52. The reason marriages in heaven do not result in the begetting of children, but that instead they experience a spiritual procreation, which is one of love and wisdom - the reason is that in the case of people who are in the spiritual world, a third element is missing, which is the natural element. This element is the containing vessel of spiritual things, and spiritual things without their containing vessel do not assume fixed form like those that are produced in the natural world. Also, regarded in themselves, spiritual things relate to love and wisdom. Consequently, it is spiritual things that are born of their marriages.

We say that these are born, because conjugial love perfects an angel, since it unites him with his partner so that he becomes more and more human. For, as we said above, married couples in heaven are not two but one angel. Therefore by the conjugial union they fulfill themselves in respect to their humanity, which is to want to be wise and to love what has to do with wisdom.

60. 4. There is a clear image of what is infinite and eternal in the angelic heaven. The angelic heaven is also one of the things we need to know about. Every religious person thinks about it and wants to go there. Heaven, though, is granted only to people who know the path to it and follow that path. We can know the path to heaven to some extent simply by considering what the people who make up heaven are like, realizing that no one can become an angel or get to heaven unless he or she arrives bringing along some angelic quality from the world. Inherent in that angelic quality is a knowing of the path from having walked it and a walking in the path from the knowing of it.

There really are paths in the spiritual world, paths that lead to each community of heaven and to each community of hell. We all see our own paths, spontaneously, it seems. We see them because the paths there are for the loves of each individual. Love opens the paths and leads us to our kindred spirits. No one sees any paths except those of her or his love.

We can see from this that angels are simply heavenly loves, since otherwise they would not have seen the paths that lead to heaven. However, this is better supported by a description of heaven.