r^J:^ -^u^^^ ■\ "v* ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING THE DIVINE LOVE AND THE DIVINE WISDOM ANGELIC WISDOM CONCERNING THE DIVINE LOVE AND CONCERNING THE DIVINE WISDOM TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN EMANUEL SWEDENBORG SWEDENBORG SOCIETY, BRITISH AND FOREIGN (instituted i8io) 36 BLOOMSBURY STREET, LONDON 1883 V P K E F A 1^ O K Y NOT E. The present Trauslatiou is based upon the recommendations of The Revision Committee of the Swedenborg Society ; and it is believed that in technical resj^ects those recommendations have been tally carried out. In addition to this, lidelicy to the matter and manner of Swedenborg has governed the translation. More remains to be done in the same direction even with this small work. There are phrases which are still to be solved into English idioms by the painstaking translators of the future. But at present it has not seemed advisable to put idiomatic English in the hrst place, and Swedenborg's forms of speech in the second. There is temptation to do so. But v, henever the process has been attempted, the immediate result has shown that some pregnant meaning has escaped in the altered phrase. Swedenborg is ever clear and definite, and employs unusual forms of speech only for unusual purposes. To convert these I'orms into current Eng^lish would void their intrinsic meaningf. A great part of the present work is of this unusual significance ; being an expression of hitherto unknown spiritual things in the imperfect vehicle of natural language ; and therefore, to corres- pond to the occasion, the phraseology is unusual. The Latin however is always felicitous and express, and the attempt has been made to emulate it in this respect, and yet to carry it over into an English as idiomatic as possible. The apparent repetitions of Swedenborg are inevitable sub- jects of a translator's thought. There is a temptation to LlBRAKf VI PREFATORY NOTE. abbreviate these, and to leave some of them out. But the work would lose in importance, and not gain in currency, by such elimination. The iterations are a necessity and power of the author. He is a heaven-enlightened teacher. He goes over the new and old lesson again and again to those who will hear him. It is not an easy lesson to learn, though the reader may think he takes it in at once. For it is impossible to exhaust its significance. And each time it is repeated, some seed of it may germinate, or some willing and affectionate part of the mind may be opened to living perception in place of a literal acquiescence. In the present work, however, the reader may bear in mind, that the propositions from beginning to end stand in a sequence in the Divine order, and are put demonstratively so as to depend upon each other. Hence as in mathematical series there is constant reference to former propositions, which are the quarry out of which the later propositions are built. The re-occurrence of principles, their constant statement in such case, is not repetition, but the required food of demonstration. There is no sameness in it, for the truth comes back on each occasion with a distinct purpose to be built into a new and extending spiritual edifice. It is difficult to speak of language alone in introducing to some new readers, and to many old ones, so important a work of the Lord's New Church as the Angelic Wisdom concerning THE Divine Love and concerning the Divine Wisdom of Swedcnborg, Yet it can be said that Swedenborg as a mere writer, taken on his own ground of use and purpose, is unsur- passed in literature. Unimpaired in his simple statements lie powers of righteousness for the regeneration of men^ and sublimities of spiritual revelation for opening the understanding. The measured tread of the Writings, unheard by the world, and perhaps only noticed by some readers as a mannerism, is the march and discipline of the very truths of heaven. No writer PREFATORY NOTE. Vii is so suggestive and edifying for those who can enter into the affection of his works ; and no writer is so distasteful for those who are averse to spiritual things. Each attitude of the will and understanding is implied in the other. The progressive adequate translation of Swedenborg's woiks is a colossal undertaking, to be executed piece b}^ piece in the two countries where the English language prevails. Experience shows that those works will repay any amount of capacity and labour that is bestowed upon their rendering. It is a high task, a task of great privilege, to contribute to usher them gradually into our mother tongue. May the Lord fill them with their own meaning for many minds in England and her Dependencies, and in America. J. J. GARTH WILKINSON. RUDOLPH L. TAFEL. October 4, 1883, CONTENTS. PART L No. Lovii is the Life of iMau . . . . . . .1 God alone, conset|uently the Lord, is very Love, bjcausc He is very Life ; and angels and men are recipients of life ... 4 The Divine is not in space ...... 7 God is Very Man . . . > . . . .11 Esse and Existere in God Man are distinctly one ... 14 In God Man intinite things are distinctly one .... 17 There is one God Man from Whom all things are ... 