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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 #388

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388. The fourth experience.

I talked with some of those who are meant in Revelation by the dragon, and one of them said: 'Come with me, and I will show you what delights our eyes and hearts.'

So he took me through a dark wood and up a hill, from which I could watch the pleasures of the dragons. I saw an amphitheatre constructed in the shape of a ring surrounded by benches running up in tiers, on which the spectators were sitting. Those sitting on the lowest benches looked to be from a distance like satyrs and priapi 1 ; some had clothing to conceal their private parts, and some without it were totally naked. On the benches above them sat fornicators and prostitutes, as it appeared to me by the gestures they made.

Then the dragon said to me: 'Now you will see our sport.' I saw let into the space in the ring what looked like calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs; and when they were inside, a gate was opened and in rushed what looked like young lions, panthers, tigers and wolves. These furiously attacked the cattle, tore them in pieces and massacred them. After this bloody slaughter the satyrs sprinkled sand over the place where they had been killed.

[2] Then the dragon said to me: 'These are the sports which delight our minds.' 'Away with you, demon,' I replied, 'in a short while you will see this amphitheatre turned into a lake of fire and brimstone.' He laughed at this and went away. But afterwards I began to reflect why such things are permitted by the Lord. I received a reply in my heart, that they are permitted so long as people are in the world of spirits; but once their time in that world is up, such theatrical scenes are turned into the torments of hell.

[3] Everything which I saw had been the product of the dragon's imagination. So they were not really calves, rams, ewes, kids and lambs, but they made the genuine kinds of good and truth in the church, which they hated, appear in this form. The lions, panthers, tigers and wolves were the forms taken by the desires of the people who looked like satyrs and priapi. The ones with no clothing around their private parts were those who believed that evils were not manifest to God; those who had some clothing were those who believed that evils were manifest, but did not damn a person so long as he had faith. The fornicators and prostitutes were those who falsify the truths of the Word, for fornication means the falsification of truth. In the spiritual world everything at a distance looks like what it corresponds to, and when these take visible form they are called representations of spiritual things in the form of objects resembling those in the natural world.

[4] Later on I saw them emerging from the wood, the dragon in the midst of satyrs and priapi, with servants and camp-followers, who were the fornicators and prostitutes, coming after them. The column they formed grew as they went, and then I heard what they were discussing.

They were saying they had seen in a meadow a flock of sheep with lambs, and this was a sign that close by was one of the Jerusalem cities, where charity is the leading characteristic. 'Let us go,' they said, 'and capture that city, expel the inhabitants and plunder their property.' So they approached, but there was a wall around it, and angels on the wall to guard it. So then they said: 'Let us capture it by a trick. Let us send them someone skilled in sophistry, who can make black appear white and white black, and put a colourable gloss on anything.'

So they found someone who was an expert in metaphysics, able to turn real ideas into terminological ones, conceal the facts under forms of words, and so fly off like a hawk with its prey beneath its wings. He was told what to say to the people in the city, that they were co-religionists and should be let in. He went up to the gate and knocked, and when it was opened he said that he wished to speak with the wisest person in the city. He went in and was taken to someone, whom he addressed in these words: 'My brethren are outside the city, begging to be admitted. They are your co-religionists, for you and we both make faith and charity the two essentials of religion. The only difference is, that you put charity first and derive faith from it, and we put faith first and derive charity from it. What does it matter which is put first, when we believe in both?'

[5] The wise citizen replied: 'Let us not discuss this subject by ourselves, but in the presence of a larger audience who can act as umpires and judges. Otherwise we shall not reach a decision.' So more people were soon summoned, and they were addressed by the dragon's ambassador in similar words to those he had previously used.

Then the wise citizen made his reply: 'You have said that it is much the same whether charity or faith is regarded as the leading matter in the church, so long as there is agreement that either of them constitutes the church and its religion. Yet the difference is like that between prior and posterior, cause and effect, principal and instrumental, and essential and formal. I use these terms because I notice that you are an expert on metaphysics, a subject we call mere sophistry, and some people call magic formulas. But let us drop these terms. The difference is like that between what is above and what is beneath. Or rather, if you will believe me, it is the difference between the minds of those in this world who live on the upper level and the minds of those on the lower level. For the leading point constitutes the head and chest, and what is derived from it the feet and the soles of the feet. But first of all let us agree on the definition of charity and faith. Charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of God, salvation and everlasting life; and faith is thinking from a trust in God, salvation and everlasting life.

