Logopraxis

Arcana Coelesita

5806 This truth is that truth which is from spiritual good (which is “Israel”), and which is represented by Benjamin when with his father; but it is a still more interior truth when with Joseph. The truth which Benjamin represents when with his father, and which is called new truth, is that which alone makes man to be the church; for in this truth, or in these truths, there is life from good. That is to say, the man who is in truths of faith from good, he is the church; but not the man who is in truths of faith and not in the good of charity. For the truths with this man are dead, even though they are the same truths. From this it may be seen what is meant by this being the only truth of the church.

5859 From this again it was evident that when spirits come to a man they instantly put on all the man’s memory-knowledges as if they were their own; and also that when a number of spirits are present, they each of them put on these knowledges, and they each of them suppose that they are their own. Into this faculty comes man immediately after death. Hence also it is that when good spirits come into a heavenly society, they put on and possess all the wisdom of all in that society-for such is the communion-and this although in the life of the body they had known nothing whatever of such things as are said in the heavenly society.

5860. The spirits who are with man also put on his persuasions, whatever these may be, as has been proved to me by much experience. Thus they put on man’s persuasions not only in civil and moral things, but also in the spiritual things of faith. From this it may be seen that the spirits with those who are in heresies, in fallacies and illusions as to the truths of faith, and in falsities, are in the like, with not the slightest difference. The reason of this is that man may be in his freedom, and not be disturbed by anything of the spirit’s own.

Doctrine of the Lord 35

(1) By successive steps the Lord put off the human taken from the mother, and put on a Human from the Divine within Him, which is the Divine Human, and is the Son of God. That in the Lord were the Divine and the human, the Divine from Jehovah the Father, and the human from the virgin Mary, is known. Hence He was God and Man, having a Divine essence and a human nature; a Divine essence from the Father, and a human nature from the mother; and therefore was equal to the Father as to the Divine, and less than the Father as to the human. It is also known that this human nature from the mother was not transmuted into the Divine essence, nor commingled with it, for this is taught in the Doctrine of Faith which is called the Athanasian Creed. For a human nature cannot be transmuted into the Divine essence, nor can it be commingled therewith.

(2) In accordance with the same creed is also our doctrine, that the Divine assumed the Human, that is, united itself to it, as a soul to its body, so that they were not two, but one Person. From this it follows that the Lord put off the human from the mother, which in itself was like that of another man, and thus material, and put on a Human from the Father, which in itself was like His Divine, and thus substantial, so that the Human too became Divine. This is why in the Word of the Prophets the Lord even as to the Human is called Jehovah, and God; and in the Word of the Evangelists, Lord, God, Messiah or Christ, and the Son of God in whom we must believe, and by whom we are to be saved.

Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.

Arcana Coelestia 5806

This truth is that truth which is from spiritual good (which is “Israel”), and which is represented by Benjamin when with his father; but it is a still more interior truth when with Joseph. The truth which Benjamin represents when with his father, and which is called new truth, is that which alone makes man to be the church; for in this truth, or in these truths, there is life from good. That is to say, the man who is in truths of faith from good, he is the church; but not the man who is in truths of faith and not in the good of charity. For the truths with this man are dead, even though they are the same truths. From this it may be seen what is meant by this being the only truth of the church.

Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.

Arcana Coelestia

5729. The subject next treated of is the temptation of the external natural man, which continues until there is willing submission to the internal celestial. The temptation is described by their being accused, and by their returning in despair to Joseph. The willing submission is described by their all offering themselves for servants, and Judah’s offering himself in their stead. The conjunction of the external man with the internal is not accomplished without temptation and willing submission.

5730. In the representative historic sense the subject here treated of is Jacob’s descendants, that they were rejected, but that they obstinately insisted on being representative. Their being rejected is meant by Joseph’s desiring to send them away, and to keep Benjamin only; their obstinately insisting is involved in the particulars of their confession and entreaty.

Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.

Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.

20. IV. HEAVEN IS DIVIDED INTO TWO KINGDOMS.

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21. There are angels that receive more interiorly the Divine that goes forth from the Lord, and others that receive it less interiorly; the former are called celestial angels, and the latter spiritual angels. Because of this difference heaven is divided into two kingdoms, one called the Celestial Kingdom, the other the Spiritual Kingdom.[1]

22. As the angels that constitute the celestial kingdom receive the Divine of the Lord more interiorly they are called interior and also higher angels; and for the same reason the heavens that they constitute are called interior and higher heavens.[1] They are called higher and lower, because these terms designate what is interior and what is exterior.[2]

23. The love in which those are, who are in the celestial kingdom is called celestial love, and the love in which those are who are in the spiritual kingdom is called spiritual love. Celestial love is love to the Lord, and spiritual love is love towards the neighbor. And as all good pertains to love (for good to any one is what he loves) the good also of the other kingdom is called celestial, and the good of the other spiritual. Evidently, then, the two kingdoms are distinguished from each other in the same way as good of love to the Lord is distinguished from good of love towards the neighbor.[1] And as the good of love to the Lord is an interior good, and that love is interior love, so the celestial angels are interior angels, and are called higher angels.

