the time a newly arrived spirit, who on hearing this asked whether the case is the same with charity and faith, inasmuch as charity has to do with affection and faith with thought.

The angel replied, "It is altogether the same. Faith is nothing else than a form of charity, just as speech is a form of sound. Faith is also formed from charity, as speech is formed from the utterance of sound. In heaven we also know the way it is formed, but we don't have time to explain it here."

The angel added, "By faith I mean spiritual faith, which has its spirit and life solely from charity; for charity is spiritual, and it causes faith to be spiritual, too. Consequently faith divorced from charity is a merely natural faith, and such a faith is a lifeless one. It also combines itself with a merely natural affection, which is nothing else than a lust."

The angels spoke about this spiritually, and spiritual speech embraces thousands of things that natural speech is incapable of expressing. And what is surprising, they cannot even fall within the scope of the ideas of natural thought.

Please remember what has been said here, and when you go from natural light into spiritual light, which happens after death, inquire then what faith and charity are, and you will clearly see that faith is charity in form, and thus that charity is everything in faith, consequently that it is the soul, life and essence of faith, altogether as affection is of thought, and as sound is of speech. Moreover, if you wish, you will see that the formation of faith from charity is like the formation of speech from sound, because the two correspond.

After these angels said all of this, they left, and as they departed, each for his own heaven, stars appeared about their heads. And when they were at some distance from me, I saw them again in carriages as I had before.

[4] After those two angels were out of my sight, I saw to my right a garden in which there were olive trees, vines, fig trees, laurel trees, and palms, placed in order in keeping with their correspondence. I looked over there and saw among the trees angels and spirits walking and talking. One of the angelic spirits then looked back at me. (Those spirits are called angelic spirits who are being prepared in the world of spirits for heaven, and after that become angels.)

The angelic spirit came to me from the garden and said, "Please come with me into our paradise, and you will hear and see marvelous things."

So I went with him, and he said to me then, "The people you see" - for there were many - "all possess an affection for truth and so enjoy the light of wisdom. We have also here a building that we call The Temple of Wisdom. But no one can see it who believes himself to be very wise, even less one who believes himself to be wise enough, and still less one who believes that he is wise on his own. That is because they do not experience a reception of the light of heaven from an affection for genuine wisdom. It is the mark of genuine wisdom for a person to see from the light of heaven that what he knows, understands and perceives is so little in comparison to what he does not know, understand, or perceive, as to be like a drop in the ocean, and so scarcely anything.

"Everyone in this garden paradise who acknowledges from an inner perception and sight that his wisdom is comparatively so little, sees that Temple of Wisdom. For an inner light enables him to see it, but not the light about him without that inner light."

[5] Now because I had often had this thought, and from observation and then from perception, and finally from seeing it from an inner light, had acknowledged that a person's wisdom is so little, it was suddenly granted me to see that temple.

The temple was marvelous in form. It was raised above ground level, foursquare, with walls of crystal, whose roof was of translucent jasper elegantly arched, and having a foundation of various kinds of precious stones. It had steps of polished alabaster leading up into it. On either side of the steps I saw figures of lions with their cubs.

I then asked if it was permissible for me to enter, and I was told that I could. Therefore I ascended, and when I entered, I saw what looked like cherubim flying about the ceiling, but which soon vanished. The floor on which I walked was of cedar, and because of the translucence of the roof and walls the whole temple seemed to be made of light.

[6] The angelic spirit went in with me, and I related to him what I had heard from the two angels regarding love and wisdom and at the same time charity and faith.

And at that the angelic spirit said, "Did they not also speak of a third thing?"

"What third thing?" I said.

"The third thing is useful endeavor," he said. "Love and wisdom without useful endeavor are nothing real. They are only theoretical entities, and do not become real until they find expression in useful endeavor. For love, wisdom and useful endeavor are a trio that cannot be separated. If separated, none of them is real. Love is not real without wisdom; but in wisdom it takes form for some end. This end for which it takes form is useful endeavor. Consequently, when love is engaged through wisdom in some useful endeavor, then it is real. Indeed, then for the first time it exists. The three are altogether like end, cause and effect. An end is not real unless it exists through a cause in an effect. If one of the three fades, the whole fades and becomes as nothing.

[7] "It is the same with charity, faith and works. Charity without faith is not real, nor is faith without charity real, and neither charity nor faith is real without works. But in works they become real, and a reality such as the usefulness of the works.

"It is the same with affection, thought and application. And it is the same with will, intellect and action.

"The fact of this can be clearly seen in the context of this temple, because the light with which we are surrounded is a light that enlightens the interiors of the mind.

"That nothing exists that is complete and perfect without a trine is something that we learn also from geometry. For a line has no real existence unless it defines an area, nor does an area have any real existence unless it defines a volume. Thus for them to exist, one element must extend into another, and they exist together in the third.

