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 #415

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

415. To this I will append the following narrative account:

One morning as I awoke from sleep, while meditating in the serene morning light before being fully awake, I saw through the window what seemed to be flashes of lightning, and presently heard what seemed to be the rumbling of thunder. Then, as I wondered what the cause was, I heard from heaven the following:

"There are people not far from you who are arguing bitterly about God and nature. The flashing of light like lightning and the rumbling of the air like thunder are correspondences and thus manifestations of the conflict and clash of their arguments, one side on the side of God, and the other on the side of nature."

The reason for the spiritual conflict was this. There were satanic spirits in hell who said to each other, "If we could only speak with angels from heaven! We would absolutely and thoroughly show that what they call God, from whom all things flow, is nature, and thus that God is only a term unless by it they mean nature." And because those satanic spirits believed this with all their heart and all their soul, and longed as well to speak with angels from heaven, it was granted them to ascend from the muck and gloom of hell and to speak then with two angels descending from heaven. They were in the world of spirits, which is midway between heaven and hell.

[2] Seeing the angels there, the satanic spirits rushed up to them and in a furious voice cried out, "You must be the angels from heaven that we are allowed to meet with to argue about God and nature. People call you wise because you acknowledge God, but oh, how simple you are! Does anyone see God? Does anyone understand what God is? Does anyone comprehend how God rules and can rule the universe and each and all things of it? Who but the lower-class and common person acknowledges what he does not see and understand? What is more obvious than that nature is the all in all things? Who has seen anything with his eye but nature? Who has heard anything with his ear but nature? Who has smelled anything with his nose but nature? Who has tasted anything with his tongue but nature? Who has felt anything with the touch of his hand and body but nature? Are not the senses of our body the only attesters of truth? Who cannot swear on the basis of them that a thing is so? Do your heads not exist in nature? The thoughts in your heads - from what origin does anything flow into them but from nature? Take nature away. Are you capable of any thought?"

And they added many other things of a similar nature.

[3] After listening to this, the angels replied, "You speak as you do because you are merely sense-oriented. All spirits in hell keep the ideas of their thoughts immersed in the senses of their body, nor can they elevate their minds above them. We pardon you therefore. A life of evil and a consequent faith in falsity has closed up the inner faculties of your mind, so that to rise above things of the senses is in your case impossible - unless, that is, you are in a state removed from the evils of your life and the falsities of your faith. For a satanic spirit can understand truth when he hears it just as well as an angel, only he does not retain it, because evil wipes out the truth and introduces falsity. However, we perceive that you are now in such a removed state, and so can understand the truth in what we say. Pay attention, therefore, what we are about to tell you."

Then the angels said, "You were in the natural world, and died there, and now you are in the spiritual world. Did you know anything before this about the life after death? Did you not previously deny it, and regard yourselves on a par with animals? Did you know anything beforehand about heaven and hell, or about the light and warmth of this world? Or the fact that you are no longer in the confines of nature but above it? For this world and all things in it are spiritual, and spiritual things are above natural ones, so much so that not the least thing of nature can enter into this world. But because you believed nature to be a kind of god or goddess, you also now believe that the light and warmth of this world are the same as the light and warmth of the natural world, even though they are not in the least the same. For natural light here is darkness, and natural warmth here is cold.

"Did you know anything about the sun of this world, from which comes our light and our warmth? Did you know that this sun is pure love, and the sun of the natural world nothing but fire? That the sun of the world, which is nothing but fire, is the origin from which nature came into existence and continues in existence? That the sun of heaven, which is pure love, is the origin from which life itself, which is love combined with wisdom, came into existence and continues in existence? And thus that nature, which you regard as a god or goddess, is wholly without life?

