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Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings

This list of Memorable Occurrences in Swedenborg's Writings was originally compiled by W. C. Henderson in 1960 but has since been updated.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #16

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16. At this point I shall insert an account of an experience.

I saw some newcomers to the spiritual world from the natural world talking among themselves about the three Persons of the Divinity from eternity. They were in holy orders and one of them was a bishop.

They came up to me, and after we had talked for a while about the spiritual world, about which they had previously known nothing, I said: 'I heard you talking about the three Persons of the Divinity from eternity. Would you please reveal to me this great mystery in accordance with the views which you formed in the natural world from which you have just come?'

Then the bishop looked at me and said: 'I see that you are a layman, so I will reveal the views I hold about this great mystery and instruct you. My views were, and still are, that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit sit in the midst of heaven on magnificent, high seats or thrones; God the Father on a throne of pure gold, with a sceptre in His hand; God the Son on His right hand on a throne of the finest silver, with a crown on His head; and God the Holy Spirit next to them on a throne of glistening crystal, holding a dove in His hand. Around them are three glittering rows of hanging lamps made of precious stones; and at a distance from this ring stand countless angels all worshipping and glorifying God. In addition, God the Father discusses constantly with His Son the souls who are to be justified; they decide between them and decree who on earth are worthy to be received among the angels and crowned with everlasting life. As soon as God the Holy Spirit hears the names they give, He flies through the world to them, bringing with Him the gifts of righteousness, a token of salvation for each person who is to be justified. Immediately on His arrival He breathes on them and blows away their sins, like a man with a fan who clears the smoke from a furnace, and whitewashes it. He removes too the stony hardness of their hearts and imparts the softness of flesh; and at the same time He renews their spirits or minds, brings them to a new birth, and gives them babyish faces. Finally He marks their foreheads with the sign of the cross, and calls them the Chosen and the Sons of God.' At the conclusion of this lecture the bishop said to me: 'That is how I unravelled that great mystery in the world; and because many of my clergy there applauded my speech, I am sure that you too, being a layman, will be persuaded by it.'

[2] On the conclusion of this speech by the bishop, I looked hard at him and the clergy with him, and noted that they were all fully in favour of his views. So I embarked upon a reply, and said: 'I have weighed up your profession of belief, and have inferred from it that you have formed and hold an entirely natural and sensual, I might say, material idea about the Triune God. This must inevitably lead to the idea of three Gods. Is it not thinking according to the senses to imagine God the Father seated upon a throne with a sceptre in His hand? Or about the Son on His throne with a crown on His head? Or the Holy Spirit on His with a dove in His hand, and flying throughout the world to carry out His orders? Since that is the sort of idea that emerges, I cannot accept the truth of your words. From my earliest years I have not been able to admit into my mind any idea of God except as One; and since this has been what I have admitted and is what I still hold, everything you have said makes no impression on me. In due course I saw that by the 'throne' on which the Scriptures say that Jehovah sits is meant His kingdom, by 'sceptre' and 'crown' His rule and dominion, by 'sitting at the right hand' the omnipotence of God exercised by means of His humanity; and by what is said of the Holy Spirit the workings of the Divine Omnipresence. Please take up, my lord, the idea of One God and give it reasonable consideration, and you will at length clearly grasp that this is so.

[3] 'You certainly say that God is one, and this is because you make the three Persons share one, undivided essence. Yet you do not allow anyone to say that the one God is one Person, but insist that there are three Persons, a belief necessary to preserve an idea of three Gods such as you have. You also attribute to each Person a character differing from the others'; do you not by this divide that Divine essence of yours? In these circumstances how can you say and at the same time think that God is one? I would forgive you if you said that there is one Divine. How can anyone who is told that 'the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and that each person by Himself is God' possibly think that God is one? Surely this is a contradiction which cannot be believed. This illustration will show that one cannot speak of one God but only a like Divinity: one cannot call a group of people, who make up a single senate, assembly or council, one man, but so long as they all individually hold the same opinion, they can be said to have one view. Nor can three diamonds of a single composition be called one diamond, only one in respect of their composition; and each diamond differs from another in value according to its weight. This would be impossible if they were one, and not three.

[4] 'However, I perceive that you call the three Divine Persons, each of whom is by Himself or singly God, one God, and have commanded every member of the church to speak in these terms, because enlightened and sound reason throughout the world acknowledges that God is one. You would therefore blush with shame, if you too did not speak in these terms. Yet all the time that you are uttering the words 'One God', although you are thinking of three, still that shame does not trap the two words in your mouth, but you say it aloud.'

After these speeches the bishop and his clergy withdrew, and as he went he turned round and wanted to shout 'There is one God'; but he could not, because his thought hampered his tongue; and then, forcing his lips apart, he gasped 'Three Gods'. The bystanders on seeing this monstrous happening burst into laughter and went away.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

True Christian Religion #159

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159. At this point I shall describe some more experiences, of which this is the first.

Once when I was in company with angels in heaven, I saw far below a huge cloud of smoke with fire bursting out of it from time to time. I remarked to the angels who were talking with me, that few people here know that the sight of smoke in the hells arises from arguments in favour of falsities, and that fire is an outburst of anger against those who contradict them. I added that this is as little known in that world, as it is in the world where I live in the body, that flame is nothing but ignited smoke. I have often observed this, when, seeing smoke rising from wood on a hearth on earth, I have applied a lighted taper to it and seen the smoke turn into flame; and the flames copied the shape of the smoke, for each particle of smoke becomes a spark, and they join to make a blaze, just as also happens with gunpowder. 'It is the same with the smoke we can see down here below. It is composed of so many falsities, and the fire bursting out as flames is the outburst of zeal in their favour.'

