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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

 

True Christian Religion #137

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137. The fourth experience.

I was told that a council had been summoned, made up of people famous for their books and learning, to discuss the present state of faith, and how the chosen are made righteous by it. This took place in the world of spirits, and I was allowed to be present at it in the spirit. I saw a gathering of clergy, composed of both those who agreed and those who disagreed with this. On the right stood those who in the world were called the Apostolic Fathers, and lived in the period before the Council of Nicaea 1 . On the left stood men who since that time had been famous for their books, either, printed or copied in manuscript by apprentices. Many of these were clean-shaven and wore wigs made of curly women's hair; some of them had rolled collars, some winged collars. The other party, however, had beards and their own hair.

In front of the two parties stood a man who was a judge and reviewer of worldly writings. He rapped for silence on the ground with a staff he held in his hand. Then he went up the steps to his chair of office, and uttered a groan; he intended to follow it with a loud cry, but the groan choked his breath back in his throat.

[2] At length he was able to speak as follows: 'Brothers, what an age is this we live in! A person has arisen from the throng of laymen, one without the cap and gown of learning nor honoured with academic laurels, and has dislodged our faith from its place in heaven, and hurled it into the river Styx. What a dreadful crime! Yet that faith alone is our guiding star, shining like Orion by night, and like the Morning Star at dawn. For all his years that man is totally blind to the mysteries of our faith, because he has not opened it up to see in it the righteousness of our Lord and Saviour, and His mediation and propitiation; and not seeing these, he has failed too to see the wonders of how He makes us righteous, the remission of sins, regeneration, sanctifying and salvation. This man has taken away our faith with its outstanding saving power, because it is directed to three Divine Persons, and so to God in His totality, and concentrated it upon the Second Person - and not even all of that, but upon His Human. We do of course call this Divine as the result of the incarnation of the Son from eternity, but no one thinks of it as anything but purely human. And what then can come from this but a faith which is a plentiful source of nature-worship? That sort of faith, lacking spirituality, is little different from faith in the Vicar of Christ, or in a Saint. You know what Calvin in his time said about worship founded on that sort of faith. Will one of you please tell me, what is the source of faith? Surely it comes directly from God, in whom lies everything needed for our salvation?'

[3] At this his companions on the left, the party without beards, who wore curly wigs and a rolled collar about their necks, clapped their hands and shouted: 'Most wisely spoken! We know that we cannot receive anything which is not given to us from heaven. Let that prophet tell us the source of faith, and what else faith is. It is impossible for it to be other or of other origin. It is as impossible to present any other faith, which truly is a faith, as it is to ride to some constellation in the sky, catch a star, and bring it back stored in one's coat pocket.' This speech was designed to make his companions laugh at any new sort of faith whatever.

[4] On hearing this the party on the right, who wore beards and had their own hair, became angry. One of them got up, an old man, though afterwards he appeared young, because he was an angel from heaven, where people of any age grow young again. He spoke and said: 'I have heard what sort of faith you have, the faith that was so highly praised by the man who holds the chair of office. But what is that faith but our Lord's tomb after the resurrection, when it was sealed again by Pilate's troops? I opened it up and I could see nothing in it but some conjurers' wands, which the wise men of Egypt used to perform their miracles. Rather, your faith is outwardly in your eyes like a bookcase of solid gold, set with precious stones, which when opened is empty, except perhaps for a little dust from the relics of Roman Catholics in its corners. For they have the same faith as you, only it is nowadays wrapped up in outward displays of holiness. To go on with comparisons, it is like the Vestal Virgin of antiquity, who allowed the sacred fire to go out, and was buried alive. I can assure you that in my eyes your faith is like the golden calf around which the Children of Israel danced, when Moses had gone away to climb Mount Sinai to Jehovah.

[5] 'You need not be surprised at my using such comparisons to speak of your faith, because that is how we speak of it in heaven. On the other hand, our faith is, has been, and ever will be in the Lord God the Saviour, whose Human is Divine and whose Divine is Human. This makes it easy for us to accept, as uniting the Divine spiritual to the natural of men. So it becomes a spiritual faith at the natural level, and this makes the natural as it were translucent, as the result of the spiritual light which illuminates our faith. The truths of which it is made up are as numerous as the verses in Holy Writ; all its truths are like stars, which by their light show it forth and give it form. A person acquires faith from the Word by means of his own natural powers of enlightenment, which are based upon knowledge, thought and false belief. But with those who believe in the Lord, He turns these into conviction, trust and confidence. This makes the natural faith spiritual, and charity gives it life. This faith appears to us like a queen decked out with as many jewels as the wall of the Holy Jerusalem (Revelation 21:17-20).

