(14)

 

Remarriage

 

 

317. It may come into discussion whether conjugial love, which is of one man with one wife, can after the death of a married partner be separated, or transferred, or superinduced; so also whether remarriages have anything in common with polygamy, and may thus be called successive polygamy; besides many other questions which with reasoners are wont to add themselves as scruples to scruples. Therefore, in order that masters of casuistry, who reason in the shade about these marriages, may see some light, I have thought it would be worthwhile to present to the judgment the following propositions concerning them, viz.:

 

(1) That whether to contract matrimony again after the death of a married partner depends upon the preceding conjugial love.

 

(2) That it depends also upon the state of marriage in which they had lived.

 

(3) That with those who had not love truly conjugial nothing stands in the way, or hinders their contracting matrimony again.

 

(4) That those who have lived together in love truly conjugial do not wish to marry again, unless for reasons apart from conjugial love.

 

(5) That the state of marriage of a young man with a virgin is of one kind, and that of a young man with a widow of another.

 

(6) Also that the state of marriage of a widower with a virgin is of one kind, and that of a widower with a widow of another.

 

(7) That the varieties and diversities of these marriages, as to love and its attributes, exceed all number.

 

(8) That the state of a widow is more grievous than the state of a widower.

 

Now follows the explanation of these.

 

318. (1) That whether to contract matrimony again after the death of a married partner depends upon the preceding conjugial love. Love truly conjugial is as a balance in which inclinations to marry again are weighed. In the degree that the preceding conjugial love approximates to that love the inclination to marry again recedes; and in the degree that the preceding love departs from that love the inclination to marry again is wont to draw near. The reason is obvious, because conjugial love is in a like degree a conjunction of minds, which continues in the bodily life of one after the decease of the other; and this holds the inclination, like the tongue in the balance, and makes the preponderance according to the appropriation of true love. But as an approach to this love is rarely made at this day, unless for a few steps, the scale of preponderance of inclination commonly raises itself to the point of equilibrium, and from this point tends and inclines to the other side, that is, to marriage.

 

[2] The contrary is the case with those whose preceding love in the former marriage drew away from love truly conjugial. The reason is, that recession from that love is in a like degree a disjunction of minds, which also continues in the life of the body of the one after the death of the other, and enters the will, disconnected from the will of the other, and causes an inclination to a new conjunction, in favor of which the thought, introduced by the inclination of the will, brings in the hope of a more united and thus more delightful cohabitation.

 

[3] That the inclinations to remarriages take their rise from the state of the preceding love is known. And reason sees it also; for inherent in love truly conjugial is the fear of loss, and grief after loss, and this grief and that fear are in the very inmosts of the mind. Hence it is that just so far as that love is in them, so far the soul inclines, both in will and thought, that is in intention, to be in the subject with which and in which it was. It follows from this that the mind is held in poise as to another marriage, according to the degree of love in which it was in the former. Hence it is that the same are reunited after death and mutually love each other in like manner as in the world. But, as was said above, at this day that love is rare, and they are few who touch it with the finger, and those that do not touch it, and more yet, those that wander far away from it, as they longed for separation during the past life with the consort, which was cold, so after the death they desire conjunction with another. But more will be said of both of these in what follows.

 

319. (2) That whether to contract matrimony again after the death of a married partner depends also upon the state of marriage in which they had lived. By the state of marriage is not here meant the state of love, of which in the preceding section, because this causes an internal inclination for or against marriage, but the state of the marriage is meant which causes an external inclination for or against it, and this state with its inclinations is manifold. For example: (a) If there are small children in the house and a new mother needs to be provided for them. (b) If still more children are desired. (c) If the house is large and equipped with servants of both sexes. (d) If continual out-of-door occupations withdraw the mind from the affairs of the household at home, so that without a new mistress there is fear of trouble and misfortune. (e) If mutual aid and mutual services are required, as in various kinds of business and occupation. (f) Moreover, it depends on the peculiar qualities of the separated married partner, whether after the first marriage the one can or cannot live alone, or without a consort. (g) The preceding marriage also either causes a fear of conjugial life, or favor towards it. (h) I have heard that polygamous love, and the love of sex, also the lust of defloration, and the lust of variety, have led the minds of some into a desire for remarriages; and that the minds of some have been led by fear of the law, and for their reputation, in case they indulge in whoredom. Besides many other incentives which produce external inclinations to marriages.

 

320. (3) That with those who had not love truly conjugial nothing stands in the way, or hinders their contracting matrimony again.

 

There is no spiritual or internal bond in the case of those who had not conjugial love, but only a natural or external bond; and if an internal bond does not hold the external together in its order and tenor it does not endure, any more than a bandage with the fastening removed, which spreads out as it is cast down or disturbed by the wind. The reason is that the natural takes its origin from the spiritual, and in its existence is nothing else than a collection brought together by virtue of things spiritual. If then the natural be separated from its spiritual by which it was produced and as it were begotten, it is no longer held together from within, but only outwardly, by the spiritual that surrounds and binds it in general, but does not collect it nor hold it collected in particular. Hence it is that the natural separated from the spiritual with two married partners effects no conjunction of minds, and so not of their wills; but only a conjunction of some external affections which cohere with the senses of the body.

 

[2] That with such there is no obstacle or hindrance to their marrying again is because they had not the essentials of marriage, and hence there are none with them after separation by death. Therefore they are then in entire freedom to bind their sensual affections, if a widower with whatever woman and if a widow with whatever man is agreeable and lawful. They themselves do not think of marriage otherwise than naturally, and of advantage for various external needs and utilities, which after the death of one can be restored again by another person in place of the former. And perhaps if their inward thoughts were seen through, as in the spiritual world, there might not be found in them any distinction between conjugial conjunctions and copulations outside of the conjugial. It is permissible for these to marry again and again for the reason given above. For conjunctions that are only natural are of themselves dissolved and flow apart after death, because external affections at death follow the body and are entombed with it, those remaining which are coherent with things internal. But it should be known that marriages inwardly conjunctive can only with difficulty be entered into on earth, because the choice of internal similitudes cannot here be provided by the Lord as in the heavens; because they are limited in many ways, as, to equals in station and condition, or within the country, the city, and the village of their abode; and here for the most part external things serve to knit them together, and thus not internal, which do not come forth, unless some time after marriage; and only when these put themselves forth into externals do they become known.

 

321. (4) That those who have lived together in love truly conjugial do not wish to marry again, unless for reasons apart from conjugial love. Why those who have lived in love truly conjugial do not desire to marry again after the death of their married partner is for these reasons. (a) Because they are united as to souls, and thence as to minds, and this unition being spiritual is an actual adjunction of the soul and mind of the one to those of the other, which can by no means be dissolved. That such is the nature of spiritual conjunction has been shown here and there before.

 

[2] (b) That as to the body also they are united, through the reception by the wife of the propagations of the soul of the husband, and thus by the insertion of his life into hers, whereby the virgin becomes a wife; and on the other hand through the reception of the conjugial love of the wife by the husband, which arranges the interiors of his mind, and at the same time the interiors and exteriors of his body, into a state receptive of love and perceptive of wisdom, which state makes him from a young man into a husband; about which see above at n. 198.

 

[3] (c) That a sphere of love from the wife and a sphere of understanding from the man flows forth continually, and that this perfects the conjunctions; and that this with its pleasant aroma surrounds them, and unites them, may be seen above at n. 223.

 

[4] (d) That married partners thus united in marriage think and breathe what is eternal, and upon this idea their eternal happiness is founded, may be seen at n. 216.

 

[5] (e) It is by virtue of all these realities that they are “no more twain but one man,” that is, “one flesh.”

 

[6] (f) That such a one cannot be torn asunder by the death of either is very manifest to the ocular vision of the spirit.

 

[7] (g) To these reasons may be added this, which is new, that the two are still not separated, after the death of the one, since the spirit of the deceased dwells continually with the spirit of the one not yet deceased, and this even until the death of the other, when they meet again, and reunite themselves, and love each other more tenderly than before, because in a spiritual world. From all this comes the irrefragable consequence, that they who have lived in love truly conjugial do not wish to marry again; and if they contract anything like marriage afterwards, it is done for reasons apart from conjugial love. And these reasons are all external, such as: if there are small children in the house, and the care of them must be provided for; if the house is large and equipped with servants of both sexes; if out-of-door occupations withdraw the mind from family affairs at home; if there are necessities for mutual aid and services; and other like reasons.

 

322. (5) That the state of marriage of a young man with a virgin is of one kind and that of a young man with a widow of another. By the states of marriage are meant the states of the life of both, of the husband and of the wife, after the wedding; thus, as to the quality of their cohabitation during the marriage, whether it is internal, of souls and minds (which is cohabitation in the principal idea), or whether it is only external, of the lower mind [animi] of the senses, and of the body. The state of marriage of a young man with a virgin is itself initiatory to genuine marriage; for conjugial love between them can proceed in its just order, which is from the first heat to the first torch, and after that, from the first seed with the youth-husband and from the flower with the virgin-wife, and so can germinate, grow, and fructify, and thus introduce itself into those states mutually; if otherwise, then the young man was not a young man or the virgin not a virgin except in external form. Between a young man and a widow there is not a like initiation from the beginnings up to marriage, nor a like progression in marriage, since a widow is more at her own will and disposal than a virgin, and therefore a young man bestows his attentions upon a widow-wife with another look than upon a virgin-wife. But in these matters there are many varieties and diversities, for which reason only this general statement is made.

 

323. (6) Also, that the state of marriage of a widower with a virgin is of one kind, and that of a widower with a widow of another. For the widower has already been initiated into marriage life, and the virgin is to be initiated, yet conjugial love perceives and feels its pleasantness and delight in mutual initiation. A youth-husband and a virgin-wife are all the time perceiving and feeling what is new in the things that come to pass, whereby they are in a kind of perpetual initiation and thence in a lovely progression. It is otherwise in the state of the marriage of a widower with a virgin; the virgin-wife has an internal inclination, but with the man that has passed away. But in these respects there is much variety and diversity; in like manner in the marriage between a widower and a widow, and therefore beyond this general notion it is not allowed to add anything specific.

 

324. (7) That the varieties and diversities of these marriages, as to love and its attributes, exceed all number. There is an infinite variety of all things, and their diversity also is infinite. By varieties here are meant differences between things of one kind or of one species, and also between genera and between species; and by diversities here are meant differences between things that are in the opposite. Our idea of the distinction between varieties and diversities may be illustrated by this fact: The angelic heaven, which coheres as one, is in infinite variety; not one there is absolutely like another, not as to souls and minds, nor as to affections, perceptions, and thence thoughts; nor as to inclinations, and thence intentions; nor as to the tones of voice, as to the face, body, walk, and many other things. And yet, though they are myriads of myriads, they have been and are arranged by the Lord into one form, in which there is full unanimity and concord, which could not be if all, so various, were not led by One, universally and singly. These are what we mean here by varieties.

 

[2] But by diversities we mean the opposites of these varieties, which are in hell. For there each one and all are diametrically opposite to those that are in heaven; and the hell composed of them is kept together as one by the varieties among them, the very opposites to the varieties in heaven, thus by perpetual diversities. From these illustrations what is meant by infinite variety, and what by infinite diversity is evident. It is similar with marriages, in that there are infinite varieties among those who are in conjugial love, and infinite varieties among those who are in promiscuous love; and hence that there are infinite diversities between the latter and the former. From which this conclusion follows: That the varieties and diversities in marriages, of whatever kind and species, whether of a young man with a virgin, or of a young man with a widow, or of a widower with a widow, exceed all number. Who can divide infinity into numbers?

 

325. (8) That the state of a widow is more grievous than that of a widower. The causes are external and internal. The external everyone can see, as: (a) That a widow cannot provide the necessaries of life for herself and her household, nor dispose of what is acquired, like a man, and as was done before by the man and with the man. (b) Nor can she protect herself and her house as is needful; for while she was a wife the man was her defense, and as it were her arm, and when she herself was so she yet relied upon her husband. (c) That of herself she is lacking in counsel in such matters as are of interior wisdom and thence of prudence. (d) That a widow is without the reception of the love in which she is as a woman, and so is in a state alien from that innate within her and into which she was inducted by marriage.

 

[2] These external causes, which are natural, also take their origin from internal causes, which are spiritual, as do all other things in the world and in the body (about which see above at n. 220). The external, natural causes are perceived from the internal, spiritual causes, which come from the marriage of good and truth, and chiefly from these facts of that marriage. That good cannot provide nor dispose anything except by truth; that good cannot protect itself except by truth, and therefore that truth is the defense and as it were the arm of good; that good without truth is destitute of counsel, because it has counsel, wisdom, and prudence by truth.

 

[3] Now, as from creation man is truth, and by creation the wife is its good, or what is the same, as from creation the man is understanding, and from creation the wife is the love of that, it is clear that the external or natural causes which aggravate the widowhood of a woman take their rise from internal or spiritual causes. These spiritual causes, conjoined with the natural, are what are meant by the things said concerning widows in many places in the Word, as may be seen in Apocalypse Revealed, n. 764.

 

326. To these things I shall add two relations. First:

 

When the problem concerning the soul had been discussed and solved in the gymnasium, I saw them passing out in order, the chief teacher before them, and after him the elders, in the midst of whom were the five young men who made answer, and following them, the rest. And as they passed out they withdrew to the sides round about the house, where there were walks surrounded by shrubbery; and assembled there, they divided themselves into small groups, which were so many gatherings of young men conversing on matters pertaining to wisdom; in each of which groups was one of the wise men from the orchestra.

 

Seeing them from my lodging I came into the spirit, and in the spirit went out to them; and I approached the chief teacher, who lately had proposed the question concerning the soul.

 

When he saw me he said, “Who are you? I wondered, when I saw you approaching in the way, that now you came into my sight and the next moment passed out of sight, or that at one moment you were visible to me and suddenly became invisible. You certainly are not in our state of life.”

 

To this I answered, smiling, “I am not a player of tricks, nor a Vertumnus;²³ but am an alternate, now in your light, now in your shade, and thus foreign and also native.”

 

[2] At this the chief teacher looked at me and said, “You say strange and amazing things. Tell me who you are.”

 

I said, “I am in the world in which you were, and from which you departed, which is called the natural world; and I also am in the world to which you came and in which you are which is called the spiritual world. I am therefore in a natural state, and at the same time in a spiritual state; in the natural state with men on earth, and in the spiritual state with you; and when I am in the natural state I am not visible to you, but when in the spiritual state I am visible. That I am so has been given by the Lord. To you, O enlightened man, it is known that the man of the natural world does not see the man of the spiritual world, nor the reverse; therefore when I let my spirit down into the body, I was not visible to you, and when I raised it out of the body I became visible. You also taught in your instruction in the gymnasium that you are souls, and that souls see souls, because they are human forms; and you know that you did not see yourselves, or your souls within your bodies, when you were in the natural world; and this comes from the difference that there is between the spiritual and the natural.”

 

[3] When he heard of a difference between the spiritual and the natural he said, “What is the difference? Is it not as between the purer and the less pure? What then is the spiritual but a purer natural?”

 

I replied, “The difference is not of that kind, but is as between prior and posterior, between which there is no finite ratio, for the prior is within the posterior as the cause is within its effect; and the posterior is from the prior as the effect from its cause. Hence it is that the one does not appear to the other.”

 

[4] To this the chief teacher responded, “I have thought and pondered upon this distinction, but hitherto in vain. Would that I could perceive it.”

 

I said, “You shall not only perceive, but shall also see the difference between the spiritual and the natural.” And then I added, “You are in the spiritual state when with your own, but in the natural state when with me. For with them you converse in spiritual language, which is common to all spirits and angels; but with me you talk in my vernacular tongue. For every angel and spirit talking with a man speaks his language, thus French with the French, English with the English, Greek with the Greek, Arabic with an Arabian, and so on. That you may know, then, the difference between the spiritual and the natural as to language, do this: Go among your own and say something there, and keep the words in mind, and with them in memory return and utter them before me.”

 

He did so and returned to me with the words to them in his mouth, and spoke them, and he did not understand one; the words were entirely strange and foreign, such as are not in any language of the natural world. By this experience, several times repeated, it was made clearly evident that all in the spiritual world have a spiritual language, which has nothing in common with any language of the natural world, and that every man comes into that language after death, of himself. He then also found by experience, at the same time, that the sound itself of spiritual language differs so much from the sound of natural language that spiritual sound, though loud, could not in the least be heard by the natural man; nor natural sound by the spiritual man.

 

[5] Afterwards I requested the chief teacher and those standing about to go in among their own and write some sentence upon paper, and to come out with the paper to me and to read it. They did so and returned with the paper in the hand; but when they read it they could not understand anything, since the writing consisted merely of certain alphabetic letters with flexions above, each one of which signified some sense of the subject. From the fact that there some sense is signified by each letter in the alphabet, it is evident whence it is that the Lord is said to be “the Alpha and the Omega.” When again and again they had gone in, had written, and returned, they came to know that their writing involved and comprehended things without number which no natural writing can ever express; and it was said that this is because the spiritual man thinks thoughts that are incomprehensible and ineffable to the natural man; and that these cannot flow into and be conveyed in any other writing and other language.

 

[6] Then, as the bystanders were unwilling to comprehend that spiritual thought so greatly excels natural thought as to be relatively ineffable, I said to them, “Make the trial. Go into your spiritual society and think something, and retain it, and return and utter it before me.” And they went in, thought, kept it in mind, came out, but when they would utter the thing they thought they could not, for they found no idea of natural thought adequate to any idea of spiritual thought, and thus no word to express it; for the ideas of thought become the words of speech.

 

[7] And they went in again and returned, and convinced themselves that spiritual ideas are supernatural, inexpressible, ineffable, and incomprehensible to the natural man. And because they are so preeminent, they said that spiritual ideas or thoughts relatively to natural are the ideas of ideas, and the thoughts of thoughts; and that therefore qualities of qualities and affections of affections are expressed by them; consequently that spiritual thoughts are the beginnings and origins of natural thoughts. And from this it is plain that spiritual wisdom is the wisdom of wisdom, and thus is imperceptible to any wise man in the natural world. It was then told them, from the third heaven, that there is wisdom still more interior or higher, called celestial, the relation of which to spiritual wisdom is like the relation of this to natural; and that these flow in in order, according to the heavens, from the Lord’s Divine wisdom which is infinite.

 

327. These things having been finished, I said to the bystanders, “From these three proofs of experience you have seen what the difference is between the spiritual and the natural; and also the reason why the natural man does not appear to the spiritual, nor the spiritual man to the natural, although as to affections and thoughts and thence as to presence they are consociated. Hence it is, chief teacher, that on the way I was at one moment seen by you, and then again not seen.”

 

After this a voice was heard from the higher heaven saying to the chief teacher, “Come up hither.” And he ascended and returned, and said that the angels like himself had not before known the differences between the spiritual and the natural, for the reason that there had not before been any opportunity for comparison with any man who was at the same in both worlds, and without comparison these differences are not known.