[6] But the ambassador said: 'I agree that this is the definition of faith, and I also agree that charity is that affection for the sake of God, because it is for the sake of His commandment, but not for the sake of salvation and eternal life.' After this partial agreement and partial disagreement, the wise citizen said: 'Is not affection or liking the leading point, and thought derived from it?' The dragon's ambassador said: 'This I deny.'

But he was answered: 'You cannot deny it. Surely anyone thinks as the result of some liking. Take away the liking, and can he think at all? It is exactly as if you removed the sound from speech; if you took away the sound, could you say anything? Sound too is the product of the affection of some love or other, and speech is the product of thought, for love makes a sound and thought puts it into words. It is also like a flame and light; if you take away the flame, is not the light extinguished? It is much the same with charity, because this is the product of love, and with faith, because this is the product of thought. Can you not thus grasp that the leading point is all-important for the secondary, exactly as the flame is for the light? It is obvious from this that if you do not put the leading point first, you cannot have the second either. Therefore, if you put faith, which is in the second place, in first place, you cannot fail to appear in heaven as upside down, with your feet uppermost and your head down, or like a clown who walks upside down on the palms of his hands. When you look like this in heaven, what then will your good deeds look like, which are charity in action? They can only be the sort of things the clown does with his feet, since he cannot do them with his hands. That is why your charity is natural rather than spiritual, since it is upside down.'

[7] The ambassador understood this, since every devil can understand truth when he hears it; but he is unable to keep it in his memory, because the affection for evil, which is essentially the longing of the flesh, on its return expels thought of the truth. Afterwards the wise citizen showed at some length what is the nature of faith when it is taken as the leading point, namely, that it is purely natural, a conviction devoid of any spiritual life, and in consequence no faith at all. 'And I can almost say that there is no more spirituality in your faith, than there is in thinking about the Mogul empire, the diamond mine in it, and the treasury or court of that emperor.' On hearing this the dragon's man went off in anger and reported to his companions outside the city. When they heard it had been said that charity is the affection of the love of doing good to the neighbour for the sake of [God,] 2 salvation and everlasting life, they all shouted: 'This is a lie!', and the dragon himself cried: 'Ah, what a crime! Surely all charitable deeds if they are done for the sake of salvation, are merit-seeking?'

[8] Then they said to one another: 'Let us summon still more of our people, and lay siege to this city, and let us expel these paragons of charity.' But when they attempted this, a sudden flash of fire from heaven consumed them. But the fire from heaven was a manifestation of their anger and hatred directed against the people in the city, since they had cast down faith from first to second place, or rather to the lowest place beneath charity, since they claimed that it was no faith. The reason they appeared to be consumed by fire was that hell opened up beneath their feet, and they were swallowed up. Similar events to this occurred in many places on the day of the Last Judgment; this too is the meaning of the following passage in Revelation:

The dragon will come forth to lead astray the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, to assemble them for war; and they went up on the surface of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. But fire came down from God out of heaven and consumed them, Revelation 20:8-9.

Footnotes:

1. Priapus, a Roman god of lechery.

2. Restored from Apocalypse Revealed 655.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #224

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224. To this I will add the following account:

I saw a gathering of spirits, all upon their knees, praying to God to send them angels they could speak with face to face and to whom they could disclose the thoughts of their heart.

Then when they arose, three angels appeared in white linen standing before them, and the angels said, "The Lord Jesus Christ has heard your prayers, and has therefore sent us to you. Disclose to us the thoughts of your heart."

[2] The spirits then replied, "Priests have told us that in theological matters it is not the intellect but faith that accomplishes anything, and that in such matters an intellectual faith is of no help to anyone, because it takes its origin from man.

"We are English, and we have heard many things from our sacred ministry which we believed. However, when we spoke with some other people who call themselves Reformed, and with some who call themselves Roman Catholics, and moreover with some Nonconformists, they all seemed to us learned, and yet in many matters not one of them agreed with another. But nevertheless they all said, 'Believe us.' And some said, 'We are God's ministers and we know.'

