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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 #55

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

I once heard a very sweet melody coming from heaven. The singers there were wives, and also young women, who were singing a little song together. The sweetness of the singing sounded like the harmoniously flowing affection of some love. (Heavenly songs are nothing else but voiced affections, or affections expressed and varied in musical tones. For as thoughts are expressed in spoken words, so affections are expressed in the singing of songs. Angels perceive the subject of the affection from the balance and flow of the musical variations.)

I had many spirits around me at the time, and I heard from some of them that they were listening to this very sweet melody, and that it was the melody of a some lovely affection whose subject they did not know. Therefore they began to make various guesses, but without success. Some guessed that the singing expressed the affection of a bridegroom and bride when they become engaged. Some supposed that it expressed the affection of a bridegroom and bride when they celebrate their wedding. And some thought that it expressed the early love of a husband and wife.

[2] However, an angel from heaven then appeared in the midst of them, and he said that they were singing about a chaste love for the opposite sex.

But the spirits standing around asked what a chaste love for the opposite sex was.

So the angel said that it is the love of a man for a maiden or married woman beautiful in form and lovely in manners, which is free of any idea of lasciviousness, and vice versa [that is, the same sort of love of a woman for a single or married man]."

Having said that, the angel vanished.

The singing continued, and now that the spirits knew the subject of the affection that the singing expressed, they began to hear it with a great deal of variety, each in accordance with the state of his own love. Those who looked upon women chastely heard the singing as harmonious and sweet. Those, however, who looked upon women unchastely heard it as discordant and sorrowful. And those who looked upon women with repugnance heard it as harsh and grating.

[3] But then, suddenly, the plain on which they were standing was turned into a theater, and they heard a voice say, "Examine and discuss this love."

Suddenly, too, spirits from various societies were present, and in the midst of them some angels in white. And the angels then addressed them saying, "We have inquired into all kinds of love in this spiritual world, not only the love of a man for a man, and of a woman for a woman, and the mutual love of a husband and wife, but also the love of a man for women, and the love of a woman for men. We have been allowed to pass through society after society as well, and to investigate, and we have not yet found the prevailing love for the opposite sex to be chaste, except in those who, because of their truly conjugial love, are in a constant state of sexual ability, and these are in the highest heavens.

"Moreover, we have also been granted to perceive an influx of this chaste love for the opposite sex into the affections of our hearts, and we felt it exceed every other love in its sweetness, except the love of two married partners whose hearts are one.

"But we pray you examine and discuss this love, because to you it is new and unknown. Also, because it is so exceedingly pleasant, in heaven we call it heavenly sweetness."

[4] As they were therefore discussing it, the first to speak were spirits who could not think of chastity as applying to marriages, and they said, "When one sees a beautiful and lovely woman, maiden or married, is there anyone who can so chasten the ideas in his thought and so purify them from lust that he loves her beauty, yet without at all wishing to taste it if he could? Who can turn the instinctive lust that every man feels into chasteness like that, thus into something against his own nature, and still feel love? When love for the opposite sex enters from the eyes into the thoughts, can it stop at a woman's face? Does it not instantly descend to her breast and beyond?

"The angels have spoken nonsense, saying that a chaste love like that exists and yet is the sweetest of all loves, and that it is only possible in husbands who are in a state of truly conjugial love and who consequently possess an extraordinary sexual ability with their wives. When these husbands see beautiful women, can they hold the ideas of their thought on high any more than others, and keep them suspended, so to speak, to prevent those ideas from descending and extending to that which prompts such a love?"

[5] After them, spirits spoke who were in both a state of coldness and a state of heat, in a state of coldness towards their wives and in a state of heat towards the opposite sex. And they said, "What is a chaste love for the opposite sex? Is it not a contradiction in terms when the word chastity is added to love and sex? What is left when a contradictory adjective is added but something robbed of its proper attribute, which is meaningless? How can a chaste love for the opposite sex be the sweetest of all loves when it is chastity that deprives it of its sweetness? You all know in what the sweetness of that love lies. Consequently, when the idea naturally accompanying this love is banished, where is the sweetness then, and what does it come from?"

Some others then interrupted and said, "We have been in the company of some very beautiful women, and we have not lusted. Therefore we know what a chaste love for the opposite sex is."

