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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 #16

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16. At this point I shall insert an account of an experience.

I saw some newcomers to the spiritual world from the natural world talking among themselves about the three Persons of the Divinity from eternity. They were in holy orders and one of them was a bishop.

They came up to me, and after we had talked for a while about the spiritual world, about which they had previously known nothing, I said: 'I heard you talking about the three Persons of the Divinity from eternity. Would you please reveal to me this great mystery in accordance with the views which you formed in the natural world from which you have just come?'

Then the bishop looked at me and said: 'I see that you are a layman, so I will reveal the views I hold about this great mystery and instruct you. My views were, and still are, that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit sit in the midst of heaven on magnificent, high seats or thrones; God the Father on a throne of pure gold, with a sceptre in His hand; God the Son on His right hand on a throne of the finest silver, with a crown on His head; and God the Holy Spirit next to them on a throne of glistening crystal, holding a dove in His hand. Around them are three glittering rows of hanging lamps made of precious stones; and at a distance from this ring stand countless angels all worshipping and glorifying God. In addition, God the Father discusses constantly with His Son the souls who are to be justified; they decide between them and decree who on earth are worthy to be received among the angels and crowned with everlasting life. As soon as God the Holy Spirit hears the names they give, He flies through the world to them, bringing with Him the gifts of righteousness, a token of salvation for each person who is to be justified. Immediately on His arrival He breathes on them and blows away their sins, like a man with a fan who clears the smoke from a furnace, and whitewashes it. He removes too the stony hardness of their hearts and imparts the softness of flesh; and at the same time He renews their spirits or minds, brings them to a new birth, and gives them babyish faces. Finally He marks their foreheads with the sign of the cross, and calls them the Chosen and the Sons of God.' At the conclusion of this lecture the bishop said to me: 'That is how I unravelled that great mystery in the world; and because many of my clergy there applauded my speech, I am sure that you too, being a layman, will be persuaded by it.'

[2] On the conclusion of this speech by the bishop, I looked hard at him and the clergy with him, and noted that they were all fully in favour of his views. So I embarked upon a reply, and said: 'I have weighed up your profession of belief, and have inferred from it that you have formed and hold an entirely natural and sensual, I might say, material idea about the Triune God. This must inevitably lead to the idea of three Gods. Is it not thinking according to the senses to imagine God the Father seated upon a throne with a sceptre in His hand? Or about the Son on His throne with a crown on His head? Or the Holy Spirit on His with a dove in His hand, and flying throughout the world to carry out His orders? Since that is the sort of idea that emerges, I cannot accept the truth of your words. From my earliest years I have not been able to admit into my mind any idea of God except as One; and since this has been what I have admitted and is what I still hold, everything you have said makes no impression on me. In due course I saw that by the 'throne' on which the Scriptures say that Jehovah sits is meant His kingdom, by 'sceptre' and 'crown' His rule and dominion, by 'sitting at the right hand' the omnipotence of God exercised by means of His humanity; and by what is said of the Holy Spirit the workings of the Divine Omnipresence. Please take up, my lord, the idea of One God and give it reasonable consideration, and you will at length clearly grasp that this is so.

[3] 'You certainly say that God is one, and this is because you make the three Persons share one, undivided essence. Yet you do not allow anyone to say that the one God is one Person, but insist that there are three Persons, a belief necessary to preserve an idea of three Gods such as you have. You also attribute to each Person a character differing from the others'; do you not by this divide that Divine essence of yours? In these circumstances how can you say and at the same time think that God is one? I would forgive you if you said that there is one Divine. How can anyone who is told that 'the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and that each person by Himself is God' possibly think that God is one? Surely this is a contradiction which cannot be believed. This illustration will show that one cannot speak of one God but only a like Divinity: one cannot call a group of people, who make up a single senate, assembly or council, one man, but so long as they all individually hold the same opinion, they can be said to have one view. Nor can three diamonds of a single composition be called one diamond, only one in respect of their composition; and each diamond differs from another in value according to its weight. This would be impossible if they were one, and not three.

[4] 'However, I perceive that you call the three Divine Persons, each of whom is by Himself or singly God, one God, and have commanded every member of the church to speak in these terms, because enlightened and sound reason throughout the world acknowledges that God is one. You would therefore blush with shame, if you too did not speak in these terms. Yet all the time that you are uttering the words 'One God', although you are thinking of three, still that shame does not trap the two words in your mouth, but you say it aloud.'

After these speeches the bishop and his clergy withdrew, and as he went he turned round and wanted to shout 'There is one God'; but he could not, because his thought hampered his tongue; and then, forcing his lips apart, he gasped 'Three Gods'. The bystanders on seeing this monstrous happening burst into laughter and went away.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #269

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269. We subsequently ascended from this underworld in a southerly direction to where we had been before; and there the angels recounted a number of other things worth mentioning, concerning lust that is not delusionary or given to fantasy - the kind everyone is possessed of from birth. Whenever people are caught up in this lust, they said, they are as fools, and yet appear to themselves as extremely wise. But they are by turns brought back from this foolish state into a rational one, which in them resides in their outward faculties; and in that state they see, recognize and acknowledge their insanity.

"But still," the angels continued, "they long to go from their rational state into their irrational one, and they also let themselves go into it, as from a compelled and unpleasant condition into a free and pleasant one. Thus it is lust that pleasures them inwardly, and not intelligence.