"As the case is in this, so it is also with each and all created things, which take fixed form in their third element.

"It is for this reason, now, that the number three in the Word, spiritually understood, symbolizes something complete and entire."

This being the case, I could not but wonder that some people profess faith alone, some charity alone, and some works alone, when in fact the first without the second, and the first and the second together without the third, have no reality.

[8] However, I asked then, "Can't a person have charity and faith and yet no works? Can't a person have an affection and thought regarding some matter, and yet no application of himself to it?"

The angelic spirit said to me, "He can, but only theoretically and not really. He must still have an impulse or will to put them into practice, and the will or impulse is in itself an act, because it is a continual endeavor to act, one that becomes the outward act when a conscious determination permits. Every wise person consequently accepts the impulse or will as the inward act, entirely as though it were the outward act, because it is so accepted by God, provided it does not fail when opportunity presents itself."

[9] After that I went down the steps from The Temple of Wisdom and went walking in the garden, and I saw some people sitting under a laurel tree, eating figs. I turned aside to them and asked them for some figs, which they gave me. And lo, the figs in my hand changed into grapes.

Seeing my astonishment at this, the angelic spirit said to me, "The figs in your hand changed into grapes because figs, owing to their correspondence, symbolize goods of charity and so of faith in the natural or external self, whereas grapes symbolize the goods of charity and faith in the spiritual or internal self. So, because you love spiritual matters, this therefore has happened in your case. For in our world everything happens and comes into being, including also transformations, in accordance with correspondences."

There came over me then a desire to know how a person can do good from God, and yet do so as though of himself. Therefore I asked the people eating figs how they understood the matter.

They said that they could understand it only in this way, that God brings it about inwardly in a person and by means of the person without the person's knowledge. For if a person were to be aware of this and then do it as though of himself, which would be the same as doing it of himself, the person would do not good but evil. That is because everything that emanates from a person as coming from himself, emanates from his native character, and a person's native character is from birth evil.

"How then can good from God and evil from man be combined so as to proceed jointly into act?" they said. "Moreover in matters of salvation a person's native character continually pants after reward, and to the extent it does, it usurps from the Lord the Lord's merit, which constitutes the highest injustice and impiety.

"In a word, if the good that God accomplishes in a person through the Holy Spirit were to flow into a person's willing and so doing, the good would be thoroughly defiled and also profaned, something that God nevertheless never permits.

"A person can indeed think that the good he does comes from God, and call it good done by God through him, and done as though of himself, but still we do not understand this."

[10] However, I opened my mind then and said, "You do not understand it because you think in terms of the appearance, and when affirmed, thought in terms of the appearance is fallacious. You labor under the appearance and consequent fallacious thinking because you believe that everything a person wills and thinks and so does and speaks originates in him and consequently from him, when in fact nothing of this originates in him except a state capable of receiving what flows in. The human being is not a form of life in himself, but an organ receptive of life. The Lord alone is life in Himself, as He also says in John:

...as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself... (John 5:26)

"And so on also elsewhere, as in John 11:25; 14:6, 19.

[11] "Life is formed of two elements: love and wisdom, or what is the same, the goodness of love and the truth of wisdom. These flow in from God and are received by mankind, and a person senses them as though originating in him. And because he senses them so, as though originating in him, they also emanate from him as though they originated from him.

"That a person senses them so is something granted by the Lord, in order that what flows in may affect him and so be received and remain.

"But because every evil also flows in, not from God but from hell, and is received with delight, because the human being is born an organ of that character, therefore a person can receive good from the Lord only to the extent of his banishment of evil from himself as though of himself. This he does by repentance together with faith in the Lord.

[12] "I say that love and wisdom, and charity and faith, or in common speech, the goodness of love and charity and the truth of wisdom and faith, flow in, and that what flows in appears to be present in a person as though originating in him, and so as though originating from him; and this can be clearly seen from the illustrations of sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. Everything sensed in the organs of these senses flows in from without, and yet is sensed in them. So, too, in the organs of the inner senses, with the one difference, that flowing into these are spiritual stimuli that are not apparent, whereas into the physical organs flow natural stimuli that are apparent.

"In short, a person is an organ receptive of life from God. He is accordingly receptive of good to the extent that he desists from evil. The ability to desist from evil is something the Lord grants to everyone, because He grants to everyone the ability to will and understand as though of himself, and whatever a person willingly does as though of his own will in accordance with his thinking as though of his own intellect, remains. Or what is the same, whatever a person does of his own free will, in accordance with the reason of his intellect, remains. By this means the Lord induces in a person a state of conjunction with Himself, and in that state the Lord reforms, regenerates and saves him.

