90. Because we are dealing here with the Divinity and holiness of the Word, to what we have already said let me add a relevant narrative account.

I was once sent a little piece of paper from heaven with Hebrew letters on it, but letters written as they were among the ancient people. Today the letters are to some extent formed with straight lines, but among the most ancient peoples they were then rounded and had little hornlike strokes projecting upward. Angels who were with me then said they knew whole meanings from the letters alone, and that they knew the meanings chiefly from the curves of the lines and points of a letter. They then explained what some letters signified separately, and what in combination, saying that he (h), which was added to the names of Abram and Sarai, symbolized infinity and eternity.

The angels explained for me, moreover, the meaning of the Word in Psalms 32:2 from just the letters or syllables alone, the gist of their meaning being that the Lord is merciful also to those who do evil.

[2] They informed me that writing in the third heaven consists of no straight letters, but of letters variously curved, each of which has a meaning, and that the vowel points there serve to indicate the part of the pronunciation which corresponds to affection; that in that heaven they cannot pronounce the vowels i and e, but instead say y or eu; and they do use the vowels a, o, and u, because these vowels have a full sound. They also said they do not pronounce any of the consonants as hard, but as soft. This, they said, is the reason some Hebrew letters have a dot placed within them, to indicate [that they are pronounced as hard, but without a dot] that they are pronounced with a soft sound, saying that hardness in consonants is employed in the spiritual heaven, because there they are concerned with truths, and truth is capable of hardness, unlike the goodness that prompts angels of the celestial kingdom or third heaven.

They said, too, that the Word they have is written with curved letters having symbolic little hornlike projections and points.

It was apparent from this what is meant by the Lord’s saying, “Not one jot or one tittle will pass from the law till all is fulfilled, ” (Matthew 5:18). And, “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one point of the law to fail” (Luke 16:17).

105. We need to explain, however, how the presence of the Lord and heaven and conjunction with them is possible in all lands by means of the Word.

The whole of heaven is, in the Lord’s sight, like a single person. So, too, the church. To be shown that it also actually appears as a person, see the book Heaven and Hell 59-86.

In that person, the church where the Word is read, and where the Lord is consequently known, is like the heart and lungs — the celestial kingdom being as though the heart, and the spiritual kingdom the lungs.

[2] As the heart and lungs are the two founts of life in the human body, and all the rest of the organs and viscera subsist and have life from them, so also do all people in the world subsist and have life from the conjunction of the Lord and heaven with the church through the Word — all those who have any religion, who worship one God and live rightly, who are therefore included in that grand humanity, and who relate to its organs and viscera surrounding the thoracic cavity which contains the heart and lungs. For the Word in the church, even if possessed by relatively few, is life to all the rest from the Lord through heaven, as the organs and viscera of the entire body have life from the heart and lungs. They also have a similar communication.

[3] This, too, is the reason that Christians among whom the Word is read constitute the breast of that grand humanity. They are also at the center of all, with Roman Catholics round about them. Around them are Muslims who acknowledge the Lord as a very great prophet and as the Son of God. After them come Africans. And the outmost periphery is composed of nations and peoples from Asia and the Indies. Regarding the arrangement of these peoples, something more may be seen in the short work The Last Judgment 48.

All those who are in that grand humanity also face toward the middle where the Christians are.