[6] 'But to prevent you believing that my words are mere exaggeration and consequently not to be taken seriously, I will read you some passages from the Holy Word, which will show plainly that our faith is not in a man, as you think, but in the true God, in whom is all that is Divine. John says:

Jesus Christ is the true God and everlasting life. 1 John 5:20.

Paul says:

In Christ all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, Colossians 2:9.

In the Acts of the Apostles:

Paul preached both to Jews and Greeks repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, Acts of the Apostles 20:21.

The Lord Himself said that to Him was given "all power in heaven and upon earth" (Matthew 28:18). These are but a few quotations.'

[7] After this the angel looked at me and said: 'You know what those who call themselves Evangelical believe, or should believe, about the Lord the Saviour. Recite some of their tenets, so that we can know whether they are so foolish as to believe that His Human is purely human, or whether they attribute any Divinity to it, and, if so, how.'

Then in front of the whole assembly I read out the following statements from the handbook of orthodoxy called 'The Formula of Concord,' published in Leipzig in 1756:

In Christ the Divine and the Human natures are so united as to make one Person. (pp. 606 762). Christ is truly God and Man in one undivided Person, and remains so for ever. (pp. 609 673, 762). In Christ God is Man and Man is God. (pp. 607, 765).

Christ's human nature was raised to fully Divine majesty; this is also said by many of the Fathers. (pp. 844-852, 860-865, 869-878).

Christ as to His human nature is omnipresent and fills all space. (pp. 768, 783-5.)

Christ as to His human nature has all power in heaven and on earth. (pp. 775-776, 780).

Christ as to His human nature sits at the right hand of the Father. (pp. 608, 764).

Christ as to His human nature is to be invoked; this is proved by quotations from Scripture (p. 226).

The 'Confession of Augsburg' gives the highest degree of approval to that mode of worship (p. 19).

[8] After reading these statements I turned to the man in the chair of office and said: 'I know that everyone here is paired with someone like him in the natural world; please tell me whether you know who your colleague is.'

He answered in a solemn tone: 'Yes. I am paired with a famous man 2 who is a leader of the noble troops of the church militant.'

Since he spoke in such a solemn tone, I said: 'Forgive my asking, but do you know where this famous leader lives?'

'Yes,' he said, 'not far from Luther's tomb.'

I smiled at this and said: 'Why do you say "his tomb"? Do you not know that Luther has risen again, and has now renounced his erroneous doctrines about justification by faith in three Divine Persons from eternity, and has therefore been transferred to live with the blessed of the new heaven, where he sees and laughs at those who follow him in this madness?'

'I know this,' he replied, 'but how does it concern me?'

So then I addressed him in equally solemn tones: 'Put the idea,' I said, 'into the mind of your famous man who is paired with you, that I am afraid that contrary to the orthodoxy of his own church, he then for the moment took His divinity away from the Lord, or allowed his pen to plough a furrow, in which he unwittingly planted the seeds of nature-worship, when he wrote an attack on the worship of the Lord our Saviour.'

To this he answered: 'I cannot do this, because he and I are of almost one mind on this subject; but he does not understand what I say, while I have a clear understanding of everything he says.' This was because the spiritual world enters into the natural world and perceives the thoughts of people there, but not the reverse. This is the nature of the association between spirits and men.

[9] Since I had now begun a dialogue with the holder of the chair, I said: 'If I may, I should like to put in another question or two. Do you not know that Evangelical orthodoxy, as stated in their church's handbook called 'The Formula of Concord', teaches that in Christ God is Man and Man is God, and that His Divine and His Human are in one undivided Person, and so remain for ever? How then could he, and how can you, defile the worship of the Lord with nature-worship?'

To this he answered: 'This I know, and yet I do not know.'