[13] "The life that flows in is life emanating from the Lord, which is also called the Spirit of God - in the Word the Holy Spirit - of which it is said as well that it enlightens and vivifies, indeed that it operates in a person. But this life varies and is modified according to the organic form induced on the person by his love and sight.

"You may also know that every good of love and charity, and every truth of wisdom and faith, flow in and do not originate in a person, from the consideration that someone who thinks that such a capacity is present in a person from creation must also think that God infused Himself into mankind, and that people are therefore partly gods. And yet people who are led by their faith to this thought become devils and stink like decayed corpses.

[14] "Besides, what is a person's action if it is not the mind acting? For whatever the mind wills and thinks, it does by means of its physical body. Therefore, when the mind is led by the Lord, the action is also led by Him; and the mind and its consequent action is led by the Lord when the person believes in the Lord.

"If it were not so, tell me if you can why the Lord has commanded in thousands of places in the Word that a person should love his neighbor, that he should practice goods of charity and produce fruits like a tree, and that he should keep His commandments, and all this in order to be saved. Why did He also say that people would be judged in accordance with their deeds or works, those who do goods to heaven and life, and those who do evils to hell and death? How could the Lord have said such things if everything emanating from a person were merit-seeking and thus evil?

"Know therefore that if the mind is charitable, the action also is charitable. But if the mind embraces faith alone, which is a faith divorced as well from any spiritual charity, the action also is one of the same faith, and that faith is merit-seeking, because its charity is natural and not spiritual. Not so the faith accompanying charity, because charity does not seek merit, and so neither does its accompanying faith."

[15] Hearing this, the people sitting under the laurel tree said, "We discern that you have spoken correctly. But we still do not understand."

To that I replied, "Your discerning that I have spoken correctly is due to the common perception that a person has by virtue of an influx of light from heaven when he hears some truth. But you do not understand it from a perception of your own, which a person has by virtue of an influx of light from the world. These two kinds of perception, namely an internal one and an external one, or a spiritual one and a natural one, merge in people who are wise. You too can combine them if you look to the Lord and put away evils."

Because they comprehended this as well, I took some twigs from the laurel tree under which they were sitting and handed these to them, saying, "Do you believe that these come from me or from the Lord?"

And they said that they believed they came through me, as though from me. And suddenly the twigs in their hands blossomed.

As I was leaving then, I saw a cedar-wood table and on it a book, beneath a green olive tree whose trunk was entwined with a vine. I looked at the book, and behold, it was one I had written, titled Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Love and Wisdom, and also Divine Providence. And I said that the book fully demonstrated that a person is an organ receptive of life, and is not life itself.

[16] After that I went home in a cheerful frame of mind because of that garden, accompanied by the angelic spirit, who said to me on the way, "You would like to see clearly the nature of faith and charity, thus the nature of faith divorced from charity, and the nature of faith combined with charity, and I will demonstrate it so that you see it."

"Go ahead and demonstrate it," I replied.

And he said, "Instead of faith and charity, think of light and heat and you will see clearly. For faith in its essence is the truth that is a property of wisdom, and charity in its essence is an affection that is a property of love; and the truth of wisdom in heaven is light, and an affection of love in heaven is warmth. The light and warmth that surround angels are nothing else. You can clearly see from that the nature of faith divorced from charity, and the nature of faith combined with charity.

"Faith divorced from charity is like the light of winter, and faith combined with charity is like the light of spring. The light of winter, a light lacking in warmth, being combined with coldness, strips trees utterly of their leaves, hardens the ground, kills the grass, and freezes bodies of water. On the other hand, the light in spring, a light combined with warmth, causes trees to grow and to produce first leaves, then flowers, and finally fruit, and it expands and softens the ground so that it produces grasses, herbs, flowers and bushes. It also melts ice so that streams flow from their springs.

[17] "The case with faith and charity is entirely the same. A faith divorced from charity kills everything, whereas a faith combined with charity vivifies everything. This killing and vivifying can be empirically seen in our spiritual world, because faith here is light, and charity warmth. For wherever faith is combined with charity, we find paradisal gardens, flower beds, and fields of grass, whose pleasantness accords with the degree of the combination. But wherever faith is divorced from charity, we find not even grass, and where one encounters something green, it is the green of thorn bushes, brambles and nettles. This is the effect in angels and spirits of the warmth and light emanating from the Lord as a sun, and so around them."

Not far from us then were some clergymen, whom the angelic spirit called justifiers and sanctifiers of people by faith alone, and also masters of mystery. We said the same things to them and demonstrated them until the clergymen saw the reality of them. But when we asked whether it was not so, they turned away and said, "We couldn't hear."

At that we shouted at them, saying, "We'll tell you again then!"

They then put their hands over their ears and cried, "We don't want to listen!"

  
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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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