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
79. That this is true has been proved to me by much experience, about
which something shall now be said. No angel in the heavens ever
perceives the Divine as being in any other than a human form; and
what is remarkable, those in the higher heavens are unable to think
of the Divine in any other way. The necessity of thinking in this way
comes from the Divine itself that flows in, and also from the form of
heaven in harmony with which their thoughts spread forth. For every
thought of an angel spreads forth into heaven; and the angels have
intelligence and wisdom in the measure of that extension. It is in
consequence of this that all in heaven acknowledge the Lord, because
only in Him does the Divine Human exist. Not only have I been told
all this by angels, but when elevated into the inner sphere of heaven
I have been able to perceive it. From this it is evident that the
wiser the angels are the more clearly they perceive this truth; and
it is from this that the Lord is seen by them; for the Lord is seen
in a Divine angelic form, which is the human form, by those who
acknowledge and believe in a visible Divine Being, but not by those
who believe in an invisible Divine. For the former can see their
Divine Being, but the latter cannot.
80. Because the angels have no perception of an invisible Divine,
which they call a Divine devoid of form, but perceive only a visible
Divine in human form, they are accustomed to say that the Lord alone
is man, and that it is from Him that they are men, and that each one
is a man in the measure of his reception of the Lord. By receiving
the Lord they understand receiving good and truth which are from Him,
since the Lord is in His good and in His truth, and this they call
wisdom and intelligence. Everyone knows, they say, that intelligence
and wisdom make man, and not a face without these. The truth of this
is made evident from the appearance of the angels of the interior
heavens, for these, being in good and truth from the Lord and in
consequent wisdom and intelligence, are in a most beautiful and most
perfect human form; while the angels of the lower heavens are in
human form of less perfection and beauty. On the other hand, those
who are in hell appear in the light of heaven hardly as men, but
rather as monsters, since they are not in good and truth but in evil
and falsity, and consequently in the opposites of wisdom and
intelligence. For this reason their life is not called life, but
spiritual death.
81. Because heaven as a whole and in part, from the Lord's Divine
Human, reflects a man, the angels say that they are in the Lord; and
some say that they are in His body, meaning that they are in the good
of His love. And this the Lord Himself teaches, saying,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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