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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #478

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478. ADULTERY IN ITS KINDS AND DEGREES

No one who judges of it only on the basis of outward appearances can know that there is any evil in adultery; for in outward appearances it bears a resemblance to marriage. When internal qualities are mentioned, and those superficial judges are told that external actions draw their goodness or evil from them, they say to themselves, "What are internal qualities? Who sees them? Is this not something that transcends the realm of anyone's intelligence?"

Such people are of the same character as those who accept all affected good as genuine and sincere, and who estimate a person's wisdom in accordance with the elegance of his speech. Or they are like those who esteem the man himself in accordance with the fineness of his clothing and the grandness of the carriage in which he rides, and not in accordance with his inner deportment, which has to do with his judgment arising from his affection for good. It is also comparable to judging of a tree's fruit or any provender simply by its look and feel, and not considering its goodness by the way it tastes and what one knows about it. Thus do all do who are averse to discerning anything of a person's internal qualities.

From this originates the madness of many today, that they do not see anything evil in adulterous affairs - indeed, that they put marriage and adultery together in the same bed, in other words, make them alike; and this simply because of their seeming similarity in outward appearances.

[2] I was convinced of the fact of this by the evidence of the following experience: Some angels once called together several hundred people from the European world, of those distinguished for their genius, learning and wisdom there; and they questioned them about the difference between marriage and adultery, asking them to consult the rational considerations of their intellect. After consulting then, all but ten replied that statutory law alone makes a distinction, and this for the sake of some beneficial end, an end which can indeed be defined, but yet be accommodated through judicial discretion. The angels next asked them whether they saw anything good in marriage or anything evil in adultery. They replied that they saw no rational evil or good. When asked whether they saw anything sinful in the latter, they said, "In what respect? Is not the act the same?"

The angels were stunned at these responses and exclaimed, "Oh, how extraordinary and how great the grossness of the age!"

When they heard that, the hundreds of the wise assembled turned around and guffawing said to each other, "Is this grossness? What possible wisdom is there to convince us that to make love to another's wife is deserving of eternal damnation?"

[3] Adultery, however, is a spiritual evil, and therefore a moral evil and a civil evil, diametrically opposed to the wisdom of reason. The love in adultery also ascends from hell and descends back to it, while the love in marriage descends from heaven and ascends back to it. This we showed at the outset of this second part, in the chapter on the opposition of licentious love to conjugial love. 1

But because all evils, like all goods, are allotted a breadth and a height, and because according to that breadth they have their kinds and according to that height their degrees, therefore in order that adulteries may be distinguished in respect to both dimensions, we will divide them first into their kinds and afterwards into their degrees. This we will do according to the following outline:

1. There are three kinds of adultery: simple adultery, double adultery, and triple adultery.

2. Simple adultery is the adultery of an unmarried man with the wife of another, or of an unmarried woman with the husband of another.

3. Double adultery is the adultery of a married man with the wife of another, or vice versa.

4. Triple adultery is adultery with close blood relatives.

5. There are four degrees of adultery, which affect accordingly subsequent attributions of it, convictions, and, after death, imputations.

6. Adulteries of the first degree are adulteries of ignorance, which are committed by people who are not yet able to or cannot consult the intellect and so prevent them.

7. Adulteries committed by such people are mild.

8. Adulteries of the second degree are adulteries of lust, which are committed by people who are indeed able to consult the intellect, but for reasons of circumstance at the moment cannot.

9. Adulteries committed by such people are imputable to them according as their intellect afterwards sanctions them or does not sanction them.

10. Adulteries of the third degree are adulteries of the reason, which are committed by people who intellectually persuade themselves that they are not sinful evils.

11. Adulteries committed by such people are grave and are imputed to them in accordance with their persuasions.

12. Adulteries of the fourth degree are adulteries of the will, which are committed by people who make them allowable and pleasurable, and not of sufficient consequence to merit consulting the intellect in regard to them.

13. Adulteries committed by such people are the most grave and are imputed to them as purposeful evils, and they become settled in them as culpable offenses.

14. Adulteries of the third and fourth degree are sinful evils according to the measure and nature of the intellect and will in them, whether they are committed in act or not.

15. Purposeful adulteries arising from the will, and deliberate adulteries arising from a persuasion of the intellect, render a person natural, sensual and carnal.

16. And this to the point that they finally cast away from them everything having to do with the church and religion.

17. Nevertheless, they still possess human rationality like others.

18. Yet they use their rationality only when engaged in their outward lives, but abuse it when engaged in their inner ones.

Explanation of these statements now follows.