"Still we knew that the Divine truths that are called truths of faith and are the church's truths are no one's heritage by birth alone, or by heredity, but that they descend out of heaven from God. And because these show the way to heaven, and enter into one's life together with the good of charity and so lead to eternal life, we became anxious and prayed on our knees to God."

[3] At that the angels replied, "Read the Word and believe in the Lord, and you will see the truths that must be those of your faith and life. All in the Christian world draw their doctrinal teachings from the Word as from a single font."

[4] But two of the gathering of spirits said, "We have read it, but have not understood."

The angels replied, "You have not turned to the Lord, and you have also confirmed yourselves in falsities."

The angels also said further, "What is faith without light? And what is thinking without understanding? It isn't human. Ravens too and magpies can learn to speak without understanding. We can assure you that everyone whose soul longs for it can see the truths of the Word in a state of light. There is no animal that does not know the right food for its life when it sees it, and the human being is a rational and spiritual animal. If he hungers for it and seeks it from the Lord, the human being sees for his life not food for his body but food for his soul, which is the truth of faith. Moreover, whatever he does not receive with his intellect, also does not stick in his memory as a concept, but only as words. Consequently when we have looked down from heaven into the world, we have not seen anything, but have only heard sounds, mostly lacking in any harmony.

[5] "But we will list some truths that the learned of the clergy have banished from the intellect, not knowing that there are two paths to the intellect, one from the world and the other from heaven, and not knowing that the Lord raises the intellect from the world when He enlightens it. However, if the intellect is closed by religion, the path to it from heaven is closed, and a person then sees no more in the Word than a blind man sees. We have seen many of this sort fall into pits, from which they have not risen.

"Let examples serve to illustrate. You can understand what charity and faith are, can you not? That charity is to comport oneself well with the neighbor, and that faith is to think rightly about God and the essential constituents of the church? And therefore that anyone who behaves well and thinks rightly, that is, who lives rightly and believes rightly, is saved?"

In response to this the spirits said that they understood.

[6] The angels went on, "You understand, do you not, that to be saved a person must repent of his sins, and that unless a person repents, he remains caught up in the sins into which he was born? Moreover, that to repent means not to will evils because they are sins against God, and once or twice a year to examine oneself, see one's evils, confess them before the Lord, implore His aid, desist from them, and embark upon a new life? And that to the extent a person does this and believes in the Lord, his sins are forgiven?"

Then some of the gathering of spirits said, "This we understand, and so also what the forgiveness of sins is."

[7] At that the spirits then asked the angels to tell them something more, and specifically this time about God, the immortality of the soul, regeneration, and baptism.

To this the angels replied, "We shall say nothing but what you can understand. Otherwise what we say will fall like rain on sand, and however much they may be watered from heaven, any seeds there will still dry up and die."

Regarding God then they said, "People who enter heaven are all allotted a place there and accordingly come into eternal joy in accord with their idea of God, because this idea reigns universally throughout all aspects of worship.

"An idea of God as invisible is not focused on anyone, and so has no focus in anyone. Consequently it passes away and dies.

"An idea of God as a spirit, when one believes a spirit to be like the ether or a puff of wind, is an idea empty of content.

"But an idea of God as a man is a proper idea. For God is Divine love and wisdom, with every property of these, and their containing vessel is man, not ether or a puff of wind.

"The idea of God found in heaven is an idea of the Lord. He is God of heaven and earth, as He Himself taught. Let your idea of God be like ours, and we will be comrades."

When the angels said this, their faces shone.

[8] Regarding the immortality of the soul the angels said, "A person lives to eternity because through love and faith he can be conjoined with God. This is possible for everyone. You can understand that the immortality of the soul results from this possibility if you think about it a little more deeply."

[9] Regarding regeneration they said, "Who does not see that everyone has the freedom to think about God or not to think about Him, provided he has been taught that God exists. Thus everyone has just as much freedom in spiritual matters as he does in civil and moral matters. The Lord gives this freedom to all people continually. Consequently it is his fault if he does not think about God. A person is human because of this ability [to think about God], while an animal is an animal because it lacks the ability. Therefore a person can reform and regenerate himself as though of himself, provided he acknowledges at heart that the ability comes from the Lord. Everyone who repents and believes in the Lord is reformed and regenerated. A person must do both as though of himself, but the "as though of himself" comes from the Lord.