 

328. We then drew aside and talked further on this subject. I said, “These differences arise only from the fact that you, who are in the spiritual world and therefore are spiritual, are in things substantial, and not in things material, and things substantial are the beginnings of things material. You are in principles, and thus in things single, while we are in things derived from principles, and composite; you are in particulars, we in generals; and as generals cannot enter into particulars, so neither can things natural, which are material, enter into things spiritual, which are substantial, just as a ship’s cable cannot enter or be drawn through the eye of a sewing needle, or a nerve enter or be drawn into one of the fibers of which it consists, nor a fiber into one of the fibrils which compose it. This is also known in the world; wherefore it is agreed to by the learned, that there is no influx of the natural into the spiritual but of the spiritual into the natural. Now this is the reason why the natural man cannot think the thoughts which the spiritual man thinks, nor therefore speak them; and why Paul says that the things which he heard out of the third heaven were unutterable.²⁴

 

[2] “Add to this, that to think spiritually is to think without time and space, and that to think naturally is to think with time and space, for to every idea of natural thought something of time and space adheres, but not to any spiritual idea. The reason is that the spiritual world is not in space and time like the natural world, but is in the appearance of these two; in this respect the thoughts and perceptions also differ. Therefore you can think of the essence and the omnipresence of God from eternity, that is, of God before the creation of the world, because you think of the essence of God from eternity without time, and of his omnipresence without space, and so comprehend such things as transcend the idea of the natural man.”

 

[3] And then I related that once I was thinking about the essence and omnipresence of God from eternity, that is, about God before the creation of the world, and that because I could not yet remove spaces and times from the ideas of my thought I became troubled, for the idea of nature entered in place of God. But I was told, “Remove the ideas of space and time, and you will see”; and it was given me to remove them, and I saw. And from that time I could think of God from eternity, and not at all of nature from eternity, because God in all time is without time, and in all space is without space, but nature in all time is in time, and in all space is in space; and nature with its time and space could not but begin and arise, but not God who is without time and space. Wherefore nature is from God, not from eternity but in time, that is, together with its time and at the same time with its space.

 

329. After the chief teacher and the rest had left me, some of the boys who also were at the exercises in the gymnasium followed me home and stood by me there for a time while I was writing. And lo, they saw a moth running over my paper, and asked in surprise, “What is this swift little animalcule?”

 

I said, “It is called a mite. And I will tell you wonderful things about it. In so small a living thing there are as many members and viscera as in a camel; there are brains, heart, pulmonary organs, organs of sense, of motion, and of generation, a stomach, intestines, and many other things; and each one of these is woven together of fibers, nerves, blood vessels, muscles, tendons, and membranes; and each of these is woven together of still purer things that lie deeply hidden beyond the reach of every eye.”

 

[2] Then they said, “Yet the little living thing appears to us only as a simple substance.”

 

And I said, “Nevertheless, there are innumerable things within it. I tell you this that you may know that it is similar with every object that appears before you as one simple and least thing, as well in your actions as in your affections and thoughts. I can assure you that every single grain of thought, and every drop of your affection is divisible, even ad infinitum, and that insofar as your ideas are divisible you are wise. Know that everything divided is more and more manifold, and not more and more simple, because being divided and divided it approaches nearer and nearer to the infinite, in which all things are infinitely. This is a new thing that I relate to you, before unheard of.”

 

[3] Having listened to these things the boys went from me to the chief teacher and requested of him that he would sometime propose in the gymnasium something new and unheard of as a problem. He asked, “What?”

 

They said, “Everything divided is more and more manifold, and not more and more simple, because it approaches nearer and nearer to the infinite, in which all things are infinitely.”

 

He promised to propose it, and said, “I see this, because I have perceived that one natural idea is the containant of innumerable spiritual ideas; yea, that one spiritual idea is the containant of innumerable celestial ideas. Hence the difference between celestial wisdom, in which the angels of the third heaven are, and spiritual wisdom in which the angels of the second heaven are; and also between natural wisdom in which the angels of the ultimate heaven and also men are.”

 

330. The second relation:

 

I once heard a pleasant discussion among men which was about the female sex: Whether any woman can love her husband who constantly loves her own beauty, that is who loves herself on account of her form. They agreed among themselves first: That women have a twofold beauty, one natural which is of the face and body, and another spiritual which is of love and manners. They also agreed that the two kinds of beauty are quite often divided in the natural world and that they are always united in the spiritual world; for in the spiritual world beauty is the form of love and manners, and therefore after death it very often occurs that deformed women become beauties and beautiful women become deformed.

 

[2] While the men were discussing the subject certain wives came and said, “Permit us to be present, because knowledge teaches you the matter you are discussing, while experience teaches it to us. And you also know so little about the love of wives that it is scarcely anything. Do you know that it is the prudence of the wisdom of wives to conceal their love for their husbands in the inmost of their breast, or in the middle of their heart?”

 

The discussion began and the first conclusion by the men was: “Every woman wishes to appear beautiful in face and beautiful in manners because she is born an affection of love, and beauty is the form of this affection; a woman therefore who does not desire to be beautiful is not a woman who wishes to love and be loved, and thence is not truly a woman.”

 

To this the wives said, “The beauty of woman dwells in soft tenderness, and therefore in exquisite sensation. Thence is the love of woman for man, and the love of man for woman. Perhaps you do not understand this?”

 

[3] The second conclusion of the men was: “A woman before marriage wishes to be beautiful for men, but after marriage, if she be chaste, only for a man and not for men.”

 

To this the wives said, “After a husband has tasted the natural beauty of the wife he no longer sees it, but sees her spiritual beauty and from this loves anew; and yet he recalls the natural but under a different aspect.”

 

[4] The third conclusion from their discussion was: “If after marriage a woman desires to appear beautiful in like manner as before it, she loves men and not the man; for a woman loving herself for her own beauty is continually in the wish that her beauty be tasted, and as this no longer appears to the man, as you have said, she wishes it may be tasted by the men before whom it does appear. It is clear that she has the love of the sex, and not the love of one of the sex.”

 

At this the wives were silent, but murmured these words, “What woman is so free from vanity as not to wish to appear beautiful to men also, at the same time as to her only one?”

 

Several wives from heaven, who were beautiful because they were heavenly affections, heard these things, and confirmed the three conclusions of the men; but added, “Let them love their own beauty and adornments only for the sake of their husbands, and from them.”

 

331. The three wives, indignant that the three conclusions of the men had been confirmed by the wives from heaven, said to the men, “You have asked whether a woman who loves herself for her own beauty loves her husband. We now on the other hand will consider whether a man who loves himself for his own intelligence can love his wife. Be present and hear.” And they drew this first conclusion: “No wife loves her husband for his face, but for the intelligence in his employment and in his manners. Know therefore that the wife unites herself with the intelligence of the man, and thus with the man. If then a man loves himself for his own intelligence he withdraws his love from his wife to himself, whence comes disunion and not union. Moreover, to love his own intelligence is to be wise of himself, and this is to be insane, and is therefore to love his own insanity.”

 

To this the men responded: “Perhaps the wife unites herself with the ability of the man.”

 

The wives laughed at this, saying, “Ability is not wanting so long as the man loves the wife from intelligence, but it is wanting if he loves from insanity. Intelligence is to love the wife only and to this love ability is not wanting; but it is insanity to love, not the wife, but the sex. You comprehend this?”

 

[2] The second conclusion was: “We women are born into the love of the intelligence of men. If then men love their own proper intelligence, the intelligence cannot be united with its genuine love, which is with the wife. And if the intelligence of the man is not united with its own genuine love, which is with the wife, his intelligence becomes insanity from pride, and conjugial love becomes cold. What woman then can unite her love with cold? And what man can unite the insanity of his pride with the love of intelligence?”

 

“But,” said the men, “whence has a man honor from his wife, if he does not magnify his own intelligence?”

 

The wives answered, “From love; for love honors. Honor cannot be separated from love; but love can be from honor.”

 

[3] Afterwards they came to this third conclusion: “You seem as if you love your wives, and do not see that you are loved by your wives, and thus that you love in return, and that your intelligence is the receptacle. If then you love your own intelligence within you that becomes the receptacle of your love; and the love of one’s own, because it does not tolerate an equal, never becomes conjugial love, but so long as it prevails, it remains promiscuous.”

 

At this the men were silent, but murmured, “What is conjugial love?”

 

Certain husbands in heaven heard these things and thence confirmed the three conclusions of the wives.

 

 

 

 

(15)

 

Polygamy

 

 

332. If the reason be sought why polygamic marriages have been utterly condemned by the Christian world, no one, endowed with whatever gift of acutely penetrating a subject by his genius, can clearly see the cause unless he is first instructed that there is love truly conjugial; that this cannot exist otherwise than between two; nor between two except from the Lord alone; and that on this love heaven is inscribed with all its felicities. Unless these knowledges precede, and lay as it were the first stone, to no effect does the mind busy itself to draw out from the understanding any reasons, in which it may rest, and on which it may stand, as a house upon its stone or foundation, why polygamy is condemned by the Christian world.

 

It is known that the institution of monogamic marriage is founded on the Lord’s Word that:

 

Whosoever shall put away his wife except for adultery, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and that from the beginning, or from the first institution of marriages, it was ordained that two should become one flesh; and that man should not put asunder what God hath joined together (Matt. 19:3-11).

 

[2] But although the Lord dictated these words out of the Divine law inscribed on marriage, yet if the understanding cannot support it with some reason of its own, it may even, by turns to which it is wont and by sinister interpretations, get around that Divine law and bring it into obscure ambiguity, and finally into an affirmative- negative, affirmative because it is according to the civil law also, and negative because it is not according to people’s rational sight. Into this state will the human mind fall if it be not first instructed respecting the knowledges mentioned above, which shall serve the understanding as an introduction to its reasonings, which knowledges are, that there is a love truly conjugial; that it can exist only between two; that it cannot exist between two except from the Lord alone; and that upon that love heaven is inscribed with all its felicities. But these and many other things that relate to the condemnation of polygamy by the Christian world are to be shown in order according to the following articles:

 

(1) That there cannot be any love truly conjugial except with one wife; consequently there cannot be true conjugial friendship, confidence, and potency, nor such a conjunction of minds that the two may be one flesh.

 

(2) That thus it is only with one wife that there can be the celestial beatitudes, the spiritual satisfactions, and the natural delights which, from the beginning, have been provided for those who are in love truly conjugial.

 

(3) That all these cannot be given except by the Lord only; and that they are not given to others than those who come to him alone, and at the same time, live according to his commandments.

 

(4) Consequently, that there cannot be love truly conjugial with its felicities, except with those who are of the Christian church.

 

(5) That this is the reason why it is not permitted a Christian to marry more than one wife.

 

(6) That if a Christian marries more than one wife he commits not only natural adultery but also spiritual adultery.

 

(7) That the Israelitish nation were permitted to marry more wives than one, because with them there was not a Christian church and therefore they could not have love truly conjugial.

 

(8) That the Mohammedans at this day are permitted to marry more wives than one, because they do not acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ to be one with Jehovah the Father, and thus as the God of heaven and earth, and therefore cannot receive love truly conjugial.

 

(9) That the Mohammedan heaven is outside the Christian heaven; and that it is divided into two heavens, a lower and a higher; and that none are elevated into their higher heaven but those who renounce mistresses and live with one wife, and acknowledge our Lord as equal to God the Father, to whom dominion is given over heaven and earth.

 

(10) That polygamy is licentious.

 

(11) That with polygamists there cannot be conjugial chastity, purity, and holiness.

 

(12) That polygamists, so long as they remain polygamists, cannot become spiritual.

 

(13) That polygamy is not a sin with those with whom it is a matter of religion.

 

(14) That polygamy is not sin with those who are in ignorance concerning the Lord.

 

(15) That of these, they are saved although polygamists who acknowledge a God and from religion live according to the civil laws of justice.

 

(16) But that none from either of these heavens can be consociated with the angels in the Christian heavens.

 

333. Now follows the exposition of these.

 

(1) That there cannot be love truly conjugial except with one wife; consequently there cannot be true conjugial friendship, confidence, potency, and such a conjunction of minds that the two may be one flesh. That at this day love truly conjugial is so rare as to be generally unknown has been stated several times above. That nevertheless it does actually exist has also been shown in its own chapter, and after that here and there in those that followed. But, apart from this, who does not know that there is such a love, which in excellence and delightfulness so transcends all other loves that they all seem relatively of small account? That it surpasses the love of self, the love of the world, yea, the love of life, experiences testify. Have there not been, and are there not, those who for the woman desired and solicited as a bride prostrate themselves on their knees, adore her as a goddess, and submit as the vilest slaves to her good pleasure? A proof that this love exceeds the love of self. Have there not been, and are there not, those who for the woman chosen and solicited as a bride count wealth, yea, treasures if they possess them as nothing, and who lavish them also?

 

A proof that this love exceeds the love of the world. Have there not been, and are there not, those who for the woman chosen and solicited for a bride esteem their very life of no account, and crave death if she does not yield to their petition? And to this the many encounters of rivals even unto death testify. A proof that this love is greater than the love of life. Have there not been, and are there not, those who for the woman chosen and solicited for a bride have been made insane by refusal?

 

[2] May one not rationally conclude from this beginning of that love with many that from its essence this love dominates over every other love as supreme, and that at the time the soul of the man is in it, and promises to itself eternal beatitudes with her who is his choice and solicitation? Who, wheresoever he may search, can discover any other cause for this than that he has given up his soul and his heart to the one? For if a lover while in that state were given the option to elect the most worthy, the most wealthy, and the most beautiful of all the sex from the universe, would he not spurn the option and hold to his chosen one? For his heart is hers alone. These things are said that you may acknowledge that there is a conjugial love of such supereminence, and that it exists while one only of the sex is loved. What understanding that looks with a keen sight at reasonings, in just connection, cannot deduce from this that, if from his soul, or from inmosts, the lover abides constantly in his love to her, he would realize those eternal beatitudes which he had promised to himself before consent and which he promises in consent? It has been shown above that he also does attain them, if he comes to the Lord and from him lives true religion. Who else than he enters into the life of man from above, imparts internal, heavenly joys, and carries them into their sequences? And this the more when at the same time he also gives constant potency. That there is no such love and cannot be because it is not with oneself, or this person or that, is not a valid conclusion.

 

334. Since love truly conjugial conjoins the souls and hearts of two, therefore it is united also with friendship, and through this with confidence, and makes them both conjugial, which are so eminent above other friendships and confidences that, just as this love is the love of loves, so also is this friendship the friendship of friendships, and the confidence likewise. There are many reasons why in truth it is so with its potency too, some of which are revealed in the second relation after this chapter, from which potency follows the continued perpetuity of that love. That by love truly conjugial two consorts become one flesh has been shown above in its proper chapter, n. 156-183.

 

335. (2) That thus it is only with one wife that there can be the celestial beatitudes, the spiritual satisfactions, and the natural delights which, from the beginning, have been provided for those who are in love truly conjugial. They are called celestial beatitudes, spiritual satisfactions, and natural delights because the human mind is distinguished into three regions, the highest of which is called celestial, the second spiritual, and the third natural, and with those who are in love truly conjugial these three regions stand open, and influx follows in order according to the openings. And as the amenities of this love in the highest region are most eminent, they are perceived as beatitudes; and as in the middle region they are less eminent, they are perceived as satisfactions; and finally, in the lowest region, as delights. That these amenities are real, are perceived and felt, is established from the relations in which they are described.

 

[2] All these felicities were provided from the beginning for those who are in love truly conjugial, because in the Lord there is an infinity of all beatitudes; and he himself is Divine love, and the essence of love is that it wills to communicate all its own goods to another whom it loves; and therefore together with man he created this love, and inscribed upon it the faculty of receiving and perceiving these felicities. Who is so dull and unreasoning in mind that he cannot see that there is some love on which are bestowed by the Lord all the blessings, satisfactions, and delights that can ever be bestowed?

 

336. (3) That all these cannot be given except by the Lord only; and that they are not given to others than those who come to him alone, and live according to his commandments. This has been shown before in many places; to which it must be added, that because all these beatitudes, satisfactions, and delights can be granted only by the Lord, for that reason no other should be approached. Who else can be, since:

 

By him all things were made that have been made? (John 1:3). He is the God of heaven and earth? (Matt. 28:18).

 

No one hath ever seen the form of God the Father, nor heard his voice, except through him? (John 1:18; 5:37; 14:6-11).

 

From these and very many other passages in the Word it is evident that the marriage of love and wisdom, or of good and truth, from which only marriages derive their origin, proceeds from him alone. From this it follows that that love with its felicities is given to no others but those who come to him; and that it is given to those who live according to his commandments is because with them he is conjoined by love (John 14:21-24).

 

337. (4) Consequently, that there cannot be love truly conjugial except with those who are of the Christian church. The reason why conjugial love, such as is described in its own chapter, n. 57-73, and in those following it, that is, such as it is in its essence, is not with any but those that are of the Christian church since that love is from the Lord only, and the Lord is not elsewhere so known that he can be approached as God; also, because the love is according to the state of the church with everyone (n. 130), and a genuine state of the church is from no other source than the Lord, and thus is with no others but those who receive it from him. That these two are the first beginnings, introductions, and establishings of that love, has already been confirmed by such abundance of clear and conclusive reasons that it would be entirely superfluous to add anything more. That love truly conjugial is nevertheless rare in the Christian world (n. 58-59) is because so few there approach the Lord, and among these are some who, although they believe the church, do not live it; besides the many facts that are disclosed in Apocalypse Revealed, where the state of the Christian church at this day is fully described. But the truth nevertheless holds good that there cannot be love truly conjugial except with those who are of the Christian church; and for that reason polygamy has also been absolutely condemned. That this also is of the Lord’s Divine providence is very clear to those who think justly respecting providence.

 

338. (5) That this is the reason why it is not permitted a Christian to marry more than one wife. This follows as confirmed from the things established in the preceding sections, to which it should be added that the genuine conjugial is inscribed on the minds of Christians more profoundly than on the minds of the gentiles who have embraced polygamy; and hence that the minds of Christians are more susceptible to that love than the minds of polygamists. For this conjugial is inscribed on the interiors of the mind of Christians, because they acknowledge the Lord and his Divine, and is inscribed upon the exteriors of their minds by the civil laws.

 

339. (6) That if a Christian marries more than one wife he commits not only natural adultery but also spiritual adultery. That a Christian who marries more than one wife commits natural adultery is according to the Lord’s words that:

 

It is not lawful to put away a wife, because from the beginning they were created to be one flesh; and whosoever shall put away his wife without just cause, and shall marry another, committeth adultery (Matt. 19:3-11).

 

Still more he that does not put away but retains his wife, and marries another in addition. This law, proclaimed by the Lord concerning marriages, derives its internal cause from spiritual marriage, for whatever the Lord spoke was in itself spiritual, which is meant by the saying:

 

The words that I speak unto you are spirit and are life (John 6:63).