So I went on and said: 'I put the question to him, absent as he is, or to you in his place, what was the source of the soul of the Lord our Saviour? If you answer that it was from His mother, you are mad; if that it was from Joseph, you are doing violence to the Word; but if that it was from the Holy Spirit, you are right, so long as by the Holy Spirit you understand the Divine coming forth and working, so that He is the Son of Jehovah God.

[10] 'I ask you again, what is the meaning of hypostatic union? If you answer that it is like a union between two, one of whom is above and the other below, you are mad, for in this way you could have made God the Saviour into two, just as you make God into three. But if you say that it is a union in one person, as between the soul and the body, you are right. This too is in accordance with your doctrine and that of the Fathers: see The Formula of Concord, pp. 765-768. See also the Athanasian Creed, which contains these words:

The correct belief is that we should believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is God and Man; and though He is God and Man, there are not two, but there is one Christ. He is in every way one, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of Person. For just as the reasoning soul and the flesh make one man, so God and Man make one Christ.

[11] I ask yet further, what else was the abominable heresy of Arius, which led to the calling of the Council of Nicaea by the Emperor Constantine the Great, but a denial of the divinity of the Lord's Human? Tell me further, whom you understand by these words in Jeremiah:

Behold, the days will come, when I shall raise up for David a righteous shoot, who will reign as King, and this will be his name, Jehovah our righteousness, Jeremiah 23:5-6; 33:15-16.

If you say the Son from eternity, you are mad; He was not the Redeemer. But if you say the Son born in time, who was the only-begotten Son of God (John 1:18; 3:16), you are right. He by His redeeming act became righteousness, on which you base your faith. Read too Isaiah 9:6 and other passages, which predict that Jehovah Himself was to come into the world.'

The holder of the chair kept silence at this and turned away his face.

[12] When this was over, the presiding officer intended to close the meeting with prayer, but from the party on the left there suddenly sprang out a man, who had a cap on his head and a hat on top of it. He put his finger to his hat and said: 'I too am paired with a man in your world, who occupies a high position there. 3 I know this because I can speak his mind like my own.'

'Where,' I asked, 'does this eminent person live?'

'At Goteborg,' he replied. 'I have on occasion gathered from his thoughts that your new doctrine smacks of Mohammedanism.'

At this I saw all the party on the right, where the Apostolic Fathers were standing, amazed and crestfallen, and heard exclamations rising from their minds to their lips: 'What an abominable thing! What an age we live in!'

To allay their righteous anger I held up my hand and requested to be heard. When permission was given, I said: 'I know that a man of the eminence you describe has written something of the sort in a letter, which was subsequently printed. But if he had then known what a grave slander it is, he would surely have torn it in pieces, and consigned it to the flames. That is the same sort of insult as was meant by the Lord's words to the Jews, when they said that Christ performed His miracles by some other power than God's (Matthew 12:22-32). In addition, the Lord also says there:

Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me, scatters, Matthew 12:30.

When I said this, his colleague lowered his gaze, but after a little raised it again to say: 'I have never heard you speak so harshly.'

'The reason,' I replied, 'is the two dogmas of nature-worship and Mohammedanism, which are criminal lies cunningly invented, and two lethal blows designed to lead men's wills astray and repel them from the holy worship of the Lord.' I then turned to the second colleague and said: 'Tell the man in Goteborg if you can, to read the Lord's words in Revelation 3:18, and also the passage at Revelation 2:16 of that book.'

[13] When I said that, uproar broke out; but it was quelled by a light which shone down from heaven. This induced many of the party on the left to cross over to those on the right. But those remained on the left whose thoughts were entirely vacuous, and who therefore hang on the lips of any teacher, as well as those who think of the Lord as wholly human. The light streaming down from heaven seemed to be reflected off both these last two groups, but to flow into those who crossed over from left to right.

Footnotes:

1. AD 325.

2. The reference is to Dr Ernesti (1707-1781), who lived at Eisleben in Germany. He published a violent attack on Swedenborg, who replied briefly, referring to this passage. See 'Small Theological Works and Letters,' ed. Elliot, p. 197.