But their companions, who knew their lascivious natures, replied, "You were then in a state of antipathy toward the opposite sex owing to impotence, and that is not a chaste love for the opposite sex but the final result of an unchaste love."

[6] Having heard these things, the angels crossly asked the spirits who were standing to the right, towards the south, to speak, and these spirits said, "There is a love between men, also a love between women, and there is the love of a man for a woman and the love of a woman for a man. And these three pairs of loves are completely different from each other.

"Love between two men is like the love between one intellect and another, for men were created and so are born to become forms of understanding.

"Love between two women is like the love between one affection and another for the understanding of men, for women were created and are born to become forms of love for the understanding of men.

"These loves, namely, the love between two men and the love between two women, do not enter deeply into their hearts, but remain outside and only touch. Thus these loves do not unite the two of them interiorly.

"That is why two men together also spar with each other with endless arguments, like two athletes boxing, and two women sometimes as well, with endless insistence on their own wishes, like two marionettes battling with their fists.

[7] "On the other hand, the love between a man and a woman is a love between intellect and its affection, and this enters deeply and unites them. The union also is the love. But a union of the minds and not at the same time of the bodies, or an effort to a union of minds only, is a spiritual love and therefore a chaste love. This love is possible only in those who are in a state of truly conjugial love and who consequently possess an elevated sexuality, because men like this, out of chastity, do not permit themselves to feel an influx of love on account of the body of any other woman than their wife. And because they possess a highly elevated sexuality, they cannot help but love the opposite sex and at the same time turn their backs on anything unchaste.

"Thus they have a chaste love for the opposite sex, which regarded in itself is interior spiritual friendship. This friendship takes its sweetness from an elevated sexuality, but one that is chaste. These men have an elevated sexuality owing to their total renunciation of licentiousness. And it is chaste, because they are only in love with their wives.

"Now, then, because that love in them does not partake of the flesh but only of the spirit, it is chaste. And because the beauty of a woman, owing to the inherent attraction, enters at the same time into their mind, it is sweet."

[8] On hearing this, many of those standing around put their hands to their ears, saying, "Your words hurt our ears! The things you have said are meaningless to us."

These spirits were unchaste.

Then again, the singing was heard from heaven, and now sweeter than before. But to those unchaste spirits, it grated so discordantly that because of the harshness of the discord, they threw themselves out of the theater and ran away, the few spirits remaining being those who in their wisdom loved conjugial chastity.

  
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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 #503

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503. At this point I shall add some accounts of experiences. The first experience.

I heard that a meeting had been called to discuss man's free will in spiritual matters - this was in the spiritual world. There were present from every quarter learned men, who had thought about the subject in the world in which they had previously lived, and many of them had been at councils and synods, both before and after that of Nicaea. They gathered in a sort of circular temple, like the one at Rome known as the Pantheon, which was formerly dedicated to the worship of all the gods, but subsequently consecrated by the papacy to the cult of all the holy martyrs. Around the walls of the temple were what looked like altars; but each had chairs drawn up to it, on which those who had gathered sat, and rested their elbows on the altars as if they were so many tables. No one had been appointed to preside over their meeting, but one by one, as the fancy took them, they broke ranks and coming into the centre gave vent to and made known their opinion. To my surprise, all the members of this assembly were full of arguments in favour of man's complete lack of power in spiritual matters, and they ridiculed the idea of free will in this respect.

[2] When they were assembled one man suddenly rushed into the centre and cried out in a loud voice: 'Man has no free will in spiritual matters, any more than Lot's wife had after she was turned into a pillar of salt. For most certainly, if man had any more freedom, he would of his own accord claim as his own the faith of our church. This is that God the Father in complete freedom and at His good pleasure confers that faith as a free gift on whomever He wishes, whenever He wishes. God would never have this good pleasure nor make this free gift, if by some sort of freedom or good pleasure man could also claim it for himself. For if this happened, our faith, a star which shines before our eyes night and day, would be scattered into the air like a shooting star.'

He was followed by another man who jumped up from his seat and said: 'Man has no more free will in spiritual matters than an animal, or rather, than a dog, because, if he had, he would do good of his own accord, whereas all good comes from God, and man cannot get anything for himself but what is given to him from heaven.'