 

The spiritual which is within these words is this: That by polygamic marriage in the Christian world the marriage of the Lord and the church is profaned; likewise the marriage of good and truth; and moreover the Word, and with the Word the church; and the profanation of these is spiritual adultery.

 

That the profanation of the good and truth of the church out of the Word corresponds to adultery, and that it therefore is spiritual adultery; and that the falsification of good and truth is so likewise, but in a less degree, may be seen confirmed in Apocalypse Revealed, n. 134. The reason why the marriage of the Lord and the church would be profaned by polygamic marriages with Christians is that there is a correspondence between that Divine marriage and the marriages of Christians, concerning which see above (n. 83-102), which correspondence is altogether destroyed if wife is added to wife; and when that is destroyed the man consort is no longer a Christian.

 

[2] The reason why the marriage of good and truth would be profaned by polygamic marriages with Christians is that marriages on earth are derived from that spiritual marriage, and the marriages of Christians differ from the marriages of other nations in this, that as good loves truth and truth good, and they are one, so is it with the wife and husband. If therefore a Christian should add wife to wife he would disrupt the spiritual marriage within him, and thus profane the origin of his marriage and so commit spiritual adultery. That marriages on earth are derived from the marriage of good and truth may be seen above at n. 116-131. That a Christian would profane the Word and the church by polygamic marriage is because the Word viewed in itself is the marriage of good and truth, and likewise the church in the degree that this is from the Word (see above at n. 128-131).

 

[3] Now since a Christian, because he knows the Lord, has the Word, and since the Lord places the church in him through its means, it is obvious that he is more able than the non-Christian to be regenerated and of so becoming spiritual; and also of attaining love truly conjugial, for they go together. Since those from among Christians who marry more wives than one not only commit natural adultery, but at the same time also spiritual adultery, it follows that the damnation of Christian polygamists after death is more severe than the damnation of those who only commit natural adultery. To a question concerning their state after death I heard the answer, that heaven is altogether closed to them; and that in hell they appear as if lying in hot water in a bath house in a bath tub, and that from a distance they thus appear, although they stand and walk upon their feet; and that it is so with them from inward frenzy; and that some such are cast into the gulfs that are at the borders of the worlds.25

 

340. (7) That the Israelitish nation were permitted to marry more wives than one, because with them there was not a Christian church, and therefore they could not have love truly conjugial. There are at this day those who think doubtfully respecting the institution of monogamic marriages, or the marriage of one man with one wife, and debate with themselves in their reason about it, thinking that because polygamic marriages were openly permitted to the Israelitish people and their kings, as to David and Solomon, they should in themselves be permissible also to Christians. But they have no distinct knowledge of the Israelitish and of Christian nations; nor respecting the externals and the internals of the church, neither concerning the change of the church by the Lord from external to internal; consequently they know nothing from interior judgment respecting marriages.

 

It must be kept in mind, in general, that man is born natural that he may become spiritual; and so long as he remains natural he is in night, and as in sleep, respecting spiritual things; and that then he does not even know the distinction between the external natural and the internal spiritual man.

 

[2] That there was not a Christian church with the Israelitish nation is known from the Word. For they were looking, as they are still looking, for a messiah who would exalt them above all nations and peoples in the world; wherefore, if it had been said and were now said to them that the messiah’s kingdom is over the heavens, and from thence over all nations, they would have set it down among trifles. Hence it was that when the Christ, or the messiah, our Lord, came into the world, they not only did not acknowledge him, but even atrociously put him away out of the world. From these facts it is evident that there was not a Christian church with that nation as there is not at this day; and they with whom the Christian church is not are external and internal natural, and with them polygamy is not prejudicial, for it is inscribed upon the natural man, and he in fact perceives no other love in marriages than such as is of lust. This is meant in the saying of the Lord:

 

Moses for the hardness of their heart permitted them to put away their wives; but from the beginning it was not so (Matt. 19:8).

 

It is said that Moses permitted in order that it may be known that it was not the Lord.

 

[3] And it is known from his precepts, and from his abrogation of the rituals which served only for the use of the natural man, that the Lord teaches the internal spiritual man: From his precepts concerning washing, that it is the purification of the internal man (Matt. 15:1, 17-20; 23:25-26; Mark 7:14-23). Concerning adultery, that it is the lust of the will (Matt. 5:28). Concerning the putting away of wives, that it is unlawful; and concerning polygamy, that it is not agreeable to the Divine law (Matt. 19:3-9).

 

These, and many other things the Lord taught, which are of the internal and spiritual man, because he alone opens the internals of human minds and makes them spiritual; and he puts these within things natural in order that they also may derive a spiritual essence, as in fact they do if he is approached, and if the life is according to his precepts; which are in brief, that one should believe in him and shun evils because they are of the devil and from the devil; and do goods because they are of the Lord and from the Lord; and do both as if of oneself, and at the same time believe that they are done by the Lord through him.

 

[4] The very reason why the Lord alone opens the internal spiritual man, and brings this into the external natural man, is that every man thinks naturally and acts naturally, and for that reason could not perceive anything spiritual and receive it into his natural if God had not put on the natural human, and made also that Divine. From these considerations the truth is now evident that the Israelitish nation were permitted to take more than one wife because there was not a Christian church with them.

 

341. (8) That the Mohammedans at this day are permitted to marry more wives than one because they do not acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ to be one with Jehovah the Father, and thus as the God of heaven and earth, and therefore cannot receive love truly conjugial.

 

Mohammedans, from the religion handed down by Mohammed, acknowledged Jesus Christ as the son of God, and as a very great prophet, and that he was sent into the world by God the Father to teach men; but not that God the Father and he are one; and that his Divine and human are one person, united as soul and body, according to the belief of all Christians from the Athanasian creed. Therefore the followers of Mohammed could not acknowledge our Lord as any God from eternity, but only as a perfect natural man; and because Mohammed was of this opinion, and thence his disciple followers are of this opinion, and because they know that God is one, and that that God is he who created the universe, they could not but pass him by in their worship, and this the more because they also declare Mohammed to be a very great prophet; neither do they know what the Lord taught. It is for this reason that the interiors of their mind, which in themselves are spiritual, could not be opened, since they can be opened only by the Lord, as may be seen just above at n. 340.

 

[2] The real reason why they are opened by the Lord when he is acknowledged and is approached as God of heaven and earth, and with those who live according to his precepts, is that otherwise there is no conjunction, and without conjunction there is no reception. There is the presence of the Lord with man, and there is conjunction with him. To go to him brings presence, and to live according to his precepts effects conjunction. And his presence only is without reception; but presence and at the same time conjunction is with reception.

 

[3] Concerning these matters I will relate this that is new from the spiritual world: There, everyone is made present by thought about him; but no one is conjoined to another except from the affection of love, and the affection of love is instilled by doing his words and his pleasure. This fact, familiar in the spiritual world, takes its origin from the Lord, in that he is thus present and is thus conjoined.

 

These things are said that it may be known why it is permitted Mohammedans to take more wives than one; that it is because with them there cannot be any love truly conjugial, which is only between one man and one wife, for the reason that they have not, from religion, acknowledged the Lord as equal to God the Father, and thus as the God of heaven and earth. That conjugial love is according to the state of the church with everyone, see above at n. 130, and in several other places in the foregoing pages.

 

342. (9) That the Mohammedan heaven is outside the Christian heaven; and that it is divided into two heavens, a lower and a higher; and that none are elevated into their higher heaven but those who renounce mistresses and live with one wife, and acknowledge our Lord as equal to God the Father to whom dominion is given over heaven and earth. Before anything is said in particular respecting these heavens, it is important that some things should first be said about the Lord’s Divine providence in relation to the rise of the Mohammedan religion. That this religion was received by more kingdoms than the Christian religion may be a stumbling block to those who think of Divine providence, and at the same time believe that no one can be saved but he who is born a Christian. But the Mohammedan religion is not a stumbling block to those who believe that all things are of Divine providence. They inquire and also discover wherein it is [of Divine providence]. It is in this: that the Mohammedan religion acknowledges our Lord as the Son of God, as the wisest of men, and as a very great prophet, who came into the world that he might teach men. But as the Mohammedans make the Koran only the book of their religion, and consequently Mohammed who wrote it is seated in their thoughts, and they follow him with a kind of worship, they therefore think little about our Lord. That it may be fully known that that religion was raised up by the Lord’s Divine providence, for the destruction of the idolatries of many nations, it shall be explained in some order:

 

[2] First, then, respecting the origin of idolatries: Before that religion there was the worship of idols in every country on earth. The cause of it was that previous to the coming of the Lord the churches were all representative. Such also was the Israelitish church; the tabernacle there, the garments of Aaron, the sacrifices, all things of the temple at Jerusalem, and the statutes also, were representative. And with the ancients the knowledge of correspondences, which is also the knowledge of representations, was the very knowledge of the wise, cultivated especially by the Egyptians. Hence their hieroglyphics. From this knowledge they knew what animals of every kind signified; as also trees of every kind; and what mountains, hills, rivers, and fountains; and what the sun, the moon, and the stars signified. By that knowledge they also had cognition of things spiritual, because the things that were represented, which were such as are matters of spiritual wisdom with the angels, were their origins.

 

[3] Now as all their worship was representative, consisting only of correspondences, therefore they held their worship upon mountains and hills, and also in groves and gardens; and for that reason they consecrated fountains, and in adorations turned their faces to the rising sun; and besides made sculptured horses, oxen, calves, lambs, yea, birds, fishes, serpents, and set them up at home and elsewhere in order, according to the spiritual things of the church to which they corresponded, or which they represented. Similar objects they also placed in their temples, that they might call to remembrance the holy things of worship which they signified. In the course of time, when the knowledge of correspondences was obliterated, their posterity began to worship the sculptured images themselves, as in themselves holy, not knowing that the ancients, their forefathers, saw nothing holy in them, but only that they represented and therefore signified holy things, according to correspondences. Hence arose the idolatries which filled all countries of the world, the Asiatic with the surrounding islands, the African, and the European.

 

[4] That all these idolatries might be extirpated, it was brought to pass of the Lord’s Divine providence that a new religion should begin, accommodated to the genius of the orientals, in which there should be something from each testament of the Word, and which should teach that the Lord came into the world, and that he was the greatest prophet, the wisest of all, and the son of God. This was done through Mohammed, from whom that religion has its name.

 

From this it is plain that this religion was raised up by the Lord’s Divine providence, and accommodated, as was said, to the genius of the orientals; to the end that it might destroy the idolatries of so many nations, and give them some knowledge of the Lord before they should come into the spiritual world, which takes place after death with everyone; which religion would not have been received by so many kingdoms, and could not have extirpated their idolatries, if it had not been accommodated to their ideas, especially if polygamy had not been permitted. This was permitted also for the reason that without that permission the orientals would have been inflamed with filthy adulteries more than Europeans, and would have perished.

 

343. The reason why the Mohammedans also have a heaven is that all throughout the whole world are saved who acknowledge God, and from religion shun evils as sins against him. That the Mohammedan heaven is distinguished into two, a lower and a higher, I have heard from themselves; and that in the lower heaven they live with several wives and mistresses, as in the world; but that those who renounce mistresses and live with one wife are elevated into their higher heaven. I have also heard that it is impossible for them to think that our Lord is one with the Father; but that it is possible for them to think him equal, as also that dominion is given to him over heaven and earth, because he is his Son. This therefore is the faith of those to whom ascent is given by the Lord into their higher heaven.

 

344. It was once given me to perceive the quality of the heat of the conjugial love of polygamists. I spoke with one who occupied the place of Mohammed. Mohammed himself is never present, but a substitute deputed in his place, to the end that those recently from the world may, as it were, see him. This substitute, after some conversation with him from a distance, sent me an ivory spoon, and other things which were indications that it was from him. And at the same time communication was opened for the heat of the conjugial love of those who are there, and it was perceived by me as the fetid heat of a bathhouse, perceiving which I turned away and the channel of communication was closed.

 

345. (10) That polygamy is licentious is because its love is divided among several, and is the love of the sex, and is a love of the external or natural man, and so is not conjugial love, which alone is chaste. That polygamic love is divided among several is known, and divided love is not conjugial love, which cannot be severed from the one of the sex. That love is therefore licentious, and polygamy is licentious. That polygamic love is the love of the sex is because it only differs from it in being limited to the number that the polygamist can take to himself, and in being held to certain laws established for the public good; also in that it permits the addition of mistresses. And being thus the love of the sex it is the love of licentiousness. Polygamic love is a love of the external or natural man because it is inscribed on that man; and whatever the natural man does from himself is evil, out of which he cannot be led except by elevation into the internal spiritual man, which is done by the Lord alone. And the evil respecting the sex which inheres in the natural man is promiscuous; and because this is destructive of society, in place of promiscuity a similitude of it was introduced which is called polygamy. All the evil into which a man is born from his parents is implanted in his natural man, but none in the spiritual man, because into this he is born from the Lord. From the reasons that have been adduced, and from many others also, it may be seen clearly that polygamy is licentious.

 

346. (11) That with polygamists there cannot be conjugial chastity, purity, and holiness. This follows from the things established just above, and manifestly from what was shown in the chapter on the chaste and the nonchaste, especially from these things in that chapter: That chaste, pure, and holy are only predicable of monogamic marriages, or those of one man with one wife (n. 141); also that love truly conjugial is chastity itself; and that thence all the delights of that love, even the ultimate, are chaste (n. 143-144). And moreover from the things which were adduced in the chapter on love truly conjugial, as from these things in that chapter: that love truly conjugial, which is of one man with one wife, by virtue of its origin and of its correspondence, is celestial, spiritual, holy, and pure, beyond every love (n. 64, and following numbers). Now, as chastity, purity, and holiness are only in love truly conjugial, it follows that they are not and cannot be in polygamous love.

 

347. (12) That a polygamist, so long as he remains a polygamist, cannot become spiritual. To become spiritual is to be elevated out of the natural, that is, out of the light and heat of the world into the light and heat of heaven. No one knows of this elevation but one who is elevated; and the natural man not elevated does not perceive but that he is elevated. The reason is that although natural he, equally with the spiritual man, can elevate his understanding into the light of heaven, and can think and talk spiritually. But if the will does not at the same time follow the understanding into that elevation he is not elevated; for he does not abide in that elevation, but after some moments lets himself down to his will and fixes his station there. It is said the will, but the love also is meant, because the will is the receptacle of love, for what a man loves he wills. From these few considerations it is evident that a polygamist, so long as he remains a polygamist, or what is the same, a natural man so long as he remains natural, cannot become spiritual.

 

348. (13) That polygamy is not a sin with those with whom it is from religion. Everything that is contrary to religion is believed to be a sin because against God; and on the other hand, everything that is with religion is believed not to be a sin because with God. And as with the sons of Israel polygamy was from religion, and is so likewise with the Mohammedans of today, it could not and cannot be imputed to them as a sin. Moreover, that it may not be a sin to them, they remain natural and do not become spiritual, and the natural man cannot see that there is any sin in such things as are of the received religion; this only the spiritual man sees. It is for this reason that, although from the Koran they acknowledge our Lord as the Son of God, yet they do not approach him but Mohammed, and so long as they do this they remain natural, and therefore do not know that there is any evil, nor indeed that there is any licentious, in polygamy. The Lord moreover says:

 

If ye were blind ye would not have sin, but now that ye say ye see, your sin remaineth (John 9:41).

 

Since polygamy cannot convict them of sin they therefore after death have a heaven of their own (n. 342), where they have joys according to their life.

 

349. (14) That polygamy is not sin with those who are in ignorance concerning the Lord. The reason is that love truly conjugial is from the Lord alone, and cannot be given by the Lord to others than those who know him, acknowledge him, believe in him, and live the life which is from him; and they to whom that love cannot be given do not know but that the love of sex and conjugial love are the same, consequently polygamy also. Add to this that polygamists who know nothing of the Lord remain natural, for man becomes spiritual from the Lord only, and to the natural man that is not imputed as a sin which is according to the laws of his religion and at the same time of society. He also acts according to his reason, and the reason of the natural man is in utter thick darkness respecting love truly conjugial, and this love in its excellency is spiritual. And yet their reason is taught, by experience, that it is for the public and private peace that promiscuous lust, in general, should be restricted, and relegated to everyone within his own house. Hence is polygamy.

 

350. It is known that man is born viler than a beast. All beasts are born into the knowledges corresponding to the love of their life. As soon as they fall from the womb, or are excluded from the egg, they see, hear, walk, know their food, their mother, their friends and enemies, and not long after know the sex, and know how to love, and also how to rear their offspring. Man alone when he is born has no such knowledge, for no knowledge is connate with him. He has only a faculty and inclination for receiving the things which are of knowledge and of love, and if he does not receive them from others he remains viler than a beast. Man is born such, to the end that he may attribute nothing to himself but to others, and finally everything of wisdom and of the love of it to God alone, and that thereby he may become an image of God, as may be seen in the relation at n. 132-136.

 

[2] From these considerations it follows that the man who does not know from others that the Lord came into the world, and that he is God, and who has only imbibed some notions of the religion and laws of his country, is not to blame if he does not think more of conjugial love than of the love of the sex, and that he believes polygamic love to be the only conjugial love. The Lord leads them in their ignorance, and under Divine auspices providently conducts those away from the imputation of guilt who from religion shun evils as sins, to the end that they may be saved. For every man is born for heaven and none for hell; and everyone comes into heaven of the Lord and goes to hell of himself.

 

351. (15) That of these, they are saved although polygamists who acknowledge a God and from religion live according to the civil laws of justice. All, throughout the whole world, who acknowledge a God and live according to the civil laws of justice, from religion, are saved. By the civil laws of justice are meant precepts such as are in the Decalogue, which are: That a man must not kill; must not commit adultery; must not steal; must not bear false witness. These precepts are civil laws of justice in all kingdoms on earth; for without them no kingdom could endure.

 

[2] But they are lived by some for fear of the penalties of the law, by some from civil obedience, and by some from religion also; and they by whom they are lived also from religion are saved. The reason is that then God is in them, and the man in whom God is, is saved. Who does not see that with the sons of Israel, from the time they went forth out of Egypt, it was among their laws that one must not kill, must not commit adultery, must not steal, must not bear false witness, since without these laws their community or society could not have subsisted? And yet the same laws were promulgated by Jehovah God upon Mount Sinai with a stupendous miracle. But the reason of their promulgation was that the same laws might also be made laws of religion, and so, that they should do them not only for the good of society but also for the sake of God, and that through doing them from religion for the sake of God they might be saved.

 

[3] From these considerations it is evident that pagans who acknowledge a God and live according to the civil laws of justice are saved. For it is not their fault that they know nothing about the Lord, and consequently nothing about the chastity of marriage with one wife. For it is contrary to Divine justice that they who acknowledge a God and from religion live the laws of justice—which are, to shun evils because they are sins against God and to do goods because they are with God—should be condemned.