3. This may refer to Dr O. A. Ekebom, Dean of Goteborg in Sweden in 1761.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #294

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

In the natural world people possess two levels of speech, because they possess two levels of thought, one inward and one outward. For a person can speak from his inner thought and at the same time then from his outer one, or he can speak from his outer thought and not from his inner one, and even contrary to his inner one. This is what makes possible pretenses, flatteries, and hypocrisies.

In the spiritual world, however, people do not possess two levels of speech, but a single one. A person there speaks as he thinks. Otherwise his voice becomes grating and hurts the ears. Still, he can remain silent and so not divulge the thoughts of his mind. Consequently, when a hypocrite comes into the company of people who are wise, either he goes away, or he hurries to a corner of the room and makes himself inconspicuous, and sits silent.

[2] Many spirits once gathered in the world of spirits and discussed this circumstance with each other, saying that being unable to speak as one thinks in the company of good spirits was a hardship for those who had not thought correctly about God and the Lord.

At the center of the gathering were the Protestant Reformed, and many of their clergy, and next to them Roman Catholics with some monks. Both groups said at first that it was not a hardship. What need is there to speak otherwise than as one thinks? And if perchance one does not think correctly, can he not purse his lips and remain silent?

Moreover, one of the clergy said, "Who does not think correctly about God and the Lord?"

But some of the gathering said, "Still, let's put it to the test."

And regarding God, there were some who had confirmed themselves in a trinity of persons - particularly because of the statement in the Athanasian doctrine,

The person of the Father is one person, that of the Son another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another.

And,

As the Father is God, so is the Son God, and the Holy Spirit God.

These were told to say "one God." But they could not. They contorted their lips and twisted them into many convolutions, but they could not articulate the sound into any other words than those in keeping with the ideas of their thought, which were ideas of three persons and so of three Gods.

[3] Moreover, those who had affirmed a faith divorced from charity were told to say the name Jesus. But they could not, even though they could all say Christ, and also God the Father. They were surprised at this, and inquiring into the reason, they found that they prayed to God the Father for the sake of the Son, and did not pray to the Savior Himself. For Jesus means Savior.

[4] They were further told to speak from their thought about the Lord's humanity and say, "Divine humanity." But none of the clergy present there could do so, though some of the laity could, and therefore the subject was presented for a serious ventilation.

So then, 1. They had read to them these statements in the Gospels:

The Father... has given all things into (the Son's) hand. (John 3:35)

(The Father has) given (the Son) authority over all flesh... (John 17:2)

All things have been delivered to Me by My Father. (Matthew 11:27)

All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. (Matthew 28:18)

They were then told to retain in thought therefore the idea that Christ is God of heaven and earth, both in respect to His Divinity and in respect to His humanity, and so to utter the term, "Divine humanity." But still they could not. And they said that they even retained from the quotations some thought of the idea from an understanding of it, but nevertheless without any acknowledgment of it, and that for that reason they could not.

[5] 2. After that they had read to them statements from Luke 1:32, 34-35, 1 saying that the Lord in respect to His humanity was the Son of Jehovah God, and statements showing that in respect to His humanity He is everywhere in the Word called the Son of God, and also the only-begotten. 2 And the examiners asked them to retain this idea in their thought, along with the idea that the only begotten Son of God born into the world could not but be God, as the Father is God, and to utter the term, "Divine humanity."

But they said, "We cannot, because our spiritual thought, which is the inner one, does not allow into the thought nearest our speech any other than like ideas."

They said, too, that they perceived from this that it is now not possible to keep separate their levels of thought as in the natural world.

[6] 3. Next they had read to them the Lord's words to Philip:

Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father...." (And the Lord) said to him, ."..He who sees Me has seen the Father... Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me?" (John 14:8-11)

And moreover other passages, saying that the Father and He are one (John 10:30, and elsewhere). And they were told to retain this idea in thought and then say "Divine humanity." But because their thought was not rooted in an acknowledgment that the Lord was God even in respect to His humanity, therefore they could not. They contorted their lips into convolutions to the point of becoming irate, and they tried to force their mouths into uttering it and to spit it out. But without success. The reason was that mental ideas flowing from an acknowledgment unite with spoken words in people who live in the spiritual world; and when those ideas do not exist, words are lacking, for ideas become words when uttered in speech.

