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
entwined with vines, from which hung bunches of grapes of a blue or
azure color, and the olives were ranged in continual wreaths; we
therefore made various circuits as they presented themselves to our
view; and at length we saw a grove of tall cedars and some eagles
perched on their branches; on seeing which the angel said, "We are now
on the mountain not far from its summit:" so we went forward, and lo!
behind the grove was a circular plain, where there were feeding he and
she-lambs, which were representative forms of the state of innocence and
peace of the inhabitants of the mountain. We passed over this plain, and
lo! we saw tabernacles, to the number of several thousands in front on
each side in every direction as far as the eye could reach. And the
angel said, "We are now in the camp, where are the armies of the Lord
Jehovah; for so they call themselves and their habitations. These most
ancient people, while they were in the world, dwelt in tabernacles;
therefore now also they dwell in the same. But let us bend our way to
the south, where the wiser of them live, that we may meet some one to
converse with." In going along I saw at a distance three boys and three
girls sitting at a door of a certain tent; but as we approached, the
boys and girls appeared like men and women of a middle stature. The
angel then said, "All the inhabitants of this mountain appear at a
distance like infants, because they are in a state of innocence; and
infancy is the appearance of innocence." The men on seeing us hastened
towards us and said, "Whence are you; and how came you here? Your faces
are not like those of our mountain." But the angel in reply told them
how, by permission, we had had access through the forest, and what was
the cause of our coming. On hearing this, one of the three men invited
and introduced us into his tabernacle. The man was dressed in a blue
robe and a tunic of white wool: and his wife had on a purple gown, with
a stomacher under it of fine linen wrought in needle-work. And as my
thought was influenced by a desire of knowing the state of marriages
among the most ancient people, I looked by turns on the husband and the
wife, and observed as it were a unity of their souls in their faces; and
I said, "You are one:" and the man answered, "We are one; her life is in
me, and mine in her; we are two bodies, but one soul: the union between
us is like that of the two viscera in the breast, which are called the
heart and the lungs; she is my heart and I am her lungs; but as by the
heart we here mean love, and by the lungs wisdom, she is the love of my
wisdom, and I am the wisdom of her love; therefore her love from without
veils my wisdom, and my wisdom from within enters into her love: hence,
as you said, there is an appearance of the unity of our souls in our
faces." I then asked, "If such a union exists, is it possible for you to
look at any other woman than your own?" He replied, "It is possible but
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