Heaven and its Wonders and HellSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
Heaven and its Wonders and Hell
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Future life -- Christianity -- Early work to 1800; Heaven -- Christianity; Hell -- Christianity
"What is more than these is from evil" because it is not from the
Lord; and inasmuch as the angels of the third heaven are in love to
the Lord the truths that are in them are from the Lord. In that
heaven love to the Lord is willing and doing Divine truth, for Divine
truth is the Lord in heaven.
{Footnote 1} Of the correspondence of the ear and of hearing
(n. 4652-4660). The ear corresponds to and therefore signifies
perception and obedience (n. 2542, 3869, 4653, 5017, 7216,
8361, 9311, 9397, 10061). The ear signifies the reception of
truths (n. 5471, 5475, 9926). The correspondence of the eye and
its sight (n. 4403-4421, 4523-4534); from which the sight of
the eye signifies the intelligence that belongs to faith, and
also faith (n. 2701, 4410, 4526, 6923 9051, 10569).
272. There is a still further reason, and this is in heaven the
primary reason, why the angels are able to receive so great wisdom,
namely, that they are without the love of self; for to the extent
that any one is without the love of self he can become wise in Divine
things. It is that love that closes up the interiors against the Lord
and heaven, and opens the exteriors and turns them toward itself; and
in consequence all in whom that love rules are in thick darkness in
respect to the things of heaven, however much light they may have in
worldly matters. The angels, on the other hand, are in the light of
wisdom because they are without the love of self, for the heavenly
loves in which they are, which are love to the Lord and love towards
the neighbor, open the interiors, because these loves are from the
Lord and the Lord Himself is in them. (That these loves constitute
heaven in general, and form heaven in each one in particular, may be
seen above, n. 13-19). As heavenly loves open the interiors to the
Lord so all angels turn their faces towards the Lord (n. 142);
because in the spiritual world the love turns the interiors of
everyone to itself, and whichever way it turns the interiors it also
turns the face, since the face there makes one with the interiors,
for it is their outward form. Because the love turns the interiors
and the face to itself, it also conjoins itself to them (love being
spiritual conjunction), and shares its own with them. From that
turning and consequent conjunction and sharing the angels have their
wisdom. That all conjunction and all turning in the spiritual world
are in accord may be seen above (n. 255).
273. Although the angels are continually perfected in wisdom,{1}
their wisdom, even to eternity, cannot become so perfect that there
can be any ratio between it and the Lord's Divine wisdom; for the
Lord's Divine wisdom is infinite and the wisdom of angels finite; and
between what is Infinite and what is finite no ratio is possible.
{Footnote 1} Angels are perfected to eternity (n. 4803, 6648).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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