[3] He was followed by another who leaped up from his seat and spoke from the centre. He said that man has no more free will in spiritual matters, or even in discerning these, than an owl has in daylight, or rather, than a chick has while it is still hidden in the egg. 'In such matters he is as blind as a mole; for if he was a veritable Lynceus 1 to discern what has to do with faith, salvation and everlasting life, he would believe that he could regenerate and save himself, and would actually attempt it, thus profaning his thoughts and deeds with seeking more and more merit.'

Yet another ran out into the centre and delivered this utterance, that anyone of the opinion that he can will or understand anything in spiritual matters since the fall of Adam is raving and becoming deranged, since he would then believe himself to be a tin god or supernatural being, possessing in his own right some portion of God's power.

[4] He was followed by a man who came panting into the centre, carrying under his arm a book, called the Formula of Concord; the Evangelicals at the present time swear by what he called its orthodoxy. He opened it and read out the following passage:

Man with regard to good is utterly corrupt and dead, so that there has remained and subsists in man's nature since the fall before regeneration not so much as a spark of spiritual strength, to enable him to be prepared for God's grace or to seize it when it is offered; or to be capable of receiving that grace of his own accord by his own efforts; or in spiritual matters to understand, believe, endorse, think, will, begin, complete, act, work, co-operate or apply or adapt himself to grace, or to make any contribution, to the extent of a half or even the smallest part, to his conversion. In spiritual matters relating to the salvation of the soul man is like the pillar of salt which was Lot's wife, resembling a block of wood or stone devoid of life, without the use of the eyes, the mouth or any senses. However he has the power of movement and the control of his external members, so as to attend public gatherings and hear the Word and the Gospel. (pp. 656, 658, 661-663, 671-673 in my edition.)

After this all expressed their agreement, crying out together: 'This is true orthodoxy.'

[5] I was standing close by and listening intently to all this, and since in my spirit I was incensed I asked in a loud voice: 'If you make man in spiritual matters a pillar of salt, an animal, blind and mad, what then becomes of your theology? Is not everything in theology a spiritual matter?'

After a period of silence they replied to this: 'The whole of our theology contains nothing spiritual apprehensible by reason. Our faith is the only item in it which is spiritual. But we have carefully shut up our faith to prevent anyone looking into it, and have taken precautions to ensure that no gleam of spirituality escapes from it so as to become visible to the understanding. Moreover man does not by any choice of his own contribute a whit to it. We have also removed charity from any spiritual idea, making it purely a moral matter, and we have treated the Ten Commandments likewise. Neither do we teach that there is anything spiritual about justification, the forgiveness of sins, regeneration and salvation by this means. We say that faith brings these about, but how we have no idea. In place of repentance we have adopted contrition, but to prevent it being thought to be spiritual we have removed it from all contact with faith. Neither have we adopted any but purely natural ideas about redemption. These are, that God the Father placed the human race under sentence of damnation, His Son took that sentence upon Himself, and allowed Himself to be hung upon the cross, thus compelling His Father to have mercy; and we have many more such ideas, in which you will not be able to detect anything spiritual, but only what is completely natural.'

[6] But, so incensed had I already become, I went on to say: 'If man had no free will in spiritual matters, what would he be but a beast? Surely this is what gives him his superiority over mere beasts? What would the church be without it, but the blackened face of a wall-eyed fuller? What would the Word be without it, but a blank book? Is there anything the Word says and commands more often than that man is to love God and to love the neighbour, and he is to believe that his salvation and life depend upon how he loves and believes? Is there anyone who is unable to understand and do what is laid down in the Word and in the Ten Commandments? How could God have prescribed and commanded man to do such things, if He had not given him the capability to do them?

[7] Tell any peasant, someone whose mind is not bogged down in fallacies about theology, that in what concerns faith and charity and the salvation they bring he can no more understand and will than a block of wood or a stone, not even being able to devote himself to or fit himself for them, surely he will roar with laughter and say: "How crazy can you get? What need have I then of a priest and his sermons? How is a church then any better than a stable? How then is worshipping any better than ploughing? What madness it is to talk like that, piling folly on folly. Does anyone deny that all good is from God? Surely man is permitted to do good of himself by God's guidance? And it is much the same with believing."'

On hearing this they all cried: 'We gave an orthodox view based on orthodox principles, you have given a peasant's view based on peasants' principles.' Then suddenly a thunderbolt fell from the sky, and they rushed out in droves for fear it would burn them up, and they all went away, each to his own home.

Footnotes:

1. In Greek mythology a man famous for his acute vision.

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

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