THE IMPUTATION OF THE
TWO LOVES:
SCORTATORY AND CONJUGIAL
Selection from Conjugial Love #523 - 535 ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Memorable
Relation To
the above I will add the following: As to my spirit I was once taken
up into the angelic heaven and into one of its societies. Some of
the wise men there then came to me and asked, "What news from
earth?" I told them: "This is new: The Lord has revealed arcana
which surpass in excellence the arcana hitherto revealed from the
beginning of the Church." To their question, "What are these arcana?"
I answered, They are these:
1. "That in the word, in each
and every part thereof, there is a spiritual sense corresponding to
the natural sense; that by this sense, the men of the Church have
conjunction with the Lord and consociation with angels; and that in
it resides the holiness of the word."
2. "The correspondences of
which the spiritual sense of the Word consists have been disclosed."
The angels asked, "Did not the
inhabitants of the globe know about correspondences before?" I said:
"Nothing whatever. They have lain hidden now for some thousands of
years, ever since the time of Job. With those who lived at that time
and previous thereto, the science of correspondences was the science
of sciences from which they had their wisdom, because from it they
had knowledge concerning things spiritual, being the things of
heaven and hence of the church. But when this science was turned
into an idolatrous science, then, of the Lord's Divine Providence it
was so obliterated and destroyed that no one saw any sign of it.
Still, it has now been disclosed by the Lord in order that men of
the church may have conjunction with Him and consociation with
angels. This is effected by means of the Word in which each and
every thing is a correspondence." Greatly rejoicing that it had
pleased the Lord to reveal this great arcanum, so deeply hidden for
some thousands of years, the angels said, "This has been done to the
end that the Christian Church, which is founded upon the word and is
now at its end, may again revive and draw breath through heaven from
the Lord." They then asked whether by means of that science it had
been now disclosed what is signified by Baptism and the Holy Supper,
about which men have hitherto thought so variously. I answered that
this is now disclosed.
3. I said further, "A
revelation has at this day been made by the Lord respecting the life
of men after death." Whereupon the angels said, "Why about life
after death? Who does not know that man lives after death?" I
replied: "Men know of it and do not know. They say that what lives
after death is not the man but his soul; that this lives as a
spirit, and of the spirit they cherish an idea as of wind or ether;
that men do not live as men until after the day of the last
judgment; that their corporeal parts which they had left behind in
the world, though eaten up by worms, mice, and fishes, will then be
gathered up and again be fitted into a body, and that in this way
men will rise again." the angels said: "What is this? Who does not
know that after death man lives as a man, with the sole difference
that he then lives as a spiritual man? and a spiritual man sees a
spiritual man just as a material man a material, nor do they know a
single distinction except that they are in a more perfect state?"
4. The angels then asked, "What
do they know about our world? and about heaven and hell?" I said:
"They have not known anything; but at this day the nature of the
spiritual world in which angels and spirits live has been disclosed
by the Lord, and thus the nature of heaven and the nature of hell;
also that angels and spirits are in conjunction with men, besides
many wonderful things about them." The angels were glad that it had
pleased the Lord to disclose such things so that man from ignorance
may no longer be in uncertainty respecting his immortality.
5. I said further: "At this day
it has been revealed by the Lord that in your world there is a sun
other than the sun in ours, and that the sun of your world is pure
love, and the sun of our world pure fire; that therefore all that
proceeds from your sun, this being pure love, partakes of life, and
all that proceeds from ours, this being pure fire, takes nothing
from life; and that thence is the difference between the spiritual
and the natural. This difference, hitherto unknown, has also been
disclosed, and thereby, it has been made known whence is the light
which enlightens the human understanding with wisdom, and whence the
heat which enkindles the human will with love.
6. "Moreover, it has been
disclosed that there are three degrees of life, and hence three
heavens; that the human mind is distinguished into these degrees,
and that man thus corresponds to the three heavens." The angels
said, "Did not men know this before?" I answered that they knew of
the degrees between greater and less, but nothing of the degrees
between the prior and the posterior.
7. The angels then asked
whether any other new things had been revealed, and I said: "Many,
being things concerning the Last Judgment; concerning the Lord, that
He is the God of heaven and earth; that God is one, both in person
and in essence, in whom is a Divine Trinity, and that He is the
Lord; also concerning the New Church to be established by Him, and
concerning the doctrine of that Church; concerning the holiness of
the Sacred Scripture. Moreover, the Apocalypse has been revealed,
and this could not have been revealed, even as to the smallest
verse, save by the Lord. Furthermore, revelation has been made
concerning the inhabitants of the Planets and concerning the Earths
in the Universe; besides many memorable and wonderful things from
the spiritual world, whereby much that pertains to wisdom has been
disclosed from heaven."
