Swedenborg, Harbinger of the New Age of the Christian Church/Chapter7
VII
OPENING OF SPIRITUAL SIGHT: UNFOLDING OF THE WORD
About this time Swedenborg began to project his treatise on the Worship and Love of God. He seems to have felt a Divine call to write it, and at times to have doubted whether he ought not to leave his other work for the purpose. Yet it was with reference to this treatise that he received the following caution:—
"October 6 and 7. . . . Afterward I lighted upon these thoughts and received this instruction, namely, that all love for whatever object—as, for instance, for the work on which I am now engaged—when the object is loved in itself and not as a means to the only love, which is to God and Jesus Christ, is a meretricious love. For this reason also this love is always compared in the Word of God to whoredom. This I have also experienced in myself. But when love to God is man's chief love, then he does not entertain for these objects any other kind of love than that of promoting thereby his love of God."
As thoughts on religion filled his mind he became full of zeal to instruct others. "Afterward I seemed to say to myself that the Lord Himself will instruct me. For, as I discovered, I am in such a state that I know nothing on this subject except that Christ must be all in all, or God through Christ, so that we of ourselves cannot contribute the least toward it, and still less strive for it: wherefore it is best to surrender at discretion, and were it possible to be altogether passive in this matter, it would be a state of perfection. I saw also in a vision how some beautiful bread was presented to me on a plate. This was a prediction that the Lord Himself will instruct me, as soon as I have attained that state in which I shall know nothing, and in which all my preconceived notions will be removed from me; which is the first state of learning: or in other words that I must first become a child, and that then I shall be able to be nurtured in knowledge, as is being done with me now."
On the 27th of October he began the work on the Worship and Love of God, and laid aside, never to resume, The Animal Kingdom. "May God lead me in the right way! Christ said that I must not undertake anything without Him." "In the morning on awaking I fell into a swoon or fainting fit, similar to that which I experienced about six or seven years ago at Amsterdam, when I entered upon the Economy of the Animal Kingdom; but it was much more subtile, so that I was almost dead. It came upon me as soon as I saw the light. I threw myself upon my face, when it gradually passed off. In the mean time short, interrupted slumbers took possession of me; so that this swoon or deliquium was deeper, but I soon got over it. This signifies that my head is being cleared, and is in fact being cleansed of all that would obstruct these thoughts—as was also the case the last time, because it gave me penetration, especially whilst writing. This was represented to me now in that I appeared to write a fine hand."
Coincidently with his increasing submission of heart to the Divine guidance, we find a growing sensitiveness or openness to spiritual impressions. Indeed, whether as a constitutional peculiarity or from depth of thought, Swedenborg had a certain faculty of retrocession from physical activity when thinking deeply. In The Animal Kingdom he had remarked, "When the mind is thinking very intently and breathing tacitly and slowly, then the lungs elevated to a certain degree appear in like manner to keep silence, and to send out and draw in the air almost imperceptibly, so as not to disturb the analyses of the rational mind by any motion on their part." And again, "If we carefully attend to profound thoughts, we shall find that when we draw breath, a host of ideas rush from beneath as through an open door into the sphere of thought, whereas when we hold the breath, and slowly let it out, we deeply keep the while in the tenor of our thought, and communicate as it were with the higher faculty of the soul—as I have observed in my own person times without number. Retaining or holding back the breath is equivalent to having intercourse with the soul: attracting or drawing it in amounts to intercourse with the body."
But it was long after spiritual manifestations began to occur to him before he thought of the possibility of conversing with spirits. Indeed, he knew nothing about spirits. He believed in the Holy Spirit and in the power of the devil. He believed in angels, but knew nothing of the world filled with the spirits and angels who had once been men. We see how gradually the knowledge came to him:—
"October 3 to 6. I have noticed several times that there are various kinds of spirits. The One Spirit, which is that of Christ, is the only one that has all blessedness with it; by other spirits man is enticed a thousand ways to follow them, but woe to those who do so. Another time Korah and Dathan occurred to me, who brought strange fire to the altar and could not offer it. Such is the case when a different fire is introduced than that which comes from Christ. I saw also something like a fire coming to me. It is necessary therefore that a distinction should be made between spirits, which however cannot be done except through Christ Himself and His Spirit."
