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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 #386

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386. The second experience.

One morning on waking from sleep I saw two angels coming down from heaven, one from the south, the other from the east of heaven; they were both in chariots to which were harnessed white horses. The chariot in which the angel from the south of heaven rode shone as if of silver, and that in which the angel from the east of heaven rode shone as if of gold; and the reins they held in their hands shone as if touched by the flame-coloured light of dawn. That was how the two angels looked to me at a distance; but when they came near, they did not appear in a chariot, but in the form of angels, which is the human form. The one coming from the east of heaven wore a shining purple robe; the one from the south of heaven a violet robe. When these angels reached the lower levels beneath the heavens each ran towards the other, as if racing to see who could arrive first, and embraced and kissed each other.

I was told that the two angels had been very close friends during their lives in the world, but one was now in the eastern heaven, the other in the southern one. The eastern heaven is the home of those who have love from the Lord, the southern heaven is that of those who have wisdom from the Lord. After talking for some time about the splendours of their heavens, their talk turned to this topic: whether heaven in its essence is love or whether it is wisdom. They agreed at once that one depends on the other, but they discussed which was the origin of the other.

[2] The angel from the heaven of wisdom asked the other: 'What is love?' He replied that love arising from the Lord as a sun is the heat which gives life to angels and men, so it is the Being of their life; and the things derived from love are called affections, and it is these which give rise to perceptions and thus to thoughts. 'From this flows the consequence that wisdom is by its origin love, consequently thought is by its origin an affection belonging to that love. It can be seen by considering the derivatives in their proper sequence that thought is nothing but the form taken by affection. This fact is unknown because thoughts are exposed to light, but affections to heat, so that people reflect on thoughts, but not on affections. Thought being nothing but the form taken by an affection belonging to some love or other can also be illustrated by speech, since this is nothing but a form of sound; it is also similar in that sound corresponds to affection, and speech to thought, so that affection makes a sound, and thought articulates it into words. This can also be made obvious, if we say: "Take sound away from speech - is there anything left of speech? Likewise take affection away from thought - is there anything left of thought?" It is now plain from this that love is the whole of wisdom, and consequently the essence of the heavens is love, and their coming-into-being is wisdom; or what is the same thing, the heavens are the product of Divine love, and they come into existence from Divine love by means of Divine wisdom. Therefore, as I said before, one depends upon the other.'

[3] At that time I had with me a recently arrived spirit, who on hearing this asked whether it was similar with charity and faith, since charity belongs to affection, and faith to thought.

'Yes, exactly similar,' replied the angel. 'Faith is nothing but the form of charity, just as speech is of sound. Faith is also formed by charity, as speech is by sound. We in heaven know how this forming occurs, but I have not time to explain it here. By faith,' he added, 'I mean spiritual faith, in which life and spirit come solely from the Lord by means of charity, for this is spiritual and the means by which faith is acquired. Faith without charity therefore is purely natural faith, and this is lifeless faith; it also links itself with purely natural affection, which is nothing but longing.'

[4] The angels were talking on this subject spiritually, and spiritual speech includes thousands of things beyond the power of natural speech to express, and remarkably enough these things cannot enter into the ideas of natural thought. After talking on both these subjects the angels went away, and as they receded, each towards his own heaven, stars appeared round their heads; and when they were at some distance from me I saw them again in chariots, as before.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #111

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111. The second experience 1 .

In the natural world people's speech is twofold, because so is their thought, for it may be external or internal. For one can speak as a result of internal thought and at the same time of external thought, or simply as the result of external thought without the internal, or even contrary to it. This is the origin of pretence, insincerity and hypocrisy. But in the spiritual world people do not have twofold speech but only one way of speaking; they speak as they think, otherwise the sound of their voices is harsh and hurts the ears. One can, however, still keep quiet and not reveal the thoughts arising in the mind. Consequently a hypocrite on coming into the company of wise people either goes away, or hurries into a corner of the room, makes himself inconspicuous and sits in silence.

[2] There was once a large assembly in the world of spirits to discuss this subject. They said that being unable to speak except as one thought was hard for those who did not have right ideas about God and the Lord, when they mixed with good people. The middle of the assembly consisted of people from the Reformed Churches, many of them clergy, and next to them were the Roman Catholics and their monks. To begin with, both parties said that this was not hard. 'What need is there,' they said, 'to speak otherwise than one thinks? And if perhaps anyone does not think aright, can he not keep his mouth shut and be silent?'

A clergyman said: 'Is there anyone who does not think aright about God and the Lord?'

But some people in the assembly said: 'Let us put them to the test.' So they told those who have a firm conviction about God as a Trinity of Persons to think about and say 'One God'. They could not do so; they twisted and screwed up their mouths into all kinds of shapes, but were unable to utter any words except those which agreed with their thoughts, and these were about three Persons, so consequently three Gods.

[3] They went on to tell those who had convinced themselves of the doctrine of faith separated from charity to name 'Jesus'. They could not do so, though they were able to say 'Christ', and also 'God the Father'. This surprised them and they asked why. The reason they discovered to be the fact that they had prayed to God the Father for the sake of His Son, and not to the Saviour Himself; and 'Jesus' means Saviour.

[4] Then they were told to think about the Lord's Human and say 'the Divine Human'. None of the clergy present was able to do so; but some of the laymen could. So they made this the subject of a profound debate. Then (i) the following passages from the Gospels were read to them:

The Father gave all things into the hand of the Son, John 3:35.

The Father gave the Son power over all flesh, John 17:2.

All things were handed to me by the Father, Matthew 11:27.

All power has been given to me in heaven and on earth, Matthew 28:18.