 

352. (16) But none from either of these heavens can be consociated with the angels in the Christian heavens. The reason is that in the Christian heavens there is heavenly light which is Divine truth, and heavenly heat which is Divine love, and these two discover of what kind goods and truths are, as well as of what kind are evils and falsities. It is on this account that all communication between the Christian heavens and the Mohammedan heavens is taken away; likewise between them and the heavens of the gentiles. If there were communication none could have been saved but they who were in heavenly light, and at the same time in heavenly heat, from the Lord. Nay, nor could these have been saved if there were conjunction of the heavens, for all the heavens would be so shaken by the conjunction that the angels could not subsist. For from the Mohammedans the unchaste and licentious would flow into the Christian heaven, which could not be endured there; and from the Christian heaven the chaste and pure would flow into the Mohammedan heaven, which would be insufferable there. And then, by the communication and thence conjunction Christian angels would become natural and thus adulterers, or if they remained spiritual they would feel what is licentious around them continually, which would take away all the blessedness of their life.

 

Something like this would be the effect in the Mohammedan heaven; for the spiritual influences of the Christian heaven would continually surround and torment them, and deprive them of every enjoyment of their life; and moreover would instill that polygamy is sin, and they would thus be perpetually reproved. This is the reason why all the heavens are altogether distinct, so that there is no conjunction between them, except through the influx of light and heat from the Lord out of the sun in the midst of which he is; and this influx enlightens and vivifies everyone according to reception, and the reception is according to the religion. There is this communication, but not of the heavens between themselves.

 

353. To this I will add two relations. First:

 

I was once in the midst of angels, and heard their discourse. The discourse was on the subject of intelligence and wisdom: “A man does not perceive but that both are in himself, and thus that whatever he thinks from the understanding or intends from the will is from himself, when yet not the least of it is from the man, except the faculty of receiving from God the things that are of the understanding and of the will. And because every man from birth is inclined to love himself, lest from love of himself and conceit of his own intelligence man should perish, it was provided from creation that this love of man should be transcribed into the wife, and that it be implanted from birth in her, that she shall love the intelligence and wisdom of her man, and thus the man, by which means the wife continually attracts the man’s pride in his own intelligence to herself, and extinguishes it with him and vivifies it with herself, and so turns it into conjugial love, and fills it with amenities beyond measure. This is provided by the Lord in order that conceit of his own intelligence may not infatuate the man to such a degree that he would believe that he is intelligent and wise of himself, and not from the Lord, and thus eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and thence believe himself like God, and even a God, as the serpent (which is the love of one’s own intelligence) said and persuaded; for which the man after eating was cast out of paradise, and the way to the tree of life was guarded by a cherub.”

 

A paradise, spiritually, is intelligence; to eat of the tree of life, spiritually, is to understand and have wisdom from the Lord; and to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, spiritually, is to understand and be wise of oneself.

 

354. The conversation being ended the angels went away, and two priests came, having with them a man who in the world had been an ambassador of a kingdom; and I related to them what I had heard from the angels, hearing which they began to dispute among themselves on the subject of intelligence and wisdom, and of prudence therefrom, whether they are from God or from man.

 

There was a warm discussion. In heart the three alike believed that they are from man, because in man, and that the very perception and sensation that they are so confirms it. But the priests, who were then in theological zeal, said that nothing of intelligence and wisdom, and consequently nothing of prudence is from man; and when the ambassador retorted, “If so there is not anything of thought,” they said, “Not anything.”

 

But, as it was perceived in heaven that the three were in similar belief, it was said to the ambassador, “Put on the garments of a priest and believe yourself to be a priest, and then speak.”

 

And he put them on and believed, and then said in a loud voice that nothing of intelligence and wisdom, and thence nothing of prudence, can ever be except from God; and he maintained it with accustomed eloquence, full of rational arguments.

 

It is peculiar in the spiritual world that a spirit thinks himself to be such as the garment upon him is. The reason is that there the understanding clothes everyone.

 

[2] Afterwards it was said from heaven to the two priests also, “Put off your garments and put on the garments of ministers of state, and believe that you are such.”

 

And they did so, and then at once thought from their interior selves, and they spoke from reasonings which they had inwardly cherished in favor of man’s own intelligence.

 

At that moment there appeared a tree by the way, and it was told them, “This is the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Have a care that you do not eat of it.”

 

But nevertheless the three, infatuated with their own intelligence, were inflamed with a desire to eat of it, and said among themselves, “Why not? Is the fruit not good?” And they went to it and ate.

 

Then immediately the three, because they were in similar faith, became cordial friends, and went together in the way of their own intelligence, which tends towards hell; but yet I saw them coming back, for they were not yet prepared.

 

355. The second relation:

 

Once when I was looking abroad in the world of spirits I saw, in a certain meadow, men clothed in garments like those of men in the world, from which I knew that they were lately come from the world. I approached them and stood at their side, that I might listen to what they were saying among themselves. They were speaking about heaven, and one among them, who had some knowledge of heaven, said, “Wonderful things are there, such as can never be believed by anyone unless he has seen them. There are paradisal gardens, magnificent palaces, architecturally constructed because by the very art itself, resplendent as if from gold, in front of which are columns of silver upon which there are heavenly forms of precious stones; and also houses of jasper and of sapphire, in front of which are majestic porticos through which the angels enter; and within the houses are decorations which no art nor language can describe.

 

[2] “As to the angels themselves, they are of both sexes, young men and husbands, and maidens and wives, maidens so beautiful that there is no likeness of such beauty in the world. Yet the wives are still more beautiful and appear as very effigies of heavenly love. And their husbands appear as effigies of heavenly wisdom, and all these are in the bloom of early manhood. And what is more, it is not known there that there is any love of the sex other than conjugial love; and, what you will wonder at, the husbands have a perpetual faculty of enjoyment.”

 

The newly arrived spirits smiled at each other when they heard that there is no love of the sex there other than conjugial love, and that they have a perpetual faculty of enjoyment, and said, “You tell things that are past belief. There is no such faculty. You are perhaps relating fables.”

 

[3] But a certain angel from heaven then unexpectedly stood in their midst, and said, “Hear me, I pray you. I am an angel of heaven, and have lived with my wife now a thousand years, and through all those years have been in the flower of age like as you see me here. This comes to me from conjugial love with my wife; and I can assure you that the faculty with me has been and is perpetual. But as I perceive that you believe this is not possible, I will speak to you of the matter from reason, according to the light of your understanding. You know nothing of the primeval state of mankind which is called by you the state of integrity. In that state all the interiors of the mind were open even to the Lord, and thence they were in the marriage of love and wisdom, or of good and truth. And as the good of love and the truth of wisdom love each other perpetually, they perpetually will to be united, and the interiors of the mind being open, that spiritual conjugial love with its perpetual effort flows freely down and presents that faculty.

 

[4] “The soul itself of man, being in the marriage of good and truth, is not only in the perpetual effort to that unition, but is also in the perpetual effort to fruitfulness and to the production of its own likeness. And as the interiors of man are opened by that marriage even from the soul, and the interiors continually look to the effect in the ultimates as an end, that they may come forth into existence, hence that perpetual effort to fructify and produce the likeness of itself, which is of the soul, becomes an effort of the body; and as the ultimate of the soul’s operation in the body, with two married partners, is in the ultimates of love there, and is dependent on the state of the soul, it is plain from whence this perpetual is in them.

 

[5] “There is also perpetual fruitfulness, because the universal sphere of generating and propagating the celestial things which are of love and the spiritual things which are of wisdom, and thence the natural things which are of their offspring, proceeds from the Lord and fills the universal heaven and the universal world; and that heavenly sphere fills the souls of all men, and descends through their minds into the body, even to its ultimates, and gives the power of generating. But this cannot be given to others than those with whom the passage is open from the soul, through the higher and lower things of the mind into the body, down to its ultimates, which is the case with those who suffer themselves to be led back by the Lord to the primeval state of creation. I can affirm that with me now, for a thousand years, neither the faculty, nor strength, nor ability has ever failed; and that I have known nothing at all of any diminution of powers, for they are continually renewed by the continually inflowing universal sphere that I have spoken of; and then they gladden and do not sadden the spirit, as with those who suffer the loss of them.

 

[6] “Moreover, love truly conjugial is just like the warmth of spring, from the inflowing of which all things aspire to germination and fruitfulness, and there is no other heat in our heaven, so that with married partners there it is spring in its perpetual effort; and it is this perpetual effort from which the ability comes. But with us in the heavens fruitfulness is different from that on earth. With us it is spiritual fruitfulness, which is of love and of wisdom, or of good and of truth; the wife, from the wisdom of her husband, receives in herself the love of it; and the husband, from the love of it in his wife, receives in himself the wisdom. Yea, the wife is actually formed into the love of the wisdom of her husband, which is effected by receptions of the propagations of his soul, with the delight arising from the fact that she wills to be the love of her husband’s wisdom. Thus does she from a virgin become a wife and a likeness. And from this, love with its inmost friendship with the wife and wisdom with its felicity with the husband perennially increase and this to eternity. This is the state of the angels of heaven.”

 

[7] When the angel had thus spoken he looked upon those who were newly come from the world, and said to them: “You know that when you have been in the vigor of love, you loved your married partners, and that after the delight you have turned away; but you do not know that in heaven we do not love our married partners from that vigor, but that we have the vigor from love, and that because we love our married partners perpetually it is perpetual in us. If then you can invert your state you can comprehend this.

 

Who that loves his married partner perpetually does not love her with his whole mind and with his whole body? For love turns all things of the mind and all things of the body towards that which it loves; and the fact that it is so reciprocally, conjoins them so that they become as it were one.”

 

[8] And he said further: “I shall not speak to you of the conjugial love inherent from creation in the male and in the female, and of their inclination to legitimate conjunction; nor of the faculty of prolification in the male which makes one with the faculty of multiplying wisdom from love of truth; and that insofar as a man loves wisdom from love of it, or loves truth from good, insofar he is in love truly conjugial and in the accompanying vigor of it.”

 

356. Saying this the angel ceased; and the newcomers comprehended from the spirit of his speech that there can be a perpetual faculty of enjoyment, and as this gladdened their minds, they exclaimed, “O, how happy the state of the angels. We perceive that you in heaven remain to eternity in the state of youth, and hence in the vigor of that age. But tell us how may we also attain that vigor?”

 

And the angel responded, “Shun adulteries as infernal and come to the Lord, and you will have it.”

 

And they replied, “We will thus shun them and come to the Lord.”

 

But the angel answered, “You cannot shun adulteries as infernal evils unless you shun all other evils likewise, for adulteries are the complex of them all; unless you shun them you cannot come to the Lord. Others than such the Lord does not receive.”

 

After this the angel departed, and the new spirits went away sorrowful.

 

 

 

 

(16)

 

Jealousy

 

 

357. Jealousy is here treated of because it also pertains to conjugial love. But there is a just and an unjust jealousy. Just jealousy is with married partners who mutually love each other; there is with them a just and prudent zeal lest their conjugial love be violated, and therefore just grief if it be violated.

 

But unjust jealousy is with those who by nature are suspicious, and of sickly mind, from viscous and bilious blood. Moreover, all jealousy is by some considered a fault. Especially is it so by whoremongers, who cast blame upon just jealousy.

 

The word zelotypia, jealousy, is from zelus typos, and there is a type or form of zeal which is just, and a zeal which is unjust; and the differences shall now, in what follows, be unfolded. It shall be done in this order:

 

(1) That, regarded in itself, zeal is as the fire of love burning.

 

(2) That the burning or flame of that love, which is zeal, is a spiritual burning or flame, arising from an infestation and assault of the love.

 

(3) That the zeal of a man [homo] is of such kind as his love, thus of one kind with him whose love is good, and of another kind with him whose love is evil.

 

(4) That the zeal of good love and the zeal of evil love are alike in externals, but in internals they are altogether unlike.

 

(5) That the zeal of a good love in its internals conceals love and friendship; but that the zeal of an evil love in its internals conceals hatred and vindictiveness.

 

(6) That the zeal of conjugial love is called jealousy.

 

(7) That jealousy is as a flaming fire against those who infest the love with a married partner, and that it is as a horrible fear for the loss of that love.

 

(8) That there is spiritual jealousy with monogamists, and natural with polygamists.

 

(9) That jealousy with married partners who tenderly love each other is a just grief, from sound reason, lest conjugial love be divided and so perish.

 

(10) That with married partners who do not love each other jealousy is from several causes; with some from a variety of infirmities of mind.

 

(11) That with some there is no jealousy, also from various causes.

 

(12) That there is also jealousy for mistresses, but not of such kind as for wives.

 

(13) That there is jealousy also among beasts; and among birds.

 

(14) That jealousy with men and husbands is of another kind than with women and wives.

 

Now follows the explanation of these propositions.

 

358. (1) That, regarded in itself, zeal is as the fire of love burning. The nature of jealousy cannot be known unless there is a cognition of what zeal is, for jealousy is the zeal of conjugial love. Zeal is as the fire of love burning because zeal is of love, and love is spiritual heat, and this in its origin is as fire. As regards the first statement it is known that zeal is of love; nothing else is meant by being zealous, and by acting from zeal, than acting with the force of love. But as when it is manifested it does not appear as love, but as an antagonist and foe, enraged and fighting against him who does injury to love, it may be called also the defender and protector of love. For all love is of such a nature that it breaks forth into indignation and anger, yea, into fury, when cast out from its delights. Therefore if love be touched, especially the ruling love, it becomes an emotion of the mind, and if the touch hurts it becomes a flaming passion. Whence it may be seen that zeal is not the highest degree of love, but is love burning. The love of one and the corresponding love of another are as two confederates; but when the love of the one rises up against the love of the other they become as enemies. The reason is that love is the being [esse] of man’s life, and therefore he who assaults the love assaults the life itself, and then a state of wrath arises against the assailant, as the state of any man whom another attempts to kill. Such passion pertains to every love, even the most peaceful, as is plainly seen from hens, geese, and birds of every kind, in that they, without fear, rise up against, and fly at those who molest their young or take away their food. Some beasts it is well known are angry, and wild beasts are furious if their whelps are threatened, or their prey is taken from them.

 

Love is said to flame like fire, because love is nothing else than spiritual heat, arising from the fire of the angelic sun, which is pure love. That love is heat, as if from fire, is very manifest from the heat of living bodies, which is from no other source than their love; and from the fact that men grow warm, and are inflamed, according to the exaltations of love. From which it is plain that zeal is as the fire of love burning.

 

359. (2) That the burning or flame of that love, which is zeal, is a spiritual burning or flame, arising from an infestation and assault of the love. That zeal is a spiritual burning, or flame, is clear from what has been said above. Since love in the spiritual world is heat, arising from the sun there, it therefore also appears from a distance there as flame. Thus heavenly love appears with the angels of heaven, and thus does infernal love appear with the spirits of hell. But it should be known that the flame does not consume like flame in the natural world.

 

[2] Zeal arises from an assault of love, because love is the heat of the life of everyone, and therefore when the life’s love is assailed the heat of life sets itself aflame, resists, and breaks forth against the assailant, and of its own force and power acts as an enemy, just as the flame bursts forth from a fire against him who agitates it. That zeal is as a fire appears from the eyes, in that they flash; from the face, that it is inflamed; and from the tone of voice and the gestures. Love does this because it is the heat of life, lest it be extinguished, and with it all alacrity, vivacity, and perceptibility of enjoyment from its love.

 

360. How love is kindled and inflamed into zeal by an assault upon it, as fire into a blaze, shall be explained: Love resides in man’s will; but it is not enkindled in the will itself but in the understanding. For in the will it is as fire, and in the understanding as a flame. Love in the will knows nothing about itself, because it feels nothing of itself there, and does nothing of itself there; but this takes place in the understanding and its thought. When therefore love is attacked it exasperates itself in the understanding. This is done by various reasonings. These reasonings are as sticks of wood which the fire sets aflame, and which thence burn. They are thus as so much kindling, or so much combustible material, from which that spiritual flame arises which is of much variety.

 

361. The very reason shall be unfolded why man is set on fire by an attack upon his love. The human form, from creation, is in its inmosts a form of love and wisdom. In man all affections of love and thence all perceptions of wisdom are arranged in most perfect order, so that they together form a unanimity, and thus a one. These are substances, for substances are the subjects of them. Since then the human form is composed of these, it is plain that if the love be attacked, the universal form with all and the single things therein is in the instant, or at the same time, also attacked; and as from creation it is given to all living things to will to remain in their own form, the general complex wills this from its particulars, and the particulars from the general.

 

[2] Hence, when the love is attacked, it defends itself by its understanding, and the understanding by things of reason and of imagination, whereby it brings the event before itself, especially by those things that are as one with the love which is attacked. If this were not so the whole form would be made to totter, by privation of love. Hence now it is that, in order that it may resist attacks, love hardens the substances of its form and erects them as it were into crests—so many bristles; that is, it stiffens itself. Such is the exasperation of love which is called zeal. If therefore there is not the power to withstand, anxiety arises, and grief, because it foresees the extinction of the interior life with its delights. But on the other hand if love is favored, and caressed, that form relaxes itself, softens itself, dilates itself, and the substances of the form become soft, bland, gentle, and alluring.

 

362. (3) That the zeal of a man is of such kind as his love; thus of one kind with him whose love is good, and of another kind with him whose love is evil. Since zeal is of love, it follows that it is of such kind as the love is; and as in general there are two loves—the love of good and thence of truth, and the love of evil and thence of what is false—therefore, there is in general a zeal for good and thence for truth, and a zeal for evil and thence for the false. But it should be known that each love is of infinite variety. This is very manifest from the angels of heaven and from the spirits of hell. They both, in the spiritual world, are forms of their love. And yet there is not one angel of heaven absolutely like another, as to face, speech, walk, gesture, and manners; neither is any spirit of hell like to another; nay, nor can be to eternity, howsoever multiplied into myriads of myriads. It is plain, therefore, since their forms are so, that loves are of infinite variety. It is similar with zeal, because it is of love; that is to say, there cannot be the zeal of one absolutely like to or the same as the zeal of another. In general there is the zeal of good love, and the zeal of evil love.

 

363. (4) That the zeal of good love and the zeal of evil love are alike in externals, but in internals they are altogether unlike. With everyone zeal appears in externals as anger and wrath, for it is love on fire, and inflamed for the protection of itself against a violator, and for his removal. The reason why the zeal of a good love and the zeal of an evil love appear alike in externals is that, with both, while the love is in zeal it burns, but with a good man only in externals, but with the evil both in externals and in internals, and when the internals are not seen, in the externals the zeals appear alike. But it will be seen, in the section next following, that they are entirely unlike in internals. That in externals zeal appears like anger and wrath can be seen and heard from all who speak and act from zeal. As for example, from a priest when from zeal he exhorts, in that the sound of his voice is loud, vehement, sharp, and harsh; in that his face grows warm and perspires; in that he raises himself up, beats the pulpit, and evokes the fire of hell against evil doers. In like manner many others.