Some years later, after referring to the sundry spiritual manifestations which we have already described, he says—
"At last a spirit spoke a few words to me, when I was greatly astonished at his perceiving my thoughts. Afterward, when my mind was opened, I was greatly astonished that I could converse with spirits; as the spirits were astonished that I should wonder. From this it may be concluded how difficult it is for man to believe that he is governed by the Lord through spirits, and how difficult it is for him to give up the opinion that he lives his own life of himself without the agency of spirits."
The date of this occurrence appears to have been the middle of April, 1745, while still engaged perhaps on The Worship and Love of God. The fullest account preserved is given by his friend Robsahm, who says that in answer to his own inquiry where and how it was granted him to see and hear what takes place in the other world, Swedenborg answered—
"I was in London, and dined rather late at the inn where I was in the habit of dining and where I had my own room. My thoughts were engaged on the subjects we have been discussing. I was hungry and ate with a good appetite. Toward the close of the meal I noticed a sort of dimness before my eyes; this became denser, and I then saw the floor covered with the most horrid crawling reptiles, such as snakes, frogs, and similar creatures creatures. I was amazed, for I was perfectly conscious and my thoughts were clear. At last the darkness increased still more; but it disappeared all at once, and I then saw a man sitting in the corner of the room: as I was then alone I was very much frightened at his words; for he said, 'Eat not so much.' All became black again before my eyes, but immediately it cleared away and I found myself alone in the room."
That this "man" was a spirit appears from Swedenborg's statement about his astonishment when a spirit first spoke a few words to him, and from Robsahm's own statement that this account was given in answer to his inquiry where and how he first came to see and hear spirits. It would seem then that Robsahm has made a little confusion in what he goes on to say about the same man's appearing the following night. And yet as, according to Swedenborg, when the Lord appears to angels and men, He does so by filling an angel with His presence and speaking through his mouth, it may be that it was the same angel from the Lord who had been present with him in the spiritual thoughts on which he was engaged in the day-time, and then warned him not to yield too much to the demands of the body, and again in the night instructed him as to the labors for which the Lord was preparing him—first seeming as a man, giving human admonition, and then as the Lord, uttering His commands. According to Robsahm, Swedenborg continued—"I went home, and during the night the same man revealed himself to me again, but I was not frightened now. He then said that he was the Lord God, the Creator of the world, and the Redeemer, and that He had chosen me to unfold to men the spiritual sense of the Scripture, and that He Himself would show to me what I should write on this subject. That same night also were opened to me, so that I became thoroughly convinced of their reality, the world of spirits, heaven, and hell; and I recognized there many acquaintances of every condition in life. From that day I gave up the study of all worldly science and labored in spiritual things, according as the Lord had commanded me to write. Afterward the Lord opened my eyes, very often daily, so that in midday I could see into the other world, and in a state of perfect wakefulness converse with angels and spirits."