24. The celestial kingdom is called also the Lord’s priestly kingdom, and in the Word “His dwelling-place;” while the spiritual kingdom is called His royal kingdom, and in the Word “His throne.” And from the celestial Divine the Lord in the world was called “Jesus,” while from the spiritual Divine He was called “Christ.”

25. The angels in the Lord’s celestial kingdom, from their more interior reception of the Divine of the Lord, far excel in wisdom and glory the angels that are in His spiritual kingdom; for they are in love to the Lord, and consequently are nearer and more closely conjoined to Him.[1] These angels are such because they have received and continue to receive Divine truths at once in their life, and not first in memory and thought, as the spiritual angels do. Consequently they have Divine truths written in their hearts, and they perceive them, and as it were see them, in themselves; nor do they ever reason about them whether they are true or not.[2] They are such as are described in Jeremiah:

I will put my law in their mind, and will write it in their heart. They shall teach no more everyone his friend and everyone his brother, saying, Know ye Jehovah. They shall know Me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them (31 verses 33, 34).

And they are called in Isaiah:

Taught of Jehovah (54 verse 13).

That the “taught of Jehovah” are those who are taught by the Lord He Himself teaches in John (6 verses 45, 46).

26. It has been said that these angels have wisdom and glory above others for the reason that they have received and continue to receive Divine truths at once in their life. For as soon as they hear Divine truths, they will and do them, instead of storing them up in the memory and afterwards considering whether they are true. They know at once by influx from the Lord whether the truth they hear is true; for the Lord flows directly into man’s willing, but mediately through his willing into his thinking. Or what is the same, the Lord flows directly into good, but mediately through good into truth.[1] That is called good which belongs to the will and action therefrom, while that is called truth that belongs to the memory and to the thought therefrom. Moreover, every truth is turned into good and implanted in love as soon as it enters into the will; but so long as truth remains in the memory and in the thought therefrom it does not become good, nor does it live, nor is it appropriated to man, since man is a man from his will and understanding therefrom, and not from his understanding separated from his will.[2]

27. Because of this difference between the angels of the celestial kingdom and the angels of the spiritual kingdom they are not together, and have no interaction with each other. They are able to communicate only through intermediate angelic societies, which are called celestial-spiritual. Through these the celestial kingdom flows into the spiritual;[1] and from this it comes to pass that although heaven is divided into two kingdoms it nevertheless makes one. The Lord always provides such intermediate angels through whom there is communication and conjunction.

28. As the angels of these two kingdoms will be fully treated of in what follows, particulars are here omitted.

29. THERE ARE THREE HEAVENS.

30. The interiors of man, which belong to his mind and disposition, are also in like order. He has an inmost, a middle, and an outmost part; for when man was created all things of Divine order were brought together in him, so that he became Divine order in form, and consequently a heaven in miniature.[1] For this reason also man, as regards his interiors, has communication with the heavens and comes after death among the angels, either among those of the inmost, or of the middle, or of the outmost heaven, in accordance with his reception of Divine good and truth from the Lord during his life in the world.

31. The Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the third or inmost heaven is called celestial, and in consequence the angels there are called celestial angels; the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the second or middle heaven is called spiritual, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual angels; while the Divine that flows in from the Lord and is received in the outmost or first heaven is called natural; but as the natural of that heaven is not like the natural of the world, but has the spiritual and the celestial within it, that heaven is called the spiritual-natural and the celestial-natural, and in consequence the angels there are called spiritual-natural and celestial-natural.[1] Those who receive influx from the middle or second heaven, which is the spiritual heaven, are called spiritual-natural; and those who receive influx from the third or inmost heaven, which is the celestial heaven, are called celestial-natural. The spiritual-natural angels and the celestial-natural angels are distinct from each other; nevertheless they constitute one heaven, because they are in one degree.

32. In each heaven there is an internal and an external; those in the internal are called there internal angels, while those in the external are called external angels. The internal and the external in the heavens, or in each heaven, hold the same relation as the voluntary and intellectual in man-the internal corresponding to the voluntary, and the external to the intellectual. Everything voluntary has its intellectual; one cannot exist without the other. The voluntary may be compared to a flame and the intellectual to the light therefrom.

