The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love: To Which is Added The Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining To Scortatory LoveSwedenborg, Emanuel
Religion
The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love: To Which is Added The Pleasures of Insanity Pertaining To Scortatory Love
Swedenborg, Emanuel
Marriage -- Religious aspects -- New Jerusalem Church; New Jerusalem Church -- Doctrines; Sexual ethics
spiritual world, and as to their loves resemble what they were when
alive in the natural world, and continue such to eternity. As the
particulars of this knowledge are worthy to be known and related, and
tend to confirm the sanctity of marriages, I am desirous to make them
public as they were shown me in the spirit when awake, and were
afterwards recalled to my remembrance by an angel, and thus described.
And as they are from the spiritual world, like the other accounts
annexed to each chapter, I am desirous to arrange them so as to form six
MEMORABLE RELATIONS according to the progressions of the several periods
of time.
* * * * *
74. THESE SIX MEMORABLE RELATIONS from the spiritual world, concerning
conjugial love, discover the nature and quality of that love in the
earliest times and afterwards, and also at the present day; whence it
appears that that love has successively fallen away from its sanctity
and purity, until it became adulterous; but that nevertheless there is a
hope of its being brought back again to its primeval or ancient
sanctity.
75. THE FIRST MEMORABLE RELATION. On a time, while I was meditating on
conjugial love, my mind was seized with a desire of knowing what had
been the nature and quality of that love among those who lived in the
GOLDEN AGE, and afterwards among those who lived in the following ages,
which have their names from silver, copper, and iron: and as I knew that
all who lived well in those ages are in the heavens, I prayed to the
Lord that I might be allowed to converse with them and be informed: and
lo! an angel presented himself and said, "I am sent by the Lord to be
your guide and companion: I will first lead and attend you to those who
lived in the first age or period of time, which is called golden:" and
he said, "The way to them is difficult; it lies through a shady forest,
which none can pass unless he receive a guide from the Lord." I was in
the spirit, and prepared myself for the journey; and we turned our faces
towards the east; and as we advanced I saw a mountain, whose height
extended beyond the region of the clouds. We passed a great wilderness,
and came to the forest planted with various kinds of trees and rendered
shady by their thickness, of which the angel had advertised me. The
forest was divided by several narrow paths; and the angel said, that
according to the number of those paths are the windings and intricacies
of error: and that unless his eyes were opened by the Lord, so as to see
olives entwined with vine tendrils, and his steps were directed from
olive to olive, the traveller would miss his way, and fall into the
abodes of Tartarus, which are round about at the sides. This forest is
of such a nature, to the end that the passage may be guarded; for none
but a primeval nation dwells upon that mountain. After we had entered
the forest, our eyes were opened, and we saw here and there olives
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account