The remarkable absence of dignity and circumstance, such as imagination would invent, in this first introduction to the sight and hearing of the other world, witnesses nothing against its plain truth. We may wonder that the first announcement should be so simple a prohibition. On this Swedenborg says not a word. We have no reason to suppose him an inordinate eater; but doubtless in hunger he gave himself up for the time to the body's demand for satisfaction, and his mind fell from its high thoughts. The spirits or angels with him would perceive his fall and would, if opportunity were given, rebuke him. Fasting as well as prayer is the means of release from selfishness and evil. With Swedenborg there had been reformation of life, and then internal regeneration of a very deep kind. This regeneration must needs work outward till it cleansed the whole life, more perfectly, because from internal ground, than the first reformation could do. It may well be that the last stronghold of selfish spirits, not yet given up to the Lord of all, was that of outward sense. So our Lord Himself finished the work of purifying His humanity by overcoming the resistance of the body. So the last thing He did for the disciples, before giving to them the bread and the wine that represented His own life, was to wash their feet, that they might be clean every whit. So too, Swedenborg tells us, those who are internally prepared for heaven and who have been delivered from all evil except that which belongs to the infirmities of the body, are taken up into heaven immediately after death. That from this time forth he himself enjoyed a remarkable protection from spirits who would have excited vain thoughts about his own works and the grace vouchsafed him, is manifest in everything he wrote, if we except a certain floridity of style in this work already in hand on the Worship and Love of God, in which he himself later detected "somewhat of egotism." Dr. Wilkinson well says of the change that now came over him—
"Certainly, in turning from his foregone life to that which now occupies us, we seem to be treating of another person—of one on whom the great change has passed, who has tasted the blessings of death and disburdened his spiritual part, of mundane cares, sciences, and philosophies. The spring of his lofty flights in nature sleeps in the dust beneath his feet. The liberal charm of his rhetoric is put off, never to be resumed. . . . It is a clear instance of disembodiment—of emancipation from a worldly lifetime; and we have now to contemplate Swedenborg, still a mortal, as he rose into the other world. From that elevation he as little recurred to his scientific life, though he had its spirit with him, as a freed soul to the body in the tomb: he only possessed it in a certain high memory, which offered its result to his new pursuits."
All his mental labors had served as efficient training for the work now laid out for him. But what he had begun to find even in philosophic study—the need to lay down all thought of himself—became imperative, the sine qua non for submitting wholly to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in unfolding the true inner meaning of the Scriptures. He never forgot that the Lord alone could unloose the seals of the Book, and reveal Himself therein. He had already gained the truth that the material things of the body correspond in their use to the spiritual things of the soul, and that herein was the key to the true understanding of the Scriptures. But what did he know of the spiritual things of the soul? of the things of heaven, and of the Divine providence therein? In all this he was to be instructed by the Lord Himself in His Word, but with the aid of open communication with angels and spirits whose life this inner meaning is.
It is now the year 1745. The time is ripening for the judgment. The clouds obscuring the face of the Son of Man are at their darkest. It is time for the dawn of the light that is to come. The light of the Lord's presence is to begin to be seen in His written Word. The age of miracles compelling belief is past. Man is to be instructed in an orderly, rational manner. One mind has been prepared and taught its mission. Through its labors the light is to have a point of diffusion on earth, and still more by ready communication in the spirit world among the multitudes there gathered who clung to their erroneous interpretations of Scripture, from which they could not be released until the unsealing of the Book by the Lamb. That this unsealing should be, not an instantaneous, but a gradual process, and that it should have effect in the world where the letter of the Book belongs, is in keeping with the orderly, gradual course of the Divine providence. Twelve years were devoted by Swedenborg to writing and publishing what was revealed to him in the Scriptures, before the judgment in the world of spirits was seen by him to come to its fulfilment.
Though assured of the Divine sanction and aid in the office intrusted to him, Swedenborg entered upon the task in natural and scientific manner. He procured the best editions of the Scriptures in the original languages, studied them diligently from beginning to end time after time, and then began making short notes—Adversaria—much as do ordinary commentators, together with several Biblical indexes for future use. All this was preliminary study, not for print, occupying nearly two years. In 1747 he was ready for the service required of him and prepared for the press the first volume of his Arcana Cœlestia, in which he unfolds verse by verse the internal content of the first fifteen chapters of Genesis. This was the beginning of the fulfilment of his mission, the nature of which is set forth in the introduction to the volume:—
"I. That the Word of the Old Testament contains arcana of heaven, and that all and each of the things therein regard the Lord, His heaven, the Church, faith, and the things which are of faith, no mortal apprehends from the letter; for from the letter or the sense of the letter no one sees anything else than that they regard in general the external things of the Jewish Church; when yet there are everywhere internal things which are nowhere manifest in the external, except a very few which the Lord revealed and explained to the Apostles; as, that sacrifices signify the Lord, that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem signify heaven, whence Canaan and Jerusalem are called heavenly and Paradise.