[7] 4. Then they had read to them statement from the church's doctrine accepted throughout the world, saying that the Divine and human in the Lord are not two but one, indeed one person, united altogether like soul and body - statements from the Athanasian Creed. And they were told, "You may take from this an idea in keeping with your acknowledgment, that the Lord's humanity is Divine, because His soul is Divine, for it comes from your church's doctrine which you acknowledged in the world. Moreover the soul is the underlying essence and the body the form, and the essence and form are united, like being and expression, or like the efficient cause of an effect and the effect itself."

The spirits retained this idea and tried in accord with it to utter the term, "Divine humanity." But they could not, for their inner idea of the Lord's humanity dismissed and expunged this novel new idea, as they called it.

[8] 5. Again they had read to them the following from John:

...the Word was with God, and the Word was God... And the Word became flesh... (John 1:1, 14)

And the following from Paul:

...in (Christ Jesus) dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. (Colossians 2:9)

And they were told to think hard that God, who was the Word, became flesh, and that all the Divine dwells in Him bodily. "Perhaps," they were told, "you can then utter the term, 'Divine humanity.'"

But they could not, saying openly that they could not entertain the idea of a Divine humanity, as God is God and man is man, and God is a spirit, "and we can think of a spirit only as being like a puff of wind or bit of ether."

[9] 6. Finally they were told, "You know that the Lord said, "Abide in Me, and I in you... He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. (John 15:4-5)" And because some of the English clergy were present, they had read to them also something from one of their prayers before Holy Communion:

For, when we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink the blood, then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us.

"If you now think that this would not be possible unless the Lord's humanity is Divine, utter then the term, "Divine humanity," from an acknowledgment in the thought."

But still they could not. For they had the idea so deeply impressed on them that the Lord's Divinity was one thing and His humanity another, so that His Divinity was like the Divinity of the Father, and His humanity like the humanity of any other man.

The examiners said to them, however, "How can you think so? Is it possible for a rational mind ever to think that God is three and the Lord two?"

[10] 7. After that the examiners turned to the Lutherans, saying that the Augsburg Confession and Luther taught that the Son of God and the Son of Man in Christ are one person, that He is also in respect to His human nature the true, almighty and eternal God, and that being in respect to that nature at the right hand of almighty God, He governs everything in heaven and on earth, fills everything, is present with us, and dwells and acts in us. Moreover, there is no difference in any worship of them, since through the nature that is seen, the Divinity that is not seen is worshiped. Thus in Christ, God is man, and man is God.

Hearing this, the Lutherans replied, "Is that right?" And having looked around, they presently said, "We have not known this before. Consequently we cannot."

But one or two of them said, "We have read this and written it, yet when we have thought about it to ourselves on our own, the words were still only words, of which we could not form an interior idea."

[11] 8. Finally, turning to the Roman Catholics, the examiners said, "Perhaps you can pronounce the term 'Divine humanity,' because you believe that Christ is wholly present in the bread and wine of your Eucharist and in every particle of it, and you also worship Him as God when you present the host and distribute it, and you call Mary the mother of God. Consequently you acknowledge that she gave birth to God, which is to say, to His Divine humanity."

They then tried to utter the term in accord with those mental ideas they had of the Lord. But they could not, because of the physical idea they had of His body and blood, and because of their assertion that it was human power and not Divine power that He conferred on the Pope.

A monk then rose and said that he could think of the term "Divine humanity" as applying to the Virgin Mary, mother of God, and also to the patron saint of his monastery.

And another monk came forward saying, "I can, in accord with my mental idea of it, say 'Divine humanity' as a term applying to our most holy Pope rather than to the Christ."

But at that other monks pulled him back and said, "Shame on you."

[12] After that I saw heaven opened, and I saw little flame-like tongues descending and flowing into some of those present, and they then began to celebrate the Lord's Divine humanity, saying, "Put aside the idea of three Gods and believe that in the Lord dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that the Father and He are one as a soul and body are one, and that God is not a puff of wind or bit of ether, but human, and you will then be conjoined with heaven, and the Lord will enable you thereby to say the name Jesus and utter the term, "Divine humanity."

Footnotes:

1. "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David... Then Mary said to the angel, 'How can this be, since I do not know a man?' And the angel answered and said to her, 'The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.'"

2. John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18

  
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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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