2. FIRST INDEX.

ADULTERIES (Adulteria). (See also LASCIVIOUSNESS.)

Concerning the three degrees of adulteries (386-388) [Conjugial Love 432, 485-499]. (see DEGREES.)

Concerning adulterers seen as satyrs, in company with harlots, in a wood, and in a cavern there; and afterwards in a house, where they were conversing together about marriage, nature, and religion (Memorabilia 407) [Conjugial Love 521].

They who have no religion have not conjugial love; but lust which is worse than the lust of a wild beast (439-445) [Conjugial Love 79, 239, 240].

Of the closure of the mind with adulterers and the evil (various things, 562-565) [Conjugial Love 203].

Conjugial similitude and dissimilitude are not regarded with those who are in scortatory love (818-822).

Conjugial love and scortatory love are altogether opposite to each other (847-851) [Conjugial Love 423-429].

Concerning a young man who boasted of his whoredom; he was conducted into heaven; he was held by turns in externals and internals; and thus he saw opposite things (Memorabilia 852) [Conjugial Love 477].

An internal cause of coldness between consorts is, that the evil of whoredom is not believed to be sin; still more, if it is confirmed that it is not sin (913-917) [Conjugial Love 240].

A cause of coldness is, whoredom before marriage with the wives of others; also meretricious love and concubinage after marriage: in general, all libidinousness by which the conjugial perishes (918-928).

A cause of coldness between consorts is, that conjugial love is believed to be one with scortatory love (958-961) [Conjugial Love 247].

Whoredom is the genuine cause of divorce (985-993) [Conjugial Love 255].

Adulterers do not acknowledge God (Memorabilia 1300) [Conjugial Love 500].

Whoredoms in general correspond to falsifications of truth and profanations of good, by means of the Word (1399-1403) [Conjugial Love 77, 80, 517, 518].

Heinous adulteries within the prohibited degrees correspond to certain heresies confirmed by the Word (1405-1407) [Conjugial Love 519].

The internal and spiritual cause of conjugial love is to shun adulteries from religion (1602-1606) [Conjugial Love 147-149].

An external or natural cause of love and friendship between consorts, is abstinence from whoredom from any cause, excepting impotence only (1611-1614).

Concerning angels of innocence, who did not understand what scortatory love is (Memorabilia 1738) [Conjugial Love 444].

Concerning fornication (see FORNICATION, MISTRESS).

There are several kinds of adulteries; there are those that are mild, those that are grievous, and those that are most grievous (1876) [Conjugial Love 479, 487, 491, 493].

Simple adultery is that of an unmarried man with the wife of another, or of an unmarried woman with another's husband (1877-1879) [Conjugial Love 480].

It can be seen from reason that adultery is unjust (various things, 1778) [Conjugial Love 481].

Duplicate adultery is the adultery of a husband with the wife of another, or of a wife with another's husband (1880-1885) [Conjugial Love 482].

With whom there is such adultery (carious things, 1882) [Conjugial Love 483].

There is such in England (1883) [Conjugial Love 483].

Triplicate adultery is with blood-relations (1884, 1885) [Conjugial Love 484].

There are adulteries of will, and there are adulteries of deed; and adulteries of the will in themselves are like those that are actual when opportunity offers and various fears do not prevent (1886, 1887) [Conjugial Love 490].

There are actual adulteries which are of the will, and there are adulteries which are not thus of the will; the latter are mild, but the former grievous (1889-1892) [Conjugial Love 486, 491-494].

Causes that certain adulteries are not committed in man's interior will (1892) [Conjugial Love 486].

Adulteries that are actual and of the will make man natural, sensual, and corporeal, as to the will, its inclinations and affections (1894-1896) [Conjugial Love 495, 496].

Their effect is, that man does not acknowledge God, the Divinity of the Lord, the holiness of the Word, and consequently the other things that belong to the church and to religion (1897-1903) [Conjugial Love 497].

Adulterers have the capacity to understand, equally with those who are not adulterers; but they abuse their rationality to confirm their adulteries (1904-1908) [Conjugial Love 498, 499].

How adulterers converse in favor of adulteries and against marriages (1908) [Conjugial Love 500].

The opposition of conjugial love and scortatory love (1910-1947) [Conjugial Love 423-443].

Scortatory love is opposite to celestial love, because scortatory love is infernal, and conjugial love is heavenly (1911-1914) [Conjugial Love 429].

Scortatory love is in the enjoyment of evil and falsity, but conjugial love in the enjoyment of good and truth (1915-1919) [Conjugial Love 427].

The uncleanness of hell is from scortatory love, and the cleanness of heaven is from conjugial love (1920-1924) [Conjugial Love 430].

So with what is unclean and what is clean, in the church (1925-1931) [Conjugial Love 431].

Scortatory love begins from the flesh, but conjugial love from the spirit (1932-1938) [Conjugial Love 440, 441].