"II. But that all things and each, yea the most particular, even to the least jot, signify and involve spiritual and heavenly things, the Christian world is hitherto profoundly ignorant, and so it has little regard for the Old Testament. Yet the truth might be known merely from this, that the Word, because it is the Lord's and from the Lord, could in no wise be given without containing interiorly such things as are of heaven, of the Church, and of faith; not otherwise could it be called the Word of the Lord, nor could it be said that there is any life in it; for whence is its life unless from those things which are of life? that is, unless from this, that all and each of the things in it have reference to the Lord, who is the very Life itself? Wherefore whatsoever does not interiorly regard Him, does not live; nay, whatever expression in the Word does not involve Him, or in its own manner relate to Him, is not Divine.
"III. Without such life the Word as to the letter is dead; for it is with the Word as with man, who, as is known in the Christian world, is external and internal; the external man separate from the internal is the body, and thus dead; but the internal is what lives and gives to the external to live. The internal man is the soul. Thus the Word as to the letter alone is as the body without the soul.
"IV. From the sense of the letter alone, when the mind is fixed in it, can in no wise be seen that it contains such things; as in this first part of Genesis, from the sense of the letter nothing else is known than that it treats of the creation of the world and of the Garden of Eden, which is called Paradise; also of Adam as the first created man: who imagines anything more? But that these things contain arcana which have never hitherto been revealed, will be sufficiently evident from what follows; and indeed that the first chapter of Genesis in the internal sense treats of the New Creation of man, or of his Regeneration, in general, and of the Most Ancient Church in particular; and indeed in such manner that there is not the least particle of an expression that does not represent, signify, and involve these things.
"V. But that such is the case no mortal can ever know unless from the Lord. For this reason it is permitted to state at the outset that of the Lord's mercy it has been granted me now for several years to be constantly and continuously in the company of spirits and angels, to hear them speaking and in turn to speak with them; hence it has been given me to hear and see astonishing things which are in the other life, which have never come to the knowledge of any man, nor into his idea. I have there been instructed concerning different kinds of spirits, concerning the state of souls after death, concerning hell or the lamentable state of the unfaithful, concerning heaven or the most happy state of the faithful, especially concerning the doctrine of faith which is acknowledged in the whole heaven; on which subjects by the Divine mercy of the Lord many things will be said in the following pages."
Following this introduction is printed the whole of the first chapter of Genesis in Latin. Then is given a summary of the contents of the chapter in the internal sense:—
"The six days, or times, which are so many successive states of man's regeneration, are in general as follows:—
"The first state is that which precedes, both from infancy and immediately before regeneration, and is called a void, emptiness, and thick darkness. And the first movement, which is the mercy of the Lord, is the spirit of God moving itself upon the faces of the waters.
"The second state is when distinction is made between the things which are the Lord's and those which are man's own; those which are the Lord's are called in the Word 'remains,' and are here especially the knowledges of faith which man has acquired from infancy, which are stored up and are not manifest before he comes into this state. This state seldom exists at the present day without temptation, misfortune, or grief, which cause the things of the body and the world, or his own, to become quiet and as it were die. Thus the things of the external man are separated from those of the internal: in the internal are the remains stored up by the Lord for this time and this use.
"The third state is that of repentance, in which from the internal man he speaks piously and devoutly, and brings forth good things, as the works of charity, but which are nevertheless inanimate because he regards them as from himself. These are called the tender grass, then the herb yielding seed, and afterward the tree yielding fruit.
"The fourth state is when he is affected by love and illumined by faith; he before indeed spoke pious things and brought forth good things, but from a state of temptation and distress, not from faith and charity. These therefore, love and faith, are now enkindled in the internal man, and are called the two great lights.
"The fifth state is, that he speaks from faith and thereby confirms himself in truth and good; the things which he then brings forth are animate, and are called the fishes of the sea and the birds of the heavens.
"The sixth state is when from faith and thence from love he speaks true things and does good things; the things which he then brings forth are called the living soul and creature. And because he then begins to act from love also, as well as from faith, he becomes a spiritual man, which is called an image of God. His spiritual life is delighted and sustained by the things that are of the knowledges of faith and of the works of charity, which are called his food; and his natural life is delighted and sustained by the things that are of the body and the senses; from which there is a combat until love reigns and he becomes a celestial man.