23 The Divine Essence itself is Love and Wisdom . . .28 The Divine Love is of the Divine Wisdom, and the Divine Wisdom is of the Divine Love . . . . . , . lU The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom is substance and it is form . 40 The Divine Love and the Di\ine Wisdom are Suljstance and Form in itself, thus Very Reality and the One Only E,eality . . 44 The Divine Love and the Divine Vv^isdom cannot otherwise than be and exist in others created by itself ..... 47 All things in the universe have been created by the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of God Man ..... 52 All things in the created univei'se are recipients ui the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of God Man .... 55 All things which are created in a certain imago have relation to man . 61 The uses of all things which are created ascend liy degrees from the last things to man, and by man to God the Creator, from \V"hom they are ........ 65 The Divine fillts all tlie spaces of the universe apart from space . 69 The Divine is in all time apart from time .... 73 The Divine is tlie same in the t^reatest thiny;s and in t!ic least tilings . 77 PART II. The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom appear in the spiritual world as a siiu ........ S3 Heat and light proceeds from the sun which exists from the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom ..... tiU CONTENTS. No. That sun is not God, but it is the proceeding from the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom of God 5lan ; the same is the case with the heat and light from that sun ..... 93 Spiritual heat and light, because they proceed from the Lord as a sun, make one, as His Divine Love and Divine Wisdom make one . 99 The sun of the spiritual world appears in a middle altitude, distant from the angels, as the sun of the world appears distant from men 103 The distance between the sun and between the angels in the spiritual world is an appearance according to the reception of the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom by them . . . .108 The Angels are in the Lord, and the Lord in them ; and because the Angels are recipients, the Lord alone is heaven . . .113 In the spiritual world the east is wliere the Lord appears as a sun, and the remaining quarters i-esult accordingly . . . .119 Tlie quarters in the spiritual world arc not from the Lord as a sun, but they are from the angels according to reception . . . r2-i The Angels constantly turn their faces to the Lord as a sun,, and thus have the south to the right, the north to the left, and the west at the back ........ 1-29 All the Interiors both of the miml and the body of angels are tui'ned to the Lord as a sun . . . . . . .135 Every spirit, v.hatever his quality, turns in like manner to his ruling love ... "^ ..... 140 The Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom which proceed from the Lord as a sun, and make heat and light in heaven, is the proceeding Divine, which is the Holy Spirit . . . . .146 The Lord created the universe and all things belonging to it by means of the sun which is the first Proceeding of the Divine Love and tlie Divine Wisdom ....... 151 The sun of the natural woild is pure fiie, and hence dead, and nature because it derives origin from that sun, is dead . . . 157 Without two suns, the one living and the other dead, there can be no creation ........ 163 The end of creation exists in ultiniates, which end is, that all things may return to the Ci'eator, and that there may be conjimction . 107 PART in. in the spiritual \\ orld there are atmospheres, waters and earths, as in the natural world ; but the former arc spiritual, whereas the latter are natural . . . . . . . .173 There are degrees of love and wisdom, and hence degi'ees of heat and liglit, also degrees of atmospheres. ..... 179 Degrees are of twofold kind, degrees of altitiide and degrees of latitude 184 The degn^es of altitude are homogeneous, and one is from the other in series, like end, cause, and etiect . . . . .189 The first degree is all in all things of the following degrees . . 195 All perfections increase and ascend with degrees and accoi'ding to them li;9 CONTENTS. XI No. In successive oi-der the fii'st degree makes the highest, and the third the lowest ; but in simultaneous order the first degree makes the innermost, and the third the outermost .... 205 The ultimate degree is the complex, continent and basis of the prior degrees ........ 209 The degrees of altitude are in fiilness and in po'.vcr in their ultimate degree ........ 217 There arc degrees of both kinds in the greatest and in the least of all things that are created ...... 222 There are three infinite and uncreated degrees of altitude in the Lord, and there are three finite and created degrees in man . . 230 These three degrees of altitude ai'e in every man by birth, and they can be opened successively, and as they are opened, the num is in the Lord, and the Lord in the man . • . . . 2;3b' Spiritual liglit flows in with man through the three degrees, but not spiritual heat, excepting in so far as the man shuns evils as sins, and looks to the Lord ...... 