Scortatory love makes a man (homo) not man; yea, the man not a man: but conjugial love makes a man (vir) more and more a man; yea, the man more and more a man (1939-1942) [Conjugial Love 432, 433].

The delights of scortatory love are pleasures of insanity, and the delights of conjugial love are enjoyments of wisdom (1943-1947) [Conjugial Love 442, 443].

Correspondence of whoredoms and adulteries with the violation of spiritual marriage, which is that of good and truth (1950-2000) [Conjugial Love 515-520]. (See CORRESPONDENCE.)

Adulteries are infernal (various things, 1999) [Conjugial Love 356, 477, 483]. (See CORRESPONDENCE.)

Some things respecting adulterers and adulteries in hell (2000) [Conjugial Love 500, 520].

Concerning those who lived after the four ancient ages; they were whoremongers and adulterers (Memorabilia 2034) [Conjugial Love 79, 80].

Concerning the hells of adulterers, in the west; where they appear like lakes of fire and brimstone (Memorabilia 2035) [Conjugial Love 79, 80].

138. CHASTITY AND ITS ABSENCE

[We take up chastity and its absence here,] since I am still on the way to dealing with conjugial love in particular, and because conjugial love in particular can be known only indistinctly and thus dimly unless its opposite is also seen to some degree. Its opposite is unchasteness, and this is seen to some degree, or some shadow of it, when chastity is described along with its absence. For chastity is simply the removal of unchasteness from that which is chaste. Unchasteness, on the other hand, which is the complete opposite of chastity, is discussed in the second part of this work, where it will be described in its full scope and in its varieties under the title, PLEASURES OF INSANITY RELATING TO LICENTIOUS LOVE.

Meanwhile, what chastity is and its absence, and who they apply to, will be made clear according to the following outline:

1. Chastity and a lack of chastity are terms that apply only to states of marriage and things that have to do with marriage.

2. Chastity is ascribed only to monogamous marriages, or to marriages of one man with one wife.

3. Only a Christian conjugial relationship is chaste.

4. Truly conjugial love is the essence of chastity.

5. All the delights of truly conjugial love, even the end delights, are chaste.

6. Conjugial love is more and more purified and becomes chaste in people who become spiritual from the Lord.

7. Chastity in marriage comes about through total renunciation of licentious relationships in accordance with religion.

8. Chastity cannot be ascribed to little children or boys and girls, nor to adolescents of either sex before they feel a love for the opposite sex stirring in them.

9. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who are born eunuchs or who have been made eunuchs.

10. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who do not believe that adultery is an evil against religion, and still less to those who do not believe that adultery is harmful to society.

11. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who abstain from adulterous relationships only for various external reasons.

12. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who believe that marriages are unchaste.

13. Chastity cannot be ascribed to people who have renounced marriage by a vow of perpetual celibacy, unless a love for the truly conjugial life is present and remains in them.

14. The state of marriage is preferable to a state of celibacy.

Explanation of these statements now follows.

500. To this I will append the following narrative account:

I once heard in the world of spirits a great tumult. Thousands of spirits had gathered and were crying out, "Punish them! Punish them!"

I drew nearer and asked, "What is going on?"

Leaving that great throng, one of them said to me that they were in a white-hot rage at three priests who were going about and everywhere preaching against adulterers, saying that adulterers lack any acknowledgment of God, and that heaven was closed to them and hell opened. Also that in hell they are unclean devils, because they appear at a distance there like pigs rolling around in piles of excrement, and that the angels in heaven abhor them.

I inquired where those priests were and why there was such an outcry on that account.

He replied that the three priests were in their midst, surrounded by bodyguards, and that the gathering consisted of people who believe that adulteries are not sins and who maintain that adulterers have an acknowledgment of God just as much as those who are faithful to their wives. "They are all from the Christian world," he said, "and when they were once visited by angels to see how many among them believed that adulteries were sins, not a hundred in a thousand were found who did."

Moreover he told me that the remaining nine hundred speak in regard to adulteries as follows:

[2] "Who does not know that the delight in adultery far surpasses the delight of marriage? That adulterers experience a perpetual state of heat and so possess a more vigorous, energetic and active life than those who live with just one woman? And that, conversely, love with one's married partner grows cold, and this sometimes to such a degree that at last scarcely a word of conversation and companionship with her has any vitality? It is different with loose women. The gradual deadening of life with a wife owing to a failure of ability is refreshed and invigorated by licentious affairs. Is not something that refreshes and invigorates better than something that deadens?

"What is marriage but legalized licentiousness? Who knows any difference between them? Can love be compelled? Yet love with a wife is compelled by covenant and laws. Is love with a partner not a sexual love? Yet this is so universal that it exists also in birds and animals. What is conjugial love but a love for the opposite sex? Yet love for the opposite sex is set free when enjoyed with every woman.