[4] "If given protection, you could ascend with us into heaven, and if given protection, we could descend with you into hell; and in heaven you would see magnificent and splendid sights, whereas in hell we would see squalid and filthy ones. These differences exist, because all in heaven worship God, and all in hell worship nature. Thus the magnificent and splendid sights in heaven are correspondences of affections for good and truth, while the squalid and filthy sights in hell are correspondences of lusts for evil and falsity.

"Draw your own conclusion, now, from the one and the other, as to whether God or nature is the all in all things."

To this the satanic spirits replied, "In the state in which we are now, we can conclude from what you have said that it is God; but when the delight of evil seizes our minds, we see nothing but nature."

[5] The two angels and two satanic spirits were standing not far from me on the right, so that I saw them and heard them. Moreover, I suddenly saw around them a multitude of spirits who in the natural world had been renowned for their learning; and I wondered at the fact that these learned people would stand, sometimes with the angels, sometimes with the satanic spirits, and that they would side with those with whom they were standing. But I was told that their changes in position reflected changes in their state of mind as they favored now the one side, now the other.

"For they are chameleons," I was told. "Moreover, we will tell you a mystery. We looked down upon the earth at people renowned for their learning, who consulted their own judgment in what they thought concerning God and nature; and we found six hundred out of a thousand on the side of nature, and the rest on the side of God. However, we found the latter on the side of God because they frequently said that nature is from God - not owing to any understanding, but only in consequence of what they had been told; and frequently saying a thing from memory and recollection, and not at the same time as a result of thought and intelligence, induces a kind of faith."

[6] After that the satanic spirits were given protection, and they ascended with the two angels into heaven, where they saw magnificent and splendid sights. Moreover, being then in a state of enlightenment from the light of heaven there, they acknowledged that there is a God, and that nature was created to serve the life which is in God and from God; also that nature in itself is lifeless, and thus does nothing of itself, but is actuated by life.

Having seen and perceived these things, they descended, and as they descended, their love of evil returned, which closed up their intellect above and opened it below; and then above it a kind of veil appeared, flashing with a hellish fire. Moreover, the moment their feet touched the ground, the earth opened under them and they sank back to their companions.

  
/ 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 #76

Study this Passage

  
/ 535  
  

76. The second account:

The next day the same angel came to me and said, "Would you like me to take and accompany you to the peoples who lived in the silver age or period, so that we may hear from them about the marriages of their time?" He also said that these people, too, could not be approached except under the Lord's guidance.

I was in the spirit as before, and I went with my guide. And we came first to a hill in the border region between the east and the south. Then, as we stood upon its slope, he showed me a far extended stretch of land, and we saw in the distance an elevation like that of a mountain. Between it and the hill on which we stood was a valley, and beyond that a level area, and after that a gently rising incline.

We descended from the hill to cross the valley, and here and there on each side we saw blocks of wood and stone carved into the shapes of people and various kinds of animals, birds and fish. So I asked the angel, "What are these? Are they idols?"

And he answered, "Not at all. They are figures representative of various moral virtues and spiritual truths. Among the peoples of this age there was a knowledge of correspondences. Since every person, animal, bird and fish corresponds to some quality, therefore each carving represents some aspect of a virtue or truth, and a group of them taken together represents the whole virtue or truth in a general, extended form. They are what in Egypt were called hieroglyphics."

[2] We continued through the valley, and as we entered the level area, suddenly we saw horses and chariots - horses with variously decorated harnesses and halters, and chariots variously shaped, some carved out like eagles, some like whales, and some like stags with horns, or like unicorns. At the end we also saw some wagons, and stables around at the sides. But when we drew near, both the horses and the chariots disappeared, and instead of them we saw people in couples and pairs, walking, talking and reasoning together.

The angel then said to me, "The various horses, chariots and stables - as they seem at a distance - are appearances expressive of the rational intelligence of the people of this age. For by correspondence a horse symbolizes an understanding of truth; a chariot, its accompanying doctrine; and stables, sources of instruction. You know that in this world, all things take on appearances according to correspondences."

