266. We may gather what angels' wisdom is like from the fact that they live in heaven's light, and in its essence heaven's light is divine truth or divine wisdom. This light illuminates at one and the same time both their inner sight, which is mental, and their outer sight, the sight of their eyes. (On heaven's light being divine truth or divine wisdom, see above, 126-133.) Angels also live in heaven's warmth, which in its essence is divine good or divine love, and from this comes their affection and longing for wisdom. (On heaven's warmth being divine good or divine love, see above, 133-140.)

Angels enjoy wisdom to the point that they might be called "wisdoms," as we may gather from the fact that all the elements of their thoughts and affections flow according to the heavenly form, which form is the form of divine wisdom, and further that their more inward levels, which are open to wisdom, are framed according to this form. (On angels' thoughts and affections, and therefore their intelligence and wisdom as well, flowing according to heaven's form, see above, 201-212).

[2] We may further infer the excellence of angels' wisdom from the fact that their speech is the speech of wisdom. It actually flows directly and freely from their thought, which in turn comes from their affection, so that their speech is their thought from affection in an external form. Consequently, nothing draws them away from the divine inflow: there is none of that external matter that for us keeps intruding into our speech from thoughts about other things. (On angels' speech being the speech of their thought and affection, see 234-245.)

It also contributes to this kind of angelic wisdom that everything they see with their eyes and perceive with their senses is in harmony with their wisdom. This is because all these things are correspondences and therefore the objects of their senses are forms that portray elements proper to their wisdom. (On the fact that everything visible in heaven is in correspondence with the deeper levels of the angels and is representative of their wisdom, see above, 170-182).

[3] Further, angels' thoughts are not bounded and constrained by concepts drawn from space and time the way ours are; for space and time are properties of nature, and properties of nature distract the mind from spiritual things and deprive our intellectual sight of breadth. (On angels' concepts being devoid of time and space and therefore unlimited, relative to ours, see above, 162-169, 191-199.)

Angels' thoughts are not diverted to earthly and material concerns or interrupted by the cares and needs of life, so they are not distracted by such things from the joys of wisdom the way our thoughts are in this world. They are given everything by the Lord gratis: they are clothed gratis, fed gratis, housed gratis (181-190); and beyond this, they are provided with joys and pleasures in proportion to their acceptance of wisdom from the Lord.

All this has been presented to show where angels derive this kind of wisdom. ¹

Сноски:

819. "For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." This symbolically means that an acknowledgment that the Lord is God of heaven and earth, and at the same time a life in accordance with His commandments, is in a universal sense the whole of the Word and of doctrine drawn from it.

The testimony of Jesus symbolizes an attestation of the Lord in heaven that heaven is His, and thus that He is present in heaven together with the angels there. Moreover, because that attestation cannot be given to any others than people conjoined with the Lord, and those are conjoined with the Lord who acknowledge Him as God of heaven and earth, as He Himself teaches (Matthew 28:18), and who at the same time live in accordance with His commandments, especially the Ten Commandments, therefore these two things are symbolically meant by the testimony of Jesus, as may be seen in nos. 6 and 490 above. That this testimony is the spirit of prophecy means, symbolically, that it is the whole of the Word and of doctrine drawn from it. For the Word in its universal sense deals solely with the Lord and with a life in accordance with His commandments. That is why the Lord embodies the Word. For He embodies the Word because the Word comes from Him and deals with Him alone, and teaches only how He is to be acknowledged and worshiped. These are the precepts of the Word, called Divine truths, in accordance with which a person must live in order for him to come into conjunction with the Lord.

That the Word deals with the Lord alone, and that for this reason the Lord is called an embodiment of the Word, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord 1-7, 8-11, 19-28, 37-44, and in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture 80-90, 98-100.

This, too, is something the Lord says, that the spirit of truth, which is the Holy Spirit, will testify of the Lord, and that it will not speak on its own, but will take of what is the Lord's and declare it (John 15:26; 16:13, 15).