458. The faces of hypocrites are changed more slowly than those of others, because by practice they had formed a habit of so managing their interiors as to imitate good affections; consequently for a long time they appear not unbeautiful. But as that which they had assumed is gradually put off, and the interiors of the mind are brought into accord with the form of their affections, they become after awhile more misshapen than others. Hypocrites are such as have been accustomed to talk like angels, but interiorly have acknowledged nature alone and not the Divine, and have therefore denied what pertains to heaven and the church. 459. It should be known that everyone's human form after death is the more beautiful in proportion as he has more interiorly loved Divine truths and lived according to them; for everyone's interiors are opened and formed in accordance with his love and life; therefore the more interior the affection is the more like heaven it is, and in consequence the more beautiful the face is. This is why the angels in the inmost heaven are the most beautiful, for they are forms of celestial love. But those that have loved Divine truths more exteriorly, and thus have lived in accordance with them in a more external way, are less beautiful; for exterior affections only shine forth from their faces; and through these no interior heavenly love shines, consequently nothing of the form of heaven as it is in itself. There is seen in the faces of such something comparatively obscure, not vivified by any thing of interior life shining through it. In a word, all perfection increases toward interiors and decreases toward exteriors, and as perfection increases and decreases so does beauty. I have seen angelic faces of the third heaven of such radiance that no painter with all his art could possibly give any such light to his colors as to equal a thousandth part of the brightness and life that shone forth from their countenances. But the faces of the angels of the lowest heaven may in some measure be equalled.