prevailing belief among the learned, and also to their astonishment among the clergy. They also assigned as a reason for this, that the learned who were the leaders, and who first broached such ideas concerning angels and spirits, thought of them from the sensual conceptions of the external man; and they who think from these, and not from interior light and the general idea implanted in every one, must of necessity adopt such fictions; because the sensuals of the external man can comprehend only what is within nature, but not what is above it, that is, nothing whatever of the spiritual world.
From these leaders as guides, the false notion concerning the angels was communicated to others who did not think for themselves, but from them. And they who first think from others, and make the things so thought matters of their faith, and afterwards view them as such from their own understanding, can with difficulty recede from them. Therefore they generally acquiesce in confirming them.
They further said that the simple in faith and heart have no such idea concerning the angels, but think of them as heavenly men, because they have not extinguished by erudition what was implanted in them from heaven, nor can they conceive of anything without a form. Hence it is that angels are always represented in temples, both in sculpture and painting, as men. Concerning what is thus implanted from heaven, they added, that it is the Divine communicated by iuflux to those who are in the good of faith and life.