'Now keep in mind,' they were told, 'that Christ both in His Divine and in His Human is the God of heaven and earth, and while doing so say the Divine Human.' But they were still unable to do so; and they said that although they could retain some thoughts coming from their understanding of the subject, still they could not acknowledge this at all, and that was the reason for their failure.

[5] (ii) Then the passages from Luke (Luke 1:32, 34-35) were read to them, which prove that the Lord in His Human was the Son of Jehovah God, and that He is there called 'the Son of the Most High', and in many other passages 'the Son of God', as well as 'the Only-begotten'. They begged them to keep this in mind, and also that the only-begotten Son of God who was born in the world must inevitably be God, just as His Father is God, and then to say 'the Divine Human.' But they said: 'We cannot, because our spiritual, that is, interior thought does not permit any but similar ideas to enter the thought which is nearest to speech.' As a result they said they perceived that now they were not allowed to divide their thoughts, as they had in the natural world.

[6] (iii) Next, these words of the Lord to Philip were read to them:

Philip said, Lord, show us the Father; and the Lord said, He who sees me sees the Father; do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? John 14:8-11.

Also other passages stating that the Father and He are one (e.g, John 10:30). They were told to keep these in mind, and so to say 'the Divine Human.' But because their thought was not rooted in the acknowledgment of the Lord as God in His Human too, they screwed up their mouths until they became indignant, wanting to force their mouths to utter the words, but being unable to do so. The reason was that the ideas one thinks of, which are derived from acknowledgment, are identical with the words of language, when one is in the spiritual world. In the absence of those ideas, the words will not come, for speaking is putting ideas into words.

[7] (iv) Then the following passage was read to them from the doctrine received throughout the Christian world:

The Divine and the Human in the Lord are not two, but one, in fact one Person, united like soul and body in man.

This is from the Athanasian Creed, and has been accepted by the Councils. Then they were told: 'This at least will give you some idea and enable you to acknowledge that the Lord's Human is Divine, because His soul is Divine. This is the doctrine of your church, and you acknowledged it in the world. Moreover, the soul is the very essence of a person, and the body is the form, and essence and form make one, like being and coming-into-being, or like the efficient cause which produces the effect and the effect itself.' They held this idea in mind, and tried by means of it to say 'the Divine Human', but still they could not. For the idea deep within their minds about the Lord's Human banished and drove out this new supplementary idea, as they called it.

[8] (v) After this the following passage from John was read to them:

The Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the Word was made flesh, John 1:1, 14.

and also this:

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

and from Paul:

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

John 2:9.

They were told to think along these lines: that God who was the Word became man; that He was the true God; and that all the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily. They did so, but only in their external thought; for the resistance of their internal thought prevented them from saying the words 'the Divine Human.' They said frankly that they could not have any idea of a Divine Human, 'because God is God, and man is man; and God is a spirit, and we have never understood spirit as anything but wind or ether.'

[9] (vi) Finally they were told: 'You know that the Lord said:

Remain in me and I in you; he who remains in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, because without me you can do nothing, John 15:4-5.

Because some of the English clergy were present, a passage was read to them from one of the prayers used in the Holy Communion:

For, when we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink the blood, then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in Us. 2

Now consider that this would be impossible, if the Lord's Human were not Divine, and then say 'the Divine Human', acknowledging this in your thought. But they were still unable to do so, because the idea was so deeply stamped on their minds that what is Divine could not be human, and what is human could not be Divine; and that the Lord's Divine was from the Divine of the Son born from eternity, while His Human was like that of any other man. They were told: 'How can you think this? Can the rational mind ever conceive of a Son born of God from eternity?'

[10] (vii) Then they turned to the Evangelical party and said that the Confession of Augsburg and Luther taught that the Son of God and the Son of Man were one Person in Christ, and that even in His human nature He was omnipotent and omnipresent; and this enabled Him to sit at the right hand of God the Father, and control all things in the heavens and upon earth, to fulfil all prophecies, be with us, and dwell and work in us; that there was no distinction in worship, because through the visible nature the invisible Godhead is worshipped; and that in Christ God is man and man is God. On hearing this they replied: 'Is that so?' They looked around and after a while said: 'We did not know this before; that is why we cannot say 'the Divine Human.' One or two said: 'We read that and wrote it, but when we pondered it in our hearts, they were only words, of which we had no inward notion.'

[11] (viii) Lastly they turned to the Roman Catholics and said: 'Perhaps you can name the Divine Human, because you believe that in your Eucharist Christ is wholly present in the bread and wine, and in every part of them. Moreover you worship Him, when you display and carry around the Host, as the Most Holy God. You also call Mary the mother of God. Consequently you acknowledge that she gave birth to God, that is, the Divine Human.' Then they tried to say the words, but because there then slipped in a material idea of the body and blood of Christ, and also a belief that His Human could be separated from the Divine, and in fact is so separated in the Pope, to whom only His human and not His Divine power was transferred, they could not pronounce them. Then a monk got up and said that he could think of the Divine Human in the case of the most holy Virgin Mary, or the patron saint of his monastery. Another monk came up who said: 'The idea which I now cherish in my mind enables me to say the Divine Human of his Holiness the Pope, rather than of Christ.' But then some of the Catholics pulled him back saying: 'You should be ashamed of yourself.'

[12] After this heaven appeared to open, and tongues like small flames were seen coming down and lighting on certain people. These then praised the Divine Human of the Lord, saying: 'Banish the idea of three Gods, and believe that in the Lord all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and that the Father and He are one, just as soul and body are one, and that God is not wind or ether, but is man. Then you will be linked with heaven, and the Lord will enable you to name Jesus and to say "the Divine Human."'

Footnotes:

1. This section is repeated with minor changes from Apocalypse Revealed 294.

2. These words are quoted in English in the original.

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

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