 

364. To get a distinct idea of zeal with the good, and of zeal with the evil, and of their unlikeness, it is necessary to form some notion respecting the internals and externals with men. That this may be formed, let the similitude of them be a common one, because it is also for the common people. It may be presented by a nut or almond, and their kernels. With the good the internals are as kernels within, which are sound and good, enclosed in their usual and native shell. But with the evil it is altogether different, their internals are as kernels either inedible for their bitterness, or putrid, or worm-eaten; and their externals are as the shells or coverings of them either like the native shell, or red like testaceans, or many- hued like iris stones. Such do their externals appear, within which are concealed the internals described above. It is similar with their zeal.

 

365. (5) That the zeal of good love, in its internals, conceals love and friendship; but that the zeal of evil love in its internals conceals hatred and vindictiveness. It was said that in externals zeal appears as anger and wrath, both with those who are in good love and with those who are in evil love. But as internals differ, their anger and wrath also are different; and are as follows. (a) The zeal of good love is as a heavenly flame which never breaks forth upon another, but only defends itself, and it defends itself against evil, as when one rushes into the fire and is burned up; but the zeal of an evil love is as an infernal flame which bursts forth out of itself and attacks, and would consume the other. (b) The zeal of good love instantly burns away and grows gentle, when the other withdraws from the attack; but the zeal of an evil love persists, and is not extinguished. (c) The reason is that the internal of him who is in the love of good in itself is mild, gentle, friendly, and benevolent; and therefore, while the external for the purpose of defending itself becomes rough, harsh, erect, and so acts with severity, yet it is tempered from the good in which its internal is. With the evil it is otherwise. With them the internal is hostile, fierce, hard, breathing hatred and vindictiveness, and nurtures itself from their delights. And though reconciled these still lie hidden, like fire in wood beneath the ashes. And these fires break forth, if not in this world, yet after death.

 

366. Since in externals zeal with the good and with the evil appears alike, and as the ultimate sense of the Word consists of correspondences and appearances, it is often said there of Jehovah, that he is angry, in wrath, that he avenges and punishes, casts into hell, and many other things which are the appearances of zeal in externals, and hence he is called jealous, when yet there is not the least of anger, wrath, and vengeance in him. For he is mercy, grace, and clemency itself, thus good itself, in whom nothing of such kind is possible. But of these matters see the many things in Heaven and Hell, n. 545-550; and in Apocalypse Revealed, n. 494, 498, 525, 714, 806.

 

367. (6) That the zeal of conjugial love is called jealousy. The zeal for love truly conjugial is the zeal of zeals, because this love is the love of loves, and its delights—for which also it is zealous—are the delights of delights; for this love, as has been shown above, is the head of all loves. The reason is, that this love induces upon the wife the form of love, and upon the husband the form of wisdom, and from these forms united in one nothing else can proceed but what savors of wisdom, and at the same time of love. As the zeal of conjugial love is the zeal of zeals, therefore it is called by a new name, zelotypia, that is, the very type of zeal.

 

368. (7) That jealousy is as a flaming fire against those who infest the love with a married partner, and that it is as a horrible fear for the loss of that love. The jealousy here treated of is of those who are in spiritual love with a married partner. The following section will treat of the jealousy of those who are in natural love; and after that, of the jealousy of those who are in love truly conjugial. With those who are in spiritual love jealousy is various, because their love is various; for there is never a love, spiritual or natural, that is precisely alike with two, still less with many.

 

[2] The reason that spiritual jealousy, or jealousy with the spiritual, is as a fire flaming forth against those that infest their conjugial love is that the beginning of love with them is in the internals of each, and from its beginning their love follows the derivations down to their ultimates, from which, and at the same time from the first beginnings, the intermediates which are of the mind and of the body are held in lovely connection. Being spiritual, in their marriage they look to union as an end, and in that to spiritual rest and its amenities. Now, as they have cast disunion out of their minds, the zeal is therefore as a fire stirred up and darting out against those who infest.

 

[3] It is also a horrid fear, because their spiritual love purposes that they shall be one; if then a mischance occurs, or there arises an appearance of separation, it begets a fear which is horrible, as when two united parts are to be torn asunder. This description of jealousy was given me from heaven, by those who are in spiritual conjugial love. For there is natural conjugial love, spiritual conjugial love, and celestial conjugial love. The natural and the celestial, and their jealousy, shall be spoken of in the two sections that are to follow.

 

369. (8) That there is spiritual jealousy with monogamists, and natural with polygamists. There is spiritual jealousy with monogamists because they can only receive spiritual conjugial love, as has been abundantly shown above. It is said there is, but the meaning is that with them there can be; that it is not, except with a very few, but yet that it can be in the Christian world where marriages are monogamic is also confirmed above.

 

That with polygamists conjugial love is natural may be seen in the chapter on polygamy, n. 345-347. Then their jealousy likewise is natural, because this follows the love.

 

[2] Of what kind the jealousy of polygamists is, is learned from the relations about them of some eyewitnesses among orientals, which are, that wives and mistresses are guarded like captives in work houses, and are kept and secluded from all communication with men; that into the women’s apartments, or their guarded rooms, no man is permitted to enter unless accompanied by a eunuch; and that there is close observation whether any one of them glances with a licentious eye or look at a passerby, and that if this is observed the woman is punished with stripes; and if one practices lewdness with any man introduced by cunning into the entrance hall, or without, she is punished with death.

 

370. These facts illustrate truly of what kind the fire of jealousy is into which polygamic conjugial love breaks out, that it breaks forth into anger and vindictiveness, into anger with those that are gentle, and into vindictiveness with the ungentle; and that this is so because their love is natural, and does not partake of the spiritual. This follows from things shown in the chapter on polygamy. From this in that chapter: that polygamy is licentious, n. 345; and that a polygamist so long as he remains a polygamist is natural and cannot become spiritual, n. 347. But with the monogamous natural the fire of jealousy is different. Their love is enkindled not so much against the women, but against the violators; against them it becomes anger, and against the women, cold. It is otherwise with the polygamous, the fire of whose jealousy flames also with the frenzy of revenge. And this is also among the reasons why the mistresses and wives of polygamists, for the most part, are set free after death and are assigned to women’s apartments not guarded, for the skillful production of various things which pertain to women’s work.

 

371. (9) That jealousy with those married partners who tenderly love each other is a just grief, from sound reason, lest conjugial love be divided and so perish. Fear and grief are inherent in all love, fear lest it perish, and grief if it perish. The same are inherent in conjugial love, but its fear and grief are called zeal, or jealousy. That zeal with married partners who tenderly love each other is just, and of sound reason, is because it is at the same time fear for the loss of eternal happiness, not its own only, but that of the married partner also; and because it is likewise protection against adultery. As regards the first, that it is a just fear for the loss of eternal happiness, its own and that of the married partner, it follows from all that has hitherto been advanced respecting love truly conjugial, and from these considerations: That from that love comes the blessedness of their souls, the satisfaction of their minds, the delight of their bosoms, and the pleasure of their bodies; and as these abide with them to eternity, the fear is for the eternal happiness of both. That the zeal is a just protection against adultery is plain. Hence it is as a fire flaming against violation, and defending against it. From these considerations it is evident that whoever tenderly loves his married partner is also jealous, but just and sane, according to the wisdom of the man.

 

372. It was said that inherent in conjugial love there is fear lest it be divided, and grief lest it perish; and that its zeal against violation is like fire. Meditating once upon this, I asked zealous angels respecting the seat of jealousy. They said it was in the understanding of the man who receives the love of his married partner and loves in return; and that its quality in the understanding is according to his wisdom. They also said that jealousy has something in common with honor, which also inheres in conjugial love; for he who loves his married partner also honors her.

 

[2] “The reason why zeal with the man resides in his understanding,” they said, “is this, that conjugial love protects itself by the understanding, as good does by truth. Thus the wife protects the things that are in common with the man through her husband; and for that reason zeal is implanted in the men, and by men and for the sake of men in women.”

 

To the question, “In what region of the mind does it reside with men?” they answered, “In their soul, because it is also the protection against adulteries; and because these principally destroy conjugial love, in perils of violation the understanding of the man hardens, and becomes as a horn smiting the adulterer.”

 

373. (10) That with married partners who do not love each other jealousy is from several causes; but with some, from a variety of infirmities of mind. The reasons why married partners who do not mutually love each other are also jealous are principally the honor of potency, the fear of dishonor to their name and also to that of their wives, and the dread lest their domestic affairs fall into ruin. That men have honor from potency, that is, that they desire to be magnified by it is known; for so long as they have this honor they are as of lofty mind and not of dejected visage among men and women. The name of bravery also attaches itself to that honor, and therefore it inheres in military officers more than in others. That there is fear of dishonor to their name, and to that of the wife, coheres with the former reason; add to which that cohabitation with a harlot and lewdness in the house are infamous. The reason why with some jealousy is for fear that domestic affairs should come to ruin, is that the husband is by so much disgraced, and mutual offices and mutual aid are distraught. But with some this jealousy in time ceases and becomes none; and with some it is turned into the mere simulation of love.

 

374. That with some jealousy is from a variety of infirmities of the mind is no secret in the world; for there are jealous men who are continually thinking of their wives that they are unfaithful, and believe them to be harlots if only they hear or see that they talk in a friendly way with men, or about men. There are various vitiated states of mind which induce this infirmity, first among which is a suspicious fantasy, which if long cherished brings the mind into societies of similar spirits, from which it is difficult to be brought out. It even settles itself in the body, by that the serum and thence the blood becomes viscous, tenacious, thick, sluggish, and acrid. Deficiency of strength also increases it, for it effects that the mind cannot be raised above its suspicions. For the presence of strength elevates, and its absence depresses, because it brings to pass that the mind droops, collapses, and becomes relaxed, and then immerses itself into that fantasy more and more until it is delirious; and this results in the delight of reproaches, and as far as may be, of railing abuse.

 

375. There are also families of countries that beyond others are afflicted with the infirmity of jealousy. By them wives are imprisoned, imperiously debarred from converse with men, kept from their sight by windows with lattices extended down them, and terrified by threatenings of death in case a cherished suspicion should find a cause; besides other severities which wives there endure from their jealous husbands. But of this jealousy there are two causes: One is the captivity and stifling of thoughts upon the spiritual things of the church; the other is an internal lust for revenge.

 

[2] As to the first cause, the captivity and stifling of thought upon the spiritual matters of the church, what this effects may be concluded from things shown above. That conjugial love with everyone is according to the state of the church with him; and that, as the church is from the Lord, this love is from the Lord alone (n. 131).

 

When, therefore, in place of the Lord, men, living and dead, are approached and invoked, it follows that there is no state of the church with which conjugial love can act as one; and the less when their minds are affrighted into that worship by threats of horrible imprisonment. Thence it comes to pass that the thoughts, together with the speech, are violently made captive, and suffocated, which being suffocated such things flow in as are contrary to the church, or things imaginary that favor the church: From all which there cannot but come forth a surging heat for harlots, and icy cold for the married partner, from which two together, in one subject, such an ungovernable fire of jealousy issues.

 

[3] As regards the second cause, which is an internal lust for revenge, this entirely inhibits the influx of conjugial love, absorbs it and overwhelms it, and its delight, which is heavenly, is turned into the delight of revenge, which is infernal; and the nearest determination of this is towards the wife. It is also according to appearance that the malignity of the atmosphere in those countries, which is impregnated with the virulent exhalations of the surrounding region, is a secondary cause.

 

376. (11) That with some there is no jealousy, also from various causes. There are many causes of no jealousy, and of the cessation of jealousy. They especially have no jealousy who make no more of conjugial love than of promiscuous love, and who are at once of no honor, setting no value upon a good name. They are not unlike married pimps. They also have no jealousy who have put it away, from an established notion that it infests the mind, and that a wife is watched in vain, and if watched is incited; and therefore that it is better to shut one’s eyes, and not even let them look through the keyhole in the door lest something be detected by sight. Some have put it away on account of the stigma attached to the name jealousy, thinking that a man who is a man fears nothing. Some have been driven to put it away lest their domestic affairs be ruined, so also lest they incur public disparagement if the wife should be convicted of the lewdness whereof she is guilty. Besides, jealousy passes away to nothing with those who grant free license to their wives, on account of impotence, for the procreation of children, for the sake of inheritance, and with some for gain, and so on. There are also promiscuous marriages, in which by mutual consent license in sexual activity is given to each, and yet they meet each other with civil countenance.

 

377. (12) That there is also jealousy for mistresses, but not of such kind as for wives. Jealousy for wives flows down from the inmosts with man, but jealousy for mistresses flows from the externals, and therefore they are of different kind. Jealousy for wives flows from the inmosts, because there conjugial love resides; and it resides there because marriage, by the promised eternity of it established by the covenant, and also by equality of right, in that what is one’s is the other’s, unites the souls and binds the minds together above. This tie and that union once effected remain unsevered, whatever be the love, hot or cold, that afterwards intervenes.

 

[2] Hence it is that invitation to love by a wife chills the whole man, from inmosts to outermosts; while invitation to love by a mistress does not thus chill a paramour. To jealousy for a wife is added ambition of a good name for the sake of honor; and there is not this accessory to jealousy for a mistress. But yet both these jealousies are various according to the seat of the love received from the wife, and from the mistress; and at the same time according to the state of judgment of the man receiving it.

 

378. (13) That there is jealousy also among beasts and among birds. That it exists among wild beasts—such as lions, tigers, bears, and many others—while they have young is known; and also among bulls, although there are no calves. It is most conspicuous with cocks, which fight with rivals for their hens even to the death. The reason why there is such jealousy among them is that they are vainglorious lovers and the glory of that kind of love does not endure an equal. That they are vainglorious lovers beyond all other kinds and species of birds, is apparent in their carriage, their nod, their strut, and the sound of their voice. That the glory of honor among men, whether lovers or not lovers, excites, exalts, and aggravates jealousy has been confirmed above.

 

379. (14) That jealousy with men and husbands is of another kind than with women and wives. But the differences cannot be distinctly defined, because jealousy is of one kind with married partners who love each other spiritually, of another kind with partners who only love naturally; of one kind with partners who are of discordant mind, and of another with married partners of whom one has brought the other partner under the yoke of obedience to themselves. The jealousies of men and of women are different, viewed in themselves, because of different origin. The origin of virile jealousies is in the understanding, but of womanly jealousies, in the will applied to the understanding of her husband. And therefore virile jealousy is as a flame of wrath and anger; and womanly, as a fire restrained by a varying fear, a varying aspect towards her husband, a varying regard to her own love, and a varying prudence not to discover this love to her husband by jealousy. They are distinguished by the fact that wives are loves, and men are recipients; and to be prodigal of their love is prejudicial to wives with men, but is not likewise prejudicial to the recipients with wives.

 

[2] But it is otherwise with the spiritual. With them the jealousy of the man is transferred to the wife, just as the wife’s love is transferred to the man; and therefore they appear each to the other alike opposed to the endeavor of a violator. But the jealousy of a wife against the endeavor of a harlot violator is breathed into the man, which is as grief weeping, and moving the conscience.

 

380. I will add two relations. First, this:

 

Once I was in amazement at the vast multitude of men who attribute creation, and thence all things under the sun and beyond the sun, to nature, saying from an acknowledgment of the heart, when they see anything, “Is not this of nature?” And when asked why they say it is of nature and why not of God, since yet they sometimes say with the generality that God created nature, and can therefore as easily say that the things they see are of God as that they are of nature, they replied, with an internal, almost inaudible tone, “What is God but nature?” They all from persuasion respecting the creation of the universe from nature, and from this insanity as if from wisdom, appear vainglorious; so much so that they look upon all those who acknowledge the creation of the universe from God as if they were ants that creep along the ground, and tread the beaten way, and some as if they were butterflies that fly in the air, calling their doctrines dreams, because they see what they do not see, saying, “Who has seen God, and who has not seen nature?”

 

[2] While I was in amazement at the multitude of such, an angel stood by my side and said to me, “What are you meditating upon?”

 

I replied, “Upon the multitude of such as believe that nature created the universe.”

 

And the angel said to me, “All hell is of such, and they are called satans and devils—satans those who have confirmed themselves in favor of nature, and thence have denied God, and devils, those who have lived viciously and so have rejected from the heart all acknowledgment of God. But I will lead you to gymnasia, which are in the southwestern quarter, where such abide who are not yet in hell.”

 

And he took me by the hand and led me. And I saw small houses in which there were gymnasia, and in the midst of them one that appeared to be the official residence of the others. It was built of stone, black as pitch, overlaid with thin plates, as of glass, sparkling as if from gold and silver, like what are called glacies mariae [mica] and interspersed here and there with shells, likewise glittering.

 

[2] We approached this building and knocked, and presently one opened the door and said, “Welcome.” And he ran to a table and brought four books, and said, “These books are wisdom which a multitude in the kingdoms of the present day applaud; this book or wisdom many in France applaud; this, many in Germany; this, some in Batavia; and this, some in England.” He said further, “If you would like to see it I will make these four books shine before your eyes”; and then the glory of his reputation shot forth and poured around, and thereupon the books flashed as with light; but this light to our eyes vanished instantly.

 

And then we asked, “What are you now writing?” He replied that what he was now drawing forth from his treasures and expounding were matters of inmost wisdom, which in brief are these: (1) Whether nature is of life, or life is of nature; (2) Whether the center is of the expanse, or the expanse is of the center; (3) Concerning the center and the expanse of nature and of life.

 

[4] This said he seated himself again at the table, but we walked about in his gymnasium, which was spacious. He had a candle on the table, because the diurnal light of the sun was not there, but the nocturnal light of the moon; and what surprised me, the candle appeared to be carried and to give light all about the room, but as it had not been snuffed it gave but little light. And while he was writing we saw images of various forms flitting from the table to the walls, which in that nocturnal, lunar light appeared like beautiful Indian birds; but when we opened the door, lo, in the diurnal light of the sun they appeared like birds of evening whose wings are webbed. For they were semblances of truth, which by confirmations become fallacies and which were ingeniously connected by him into a series.

 

[5] After we had seen these things we went to the table, and asked him what he was writing now. He said, “On the first problem, Whether nature is of life, or life is of nature.” And respecting this he said that he could confirm either and make it true; but as something lay hidden within which he feared, he ventured to confirm but this, “That nature is of life, that is from life, and not that life is of nature, that is from nature.” We courteously asked him what it was that he feared which lay hidden within. He said it was that he might be called by the clergy a naturalist, and thus an atheist, and by the laity a man of unsound reason, “since they both are either believers from a blind faith or see from the sight of those that confirm it.”

