The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #8
8. Prologue to the Teachings
I have explained in the booklet "The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed" (§§33-39and following) that the end of a church comes when there is no faith because there is no caring. Since the churches in the Christian world at present have identified themselves solely by differences in matters of faith (although the fact is that if there is no caring there is no faith), I should like to preface these teachings with some observations about the body of teaching focused on caring as understood by the ancients. By "the churches in the Christian world," I mean those among the Reformed and Evangelicals, 1 but not among Roman Catholics, because the Christian church is not found there. That is, the church exists wherever the Lord is worshiped and the Word is read, and this is not the case among Roman Catholics. 2 They worship themselves in place of the Lord, 3 the Word is kept from the laity, 4 and papal decrees are given equal or even higher status. 5
Notas a pie de página:
1. The Reformed tradition in Protestantism is usually considered to include the churches inspired by the theology of John Calvin (1509-1564). These churches include the Dutch Reformed, the Presbyterian, and others. In Germany and much of continental Europe the term Evangelical (German evangelisch) has generally been used to refer to Lutherans, meaning the churches inspired by the theology of Martin Luther (1483-1546). However, both Reformed and Evangelical were also used by various authors to refer to Protestants in general; for an example of this different usage, see Last Judgment 47-48, where the word Reformati, "the Reformed," is translated "Protestants"; and contrast note 3 in Last Judgment 47. For the historical development of these factions over time, see MacCulloch 2003. [RS, SS, JSR]
2. Swedenborg's distinction between "Christians" and "Catholics," while offensive to many readers today, is rooted in the dominant assumptions of Swedenborg's Lutheran environment and the details of his own theology. Sixteenth-century polemics against the Roman Catholic Church were still being repeated in eighteenth-century Protestant Europe. Martin Luther had lumped "papists" together with "Jews, Turks, [and] radicals," and his tactic of assimilating Roman Catholic worship to "pagan" religion was frequently employed during the vicious sectarian debates of the following centuries (Harrison 2002, 5-10). However, it is important to note that Swedenborg in no way saw this exclusion of Catholicism from the Christian world as excluding the Catholic faithful from salvation. See, for example, Last Judgment 63; Supplements 58; Revelation Unveiled 786[3]; True Christianity 821; Draft of "Supplements" 111 [Rogers's numbering] = §112 [Potts's numbering] (= Swedenborg 1997a, 99-100). Elsewhere he expresses approval of Catholic practices of good works and confession, as well as other features of the religion. See, for example, Revelation Unveiled 531[7]; Survey 108; True Christianity 561-562. For more information on the confessional debates of this period, see Harrison 2002 and Pailin 1984. On Swedenborg's specific charges against the Catholic Church, see notes 3, 4, and 5 below. [DNG, RS, JSR, SS]
3. By the statement that members of the Roman Catholic Church "worship themselves in place of the Lord," Swedenborg probably is referring to the reverence traditionally accorded by Roman Catholics to officials at all levels of the church hierarchy, but especially the pope. The saints, too, may be included in this reference. For an extended example of these and similar charges against the Catholic hierarchy, see Last Judgment 55. For places where Swedenborg speaks of Catholics worshiping or venerating the pope, see, for example, Revelation Unveiled 743:3, 796:2; True Christianity 820. For places where he speaks of Catholics worshiping or invoking saints, see, for example, Secrets of Heaven 3447; Last Judgment 56[6]; Faith 8; True Christianity 560, 634, 824. For more on Roman Catholic worship of saints, see note 6 in Last Judgment 55. [SS, JSR, LSW]
4. A key part of the accusation that "the Word is kept from the laity" was the medieval papacy's reluctance to translate the Bible out of the Latin Vulgate and into the new European vernaculars, in which it could be read by the laity. Martin Luther made lay readership of vernacular Bibles a central plank of the Reformation, and the Catholic Counter-Reformation responded by banning the reading of vernacular Bibles absent the formal permission of the Inquisition (see MacCulloch 2003, 393-394, 565-566; compare also the decrees of the Council of Toulouse [1229], canon 14 [Peters 1980, 195], and "Ten Rules on Prohibited Books," rules 3-4 [Janz 2008, 422-426], authorized by the Council of Trent in 1563, and approved in 1564 by Pope Pius IV [1499-1565]). The ban was never consistently applied, and in Swedenborg's day approved vernacular translations in all the major European languages were permitted to circulate among the Catholic faithful. Nevertheless, the accusation that the Roman Catholic Church discouraged its communicants from reading the Bible was still widely repeated, and Swedenborg clearly accepted its substance. In Swedenborg's theology, the church is generally defined as "where the Word is present and the Lord is known by means of it" ( Sacred Scripture 104; see also New Jerusalem 246 and note 2 in New Jerusalem 3). So in Swedenborg's view, the Roman Catholic Church had ceased to be a church when it began discouraging lay readership of the Bible: "The Lord ensures that there is always a church on earth where the Word is being read and the Lord is becoming known through it. When the Word was virtually rejected by Catholics, in the Lord's divine providence the Reformation took place. As a result, the Word was taken from its hiding places, so to speak, and put to use" (True Christianity 270). For more on the history of vernacular Bible translation in this period, see Hunter and others 1969, 2:338-490 (= chapter 9, "The Vernacular Scriptures") [DNG, RS, JSR, SS]
5. Swedenborg here touches on one of the points of contention between the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant reformers. The Catholic Church holds that "truth and [church] discipline are contained in the written books [of Scripture] and the unwritten traditions which . . . have come down even unto us" (Council of Trent, Session 4, April 8, 1546, as quoted in Schaff 1931, 2:80). By contrast, most of Protestant Christianity insists that Scripture alone contains divinely revealed truth; thus Sola Scriptura, "Scripture Alone," was one of the battle cries of the early reformers. Complementing the importance of tradition in Catholic doctrine is the concept of the Magisterium, the teaching authority of the church, which conveys and interprets the tradition. The Magisterium includes not only the decrees of the pope mentioned here, but the decrees of church councils and the authorized writings of church scholars. Although today the Catholic Church clearly teaches that the Magisterium "is not above the Word of God, but serves it" ( Catechism of the Catholic Church 2000, 27), among non-Catholics the Magisterium has long been target of such criticism as is seen in this passage. [SS]
Doctrine of Faith #8
8. Faith divorced from truth entered and pervaded the church with the supremacy of the Roman Catholic Church, since the principal protection for that church was ignorance of the truth. Reading the Word was therefore also forbidden. Otherwise they could not have been worshiped as deities or have had their saints invoked, nor could they have introduced such idolatries as to have the people believe the saints’ bodies, bones and tombs to be holy and so be a source of material gain.
It is apparent from this what terrible falsities a blind faith can lead to.