"They who are regenerated do not all arrive at this state, but some, and the greatest part at this day, only to the first; some only to the second; some to the third, the fourth, and the fifth; few to the sixth, and scarce any to the seventh."
The seventh state, here but alluded to, is described in the next chapter, in the explanation of the seventh day. After this summary of the contents of the first chapter, he begins with the particular unfolding of the internal sense, verse by verse, clause by clause, premising that—
"In the following pages by the Lord is meant solely the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ; and He is called Lord without the other names. He is acknowledged and adored as Lord in the entire heaven, because He has all power in the heavens and in the earth. He commanded also saying, 'Ye call Me Lord, and ye say rightly, for I am' (John xiii. 13). And after the resurrection the disciples called Him Lord.
"Through the whole heaven they know no other Father than the Lord, because they are One, as He said: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life.' Philip saith, 'Show us the Father.' Jesus saith to him, 'Am I so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father: how sayest thou then, show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me' (John xiv. 6-11)."
Twenty-six octavo pages are given to the explication of this first chapter, and then it is said—
"This then is the internal sense of the Word, its very life, which does not at all appear from the sense of the letter; but the arcana are so many that volumes would not be sufficient for unfolding them. Here only a few are declared, and such as may prove that regeneration is here treated of, and that this proceeds from the external man to the internal. Thus the angels understand the Word. They know nothing at all which is of the letter, not even one word of what it proximately signifies, still less the names of countries, cities, rivers, and persons, which occur so frequently in the historic and prophetic parts. They have only an idea of the things signified by words and names; as, by Adam in Paradise they have a perception of the Most Ancient Church, and not of the Church itself, but of the faith toward the Lord of that Church; by Noah, the Church remaining with posterity and continued to the time of Abram; by Abraham, not the man who lived, but the saving faith which he represented; and so on. Thus they perceive things spiritual and celestial, altogether abstracted from words and names."
An appropriate beginning is this of the work to which Swedenborg was to devote the remaining thirty years of his life—that of causing the face of the Son of Man to be seen in the clouds of the letter of His Word. To this task he brought certain important qualifications:—
First, inherited reverence for the Scriptures, as the Word of God. Second, intimacy therewith by daily reading and meditation. Third, conviction through philosophic study that all material things are the representatives or correspondents of spiritual things, and that this correspondence is the key to the understanding of Holy Scripture. Fourth, knowledge by experience that truth must be sought for its own sake, with no thought of merit or personal advantage. Fifth, certainty that he was Divinely called to this service and would be Divinely protected and guided in it. Sixth, experience of the enlightenment given to the self-denying seeker of truth for the truth's sake. Seventh, living consciousness of the presence of the Lord in the inner sense of His Word—as described in his last published work:—"To the end that the Lord might be continually present, He has disclosed to me the spiritual sense of His Word, in which Divine truth is in its light, and in this light He is constantly present."
To all this was added the ineffable grace of being able to see and converse with the angels of heaven, who perceive in the Scriptures all the inner meaning applicable to their own capacity and needs. Nevertheless in his unfolding of the Word for the use of men he was not, he says, permitted to take anything from any angel, but solely from the Word itself under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. With all this guidance and never without, Swedenborg used scientific method in his studies, everything he wrote having passed through the alembic of his rational thought, to the end that it might be accepted by the rational thought of men. Thus throughout his explications of the Word he is continually drawing and demonstrating the internal meaning by citation of divers other passages in which the expression in question has the meaning he now assigns to it. This was the purpose of his indexes. And further, as he goes on, he continually refers back to previous numbers in which the same subject has been treated. By these constant citations and references it is that his volumes of explications become so bulky, the Arcana unfolded in Genesis and Exodus making in English twenty volumes. Interspersed, however, with the chapters, are short treatises on many kindred subjects, some doctrinal and others descriptive of the other world.
The original Latin edition of the Arcana was completed in 1758 in eight large quarto volumes, published in London. During this period of eleven years nothing else was published by the author, and little else written save many volumes of notes of his spiritual experience. These have since been published by his friends both in Latin and in English, under the title of his Spiritual Diary, and the most important of their contents are to be found here and there as needed in his own publications.