17. All my experience in heaven bears witness to the fact that the divine nature that comes from the Lord, affects angels, and constitutes heaven, is love. In fact, all the people there are forms of love and thoughtfulness. They look indescribably beautiful. Love radiates from their faces, from their speech, from every detail of their behavior. ¹

Further, there are surrounding auras of spiritual life that emanate from every angel and from every spirit and envelop them. By means of these auras one can recognize even from a distance the quality of the affections of their loves, since these auras flow out from the life of their affection and consequent thought - that is, from the life of their love and consequent faith. The auras that emanate from angels are so full of love that they touch the deepest reaches of life of the people they meet. I have been aware of them a number of times, and they have moved me deeply. ²

I have been able to see that love was the source of angels' life because all the people in the other life turn in a direction determined by their own love. People engaged in a love for the Lord and a love for their neighbor are constantly turning toward the Lord, while people who are engaged in self-love are constantly turning their backs to the Lord. This holds true no matter which way they turn, since in the other life spatial relationships are determined by people's inner natures. These also determine geographical regions, whose boundaries are not drawn the way they are in the physical world but depend on which way people are facing. Actually, it is not angels who turn to the Lord but the Lord who turns toward himself the people who love to do whatever has its source in him. ³ , But there will be more on this subject below, when we discuss geographical regions in the other life.

脚注:

232. Would thou wert cold or hot. That this signifies that it is better that there should be no faith, or that there should be charity alone, is evident from the signification of, would thou wert cold, as being that it is better that there should be no faith, which will be shown in what follows; and from the signification of, or hot, as being that there should be charity alone. What is meant by charity alone will be explained in its place; it shall be here first explained what is meant by there being no faith. With those who are in the doctrine of faith alone, there is indeed no faith, by which is meant no spiritual faith, or no faith of the church; yet such possess natural faith, which must be also called persuasive faith; for they believe that the Word is Divine, they believe in eternal life, also in the remission of sins, and in many other things; but such faith with those who are without charity is a persuasive faith, which does not differ from a faith in things unknown, heard from others in the world, and believed, although neither seen nor understood, because they are said by someone thought to be worthy of credit; thus, it is only the faith of another in themselves, and not their own. And this faith, which is not made their own by sight and understanding, is not unlike the belief of one born blind about colours and objects of sight in the world, who has also a dullness of touch, concerning which things he has strange ideas, which no one knows but himself.

This faith is called historical, and is by no means a spiritual faith, such as the faith of the church ought to be. Spiritual faith, or the faith of the church, is entirely from charity, so that in its essence it is charity; also, things spiritual which are believed, appear in light to those who are in charity. This I declare from experience; for everyone who has lived in charity during his abode in the world, sees, in the other life, his own truth which he believes, whereas they who have been in faith alone, see nothing at all.

[2] Nevertheless, faith merely historical, by means of thought of God, of heaven, and eternal life, has some means of degree of conjunction with heaven, but only by obscure thought, and not by the affection of charity, for this affection it has not; therefore by the affection which such persons have, which is the affection of the love of self and of the world, they are conjoined to hell. Hence it is evident that they are between heaven and hell, because they look with their eyes to heaven, and in heart to hell; to do this is to profane, and the lot of profaners in the other life is the worst of all. To profane is to believe in God, the Word, eternal life, and many things taught in the sense of the letter of the Word, and yet to live contrary to them.

[3] This is why it is said, "Would thou wert cold or hot;" for he who is cold, that is, who is without faith, does not profane; neither does he who is hot, that is, who has charity alone. (What profanation is, and what its nature, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 169, 172; and what persuasive faith is, and its nature, n. 116-119; as also that there is no spiritual faith where there is no charity, in the small work, The Last Judgment 33-39.) What charity alone is shall now be briefly stated. Charity is essentially spiritual affection, but charity alone is natural affection, and not spiritual; for charity itself, which is spiritual affection, is formed by means of truths from the Word, and in proportion as it is formed by those truths, in the same proportion it is spiritual; but charity alone, which is natural affection, is not formed by any truths from the Word, but exists with man from hearing discourses, without any regard on his part to truths, and without learning them; therefore, charity alone is also without faith, for faith is of truth, and truth of faith.