[2] "Every human being is from creation a combination of three universal loves: love of the neighbor, which is also a love of performing useful services; love of the world, which is also a love of possessing riches; and love of self, which is also a love of exercising command over others.

"Love of the neighbor, or a love of performing useful services, is a love of the spirit. Love of the world, on the other hand, or a love of possessing riches, is a love of material things. And love of self, or a love of exercising command over others, is a love of one's own person.

[3] "A person is a human being as long as love of the neighbor or a love of performing useful services forms the head, with love of the world forming the body, and love of self forming the feet. But if love of the world forms the head, a person is not a human being except in a kind of hunchbacked way. And when love of self forms the head, he is no longer a human being standing on his feet, but one standing on his hands with his head down and bottom up.

"When love of the neighbor forms the head, and the other two loves form respectively the body and feet, the person appears, when viewed from heaven, to have an angelic face, with a beautiful rainbow-like halo about his head. But if love of the world forms the head, he appears when viewed from heaven to have a pallid face, like that of a dead man, with a yellow circle about his head. And if love of self forms the head, he appears from heaven to have a dark face, with a white circle about his head."

At that point I asked what the circles around the heads represented.

"They represent intelligence," they replied. "A white circle around a head with a dark face represents that the person's intelligence lies in his outward faculties or round about him, while insanity resides in his inward faculties or within him. Even a person like that is wise so long as he is in a state of the body, but when he is in a state of the spirit he is insane. No one is ever wise in spirit except from the Lord, which comes about when he is being born again or created anew by Him."

[4] Following these words, the ground to my left opened, and through the opening I saw a devil rising, having a luminous white circle about his head. I asked him therefore, "Who are you?"

"I am Lucifer," he answered, "son of the dawn. And because I made myself like the Most High, I was cast down." 1

In fact he was not really Lucifer, but he thought he was. So I asked him, "Seeing that you were cast down, how is it that are you able to rise again from hell?"

To which he replied, "In hell I am a devil, but here I am an angel of light. Do you not see the ring of light encircling my head? And if you wish, you will see, too, that with moral people I am more than moral; with rational people, more than rational; indeed, with spiritual people, more than spiritual. I can even preach, and moreover have preached."

"What have you preached?" I asked.

"I have preached," he said, "against swindlers, against adulterers, and against infernal loves of every kind. Indeed, at such times I have called myself - Lucifer - a devil, and have uttered falsehoods against myself as such; and for that I have been praised to the sky. That is why I have been called son of the dawn. Moreover - what has surprised me - whenever I was in the pulpit, I had no other thought than to speak uprightly and fittingly. However, I discovered in myself the reason, which is that I was caught up in external states, and these were then separate from my inward ones. Yet, having discovered this in myself, still I could not change, because my arrogance prevented me from having regard for God."

[5] I then inquired, "How were you able to speak as you did, seeing that you are a swindler, adulterer, and devil yourself?"

He replied, "I am one sort of person when I am in external states or a state of the body, and another when I am in internal states or a state of the spirit. In a state of the body I am an angel, but in a state of the spirit a devil. For in a state of the body I am directed by my understanding, but in a state of the spirit by my will; and my understanding carries me upward, while my will carries me down. Furthermore, when I am directed by my understanding, a band of white encompasses my head; however, as soon as my understanding surrenders itself completely to my will and becomes its servant - which is our ultimate fate - then the band turns black and disappears. When that happens, we can no longer ascend into this light."

The devil afterwards talked about his dual states, one external, one internal, and he spoke of them more rationally than anybody else has. But suddenly, when he noticed the angels with me, he became inflamed in face and voice and turned black, including even the band about his head; and he sank back down to hell through the opening through which he had risen.

There were some people standing by who witnessed these events, and they drew from them the following conclusion, that a person's character is shaped by his will, and not by his intellect, since love easily carries away the understanding into seeing things its way and becoming its servant.

[6] I then asked the angels, "How is it possible for devils to have such rationality?"

And they said, "It comes from the glory of self-love; for love of self is wrapped in glory, and glory raises the understanding even into the light of heaven. Indeed, in every person the understanding is capable of being raised in accordance with his knowledge, in contrast to the will, which can be raised only by living in accordance with the truths of the church and of reason. That is why even atheists who from love of self are motivated by the glory of their reputation and by a resulting conceit in their own intelligence, may possess a higher degree of rationality than many others - but only when they are directed by the thought of their intellect, and not by the affection of their will. For the affection of the will governs a person's inner self, while the thought of the intellect governs his outer one."

One of the angels further explained why human beings are a combination of the three loves referred to previously, namely, a love of being useful, a love of the world, and a love of self. The reason, he said, is to enable a person to think in accord with God, yet do so as though on his own. The highest elements in a person are directed upwards to God, the intermediate elements outwards to the world, and the lowest ones downwards to self. And because these last elements are directed downwards, a person thinks as though on his own, when in fact he does so from God.

Footnotes:

1. See Isaiah 14:12-15. The reference is a metaphor for the king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:3,4), but based on an erroneous connection with Luke 10:18 (cf. also Revelation 9:1, 12:7-10), since the 3rd century it has been applied to Satan, a mythical rebel angel cast down from heaven. Modern interpreters generally understand the reference as an allusion to the planet Venus, translating it usually as "day star" or "morning star."

  
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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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