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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

 

Doctrine of the Sacred Scripture #26

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26. 5. The Word’s spiritual meaning is granted after this only to someone who possesses genuine truths from the Lord. The reason is this: because no one can see the spiritual meaning unless he is enabled to do so by the Lord alone, and unless he possesses genuine truths from Him. For the Word’s spiritual meaning deals with the Lord alone and His kingdom, and that sense is the one possessed by His angels in heaven. It is, indeed, His Divine truth there. It is possible for a person to violate that truth if he has a knowledge of correspondences and tries to use it to explore the Word’s spiritual meaning in accord with his own intelligence. Applying some of the correspondences he knows, he may twist its meaning and use it to confirm even falsity, which would be to do injury to Divine truth, and to heaven as well. If someone tries to lay open that sense on his own, therefore, and not from the Lord, heaven is closed, and when heaven is closed, a person either sees nothing, or he becomes spiritually irrational.

[2] There is also another reason. Because the Lord teaches everyone by means of the Word, and teaches him in accordance with the truths the person already possesses and does not infuse new truths directly, therefore if the person is without any Divine truths, or if he possesses only a few truths and is caught up at the same time in falsities, it would be possible for him to use those falsities to falsify the truths — as is also commonly known to be the case with every heretic as regards just the Word’s literal sense.

Consequently, to keep people from entering into the Word’s spiritual meaning, or from twisting the genuine truth found in that sense, the Lord has set protections, meant in the Word by cherubim.

[3] That protections have been set was represented to me in the following way:

I was given to see large purses, looking like sacks, which had stored away in them a great deal of silver. Since they were open, it seemed as if anyone might take some of the silver deposited in them, even to make off with it. However, next to the purses two angels were sitting as guards. The place where the purses rested looked like a manger in a stable. In the next room I saw modest maidens, together with a chaste wife. Near that room were two little children, and I heard it said they were not to be played with in a childish way, but wisely. Afterward a harlot appeared, then a horse lying dead.

4] On seeing these images I was informed that they represented the literal meaning of the Word, which has a spiritual meaning within. The large purses full of silver symbolized concepts of truth there in great abundance. The purses’ being open and yet guarded by angels symbolized that anyone might draw concepts of truth there, but that people should take care not to falsify the spiritual meaning, which contains only truths. The manger in the stable where the purses were sitting symbolized spiritual instruction for the intellect. (A manger has this symbolism, because a horse, which feeds from it, symbolizes the intellect.)

5] The modest maidens I saw in the next room symbolized affections for truth, and the chaste wife the conjunction of truth and good. The little children symbolized the innocence of the wisdom in it (they were angels from the third heaven, all of whom appear like little children). The harlot together with the dead horse symbolized the falsification of the Word by many people today, by which all understanding of the truth has been extinguished. (A harlot symbolizes falsification, and a dead horse no understanding of truth.)

  
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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 #623

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623. The third experience.

I once was allowed to see three hundred clergy together with laymen, all well-educated and learned, because they knew how to prove that faith alone was sufficient for justification, and even 1 beyond. Since their belief was that heaven was merely a matter of being admitted by grace, they were given permission to go up to one community in heaven, but not one of the higher ones. When they went up, they looked from a distance like calves. On entering heaven they were received politely by the angels; but when they began to talk with them, they were seized with trembling, then terror and finally agony like that of death. Then they cast themselves down headlong, and as they fell they looked like dead horses. The reason why they looked like calves, when they were going up, was that the natural affection for seeing and knowing in joyous play is by correspondence like a calf. When they were falling down they looked like dead horses, because by correspondence the understanding of truth looks like a horse, and the lack of understanding of truth as the church possesses it, like a dead horse.

[2] There were some boys down below, who saw them coming down, and looking like dead horses as they fell. Then they turned their faces away, and said to the master who was with them: 'What is the meaning of this monstrous thing? We saw people and now they have turned into dead horses. So being unable to look at them we turned our faces away. Let us not stay in this place, sir, but go away.' So they went away.

Then as they went the master taught them what a dead horse meant. 'A horse,' he said, 'means the understanding of truth drawn from the Word. All the horses you have seen meant that. When someone goes along meditating on something from the Word, his meditation seen from a distance looks like a horse, of good breeding and alive if he meditates spiritually, and by contraries a poor or dead one if he meditates materially.'