 

[6] But then, with some indignation of zeal for the truth, we admonished him, saying, “Friend, you very greatly err. Your wisdom, which is ability in writing, has led you astray, and the glory of reputation has impelled you to confirm what you do not believe. Do you not know that the human mind is capable of being elevated above things sensual, which are such as are in the thoughts from the bodily senses; and that when it is elevated it sees the things which are of life above, and the things that are of nature beneath? What is life but love and wisdom? And what is nature but the receptacle of these, whereby they work out their effects or uses? Can these be one except as principal and instrumental? Can light be one with the eye? Can sound be one with the ear? Whence come their sensations but from life, and their forms but from nature? What is the human body but an organ of life? Are not all things and every single thing therein organically formed to do whatever the love wills and the understanding thinks? Are not the organs of the body from nature, and love and thought from life? Are they not quite distinct from each other? Lift the keenness of your genius a little higher, and you will see that it is of life to be affected and to think, and that to be affected is from love and to think is from wisdom, and both are from life; for, as was said, love and wisdom are life. If you elevate your faculty of understanding yet a little higher, you will see that there is no love and wisdom unless there is somewhere an origin of it, and that the origin of it is [love itself and]²⁶ wisdom itself, and thence life itself, and these are God, from whom is nature.”

 

[7] After this we talked with him about the second problem, Whether the center is of the expanse, or the expanse is of the center, and asked him why he was discussing this. He replied, to the end that he might come to a conclusion respecting the center and the expanse of nature and of life, thus respecting the origin of the one and the other. And when we asked what his opinion was, he made similar answer as before, that he could confirm either, but that for fear of loss of reputation he should confirm that the expanse is of the center, that is, from the center, “although I know,” he said, “that there was something before the sun, and this everywhere in the universe, and that these things flowed together into order, thus into centers of themselves.”

 

[8] But then again we addressed him from indignant zeal, and said, “Friend, you are insane.” When he heard this he drew back his seat from the table, and looked at us timidly. And then he turned his ear, but smiling, and we continued, saying, “What is more insane than to say the center is from the expanse? By your center we understand the sun, and by your expanse we understand the universe, and thus that the universe came into existence without the sun. Does not the sun make nature and all things belonging to it, which are dependent solely on the heat and light proceeding from the sun by its atmospheres? Where were these before? But from whence they are we will tell in the following discussion. Are not the atmospheres and all things that are on the earth as surfaces, and the sun the center of them? What are all these without the sun? Could they subsist for one moment? What were they all then before the sun? Could they have subsisted? Is not subsistence a perpetual coming into existence? Since, therefore, the subsistence of all things of nature is from the sun, it follows that the coming into existence of them all is also from the sun.

 

[9] This everyone sees and acknowledges of his own observation. As the posterior exists from the prior, does it not also subsist from the prior? If the surfaces were prior and the center posterior would not the prior subsist from the posterior? But this is contrary to the laws of order. How can things posterior produce things prior? Or exteriors, interiors? Or things grosser, things purer? How then can superficies, which constitute the expanse, produce centers? Who does not see that this is against the laws of nature? We have brought forward these arguments from rational analysis to establish that the expanse exists from the center, and not the contrary, although everyone who thinks rightly sees it without these arguments. You said that the expanse flows together into the center of itself. Is it thus of chance that it flowed into so wonderful and stupendous an order so that one thing is for another, and all things and every single thing for man and his eternal life? Can nature, from any love by any wisdom, provide such things? And of men make angels? And from angels, heaven? Suppose this, and meditate on these things, and your idea of the existence of nature from nature will fall.”

 

[10] After this we asked him what he had thought and what he now thought, about the third problem, Concerning the center and the expanse of nature and of life; whether he believed the center and the expanse of life to be the same as the center and expanse of nature. He said he hesitated, and that he had thought before that the interior activity of nature was life, and that from this are the love and wisdom which essentially make the life of man; and that the fire of the sun by its heat and light produces them, the atmospheres being means. But now from what he had heard about the eternal life of man he was in doubt; and this doubt swayed his mind now up and now down; when up he acknowledged a center of which he knew nothing before, and when down he saw a center which he had believed the only one; and that life is from the center of which he had not known before, and nature from the center which he had before believed to be the only one, and that each center has an expanse about itself.

 

[11] To this we said that would be all right if he would also view the center and the expanse of nature from the center and expanse of life, and not contrariwise. And we informed him that above the angelic heaven there is a sun which is pure love, to appearance fiery, like the sun of the world; and that from the heat which proceeds from that sun angels and men have will and love, and from the light from it they have understanding and wisdom. And that the things which are of life are called spiritual; and that those which proceed from the sun of the world are containants of life, and are called natural. Then, that the expanse of the center of life is called the spiritual world, which subsists from its own sun; and that the expanse of nature is called the natural world, which subsists from its sun. Now, as spaces and times cannot be predicated of love and wisdom, but states instead, the expanse about the sun of the angelic heaven is not an extense, but is yet within the extense of the natural sun, and is with the living subjects there according to reception, and reception is according to forms.

 

[12] “But then” he asked, “from whence is the fire of the sun of the world or of nature?”

 

We answered, “It is from the sun of the angelic heaven, which is not fire but Divine love, proximately proceeding from God who is love itself.”

 

This, because it is marvelous, we explained in this way: “Love in its essence is spiritual fire. Hence it is that in the Word, in its spiritual sense, fire signifies love; for which reason it is that priests in temples pray that heavenly fire may fill the hearts, by which they mean love. The fire of the altar, and the fire of the candlestick in the tabernacle with the Israelites, represented nothing else than Divine love. The heat of the blood, or vital heat of men and of animals, in general is from no other source than from the love which makes their life. Hence it is that man is enkindled, waxes warm, and is inflamed when his love is exalted into zeal, anger, and wrath. From this fact, therefore, that spiritual heat, which is love, produces natural heat with men, even so that it kindles and inflames their faces and their limbs, one may be assured that the fire of the natural sun existed from no other source than from the fire of the spiritual sun, which is Divine love.

 

[13] “Now, as the expanse springs from the center and not the reverse, as we have said before; and as the center of life, which is the sun of the angelic heaven, is Divine love proximately proceeding from God, who is in the midst of that sun; and as from this is the expanse of that center, which is called the spiritual world; and as from that sun came into existence the sun of the world, and from this its expanse, which is called the natural world, it is clear that the universe is created from the one God.”

 

After these words we departed, and he attended us beyond the area of his gymnasium, and talked with us about heaven and hell, and about the Divine auspices, from a new sagacity of his genius.

 

381. The second relation:

 

Once when I was looking around in the world of spirits, I saw in the distance a palace, surrounded, and as it were besieged by a multitude; and I also saw many running towards it. Astonished at this I hastily left the house and asked one who was running what was the matter there. He replied that three newcomers from the world had been taken up into heaven, and had seen magnificent things there, and also maidens and wives of wondrous beauty; and having been let down from that heaven they went into this palace, and were relating what they had seen, especially that they had seen beauties such as their eyes had never seen, nor could see unless illumined with the light of the aura of heaven. As to themselves, they said that in the world they had been orators from the kingdom of France, and that they had given attention to the cultivation of eloquence, and now there had come upon them a desire to speak on the origin of beauty. This having become known in the vicinity was the cause of the multitude flocking together to hear.

 

Hearing this I also hastened thither and entered. And I saw those three men standing in the midst, clad in togas of the color of sapphire, which as they turned glistened as with gold, from threads of gold interwoven. They were standing behind a sort of rostrum ready to speak. And presently one arose upon a step behind the rostrum, to declaim respecting the origin of the beauty of the female sex, and advanced this:

 

382. “What origin is there of beauty other than love, which as it flows into the eyes of young men and kindles them becomes beauty? Love and beauty are therefore the same thing; for love, from the inmost, suffuses the face of a marriageable virgin with a kind of flame, from the transparency of which is the dawn and bloom of her life. Who does not know that that flame emits rays into her eyes, and from them as centers overspreads the orb of her face, and thence descends also into the breast and kindles the heart and thus affects, much as the heat and light of a fire affect one standing near? That heat is love, and that light is the beauty of love. The whole world, by common consent, affirms that everyone is lovely and beautiful according to his or her love. But yet the love of the male sex is one, and the love of the female sex is another. Masculine love is the love of becoming wise, and feminine love is the love of loving the love of becoming wise in the male. Insofar then as a young man is the love of becoming wise, he is lovely and beautiful to a maiden; and insofar as a maiden is the love of the wisdom of a young man, she is lovely and beautiful to the young man. And therefore as the love of the one meets and kisses the love of the other, so do the beauties also. I conclude then that love forms beauty in the likeness of itself.”

 

383. After him another rose to disclose the origin of beauty by elegance of speech. He said, “I have heard that love is the origin of beauty, but I do not favor it with consent. Who among men knows what love is? Who with any idea of thought has contemplated it? Who has seen it with the eye? Tell where it is. But I assert that wisdom is the origin of beauty, in women, wisdom inmostly latent and concealed; in men, wisdom open and manifest. Whence is a man a man but from wisdom? If not from this a man would be a statue or a picture. What does a maiden attend to in a young man but what his wisdom is? And what does a young man regard in a maiden but what her affection is for his wisdom? By wisdom I mean genuine morality, for this is the wisdom of life. Hence it is that, when latent wisdom comes to and embraces open wisdom, which is done inwardly in the spirit of each, they mutually kiss each other and are conjoined; and this is called love; and then they appear to each other as beauties. In a word, wisdom is as the light or splendor of fire, which lightly touches the eyes, and as it touches, forms beauty.”

 

384. After him the third arose and delivered these words: “It is not love alone, nor is it wisdom alone, which is the origin of beauty, but the union of love and wisdom in the young man, and the union of wisdom with its love in the maiden. For a maid does not love wisdom in herself, but in a young man, and hence sees him as beauty; and when the young man sees this in a maiden he sees her as beauty, and therefore love by wisdom forms beauty, and wisdom from love receives it. That this is so manifestly appears in heaven. I saw maidens and wives there and considered their beauty, and I observed that it was of one kind with virgins and altogether of another kind with wives. With virgins it was only the sheen of beauty but with wives, its effulgence. The difference I saw was as a diamond sparkling with light, and a ruby glowing at the same time from fire. What is beauty but delight of seeing? Whence the origin of this delight but from the play of love and wisdom? From this play the sight glows, and this glowing vibrates from eye to eye and displays beauty. What makes the beauty of a face but red and bright white, and their lovely blending into each other? Is not the red from love and the bright white from wisdom? For love blushes from its own fire, and wisdom is bright white from its own light. These two I have plainly seen in the faces of two married partners in heaven, the rosiness of bright white in the wife, and the bright whiteness of red in the husband; and I observed that they beamed from looking at each other.”

 

When the third had said this the assemblage applauded and exclaimed, “He has won.” And immediately a flamy light, which is also the light of conjugial love, filled the house with splendor and their hearts at the same time with pleasantness.

 

 

 

 

(17)

 

The Conjunction of Conjugial Love with the Love of Infants

 

 

385. There are indications which show clearly that conjugial love and the love of infants which is called storge are conjoined; and there are indications also which may induce the belief that they are not conjoined. For there is a love of infants with married partners who from the heart love each other, and with married partners who are discordant; and also with those that are separated, and sometimes it is more tender and stronger with them than with others. But nevertheless, that the love of infants is conjoined perpetually with conjugial love is evident from the origin from whence it flows in. Although varied in those that receive, the loves yet remain unseparated, just as the first end is in the final end, which is the effect.

 

The first end of conjugial love is the procreation of offspring, and the last end, which is the effect, is the offspring procreated. That the first end carries itself into the effect, and is therein as in its beginning, and does not withdraw from it, may be seen from rational intuition of the progression of the ends and causes, in their order, to effects. But, as the reasonings of very many only begin from effects, and proceed to some conclusions from them, and not from causes and thence analytically to effects, and so on, therefore the rational things of light cannot but become the obscurities of a cloud, whence spring deviations from truths arising from appearances and fallacies. But that it may be seen that conjugial love and the love of infants are interiorly conjoined, even though outwardly disjoined, it shall be shown in this order:

 

(1) That two universal spheres proceed from the Lord for the conservation of the universe in the state created; one of which is the sphere of procreating, and the other the sphere of protecting the things procreated.

 

(2) That these two universal spheres make one with the sphere of conjugial love and with the sphere of the love of infants.

 

(3) That these two spheres inflow into all things of heaven and into all things of the world, universally and singly, from first things to last.

 

(4) That the sphere of the love of infants is a sphere of protection and support of those who cannot protect and sustain themselves.

 

(5) That this sphere affects the evil as well as the good, and disposes everyone to love, protect, and sustain his offspring, from his own love.

 

(6) That this sphere principally affects the female sex, thus mothers, and the male sex, or fathers, from them.

 

(7) That this sphere is also a sphere of innocence and peace from the Lord.

 

(8) That the sphere of innocence inflows into infants, and through them into parents and affects them.

 

(9) That it flows in also into the souls of parents, and conjoins itself with the same sphere with infants; and that it is instilled especially by the touch.

 

(10) That in the degree in which the innocence with infants recedes, affection also is remitted and conjunction, and this successively even to separation.

 

(11) That the rational state of innocence and peace with parents towards infants is that they know and can do nothing of themselves but from others, especially from the father and mother; and that this state also successively passes away, as they know and are able to act of themselves and not from them.

 

(12) That this sphere progresses in order, from the end through causes into effects, and forms periods, through which creation is preserved in the state foreseen and provided.

 

(13) That the love of infants descends and does not ascend.

 

(14) That wives have one state of love before conception, and another after it even to the bringing forth.

 

(15) That conjugial love is conjoined with the love of infants with parents by causes spiritual and hence natural.

 

(16) That the love of infants and children is of one kind with spiritual married partners, and of another with natural.

 

(17) That with the spiritual this love is from the interior or prior, but with the natural is from the exterior or posterior.

 

(18) That it is owing to this that the love is with married partners who mutually love each other, and also with married partners who do not love each other at all.

 

(19) That the love of infants continues after death, especially with women.

 

(20) That infants are educated by them under the auspices of the Lord, and increase in stature and in intelligence as in the world.

 

(21) That it is there provided by the Lord that the innocence of infancy with them becomes the innocence of wisdom, and that thus infants become angels.

 

Now follows the exposition of these.

 

386. (1) That two universal spheres proceed from the Lord for the conservation of the universe in the state created; one of which is the sphere of procreating, and the other the sphere of protecting what is procreated. The Divine, proceeding from the Lord, is called a sphere because it proceeds from him, surrounds him, fills each world, the spiritual and the natural, and works out the effects of the ends which the Lord predestined in the creation, and since that provides. All that which flows out from a subject, surrounds and environs it, is called a sphere; for example, the sphere of light and heat from the sun surrounding it, the sphere of life from a man round about him, the sphere of the fragrance of a plant surrounding it, the sphere of the attraction of a magnet around it, and so on. But the universal spheres here treated of are from the Lord, around him, and they proceed from the sun of the spiritual world in the midst of which he is. From the Lord through that sun proceeds the sphere of heat and light, or what is the same, the sphere of love and wisdom, for the working out of ends, which are uses. But that sphere is designated by different names, according to the uses; the Divine sphere looking to the preservation of the universe through successive generations, in the state created, is called the sphere of procreating; and the Divine sphere looking to the preservation of the generations in their beginnings, and afterwards in their progressions, is called the sphere of protecting what is procreated. Besides these two there are many other Divine spheres, which are named according to their uses, thus differently. See above at n. 222. The operations of uses through these spheres are Divine providence.

 

387. (2) That these two universal spheres make one with the sphere of conjugial love and with the sphere of the love of infants. That the sphere of conjugial love makes one with the sphere of procreating is plain; for procreation is the end, and conjugial love is the mediate cause, by which it is effected; and the end and cause in the processes of effecting and in the effects act as one, because together. That the sphere of the love of infants makes one with the sphere of protecting what is procreated is also plain, because it is an end proceeding from the prior end, which was procreation, and the love of infants is the mediate cause whereby it is effected. For ends go forth in series, one after another, and in going forth the last end becomes first, and so on, even to the limit where they subsist or cease. But of these things more may be seen in the exposition of article 12.

 

388. (3) That these two spheres inflow into all things of heaven and into all things of the world, universally and singularly, from first things to last. It is said universally and singularly, because when a thing universal is spoken of, all the single things from which it is are at the same time meant; for it exists from them, and consists of them, and so from them it is named, as the general from its parts. If then you take away the single things the universal is but a name, and is as a surface within which there is nothing. Therefore, to attribute to God universal government and take away the single things of his government makes it an empty word and like an ascription of inanity. Comparison with the universal government of kings on earth is of no application. Hence then it is said that these two spheres flow in universally and singularly.

 

389. That the spheres of procreating and of protecting what is procreated, or the spheres of conjugial love and the love of infants, inflow into all things of heaven and into all things of the world, from the first to the last, is because all things that proceed from the Lord, or from the sun which is from him and in which he is, pass together through the created universe even to the very ultimates of all things thereof. The reason is that things Divine, which in their progression are called celestial and spiritual, are without space and time. It is known that no extent is predicated of things spiritual, because no space and time. Hence it is that what proceeds from the Lord is in an instant from first things in the last. That the sphere of conjugial love is thus universal may be seen above at n. 222-225.

 

[2] That in like manner the sphere of the love of infants is so is manifest from that love in heaven where there are infants from the earth; and from that love in the world with men, with beasts and birds, serpents and insects.

 

There are also analogies of that love in the vegetable and mineral kingdoms. In the vegetable kingdom, in that seeds are protected by shells, like swaddlings, and besides in fruit as in a house, and are nourished with the sap as with milk. That there is something like this among minerals appears from the matrices and coverings, wherein the noble gems and noble metals are concealed and guarded.

 

390. The sphere of procreating, and the sphere of protecting what is procreated make one in a continuous series, because the love of procreating is continued into the love of the thing procreated. What is the nature of the love of procreating is known from its delight, that it is supereminent and transcendent. In this is the state of procreation with men, and notably the state of reception with women. This highest delight, with its love, follows into the bringing forth and there fills itself.

 

391. (4) That the sphere of the love of infants is a sphere of protection and support of those who cannot protect and sustain themselves. It was said above (n. 386), that the operations of uses by the Lord, through the spheres going forth from him, are Divine providence. This therefore is meant by the sphere of protection and support of those who cannot protect and sustain themselves; for it is of creation that the things created must be preserved, guarded, protected, and sustained. Otherwise the universe would go to destruction. But because with the living, to whom freedom of choice is left, this cannot be done immediately by the Lord, it is done mediately, through his love implanted in fathers, mothers, and nurses. That their love is love from the Lord with them they do not know, because they do not perceive the influx, still less do they perceive the omnipresence of the Lord. But who does not see that it is not of nature, but of Divine providence operating within nature, by nature? And that there could be no such universal except from God, through some spiritual sun which is in the center of the universe, and whose operation, because without space and time, is instant and present from things first in the last?