Footnotes:

1. Nos. 423ff.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #115

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115. The second account:

Awakened from sleep in the middle of the night, I saw an angel at some height towards the east, holding in his right hand a piece of paper. It appeared in a shining brilliance owing to the light coming in from the sun. In the middle of the paper there was writing in gold letters, and I saw the phrase, "The marriage between good and truth." From the writing sprang a radiance that turned into a large halo around the piece of paper. The halo or ring consequently had an appearance similar to the appearance of dawn in springtime.

After this I saw the angel descending with the paper in his hand. Moreover, as he descended, the paper appeared less and less bright, and the writing - which said, "The marriage between good and truth" - turned from the color of gold to silver, then to the color of copper, next to the color of iron, and lastly to the color of rusty iron and corroded copper. Finally I saw the angel enter a dark cloud and descend through the cloud to the ground. There the piece of paper disappeared, although the angel was still holding it in his hand. (This took place in the world of spirits, the world all people go to first after they die.)

[2] The angel then spoke to me, saying, "Ask the people who are coming this way whether they see me and whether they see anything in my hand."

A host of people came - a crowd from the east, a crowd from the south, a crowd from the west, and a crowd from the north. Those coming from the east and south were people who in the world had devoted themselves to becoming learned, and I asked them whether they saw anyone with me there and whether they saw anything in his hand. They all said they saw nothing at all.

I then asked the people who came from the west and north. They were people who in the world had believed whatever the learned said. They said they did not see anything, either.

The last of these, however, were people who in the world had possessed a simple faith stemming from charity, or some truth resulting from goodness, and after the people before them went away, they said that they saw a man with a piece of paper - a man handsomely dressed, and a piece of paper with letters printed on it. Moreover, when they looked more closely, they said they could read the phrase, "The marriage between good and truth." Then they spoke to the angel, asking him to tell them what it meant.

[3] The angel said that everything which exists in the whole of heaven and everything which exists in the whole world is nothing but a form of the marriage between good and truth, since each and every thing was created out of and into a marriage of good and truth - both everything that lives and breathes and also whatever does not live and breathe.

"There is nothing," he said, "that was created solely into a form of truth, and nothing that was created solely into a form of good. Good alone or truth alone has no reality, but they take form and become real through a marriage of the two, the character of the resulting form being determined by the character of the marriage.

"Divine good and Divine truth in the Lord the Creator are good and truth in their very essence. The being of His essence is Divine good, and the expression of His essence is Divine truth. In Him, moreover, good and truth exist in their very union, for in Him they are infinitely united. Since these two are united in Him, the Creator, therefore they are also united in each and every thing created by Him. By this the Creator is also conjoined with all things created by Him in an eternal covenant like that of a marriage."

[4] The angel said further that the Holy Scripture, which came directly from the Lord, is as a whole and in every part an expression of the marriage between good and truth. And because the church, which is formed through truth of doctrine, and religion, which is formed through goodness of life in accordance with truth of doctrine, are in the case of Christians based solely on the Holy Scripture, it can be seen that the church as a whole and in every part is an expression of the marriage between good and truth. (For an explanation of this, see The Apocalypse Revealed, nos. 373, 483.)

The same thing that the angel said above regarding the marriage of good and truth he also said of the marriage between charity and faith, since good has to do with charity and truth has to do with faith.

Some of the first people, who had not seen the angel or the writing, were still standing around, and on hearing these things they mumbled, "Yes, of course. We see that."

But then the angel said to them, "Turn away from me a little and repeat what you said."

So they turned away, and they said quite plainly, "No, it isn't so."

[5] Afterwards the angel spoke with some married couples about the marriage of good and truth, saying that if their minds were in a such a state of marriage, with the husband being a form of truth and the wife a form of the good of that truth, they would both experience the blissful delights of innocence and thus the happiness that angels of heaven enjoy.

"In such a state," he said, "the husband's power of insemination would continually be in the spring of youth, and he would therefore remain in the effort and power to transmit his truth, and the wife, out of love, would be in a continual state to receive it.

"The wisdom that men have from the Lord knows no greater delight than to transmit its truths. And the love of wisdom that wives have in heaven knows no greater pleasure than to receive them as though in a womb, and thus to conceive them, carry them, and give them birth.

"That is what spiritual procreations are like among angels of heaven. And if you would believe it, natural procreations come also from the same origin."

After bidding all farewell, the angel rose from the earth, and passing through the cloud, ascended into heaven. Moreover, as he ascended, the piece of paper then began to shine as before, until the halo that had previously had the appearance of dawn suddenly descended and dispelled the cloud which had cast a shadow over the earth, and it became sunny.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.

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