[3] We went on by these things, however, and we ascended by a long incline, until at last we saw a city, which we entered. As we wandered through it, from the streets and public squares we observed its houses. They were all palaces, built out of marble. In front they had steps of alabaster, with columns of jasper on each side of the steps. We also saw temples made of precious stone the color of sapphire and lapis lazuli.

The angel said to me, "They have houses made of different kinds of stone because stones symbolize natural truths, and precious stones symbolize spiritual truths. The people who lived in the silver age all had their intelligence from spiritual truths and so from natural truths. Silver also has a similar symbolism."

[4] As we surveyed the city, we saw married couples here and there in pairs; and since they were husbands and wives, we waited to see if we would be invited in somewhere. Even as we had this in mind, moreover, as we were passing by, two of them called us back into their house. So we went up the steps and went in. Then, speaking with them on my behalf, the angel explained the reason for our coming to that heaven, saying that we had come to be instructed concerning marriages among ancient peoples - "you here being some of them," he said.

They then replied, "We come from peoples in Asia, and the focus of our age was the pursuit of truths, by which we acquired intelligence. This pursuit was the focus of our soul and mind. But the focus of our physical senses was on representations of truths in forms, and a study of correspondences combined the sensory interests of our bodies with the perceptions of our minds, gaining for us intelligence."

[5] Hearing this, the angel asked them to tell us something about marriages among them.

So the husband said, "There is a correspondence between the spiritual marriage, which is a marriage of truth with good, and natural marriage, which is the marriage of a man with one wife. And because we have studied correspondences, we see that the church with its truths and goods can by no means exist except in people who live with one wife in a state of truly conjugial love. For a marriage of good and truth in a person is the church in him.

"Consequently, we who are here all say that a husband is a form of truth, and his wife a form of good, and that good cannot love any other truth than its own truth, nor can truth love any other good in return than its own good. If it were to love another, the inner marriage that forms the church would die, and the marriage would become merely external - the kind of marriage that idolatry corresponds to, not the church. Therefore we call marriage with one wife a sacred union, but if it were contracted with more than one among us, we would call it a sacrilege."

[6] Saying this, he showed us into an anteroom outside the bedroom, which had a number of works of art on the walls and little images apparently cast out of silver. I then asked what they were.

They said, "They are pictures and forms representing the many qualities, attributes and delights which have to do with conjugial love. These ones here represent the unity of souls; these other ones, the conjunction of minds; the ones there, the harmony of hearts; those over there, the delights arising as a result."

While we were looking, we saw on the wall a kind of rainbow, consisting of three colors, purple, blue, and bright white. And we saw how the purple color passed through the blue and tinted the white with a purplish blue hue, and that the latter color flowed back through the blue into the purple and raised it into a kind of flaming radiance.

[7] Then the husband said to me, "Do you understand it?"

And I said, "Instruct me."

So he said, "The purple by its correspondence symbolizes the conjugial love of the wife; the bright white, the intelligence of the husband; the blue, the beginning of conjugial love in the husband's perception from the wife; and the purplish blue, which tinted the white, conjugial love then in the husband. This latter color's flowing back through the blue into the purple and raising it into a kind of flaming radiance symbolizes the conjugial love of the husband flowing back to the wife. Things like these are represented on these walls whenever we reflect on conjugial love, its mutual, progressive and simultaneous union, and then look closely at the rainbows exhibited there."

At this I said, "Things like this today are more than mysteries, for they are of a representational type, representing the secrets of the conjugial love of one man with one wife."

He replied, "So they are, but to us here they are not secrets, and therefore not mysteries."

[8] When he said this, a chariot appeared in the distance drawn by white ponies, and seeing it, the angel said, "That chariot is a signal for us to depart."

Then as we were going down the steps, our host gave us a cluster of white grapes with leaves from the vine still attached, and suddenly the leaves turned silver. And we took them away with us as a memento that we had spoken with people of the silver age.

  
/ 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