 

[2] But it shall be told in what follows how this Divine operation, which is the Lord’s Divine providence, is received by animate beings. That they are not able to protect and sustain themselves is not the cause of the love which moves mothers and fathers to protect and sustain infants, but is a rational cause from that love falling into the understanding. For from this cause alone, without the love that inspired and inspires it, or without a law and a penalty enforcing it, man would no more provide for infants than a statue.

 

392. (5) That this sphere affects the evil as well as the good, and disposes everyone to love, protect, and sustain his offspring, from his own love. It is testified by experience that the love of infants, or storge, is equally with the evil as with the good; likewise with gentle and ungentle beasts; yea, that with evil men and with ungentle beasts it is sometimes stronger and more ardent. The reason is that every love proceeding and flowing in from the Lord is turned, in the subject, into the love of its life. For no animate subject feels otherwise than that he loves of himself, since he does not perceive the influx; and while in fact he is really loving himself, he makes the love of infants the love of his own, for he as it were sees himself in them and them in himself, and thus himself as united with them.

 

[2] And hence it is that this love is fiercer among the ungentle beasts, as among lions and lionesses, male and female bears, male and female leopards, male and female wolves, and other such, than among horses, deer, goats, and sheep. The reason is that the ungentle beasts have dominion over the gentle, and hence a predominating love of self, and this love loves itself in its progeny; and thus, as was said, the inflowing love is turned into its own. Such inversion of the inflowing love into its own, and thence protection and support of their offspring and young by evil parents, is of the Lord’s Divine providence; for otherwise but few of the human race would be left and of ferocious beasts, which yet are of use, not any. From these considerations it is plain that everyone is disposed to love, protect, and sustain his offspring from his own love.

 

393. (6) That this sphere principally affects the female sex, thus mothers, and the male sex, or fathers, from them. This comes from the same origin spoken of before, that the sphere of conjugial love is received by women, and through women is transferred into men, because women are born loves of the understanding of men and the understanding is the recipient. It is similar with the love of infants, because this by origin is from conjugial love. That mothers have a more tender and fathers a less tender love is known. That the love of infants is inscribed upon conjugial love into which women are born is manifest from the lovely and winning affection of little girls for infants, and for the images of them which they carry about, dress, kiss, and press to their bosoms. Boys have no such affection.

 

[2] It appears as if mothers have the love of infants from the nourishing of them in the womb out of their own blood, and thence the appropriation to them of their own life, and thus from sympathetic union; but yet this is not the origin of that love, for if, unknown to the mother, another infant were substituted for the true one after birth, it would be loved with equal tenderness as if it were her own. Besides, infants are sometimes loved by nurses more than by their mothers. It flows from these considerations, that this love is from no other source than the conjugial love inherent in every woman, to which is adjoined the love of conceiving, from the delight of which the wife is prepared for reception; this is the first of that love, which after the birth with its delight passes over fully to the offspring.

 

394. (7) That this sphere is also a sphere of innocence and peace. Innocence and peace are the two inmost things of heaven. They are called inmost because they proceed immediately from the Lord; for the Lord is innocence itself, and peace itself. From innocence the Lord is called the lamb, and from peace he said:

 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you (John 14:27).

 

And this is meant also by the peace with which they were to salute a city, or a house, when they entered it.

 

Which, if worthy, peace should come upon it, and if unworthy the peace should return (Matt. 10:11-15).

 

Hence also the Lord is called the “prince of peace” (Isa. 9:5). Innocence and peace are the inmost things of heaven, for the reason too that innocence is the esse of every good, and peace is the blessedness of every delight that is of good. See Heaven and Hell, concerning the state of innocence of the angels of heaven, n. 276-283; and concerning the state of peace in heaven, n. 284-290.

 

395. (8) That the sphere of innocence inflows into infants, and through them into parents and affects them. That infants are innocences is known, but that their innocence flows in from the Lord is not known. It flows in from the Lord because he is innocence itself, as has been said just above; and nothing can flow in—because it cannot be—except from its beginning, which is the thing itself. But it shall be briefly told of what kind the innocence of infancy is which affects parents. It shines forth from their face, from some of their gestures, and from their earliest speech, and affects. They have innocence because they do not think from the interior; for they do not yet know what is good and evil, and true and false, from which they may think; hence they have not prudence from their own, nor deliberate purpose, and thus have no intention of evil. They have no proprium acquired from the love of self and of the world. They do not attribute anything to themselves. Everything that they receive they ascribe to their parents. They are content with the little things given them as presents; they have no solicitude for food and raiment, and none for the future; nor have they any regard for the world, and do not therefore covet many things; they love their parents, their nurses, and their infant companions, with whom in innocence they play; they suffer themselves to be led; they hearken and obey. This is the innocence of infancy which is the cause of the love called storge.

 

396. (9) That it flows in also into the souls of parents, and conjoins itself with the same sphere with the infants, and that it is instilled especially by the touch. The Lord’s innocence inflows into the angels of the third heaven, where all are in the innocence of wisdom, and passes through the lower heavens, but only through the innocences of the angels there, and so into infants, immediately and mediately. They are scarcely otherwise than as sculptured forms, yet still they are receptive of life from the Lord through the heavens. But unless the parents also receive that influx in their souls, and in the inmosts of their minds, they would be affected in vain by the innocence of infants. There must be in another something adequate and homogeneous, through which communication may be effected, and which shall cause reception, affection, and thence conjunction. Otherwise it would be as tender seed falling upon flint, or as a lamb thrown to a wolf. Thence now it is that the innocence flowing into the souls of parents conjoins itself with the innocence of infants.

 

[2] That this conjunction is effected by means of the bodily senses, but especially with parents, through the touch, experience may teach; as for example, that the sight is inmostly charmed by observing them, the hearing by their speech, the smell by their odor. That the communication and thence the conjunction of innocences takes place especially through the touch is manifestly perceived from the pleasantness of carrying them in the arms, from embracing and kissing them, above all with mothers, who are delighted with their pressing the mouth and face against their bosoms, and then at the same time by the touch of their palms there, and in general from the sucking of the breasts and lactation, and also from stroking their naked body, and from the unwearied labor of swathing and cleansing them upon their knees.

 

[3] That communications of love and its delights between married partners are made through the sense of touch has been shown several times above. Communications of the mind also are thereby effected, because the hands are the ultimates of man and his firsts are together in the ultimates. By this sense, moreover, all things of the body and all things of the mind that are intermediate are held together in unbroken connection. Hence it is that Jesus touched infants (Matt. 19:13, 15; Mark 10:13, 16); and that he healed the sick by the touch; and that they were healed who touched him. Hence it is also that to this day inaugurations into the priesthood are performed by the laying on of hands. From this it is clear that the innocence of parents and the innocence of infants meet each other through the touch, especially of the hands, and so conjoin themselves as if by kisses.

 

397. It is known that by contact, innocence also operates among beasts and birds effects similar to those with men. The reason why it operates similar effects is because all that proceeds from the Lord instantly pervades the universe (see above, n. 388-390), and as it goes forth through degrees, and by continual mediations, it therefore passes on not only to animals but also beyond, to vegetables and minerals (n. 389). It even passes into the earth itself, which is the mother of all vegetables and minerals; for in the time of spring she is in a state prepared for the reception of seeds, as it were into her womb, and when she has received them she as it were conceives, cherishes them, bears them, brings them forth, gives them suck, nourishes, clothes, rears, guards them, and as it were loves the offspring from them, and so on. As the sphere of procreation goes forth so far, why not then to animals of every kind even to worms. Just as the earth is the common mother of plants, so it is an established fact that there is also a common mother of the bees in every hive.

 

398. (10) That in the degree in which the innocence with infants recedes, affection also is remitted, and conjunction, and this successively even to separation. It is known that the love of infants, or storge, recedes from parents according to the recession of innocence from them, and that it recedes with men even to the separation of the children from the home; and among beasts and birds even to the rejection of them from their presence, and forgetfulness that they are of their stock. From this, as from an established proof, it is also evident that the innocence flowing in on both sides produces the love called storge.

 

399. (11) That the rational state of innocence and peace with parents towards infants is that they know and can do nothing of themselves, but from others, especially from the father and mother; and that this state successively passes away, as they know and are able to act of themselves and not from them. It has been shown above in its own section (n. 391) that the sphere of love of infants is a sphere of protection and support of those that cannot protect and sustain themselves. It was also stated there that this is only the rational cause with man, but not the very cause of the love with them. The very originating cause of that love is innocence from the Lord, which inflows into man while he is ignorant of it, and brings forth that rational cause. And therefore, as the first cause makes a recession from that love, so does this second cause at the same time; or what is the same, just as the communication of innocence recedes so also the persuading reason accompanies it. But this occurs only with man, in order that he may do what he does from freedom according to reason, and may from this, as from a rational and at the same time a moral law, support his grownup offspring according to necessity and use. This second cause animals destitute of reason have not. They have only the prior cause, which with them is instinct.

 

400. (12) That the sphere of the love of procreating progresses in order, from the end through causes into effects, and forms periods, through which creation is preserved in the state foreseen and provided.

 

All operations in the universe progress from ends through causes into effects. These three are in themselves inseparable, although in idea they appear as if separate; and yet the end there is nothing unless seen together with the effect that is intended. Nor does either become anything unless the cause sustains, foresees, and conjoins.

 

[2] Such a progression is inscribed on every man, in general and in every particular, exactly as will, understanding, and action. Every end there is of the will, every cause is of the understanding, and every effect is of action; in like manner every end is of love, every efficient cause is of wisdom, and every effect thence is of use. The reason is that the will is the receptacle of love, the understanding is the receptacle of wisdom, and action is the receptacle of use. Therefore, since operations in man, in general and in particular, progress by the will through the understanding into act, so also do they progress from love through wisdom into use; but by wisdom here is meant all that is of judgment and thought. That these three are one in the effect is plain. They also make one in idea before the effect, which is perceived from the fact that only determination intervenes; for in the mind the end goes forth from the will and produces for itself a cause in the understanding, and there presents to itself an intention, and intention is as the act before determination. Hence it is that an intention is accepted by a wise man and also by the Lord, as an act.

 

[3] What rational man is not able to see, or to acknowledge when he hears, that these three flow forth from some first cause, and that this cause is that from the Lord the creator and conservator of the universe go forth continually love, wisdom, and use, and these three as one? Say if you can from what other source they are.

 

401. A similar progression from end, through cause into effect, is also the sphere of procreating, and of protecting what is procreated. Here the end is the will or love of procreating; the mediate cause, by which and into which the end carries itself forward, is conjugial love; the progressive series of efficient causes is the loving, the conception, and the gestation of the embryo or offspring to be procreated; and the effect is the procreated offspring itself. But although end, cause, and effect progress in succession as three, yet in the love of procreating, and inwardly within each of the causes and within the effect itself they make one. They are only the efficient causes which progress through times because in nature; the end, or will, and the love remaining continually the same; for in nature ends progress through times without time, but cannot come forth and manifest themselves until the effect or use exists and becomes a subject. Before this the love could love nothing but the progression, and could not fix and establish itself.

 

[2] That there are periods to such progressions is known, and that by means of them is the preservation of creation in the state foreseen and provided. But the series of the love of infants from its greatest to its least, and so to its termination, that is, to the point at which it stays or ceases, is retrograde, since it is according to the decrease of innocence in the subject, and also on account of the periods.

 

402. (13) That the love of infants descends and does not ascend. That is, it descends from generation to generation, or from sons and daughters to grandsons and granddaughters; and it is known that it does not ascend from these to fathers and mothers of families. The cause of its increase in the descent is the love of fructifying or of producing uses; and as respects the human race it is the love of multiplying it. But this cause derives its origin solely from the Lord, in that he, in the multiplication of the human race, looks to the preservation of creation, and as the final end of this to an angelic heaven which is solely from the human race. And because an angelic heaven is the end of ends and hence is the love of loves with the Lord, therefore there is implanted in the souls of men not only the love of procreating, but also a love of what is procreated in their successions. It is for that reason also that this love exists only among men and not with any beast or bird. That with man this love descends with increase is also from the glory of honor, which likewise increases with him according to its extension. That the love of honor and of glory receives into itself the love of infants inflowing from the Lord and makes this as its own will be seen in section 16 following.

 

403. (14) That wives have one state of love before conception, and another state after it even to the bringing forth. This is adduced to the end that it may be known, that the love of procreating and the consequent love of what is procreated are with women inherent in conjugial love; and that these two loves in her are divided when the end which is the love of procreating begins its progression. That then the love storge is transferred from the wife into the husband; and also that then the love of procreating, which with woman makes one with her conjugial love, as has been said, is not similar is manifest from many indications.

 

404. (15) That conjugial love is conjoined with the love of infants with parents, by causes spiritual and hence natural. The spiritual causes are: that the human race may be multiplied and from this the angelic heaven enlarged, and thus that there may be born those who will become angels, serving the Lord for performing uses in heaven and also by consociation with men on earth; for angels are associated with every man by the Lord, with whom there is such conjunction that if they were removed man would fall down in a moment. The natural causes of the conjunction of these two loves are that those may be born who will perform uses in human societies and be incorporated in them as members. That there are the latter natural and the former spiritual causes of the love of infants and of conjugial love even the married partners themselves think and sometimes declare, saying, that they have enriched heaven with as many angels as they have had descendants, and have furnished society with as many helpers as they have borne children.

 

405. (16) That the love of infants is of one kind with spiritual married partners, and of another with natural. To appearance the love of infants with spiritual married partners is similar to the love of infants with natural married partners, but it is more internal and thence more tender, because that love exists from innocence, and from a nearer reception and thus more present perception of it in themselves; for the spiritual are spiritual in the degree that they partake of innocence. Moreover, fathers and mothers, after they have tasted the sweetness of innocence with their infants, love their children altogether otherwise than natural fathers and mothers. The spiritual love their children according to their spiritual intelligence and moral life; thus they love them according to their fear of God and actual piety, or piety of life, and at the same time according to their affection for and application to uses serviceable to society, that is, according to the virtues and good morals with them. For their love of these things, principally, they provide for and minister to their necessities. Wherefore, if they do not see such virtues in them, they alienate the mind from them, and do nothing for them except from duty.

 

[2] With natural fathers and mothers the love of infants is indeed also from innocence, but this, received by them, is wrapped about with their own love, and hence they love infants from this love and at the same time from that innocence, kissing, embracing, carrying, taking them to their bosom, and fondling them beyond all measure, and look upon them as of one heart and one soul with themselves. And then, after their state of infancy, up to adolescence and beyond, when innocence no longer operates, they love them, not on account of any fear of God and actual piety, or piety of life, nor for any rational and moral intelligence in them, and little, indeed scarcely at all, do they consider their internal affections and thence virtues and good morals, but only the things external for which they have regard. To these they adjoin, affix, and attach their love, and consequently close the eyes to their faults, excusing and favoring them. The reason is that the love of their progeny with them is also the love of themselves, and this love clings to the subject outwardly, but does not enter into it as it does not into themselves.

 

406. Of what kind the love of infants and the love of children is with the spiritual, and of what kind with the natural, is manifestly perceived from them after death. For most fathers, when they come into the world of spirits, call to mind their children who have gone before them, and they also become present and mutually recognize each other. Spiritual fathers only look at them, ask in what state they are, rejoice if it is well with them and grieve if it is ill; and after some conversation, instruction, and admonition respecting heavenly moral life, they separate from them, but before separation, teach that they are no longer to be remembered as fathers, because the Lord is the one only Father to all in heaven, according to his words (Matt. 23:9); and that they never remember them as children.

 

But natural fathers, as soon as they realize that they are living after death and recall to their memory the children who had deceased before them, and as they are made present also by strong desire, are instantly conjoined with them, and they cling together like a bundle of sticks tied together; and then the father is delighted continually with the sight of them and by conversation with them. If the father is told that some of these, his children, are satans, and that they have done injury to the good, yet he keeps them together in a sphere about him or in a company before him. If he himself sees that they inflict injury and do evil, he still pays no heed to it, and does not dissociate any one of them from him. Wherefore, that such a pernicious company may not continue, they are of necessity sent together into hell; and there the father in the presence of his children is shut up under guard, and his children are separated and sent away, each to his place of life.

 

407. To this I will add the following notable experience: That I have seen fathers in the spiritual world who looked with hatred and as if in fury upon infants brought before their eyes, even in such ferocious temper that they would have killed them if they could, but as soon as it was told them by pretense that they were their own children, then instantly their fury and ferocity departed, and they loved them excessively. This love and that hatred exist together in those who in the world had been inwardly deceitful and set their mind in enmity against the Lord.

 

408. (17) That this love with the spiritual is from the interior or prior; but with the natural is from the exterior or posterior. To think and conclude from the interior and prior is to think from ends and causes to effects; but to think and conclude from the exterior or posterior, is from effects to causes and ends. This progression is against order, but the other is according to order. For to think and conclude from ends and causes is from goods and truths seen in the higher region of the mind; but to think and conclude from effects is to conjecture causes and ends from the lower region of the mind, where the sensual things of the body are with their appearances and fallacies, which in itself is nothing but to confirm falsities and lusts, and after confirmation to see and believe them to be the verities of wisdom and goodnesses of its love. So is it with the love of infants and children with the spiritual and the natural; the spiritual love them from the prior, thus according to order; but the natural love them from the posterior, thus against order. These things are adduced simply to confirm the preceding section.

 

409. (18) That it is owing to this that the love exists with married partners who mutually love each other, and also with married partners who do not love each other at all. It is therefore with the natural as well as with the spiritual; yet the latter have conjugial love and the former have not, except apparent and simulated. That the love of infants and conjugial love nevertheless act as one is because conjugial love is implanted in every woman from creation, and together with it the love of procreating, which is determined and flows into the offspring procreated, and is carried from women to men, as was said above. Hence it is that in houses wherein there is not conjugial love between man and wife, there yet is with the wife, and through this some external conjunction with the man. It is from the same cause that even harlots love their progeny: for what is implanted by creation in the soul, and looks to propagation, is indelible and ineradicable.

 

410. (19) That the love of infants continues after death, especially with women. As soon as infants are resuscitated, which takes place immediately after death, they are taken up into heaven, and are handed over to the care of angels of the female sex who in the life of their body in the world loved infants, and at the same time feared God. These angels, because they loved all infants with maternal tenderness, receive them as their own; and the infants there, as if from inherent affection, love them as their own mothers. As many infants are with them as from spiritual, maternal love they desire. The heaven in which the infants are appears in front, in the region of the forehead, directly in the line or radius in which the angels look to the Lord. The situation of this heaven there is for the reason that all infants are educated under the immediate auspices of the Lord. The heaven of innocence also flows in with them, which is the third heaven. After this first age is passed, they are transferred into another heaven where they are instructed.

 

411. (20) That infants are educated by them under the auspices of the Lord, and increase in stature and in intelligence as in the world.