"It is true that a person can contribute nothing to this end - nothing at all - but still you were not created sculpted forms, but were created human beings, in order that you might accomplish this from the Lord as though of yourselves. This reciprocation of love and faith is the one thing that the Lord above all wishes a person to do for Him.

"In a word, do it of yourselves, but believe that you do it from the Lord, thus doing it as though of yourselves."

[10] The spirits, however, then asked the angels whether doing things as though of oneself was not something with which a person was endowed from creation.

One of the angels replied, "It is not something with which a person is endowed, because to do something of oneself is God's alone, but He grants the ability to a person continually, that is to say, He attaches it to a person continually; and then to the extent that a person does good and believes truth as though of himself, he is an angel of heaven. But to the extent that he does evil and so believes falsity, which he does also as though of himself, he is to that extent an angel of hell. You are surprised to be told that he does this also as though of himself, but yet you see it when you pray to be protected from the devil, that he not lead you astray, lest he enter into you as he entered into Judas, fill you with all iniquity, and destroy both soul and body. 1

"Still, everyone makes himself responsible for an action if he believes that he does it of himself, be it good or evil, but does not make himself responsible for it if he believes that he does it as though of himself."

[11] Regarding baptism the angels said that it was a spiritual washing, which is reformation and regeneration, and that a little child is reformed and regenerated when he becomes an adult and does the things that his sponsors promised for him, of which there are two, namely, repentance and faith in God. For his sponsors promise first that he will renounce the devil and all his works, and second that he will believe in God. All little children in heaven are initiated into these two, though for them the devil is hell and God is the Lord.

"Moreover, baptism is a sign to angels that a person belongs to the church."

[12] Having heard this, some of the gathering of spirits said, "We understand it." But a voice from the side was heard crying, "We don't understand it." And another voice, "We don't want to understand it."

The spirits then inquired into whose voices they were, and they found that they belonged to people who had confirmed themselves in the falsities of their faith, and who wished to be credited as oracles so as to be revered.

The angels said, "Do not be astonished. Such is the character of very many people today. From heaven they look to us like sculpted forms, so skillfully made that they can move their lips and make organism-like sounds, but they do not know whether the breath they use to make sounds comes from hell or from heaven, because they do not know whether anything is false or true. They reason and reason, and defend and defend, but they do not see whether anything is so.

"You should know, however, that human ingenuity can defend whatever it wishes, even to the point that it appears to be the case. Heretics, therefore, can do this. So can the impious. Atheists indeed can make it appear that there is no God, but only nature."

[13] After this the gathering of English spirits, burning with a desire to become wise, said to the angels, "People say such different things about the Holy Supper. Tell us what the truth is."

The angels said, "The truth is that anyone who turns to the Lord and repents is, by that most holy act, conjoined with the Lord and introduced into heaven."

But some of that gathering said, "This is a mystery."

To which the angels replied, "It is a mystery, but yet of the sort that one can understand.

"The bread and wine do not create the conjunction. There is no holiness in them. But material bread and heavenly bread correspond to each other, and so do material wine and heavenly wine. Heavenly bread is the holiness in love, and heavenly wine is the holiness in faith, both originating from the Lord, and both being the Lord. This occasions a conjunction of the Lord with man and of man with the Lord - a conjunction not with the bread and wine but with the love and faith of a person who has repented - and conjunction with the Lord is also an introduction into heaven."

Then, after the angels taught them something about correspondence and its effect, some of the gathering said, "Now for the first time we understand."

And when they said, "We understand," suddenly something flame-like descending with its light from heaven affiliated the spirits with the angels, and they loved each other.

Footnotes:

1. A reference to the prayer recited before Anglican celebrations of Holy Communion, the English text of which is quoted in The Doctrine of Life 5, which concludes, "Therefore if any of you be a blasphemer of God, or hinderer or slanderer of His word, or adulterer, or be in malice or envy, or in any other grievous crime, repent you of your sins, or else come not to the Holy Table; lest after the taking of that Holy Sacrament the Devil enter into you, as he entered into Judas, and fill you with all iniquities, and bring you to destruction both of body and soul."

  
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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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