967. When the evil are being punished, angels are always present, tempering the punishment and easing the anguish of the wretched. They cannot eliminate the pain, though, because everything in the other world is balanced in such a way that evil punishes itself. Unless wickedness was removed from wicked people by punishment, they would have to be kept in some hell forever. 1 Otherwise they would infest communities of good people and inflict violence on the system of order established by the Lord, which ensures the welfare of the universe.
Footnotes:
1. The idea that the punishments of hell are not necessarily eternal is rare but not unknown in the Christian tradition. It was considered by Origen, who wrote of the possibility that "there is a resurrection of the dead, and there is punishment, but not everlasting. For when the body is punished the soul is gradually purified, and so is restored to its ancient rank * * For all wicked men, and for daemons too, punishment has an end, and both wicked men and daemons shall be restored to their former rank" (Origen On First Principles 2:10 [Origen 1966, 146]; asterisks indicate a lacuna in the text). Swedenborg's position on whether a given individual in hell stays there forever or is eventually released appears to change markedly over time. The current section is one of several written early in his theological period in which he seems to incline toward the view that the punishment of the wicked in hell leads eventually to the purging of their evil intentions and actions (see, for example, §955 above), a cleansing that enables them to be raised up out of hell and into heaven. Other notable examples occur in Spiritual Experiences (Swedenborg 1998-2002) §§228, 2582-2583, 2826-2827, 3489. All of these passages except the last are dated in 1748, the year before the first volume of Secrets of Heaven was published, and the last was written in either 1748 or 1749. However, as early as §1276:1 of the present work Swedenborg states that in the afterlife, "Everyone's place remains fixed, never changing to eternity." As Secrets of Heaven progresses, this assertion is applied to the permanency of hell (see, for example, §§7541, 8637, 10596), and near the end of the final volume Swedenborg states categorically that "those who enter hell remain there forever, and those who enter heaven remain there forever" (§10749). This idea is repeated a number of times in his later works — sometimes in the form of a statement that a person's volition or dominant love, which determines the person's residency in either heaven or hell, can never be changed to eternity. Examples can be found in Heaven and Hell 480; New Jerusalem 177, 227, 239; Spiritual Experiences (Swedenborg 1978) §5830; Revelation Explained (Swedenborg 1994-1997a) §383. For sidelights on this topic, see Spiritual Experiences (Swedenborg 1998-2002) §2346; Revelation Explained 1164:2. On the movement of angels from one heaven to another, see note 3 in §978. [RS, LSW]