 

Infants in heaven are educated in this manner: From their instructress they learn to speak. Their first speech is but the sound of affection, in which, however, there is some beginning of thought, whereby the human in sound is distinguished from the sound of an animal. This speech by degrees becomes more distinct as ideas from affection enter the thought. All their affections, which also have growth, proceed from innocence. Into these are instilled first such things as appear before their eyes and are delightful; which, because they are of spiritual origin, flow into them at the same time as those things which are of heaven; whereby the interiors of their mind are opened. After this, just as the infants are perfected in intelligence, they increase also in stature, and in this respect also appear more adult. The reason is that intelligence and wisdom are spiritual nourishment itself, and therefore what nourishes their minds nourishes their bodies also. But in heaven infants do not grow up beyond the first age; and there they stay and at that age remain to eternity. And when they arrive at that age they are given in marriage, which is provided by the Lord and is celebrated in the heaven where the young man dwells, who soon afterwards follows his wife to her heaven, or into her house if they are in the same society. That I might certainly know that as infants advance in intelligence they also increase and grow up in stature, it has been given me to speak with some while they were infants, and afterwards with them when they were grown up, and the young men were seen to be of similar stature with young men in the world.

 

412. Infants are instructed especially by representatives, suitable and adapted to their genius. And how full of beauty and at the same time of interior wisdom they are can scarcely be believed in the world. Two representatives may here be adduced, from which a conclusion may be drawn as to the rest. At one time they represented the Lord rising from the sepulcher, and at the same time the unition of his human with the Divine. They first presented the idea of a sepulcher, but not an idea of the Lord at the same time, unless so remotely that it would scarcely be perceived that it was the Lord except as a long way off; for the reason that in the idea of a sepulcher there is a something funereal which in this way they removed. Afterwards they cautiously admitted into the sepulcher something atmospheric, yet appearing as limpid water, by which they signified, also with suitable remoteness, the spiritual life in baptism.

 

After that I saw represented by them the descent of the Lord to them that are bound, and his ascent with the bound into heaven; and what was infantile, they let down slender cords almost invisible, very soft and tender, with which they might aid the Lord in his ascent—always in holy fear lest something in the representation should touch something that did not contain anything heavenly. Besides other representations, by which infants are brought at the same time into cognitions of truth and affections of good, as by plays suited to the minds of infants. To these and like things infants are led of the Lord by the innocence passing through the third heaven; and thus spiritual things are instilled into their affections, and thence into their tender thoughts, in such wise that the infants do not know but that they themselves do and think such things of themselves, by which means their understanding is initiated.

 

413. (21) That it is there provided by the Lord that the innocence of infancy with them becomes the innocence of wisdom. Many may think that infants remain infants and become angels immediately after death. But intelligence and wisdom make an angel; and therefore so long as infants have not these, although they are with the angels yet they are not angels; and they first become angels when they have become intelligent and wise. Infants are accordingly led on from the innocence of infancy to the innocence of wisdom, that is from external innocence to internal innocence. This innocence is the end in all their instruction and progression; therefore when they come to the innocence of wisdom, the innocence of infancy which in the meantime has served them as a plane is adjoined to them. I saw the quality of the innocence of infancy represented by something woody, almost devoid of life, which becomes living according as it is imbued with knowledges of truth and affections of good; and afterwards the quality of the innocence of wisdom was represented by a living and naked infant. The angels of the third heaven, who beyond others are in a state of innocence from the Lord, appear as naked infants before the eyes of the spirits who are below the heavens; and because they are wise beyond the rest, they also are more living. The reason is that innocence corresponds to infancy, and also to nakedness, for which reason Adam and his wife, when they were in a state of innocence, are said to have been naked and were not ashamed; but that after they had lost the state of innocence they were ashamed of their nakedness, and hid themselves (Gen. 2:25; 3:7, 10-11). In a word, the wiser the angels are the more innocent they are. The quality of the innocence of wisdom may in some measure be seen from the innocence of infancy, described above (n. 395), if only, instead of parents there, the Lord be taken as the Father by whom they are led and to whom they ascribe all that they receive.

 

414. I have had various conversations with the angels about innocence, and they said that innocence is the esse of every good, and that good is good so far as innocence is within it; and as wisdom is of the life and thence of good, that wisdom is wisdom so far as it partakes of innocence. And so with love, charity, and faith. And that thence it is that no one can enter heaven unless he is in innocence; and that this is meant by these words of the Lord:

 

Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of the heavens as a little child he shall not enter therein (Mark 10:14-15; Luke 18:16-17).

 

By little children here, as also in other places in the Word, they are meant who are in innocence. The reason why good is good insofar as innocence is within it is that all good is from the Lord, and innocence is to be led by the Lord.

 

415. To this I will add this relation:

 

One morning when I awoke out of sleep, meditating in the early and serene light before I was fully awake, I saw through the window as it were a flash of lightning, and presently heard as it were rolling thunder. And as I was wondering whence it was I heard these words from heaven: “There are some not far from you who are reasoning sharply about God and about nature. The vibration of light like lightning and the rumbling of the air like thunder are the correspondences and thence the appearances of the contest and collision of arguments on one side in favor of God and on the other in favor of nature.”

 

The cause of this spiritual contest was this. There were certain satans in hell who said among themselves, “Would that we might be permitted to speak with the angels of heaven, and we would show conclusively and fully that nature is that which they call God, from whom all things are, and thus that God is only a word unless nature is meant.”

 

And as the satans with their whole heart and soul believed this, and also longed to speak with the angels of heaven, it was given them to ascend out of the mire and darkness of hell, and to speak with two angels then come down from heaven. They were in the world of spirits, which is intermediate between heaven and hell.

 

[2] The satans seeing the angels there, quickly ran up to them, and in a furious voice exclaimed, “Are you the angels of heaven with whom it is permitted us to engage in reasoning about God and about nature? You are called wise because you acknowledge God; but O how simple you are! Who sees God? Who understands what God is? Who comprehends that God governs, and can govern, the universe and all and each thing of it? Who, but the common people and the rabble, acknowledges what he does not see and understand? What is more obvious than that nature is all in all? Who sees anything but nature with the eye? Who hears anything but nature with the ear? Who perceives anything but nature by the smell? Who tastes anything but nature with the tongue? Who feels anything but nature by the touch of the hand and of the body? Are not the senses of our body the only witnesses of truth? Who cannot from them swear that a thing is so? Are not your heads in nature? Whence the influx into the thoughts of the head but from her? Take her away, can you think anything?” Besides much other like matter.

 

[3] Hearing this the angels responded, “You speak in this way because you are merely sensual. All in the hells have the ideas of their thought immersed in the senses of the body, and cannot elevate the minds above them. We therefore excuse you. A life of evil, and thence the belief in what is false, have so closed the interiors of your minds that elevation above things sensual is with you impossible, except in a state removed from the evils of life and the falsities of faith. For a satan equally with an angel can understand truth when he hears it, but he does not retain it, because evil obliterates the truth and brings in falsity. But we perceive that you are now in a state thus removed, and that thus it is possible for you to understand the truth which we speak. Give attention then to what we say.”

 

And they said, “You were in the natural world, died there, and now you are in the spiritual world. Did you before now know anything about a life after death? Did you not before deny it, and make yourselves equal with beasts? Did you before now know anything about heaven and hell? Or anything about the light and heat of this world? Or about the fact that you are no longer within nature, but above it? For this world and all things pertaining to it are spiritual; and spiritual things are above natural, so that not even the least of nature can flow into this world. But you, because you have believed nature to be a god or a goddess, believe also the light and heat of this world to be the light and heat of the natural world; when in fact it is not so at all, for here natural light is thick darkness and natural heat here is cold. Did you know anything about the sun of this world from which our light and heat proceed? Did you know that this sun is pure love, and the sun of the natural world is pure fire? And that the sun of the world, which is pure fire, is that from which nature exists and subsists? And that the sun of heaven, which is pure love, is that whence life itself, which is love with wisdom, exists and subsists? And thus that nature, which you make a god or goddess, is manifestly dead?

 

[4] “You can, if a guard is granted you, ascend with us into heaven; and we, if a guard is granted us, can descend with you into hell. And in heaven you will see things magnificent and splendid; but in hell things squalid and unclean. The differences arise from the fact that all in heaven worship God, and all in hell worship nature; and those magnificent and splendid things in the heavens are the correspondences of the affections of good and of truth; and the squalid and unclean things in the hells are correspondences of the lusts of the evil and false. Judge now from these things and those whether God or nature is all in all.”

 

To this the satans replied, “In the state in which we now are we are able to conclude from what we have heard that it is God; but when the delight of evil takes possession of our minds we see nothing but nature.”

 

[5] The two angels and the two satans were standing not far from me on the right, so that I saw and heard them.

 

And lo, I saw many spirits around them, who in the natural world had been celebrated for learning, and I was surprised that these learned men stood now beside the angels, now beside the satans, and that they favored those beside whom they stood. And I was told that their changes of place were changes of their state of mind, favoring now one side now the other; “For they are vertumni. And we will tell you a mystery.

 

We have looked down upon earth, to those celebrated for learning who have thought according to their own judgment about God and about nature, and we find six hundred out of a thousand in favor of nature, and the rest in favor of God; but they were in favor of God because they had frequently said that nature is from God, not from any understanding, but only from what they had heard; and frequent speech from memory and recollection, though not at the same time from thought and intelligence, induces a sort of faith.”

 

[6] After this a guard was given the satans and with the two angels they ascended into heaven, and saw magnificent and splendid things. And being then in illustration from the light of heaven there, they acknowledged that there is a God, and that nature is created to subserve the life which is in God and from God; and that nature in itself is dead, and so does nothing of itself, but is actuated by life. Having seen and perceived these things they descended; and as they descended the love of evil returned, and closed their understanding above and opened it beneath. And then there appeared as it were a veil above it, flashing from infernal fire; and the instant their feet touched the earth the ground opened beneath them, and they sank down to their own.

 

416. After this the two angels, seeing me near, said of me to those standing by, “We know that this man has written about God and about nature; let us hear him.”

 

And they came and asked that what had been written respecting God and nature might be read to them; and I read therefrom the following:²⁷

 

“They who believe in Divine operation in the single things of nature can confirm themselves in favor of the Divine by very many things that they see in nature, equally with, yea, better than those who confirm themselves in favor of nature. For those who confirm themselves in favor of the Divine consider the wonders that are visible in the production both of vegetables and animals. In the production of vegetables, how that from a small seed cast into the earth there comes forth a root, by means of the root a stem, and successively branches, leaves, flowers, and fruit, even to new seeds, just as if the seed knew the order of succession or procession by which it is to renew itself. Can any rational man think that the sun which is pure fire knows this? Or that it can put it into its heat and light to effect such things? And that it can form the wonderful things within them and purpose use? A man whose rational is elevated when he sees and contemplates these things cannot but think that they are from him who has infinite wisdom, that is from God. They also who acknowledge the Divine see and think this. But those that do not acknowledge do not see and think this, because they will not, and thus let their rational so far down into the sensual that it derives all its ideas from the light in which the senses of the body are and confirms their fallacies, saying, “Do you not see the sun operating these things by its heat and light? What is that which you do not see? Is it anything?

 

[2] “They that confirm themselves in favor of the Divine consider also the wonders that are observable in the production of animals.

 

To mention here only with respect to eggs, that within them lies hidden a chicken in its seed or inception, with every requisite until it is hatched from the shell, and also for its progression after it leaves the shell until it becomes a bird or flying thing in the form of its parent. And if one takes notice of the form, it is such that it cannot but excite amazement if he thinks profoundly; for that in the least as well as in the greatest of them, yea, in the invisible as in the visible, that is, in the minutest insects as in the large birds and beasts, there are organs of the senses, of sight, smell, taste, and touch; and organs of motion which are muscles, for they fly and walk; and viscera also around the heart and lungs which are actuated by brains. That even poor insects rejoice in such organs is known from their anatomy described by some, especially by Swammerdam in his Biblia Naturae.

 

[3] “They who ascribe all things to nature indeed see such things but think only that they exist, and say that nature produces them, and they say this because they have turned their mind away from thinking of the Divine, and those who have turned away from thought of the Divine, when they behold the wonderful things in nature, cannot think rationally, much less spiritually, but think sensually and materially, and then think in nature from nature and not above it, in like manner as do those who are in hell, with only this difference from beasts, that they have the power of rationality, that is, that they can understand and so can think otherwise if they will.

 

[4] “They who have turned themselves away from the thought of the Divine when they behold the wonderful things in nature, and thereby become sensual, do not reflect that the sight of the eye is so gross that it sees many minute insects as one obscure object, and yet that each one of these is organized to feel and to move itself, and so is provided with fibers, and vessels, and a little heart, and pulmonary tubes, and minute viscera, and brains, and that these are woven together out of the purest things in nature, and that these contextures correspond to some life by which the minutest of them are distinctly actuated. Since the sight of the eye is so gross that many such creatures, with the innumerable things in each, appear to it as one little obscure thing, and yet they who are sensual think and judge from that sight, it is manifest how their mind has become gross, and hence in what thick darkness they are as to spiritual things.

 

417. “Everyone can confirm himself in favor of the Divine from the visible things of nature if he will, and he in fact does confirm himself who thinks of God from life; as when he beholds the fowls of heaven, how every species of them knows its own food and where it is; knows its kind by sound and sight; and which among others are their friends and which their enemies; that they mate together, know how to copulate, skillfully build nests, lay eggs therein, sit upon them, know the period of incubation, which accomplished they hatch out the young, tenderly love them, cherish them under their wings, offer them their food and feed them, and this until they become mature and able to do the like and to procreate families to perpetuate their kind. Everyone who will think of the Divine influx through the spiritual world into the natural can see it in these things, and can also, if he will, say from his heart: Such knowledge cannot flow into these creatures from the sun through the rays of its light, for the sun from which nature takes its origin and its essence is pure fire, and the rays of its light are therefore altogether dead; and thus he can conclude that such things come from the influx of Divine wisdom into the ultimates of nature.

 

418. “Anyone can confirm himself in favor of the Divine from the visible things of nature, when he considers the caterpillars [vermes], which, from the delight of a certain longing, affect and aspire to a change of their terrestrial state for one having some analogy to the heavenly state; and to that end creep into hiding places and commit themselves as it were to a womb that they may be born again; and there become chrysalids, aurelias, nymphs, and at length butterflies. And when this metamorphosis is passed, and according to their species they are invested with beautiful wings, they fly away into the air as into their heaven, and there disport genially, pair together, lay eggs, and provide for themselves a posterity, and nourish themselves the while with pleasant and sweet food from the flowers.

 

Who that confirms himself in favor of the Divine from the visible things of nature does not see some image of the earthly state of man in these creatures as caterpillars? And an image of his heavenly state in them as butterflies? But those who confirm themselves in favor of nature see them indeed; but as they have rejected out of their mind the heavenly state of man, they call them mere instincts of nature.

 

419. “Everyone can confirm himself in favor of the Divine from the visible things of nature, if he considers what is known about bees; that they know how to gather wax and suck honey out of herbs and flowers; and to build cells like little houses, and dispose them in the form of a city, with streets through which they go in and by which they pass out; that from a long way off they scent the flowers and the herbs from which they gather wax for their house and honey for their food, and laden with these fly back, according to the quarter of the heavens, directly to their hive, and thus provide for themselves food and habitation for the coming winter just as if they knew and foresaw it. They also appoint over them a mistress like a queen, from whom a posterity is propagated, and build for her as it were a palace above them, with guards round about; and when the time of bringing forth is at hand she goes with her attendants from cell to cell and lays eggs, which the following crowd anoint that they may not be injured by the air. Thence comes to them a new progeny. Afterwards, when these are advanced to the age at which they can do the like they are expelled from the hive; and the excluded host gather themselves together in a swarm, in order that the band may not be scattered; they then fly thence to seek for them a home. Also about autumn they bring out the useless drones and deprive them of their wings, so that they may not return and consume the food whereon they bestowed no labor. Besides many other things, from which it is evident, that for the sake of the use that they perform for the human race, they have, by virtue of the influx from the spiritual world, a form of government such as there is with men on earth, yea, with the angels in heaven.

 

“What man with reason unimpaired does not see that such things with them are not from the natural world? What has the sun from which nature is in common with a government emulating and analogous to heavenly government? From these and things like these among brute animals, the confessor and worshiper of nature confirms himself in favor of nature; while from the same evidence the confessor and worshiper of God confirms himself in favor of the Divine, for the spiritual man sees spiritual things in them, and the natural man sees in them natural things. Thus everyone sees as he is. For myself, such things have been to me testimonies of the influx of the spiritual into the natural, or of the spiritual world into the natural world, thus from the Divine wisdom of the Lord. Consider, also, whether you can think analytically of any form of government, or of any civil law, or of any moral virtue, or of any spiritual truth, unless the Divine out of his wisdom flows in through the spiritual world. As for me, I could not and cannot. Indeed I have perceptibly and sensibly observed the influx now continually for five and twenty years.²⁸ I therefore affirm this from having witnessed it.

 

420. “Can nature have use as an end, and dispose uses into orders and forms? This none but one who is wise can do. And none but God, who has infinite wisdom, can thus ordinate and form a universe. Who else could foresee and provide all things that men require for food and for raiment, food from the fruits of the earth and from animals, and raiment from the same? It is among the marvels that the vile caterpillars called silk worms clothe with silk and magnificently adorn both women and men, from queens and kings down to maidservants and menservants; and that creatures so lowly as bees furnish wax for the lights from which temples and palaces have their brightness. These facts, and many more, are conspicuous proofs that the Lord for himself through the spiritual world operates all things that are in nature.

 

421. “To this should be added, that there have been seen in the spiritual world those who have so confirmed themselves in favor of nature, from the visible things of the world, that they have become atheists; and that in spiritual light their understanding appeared open beneath but closed above, because in thought they look downwards to the earth, and not upwards towards heaven; above their sensual, which is the lowest of the understanding, appeared a veil as it were, with some flashing from infernal fire, with some black as from soot, and with some livid as a corpse. Let everyone then be on his guard against confirmations in favor of nature; let him confirm himself in favor of the Divine. There is no lack of material.”

 

422. Some indeed are to be pardoned for having ascribed certain visible things to nature, for the reason that they have not known anything about the sun of the spiritual world where the Lord is and of influx therefrom; nor anything about that world and the state of it, no, nor of its presence with men; and that therefore they could not but think of the spiritual as a purer natural, and so that angels either were in the ether or in the stars; and of the devil, that either he is the evil of man, or, if he actually exists, that he is in the air or in the deep; and that the souls of men after death are either in the inmost of the earth, or in a somewhere or other [in aliquo ubi seu pu], until the day of judgment; and other like notions that fancy has induced from want of knowledge of the spiritual world and of its sun. This is the reason why they are to be pardoned who have believed that nature produces the things that they see from something inherent from creation. But still they cannot be pardoned who by confirmations in favor of nature have made themselves atheists; because they could have confirmed themselves in favor of the Divine. Ignorance indeed excuses but does not take away the confirmed falsity; for this falsity coheres with evil and evil with hell.

 

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