Apocalypse Explained #554
554. And their faces were as the faces of men.- That this signifies that they appear to themselves as spiritual affections for truth, is evident from the signification of faces, as denoting the interiors of the mind and affection; see above (n. 412); and from the signification of man, as denoting the spiritual affection for truth, and thence intelligence and wisdom; see above (n. 280). And because faces are types of the interiors of man, they therefore signify the same as men themselves, namely, affections of truth. But in the present case it is said that they appear to themselves as affections for truth, and thence to be intelligent and wise, because it is stated of the locusts that their faces were seen as the faces of men.
[2] The locusts appeared with such faces, on account of the strong persuasive [power] which sensual men possess who are in falsities from evil, and who are signified by the locusts, the persuasive [power] itself presenting such appearance, but this only before themselves, and before such others as are also in falsities from evil, but not before the angels of heaven. The reason of this is, that the angels are in the light of heaven, and whatsoever they see, they see from that light; and the light of heaven, because it is Divine Truth, dissipates everything that is imaginative originating in the persuasive [power]. Sensual men appear to themselves to be such, because sensual men persuade themselves that they are in truths from good above others, although they are in falsities from evil; for they cannot view anything interiorly from heaven, but only outwardly from the world, and those who see from the world alone see only from an illusory light, from which they imagine themselves to be wiser and more intelligent than others, not knowing wherein intelligence and wisdom consist, and whence they come. It is from this persuasive faith that they believe themselves to be in the spiritual affection for truth, this therefore is signified by the faces of the locusts appearing like the faces of men.
[3] But these things must be illustrated by experience from the spiritual world. All in the heavens, are men as to their faces and the other parts of the body, for they are in the spiritual affection for truth, and the spiritual affection for truth is itself in form a man, because this affection is from the Lord, who is the only Man, and because from Him the entire heaven conspires to the human form; hence it is that the angels are the forms of their own affections, which also appear from their faces. But these things are amply explained in Heaven and Hell 59-102). But in hell, where all are external and sensual, because in falsities from evil, they also appear to themselves as men, even as to their faces, but only amongst their own; but when they are seen in the light of heaven, they appear as monsters, with horrible faces, and sometimes in place of the face only something hairy, or with a horrible grate of teeth, and sometimes ghastly pale, as though dead, in which there is not any living human faculty, for they are forms of hatred, revenge, and cruelty, in which there is spiritual death, because in opposition to the life which is from the Lord. That they appear amongst themselves with a face like men, is the result of fantasy and persuasion therefrom. Concerning these appearances see also in Heaven and Hell 553).
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #20
20. From Secrets of Heaven
ABSOLUTELY everything in the universe goes back to either goodness and truth or evil and falsity. If it is in keeping with the divine design, or is becoming so, it goes back to what is good and true, while if it is in violation of the divine design it goes back to what is evil and false: 3166, 4390, 4409, 5232, 7256, 10122. This holds true for our understanding and our will, 1 since our understanding is the part of us that is receptive either to what is true or to what is false and our will is the part of us that is receptive either to what is good or to what is evil: 10122. Nowadays, not many people know what "truth" really is in essence because so little is known about what is good. Yet everything true comes from what is good and everything good happens by means of what is true: 2507, 3603, 4136, 9186, 9995.
There are four kinds of people. 2
1. There are people who live lives based on falsity; some of them do so with evil intent, and some of them do so without evil intent.
2. There are people who live lives based on truth but lack good intent.
3. There are people who live lives based on truth who use that truth to focus on and move toward what is good.
4. And there are people who live lives based on truth who have good intent.
Let us take these one at a time.
Фусноти:
1. On understanding and will, see New Jerusalem 28-35 and note 1 in New Jerusalem 28. [Editors]
2. Over the course of writing and publishing his theological works, Swedenborg came more and more to use the geometrical style of argumentation (also called axiomatic presentation), in which pithy statements are first presented without support in list form, and then taken up one by one and discussed, illustrated, and corroborated. This style of argumentation is named for geometry-even though its content may not be in the least mathematical-because the best known work of ancient Greek geometry, Elements of Geometry by Euclid (flourished around 300 B. C. E.), was written in this axiomatic style. Many Enlightenment thinkers, including René Descartes (1596-1650) and Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677), were impressed by the certainty and self-consistency of Euclid's proofs, in which every proposition is logically grounded either in self-evident "axioms" or in previously proved propositions; they tried to build their own philosophical systems in more geometrico, "in geometrical fashion. " Swedenborg was well read in contemporary philosophy, and it is no surprise that he employed the geometrical style in constructing his own theological system. [JSR, DNG]