On hearing all this, the
angels greatly rejoiced; but then, perceiving a sadness in me, they
asked, "Whence is your sadness?" I said, "The arcana now revealed by
the Lord, though in excellence and worth they surpass the knowledges
hitherto made public, are yet esteemed on earth as of no value."
Wondering at this, the angels besought the Lord that it might be
allowed them to look down into the world. And they looked down and
there, lo, mere darkness! They were then told to write those arcana
upon a paper, and the paper would be let down upon the earth and
they would see a portent. This was done. The paper on which those
arcana had been written was let down from heaven, and lo, in its
progress, while still in the spiritual world, it shone like a star;
but as it fell into the natural world, the light disappeared and by
degrees, as it went down, it was darkened. When it was let down by
the angels into companies where were doctors and learned men of the
clergy and laity, from many of these a murmur was heard, in which
were the words: "What is this? Is it anything? What matters whether
we know these things or not? Are they not offspring of the brain?"
and it seemed as though some of them took the paper and folded and
rolled and unrolled it with their fingers in order to obliterate the
writing. It also seemed as though others would tear it to pieces,
and as though still others wished to trample it under their feet.
But from that criminal deed they were restrained by the Lord, and
command was given to the angels to withdraw the paper and guard it.
And because the angels were made sad and thought, "How long will
this be?" it was said, "Until a time and times and half a time"
(Rev. 12:14).
After this I spoke with the angels and said, "In the world yet one
more thing is revealed by the Lord." "What is that?" they asked, and
I answered: "Concerning love truly conjugial and its heavenly
delights." The angels then said: "Who does not know that the
delights of conjugial love exceed the delights of all other loves?
and who cannot see that there is some love into which are gathered
all the blessedness, happiness, and delight that can ever be
conferred by the Lord? and that the receptacle of these is love
truly conjugial?--a love which can receive and perceive them with
fullness of sensation."
I answered: "Men do not know this
because they have not approached the Lord and lived according to His
commandments by shunning evils as sins and doing goods; and love
truly conjugial with its delights is solely from the Lord, and is
given to those who live according to His commandments. Thus it is
given to those who are received into the Lord's New Church, which is
meant in the Apocalypse by the New Jerusalem." To this I added: "I
am in doubt whether at this day men in the world are willing to
believe that in itself this love is a spiritual love and therefore
has its existence from religion, for they cherish only a corporeal
idea concerning it."
The angels then said to me: "Write
about it, and follow the revelation. The written book shall then be
let down by us out of heaven and we shall see whether what is
written therein is received, and at the same time, whether men are
willing to acknowledge that this love is with man according to his
religion--spiritual with the spiritual, natural with the natural,
and merely carnal with adulterers."
After this I heard a hostile murmur
from those below, and at the same time the words, "Do miracles and
we will believe." To my question, "Are not these things miracles?"
they answered, "They are not!" I then asked, "What miracles then?"
and the answer came, "Show and reveal the future, and we will have
faith." "But" I
replied, "such knowledges are not given from heaven, because in so
far as man knows the future, his reason and understanding with his
prudence and wisdom fall into inactivity, become torpid, and decay."
And again I asked, "What other miracles shall I do?"
Then came the cry, "Do miracles like
those which Moses did in Egypt"; to which I replied, "Perhaps you
would harden your hearts at them, as did Pharaoh and the Egyptians."
The answer came that they would not; and again I said: "Assure me
that you will not dance around a golden calf and adore it, as
Jacob's posterity did within a month after they had seen the whole
of Mount Sinai on fire and heard Jehovah Himself speaking out of the
fire; thus, after a miracle which was the greatest of all." (In the
spiritual sense, a golden calf is the pleasure of the flesh.) And
from below came the answer, "We will not be like Jacob's posterity."
Then I heard it said to them from
heaven: "If you believe not Moses and the Prophets, that is, the
word of the Lord, you would no more believe from miracles than did
the sons of Jacob in the wilderness, nor, indeed, more than they
believed when they saw with their own eyes the miracles done by the
Lord when He was in the world."
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