24-2 If the higher degree, which is the spiritual, is not opened with man, lie becomes natural and sensual ..... 248 I. What the natiiral man is, and what the spiiitual man . 2.") I IL The character of the natural man with wliom the ri[iii-itual degree is opened ...... 252 III. The character of the natural man with whom the spiritual degree is not opened, but still not closed . . . 2.j'> ly. The character of the natural man with whom the spiritual degree is entirely closed ..... 214 V. The nature of tlie distinction between the life of a merely natural man and tlie life of a beast .... 255 Tiie natural Degree of the human mind, considered in itself, is cou- tinnous, l:)ut by correspondence with the two higher degrees, while it is elevated, it appears as if it were discrete . . . 250 Because the natural miiul is the covering and continent of the higher degrees of the hunuxn mind, it is reactive ; and if the higher degrees are not opened, it acts against tiiem, but if they are opened, it acts with them ........ 2G0 The origin of evil is from the abuse of the faculties which aie the proper faculties of man, namely, rationality and liberty . . 204 I. A bad man enjoys these two faculties equally with a good man ........ 200 II. A bad man abuses these faculties to continn evils and falsities and a good man uses them to confirm goods and truths . 207 III. Evils and falsities confirmed with man are permanent, and come to be of his love and life .... 20S IV. Those things which have come to be of the love and thereby of the life are engendered in the offspring . . . 209 V. All evils and their falsities, both the ingenerate and the super- induced, reside in the natural mind .... 270 Evils and falsities are in all opposition against goods and trutlis, because evils and falsities are diabolical and infernal, and goods and truths are divine and heavenly .... 271 xu CUNTKNTH. No. I. The uatixral luiiul which is in evils and thereby in falsities, is a form and image of hell ..... 273 II. The natural mind which is a form or image of hell, descends through three degrees ...... 2/4 III. The three degrees of the natural mind which is a form and image of hell, are opposite to the three degrees of the spiritual mind which is a form and image of heaven . 27o IV. The natural mind which is a hell, is in all opposition against the spiritual mind which is a heaven .... 276 All things w-hich are of the three degrees of the natural mind are included in the works which are done by the acts of the body . 277 PART IV. The Lord from Eternity, who is Jehovah, created the universe and all things thereof from Himself, and not from nothing . . 282 The Lord from Eternity, that is, Jehovah, could not have created the universe and all things thereof unless he w^ere a man . . 285 The Lord from Eternity, that is, Jehovah, produced from Himself the sun of the spiritual world, and out of it created the universe, and all things of it . . . . . . . 290 There are three things in the Lord whicii are riie Lord, the Divine of Love, the Divine of Wisdom, and the Divine of Use ; and these three are presenteil in appearance outside the sun of the spiritual world, the Divine of Love by lieat, the Divine of Wisdom by light, and the Divine of Use by atmosphere, wliich is the continent . 296 The Atmosplieres, which are three in both worlds, the spiritual and the natural, in their ultimates cease into substances and matters of the nature of those in eartlis ..... 302 In the substances and matters of which earths consist, there is nothing of the Divine in itself, but still they ai'e from the Divine in itself 305 All uses, as ends of creation, are in forms, and they get forms from substances and matters such as exist in earths . . . 307 I. In earths there is an effort to produce uses in foruis, or forms of uses ......... 310 11. In all forms of u.ses tliere is a certain image of creation . 313 111. In all forms of uses there is a certain image of man . . 317 I\ . in all forms of uses there is a certain image of the hihiiite and the Eternal . . . . . .318 All tilings of the created universe viev.ed from r,sc':> ri.>:ci;ible man in an image ; and tills testifies that God is a Man . . . 319 All things which are created by the Lord are uses ; and they are uses in that order, degree and respect in which tliey are rel;i,ted to man, and thro'igh man to the Lord, their Origin .... 327 Uses for sustaining the Body . . . . .331 Uses for perfecting the Rational ..... 332 Uses for receiving the Spiritual from the Lord . 333 CONTENTS. xiu Evil uses liave not V^eeii created bv the Lord, but originated together with hell . . . " . . . . .336 I. What is meant by evil uses on the eartli . . . 338 II. All the things that are evil uses are in iiell. ntul all the things that are good uses are in lieavcn .... 339 III. There is continuous influx from the spiritual Morld into the natural ....... 340 IV. Influx out of hell o)ierates those things that are evil uses in places v/here there ai'e things that correspond . . 341 V. Tlie spiritual ultimate separ;ite