[3] Then the boys asked: 'What is meant by meditating spiritually or materially on something from the Word?' 'I will illustrate this,' replied the master, 'by examples. Everyone who reverently reads the Word thinks inwardly about God, the neighbour and heaven, doesn't he? Anyone who thinks about God only as a Person and not as Essence thinks materially; and so does anyone who thinks about the neighbour merely as an external form, without regard to the sort of person he is. If anyone thinks of heaven merely as a place, instead of as love and wisdom, which are what make it heaven, he too is thinking materially.'

[4] But the boys said: 'We have thought about God as a Person, and about the neighbour as a human form, and about heaven as a place which is up above us. So when we read the Word, did we then look to anyone like dead horses?'

'No,' said the master, 'you are still children, and could not do otherwise. But I have noticed that you have an affection for knowing and understanding; and since this is spiritual, you were also thinking spiritually. For there is some spiritual thought hidden within your material thought, a fact so far unknown to you. But I want to go back to what I said before, that anyone who thinks materially when he reads the Word or meditates on anything from it, looks from a distance like a dead horse; but if he thinks spiritually, like a live one. I said too that anyone who thinks of God only as a Person and not as Essence is thinking materially about God. The Divine Essence has many attributes, such as omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternity, love, wisdom, mercy, grace and others too. There are also attributes which proceed from the Divine Essence; creation and preservation, redemption and salvation, enlightenment and instruction. Everyone who thinks of God in terms of Person makes three Gods; there is one God, he says, who is the Creator and Preserver, another who is the Redeemer and Saviour, and a third who is the Enlightener and Instructor. But everyone who thinks of God in terms of Essence makes God one; God created us, he says, and He too redeems and saves us, and also enlightens and instructs us. That is the reason why those who think of the Divine Trinity in terms of Person, and so materially, cannot help being led by the ideas in their thought, which is material, to make three Gods out of one. But they are still obliged to say, contrary to their thinking, that the three are united by Essence, because their thought has also led them to perceive God, as it were through a lattice, in terms of Essence.

[5] 'You, my pupils, should therefore think about God in terms of essence, and from this think about person. Thinking in terms of person about essence means thinking materially about essence too. But thinking about person in terms of essence means thinking spiritually also about person. The pagans of antiquity, since they thought materially about God and so also about His attributes, made not three but as many as a hundred Gods; for they made each separate attribute into a God. You should know that the material cannot enter into the spiritual; but the spiritual can into the material. It is much the same with thinking about the neighbour in terms of external form rather than the sort of person he is. Or again, thinking about heaven in terms of place rather than love and wisdom, which are what heaven is made of. It is much the same with every single thing in the Word. Anyone therefore who cherishes a material idea of God, and also of the neighbour and of heaven, cannot understand anything in the Word, since for him it is a dead letter; and he himself, when he is reading the Word or meditating on anything from it, looks from a distance like a dead horse.

[6] 'Those whom you saw coming down from heaven and turning before your eyes into dead horses were people who had shut off their rational vision as regards theological matters, or the spiritual concerns of the church, not only for themselves but also for others, by their special dogma that the understanding must be kept subservient to their faith. They never thought that if the understanding is kept shut off by religion, it is as blind as a mole, and full of thick darkness. Darkness of this sort, which reflects all spiritual light, prevents it flowing in from the Lord and out of heaven, and sets in its place a barrier at the level of the bodily senses, far below the rational level, in matters of faith. That is to say, it sets this barrier near the nose, securing it in the cartilage there, so that afterwards it is not even possible to smell what is spiritual. As a result, some people have become so sensitive that on catching a whiff of what is spiritual they fall down in a faint. By smell I mean perception. These are the people who make God into three. They do speak in terms of essence, saying that God is one, but still they are led by their faith to pray that God the Father may have mercy for the sake of the Son and send the Holy Spirit, so that it is clear they are making three Gods. They cannot help themselves, if they pray to one to have mercy for the sake of another, and to send a third.' Then the master taught them about the Lord being the one God in whom is the Divine Trinity.

Footnotes:

1. Reading et quidem for et quidam 'and some of them'.

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

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