"There are civil laws against adultery because legislators have believed that it accorded with the public good, and yet the legislators themselves and judges sometimes commit adultery, and then say to each other, 'Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.' ¹ Only the simple and religious believe that adulteries are sins. Not so the intelligent, who, like us, view them in the light of nature.

[3] "Are children not born of adulteries in the same way as in marriages? Are illegitimate offspring not just as fit and serviceable for offices and ministries as legitimate ones? And besides, children are thus provided for families that would be otherwise childless. Is this not beneficial rather than harmful?

"What harm does it do a wife if she admits a number of rivals? And what harm does it do her husband? The idea that the husband is disgraced is a frivolous opinion springing from the imagination.

"The decree that adultery is contrary to the laws and statutes of the church comes from the ecclesiastical order in order to gain power. But what does theology and spirituality have to do with merely physical and fleshly delight? Are there not clergymen and monks who are adulterers? Are they unable on that account to acknowledge and worship God? Why then do these three priests preach that adulterers are without any acknowledgment of God? We will not tolerate such blasphemies. Therefore let them be judged and punished."

[4] After that I saw them summon judges, and they asked the judges to impose penalties on the priests.

But the judges said, "This does not fall within our province, for it has to do with acknowledgment of God and sin and thus with salvation and damnation. Judgment with respect to these has to come from heaven.

"However, we will advise you as to how you can ascertain whether these three priests have been preaching the truth. There are three places known to us judges where matters of this sort are explored and revealed in a singular manner. One is a place in which a path to heaven lies open to all, but where, when they arrive in heaven, they themselves perceive what their character is in respect to their acknowledgment of God. The second is a place where a path lies open to heaven also, but which no one can enter unless he has heaven in him. And the third is a place where there is a path leading to hell, which those who love hellish things enter of their own accord, because they are drawn by their delight.

"We judges send to those places all who demand judgment from us in cases dealing with heaven and hell."

[5] Upon hearing this, the people gathered said, "Let us go to those places."

So they went to the first, where a path to heaven lies open to all; and as they were going, suddenly they were enveloped in darkness, so that some of them lighted torches and held them before them.

The judges, who had accompanied them, said, "This happens to all who go to the first place, but as they draw near, the blaze of their torches becomes fainter, and on their reaching the place itself is extinguished, because of the light of heaven flowing in - a sign that they have arrived. The reason for this phenomenon is that heaven is first closed to them and then opened."

So they came to that place, and as the torches went out of themselves, they saw a sloping path leading upward to heaven. The people who were in a white-hot rage at the priests entered it. Among the first were those who were purposeful adulterers, behind them those who were deliberate adulterers. And as they ascended the first began to cry out, "Follow us," and those behind cried, "Hurry," so as to urge them on.

[6] A short time later, after they were all inside a heavenly society, a gulf appeared between them and the angels, and the light of heaven flowing over the gulf into their eyes opened the interior elements of their minds, so that they were compelled to speak as they inwardly thought. Whereupon the angels then inquired of them whether they acknowledged the existence of God.

The first group, those who were adulterers from a purpose of the will, replied, "What is God?" And looking at each other they said, "Have any of you seen Him?"

The second group, those who were adulterers from a persuasion of the intellect, said, "Is not everything attributable to nature? What exists above it but the sun?"

At that the angels then said to them, "Depart from us. You yourselves now see that you lack any acknowledgment of God. When you descend, the interior elements of your minds will be closed and the outer ones opened, and after that you can speak contrary to your inner thoughts and say that God exists. Be certain of this, that as soon as a person becomes an actual adulterer, heaven is closed to him, and when it is closed, he does not acknowledge God. Hear the reason: From adulteries springs all the uncleanness of hell, and this stinks in heaven like the putrid filth of the streets ² ."

Hearing this, the people turned and descended by three paths. And when they were below, the first and second groups conferred with each other and said, "The priests won there; but we know that we can speak of God just as well as they, and when we say that He exists, do we not acknowledge Him? These inner and outer elements of our minds that the angels told us about are fictions.

"But let us go to the second place described by the judges, where a path lies open to heaven for those who have heaven in them, thus for those who are destined for heaven."

[7] So they went, and as they approached, from that heaven went out the cry, "Close the gates! There are adulterers in the vicinity!"

Suddenly then the gates were closed, and guards with staffs in their hands drove them away. And they took from them the three priests in their keeping, against whom they had raised such a tumult, and conducted them into their heaven. The moment the gate was opened for the priests, moreover, immediately there wafted over the insurgents the delight of marriage, which because of its chastity and purity almost suffocated them.

For fear of fainting from loss of breath, therefore, they hastened to the third place that the judges had told them of, where they had said there was a path leading to hell; and wafting out from there then was the delight of adultery, which so revived those who were purposeful and deliberate adulterers that they almost danced as they descended; and on descending they immersed themselves like pigs there in unclean dirt and filth.

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