[2] Then the angels said to me: 'Let us beg the Lord to allow us to go down and come near, so as to find out what falsities they have that produce so much smoke and fire.'

Permission was granted, and at once a beam of light surrounded us and brought us down without a break to that place. There we saw four groups of spirits who were arguing vigorously that God the Father, because He is invisible, should be approached and worshipped, and not His Son who was born in this world, because He was a man and visible. On looking to either side I saw on the left the learned clergy, and behind them the unlearned clergy; and on the right the educated laymen, and behind them the uneducated. But between us and them yawned an unbridgeable gap.

[3] We turned our eyes and ears towards the left, where the clergy were with the learned ones in front and the unlearned behind, and heard them arguing about God in these terms. 'We know from the teaching of our church, which on the subject of God is one and the same throughout Europe, that one should approach God the Father, being invisible, and at the same time God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, who are also invisible, being co-eternal with the Father. Since God the Father is the creator of the universe, and consequently in the universe, He is present wherever we turn our gaze. When we pray to Him, He is graciously pleased to accept our prayers, and when the Son has mediated for us, He sends the Holy Spirit to put in our hearts the glory of His Son's righteousness and to make us blessed. We, who have been made doctors of the church, felt, when we preached, the holy working of the Spirit's mission in our breasts, and we breathed the devotion aroused by His presence in our minds. We feel these emotions because we direct all our senses towards the invisible God who works not in a single way on the sight of our understanding, but universally throughout our mental and bodily systems by means of His emissary, the Spirit. Such effects could not be produced by the worship of a visible God, or one apprehensible mentally as a man.'

[4] This speech was greeted with applause from the unlearned clergy, who stood behind them. 'What is the source,' they added, 'of holiness, if it is not from an invisible and imperceptible Divine? As soon as this idea crosses the threshold of our hearing, our faces break into smiles and we are cheered as by the soothing breath of an incense-laden breeze, and we also beat our breasts. It is quite different if we think of a visible and perceptible Divine; if this idea penetrates our ears, it is reduced to something purely natural and no longer Divine. It is for a similar reason that the Roman Catholics conduct their masses in the Latin language, and take the Host, the alleged subject of Divine mysteries, from repositories on the altar and display it. At this moment the people fall on their knees as if before the profoundest mystery and reverently hold their breath.'

[5] After this we turned to the right, where the educated, and behind them the uneducated, laymen stood. I heard the educated speak as follows: 'We know that the wisest of the ancients worshipped an invisible God whom they called Jehovah, but in the period which followed this they made themselves gods out of dead rulers, including Saturn, Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, Apollo as well as Minerva, Diana, Venus, and Themis, building temples to them and giving them Divine worship. This worship in the course of time led to idolatry, a madness which finally pervaded the whole world. We are therefore unanimous in assenting to the opinion of our priests and elders, that there were and are three Divine Persons from eternity, each of whom is God. It is enough for us that they are invisible.'

The uneducated behind them added: 'We agree. Surely God is God and man is man? But we know that if anyone proposed God-man, the common people, whose idea of God is only derived from the senses, will accept it.'

[6] At the end of this speech their eyes were opened and they saw us standing near them. Then they became angry that we had heard them and refused to say another word. But the angels used the power they had been given to shut off the exterior or lower levels of their thought, and open the interior or higher levels; so they compelled them to speak about God in this state. Then they said: 'What is God? We have not seen His appearance, nor have we heard His voice. God then must be merely nature in its first and last manifestations. Nature we have seen, because it is clear before our eyes, and nature we have heard, for its sounds are ever in our ears.'

On hearing this we said to them: 'Have you ever seen Socinus, who would acknowledge only God the Father? Or Arius, who denied the divinity of our Lord and Saviour? Or any of their followers?' 'No,' they replied. 'They are,' we said, 'in the depths below you.' Then some people were sent for from that place and questioned about God. They spoke in much the same way as the others had done, adding: 'What is God? We can make as many gods as we wish.'

[7] 'It is useless,' we said then, 'to talk to you about the Son of God born in the world, but this at least we shall say. To prevent faith about God, in Him and from Him, from becoming, merely because no one has seen Him, like a water-bubble floating in the air, full of beautiful colours in the first and second moments of its existence, but in the third and thereafter collapsing into nothing, it has pleased Jehovah God to come down and take upon Himself human form, thus putting Himself on view, and proving that God is no entity conceived by the faculty of reason, but That which was, is and shall be, from eternity to eternity. God is no three-letter 1 word, but the whole of reality from alpha to omega. Consequently He is life and salvation to all who believe in Him as a visible God, not to those who say that they believe in an invisible God. For believing, seeing and recognising make up a single act, which is why the Lord said to Philip:

He who sees and knows me sees and knows the Father.

and elsewhere that it is the Father's will that they should believe in the Son, and he who believes in the Son has everlasting life, but he who does not believe in the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God will rest upon him. (Both this and the previous passage are in John 3:15-16, 36; 14:6-15.)' On hearing this many of the four groups became so furious that smoke and fire came out of their nostrils. So we went away, and after escorting me home the angels went up to their own heaven.

Footnotes:

1. This is a puzzling expression, since God in Latin is Deus; but as the conversation took place in the spiritual world, it may refer to a word in the spiritual language.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

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