33. Let it be clearly understood that with the angels it is the interiors that cause them to be in one heaven or another; for as their interiors are more open to the Lord they are in a more interior heaven. There are three degrees of interiors in each angel and spirit, and also in man. Those in whom the third degree is opened are in the inmost heaven. Those in whom the second degree is opened, or only the first, are in the middle or in the outmost heaven. The interiors are opened by reception of Divine good and Divine truth. Those who are affected by Divine truths and admit them at once into the life, thus into the will and into action therefrom, are in the inmost or third heaven, and have their place there in accordance with their reception of good from affection for truth. Those who do not admit truths at once into the will but into the memory, and thence into the understanding, and from the understanding will and do them, are in the middle or second heaven. But those who live morally and who believe in a Divine, and who care very little about being taught, are in the outmost or first heaven.[1] From this it is clear that the states of the interiors are what make heaven, and that heaven is within everyone, and not outside of him; as the Lord teaches when He says:

The kingdom of God cometh not with observation, neither shall they say, Lo here, or Lo there; for behold the kingdom of God ye have within you (Luke 17 verses 20, 21).

[1] There are as many degrees of life in man as there are heavens, and these are opened after death in accordance with his life (see numbers 3747, 9594).

34. Furthermore, all perfection increases towards interiors and decreases towards exteriors, since interiors are nearer to the Divine, and are in themselves pure, while exteriors are more remote from the Divine and are in themselves grosser.[1] Intelligence, wisdom, love, everything good and the resulting happiness, are what constitute angelic perfection; but not happiness apart from these, for such happiness is external and not internal. Because in the angels of the inmost heaven the interiors have been opened in the third degree their perfection immeasurably surpasses the perfection of angels in the middle heaven, whose interiors have been opened in the second degree. So the perfection of these angels exceeds in like measure the perfection of angels of the outmost heaven.

35. Because of this distinction an angel of one heaven cannot go among the angels of another heaven, that is, no one can ascend from a lower heaven and no one can descend from a higher heaven. One ascending from a lower heaven is seized with a distress even to anguish, and is unable to see those who are there, still less to talk with them; while one descending from a higher heaven is deprived of his wisdom, stammers in his speech, and is in despair. There were some from the outmost heaven who had not yet been taught that the interiors of angels are what constitute heaven, and who believed that they might come into a higher heavenly happiness by simply gaining access to a heaven where higher angels are. These were permitted to enter among such angels. But when they were there they could see no one, however much they searched, although there was a great multitude present; for the interiors of the newcomers not having been opened in the same degree as the interiors of the angels there, their sight was not so opened. Presently they were seized with such anguish of heart that they scarcely knew whether they were alive or not. Therefore they hastily betook themselves to the heaven from which they came, glad to get back among their like, and pledging themselves that they would no longer covet higher things than were in agreement with their life. Again, I have seen some let down from a higher heaven; and these were deprived of their wisdom until they no longer knew what their own heaven was. It is otherwise when, as is often done, angels are raised up by the Lord out of a lower heaven into a higher that they may behold its glory; for then they are prepared beforehand, and are encompassed by intermediate angels, through whom they have communication with those they come among. From all this it is plain that the three heavens are entirely distinct from each other.

36. Those, however, who are in the same heaven can affiliate with any who are there; but the delights of such affiliation are measured by the kinships of good they have come into; of which more will be said in the following chapters.

37. But although the heavens are so distinct that there can be no companionship between the angels of one heaven and the angels of another, still the Lord joins all the heavens together by both direct and mediate influx-direct from Himself into all the heavens, and mediate from one heaven into another.[1] He thus makes the three heavens to be one, and all to be in such connection from the First to the Last that nothing unconnected is possible. Whatever is not connected through intermediates with the First can have no permanent existence, but is dissipated and becomes nothing.[2].

38. Only he who knows how degrees are related to Divine order can comprehend how the heavens are distinct, or even what is meant by the internal and the external man. Most men in the world have no other idea of what is interior and what is exterior, or of what is higher and what is lower, than as something continuous, or coherent by continuity, from purer to grosser. But the relation of what is interior to what is exterior is discrete, not continuous. Degrees are of two kinds, those that are continuous and those that are not. Continuous degrees are related like the degrees of the waning of a light from its bright blaze to darkness, or like the degrees of the decrease of vision from objects in the light to those in the shade, or like degrees of purity in the atmosphere from bottom to top. These degrees are determined by distance. [2] On the other hand, degrees that are not continuous, but discrete, are distinguished like prior and posterior, like cause and effect, and like what produces and what is produced. Whoever looks into the matter will see that in each thing and all things in the whole world, whatever they are, there are such degrees of producing and compounding, that is, from one a second, and from that a third, and so on. [3] Until one has acquired for himself a perception of these degrees he cannot possibly understand the differences between the heavens, nor between the interior and exterior faculties of man, nor the differences between the spiritual world and the natural world, nor between the spirit of man and his body. So neither can he understand the nature and source of correspondences and representations, or the nature of influx. Sensual men do not apprehend these differences, for they make increase and decrease, even according to these degrees, to be continuous, and are therefore unable to conceive of what is spiritual otherwise than as a purer natural. And in consequence they remain outside of and a great way off from intelligence.[1]

39. Finally, a certain arcanum respecting the angels of the three heavens, which has not hitherto come into any one’s mind, because degrees have not been understood, may be related. In every angel and also in every man there is an inmost or highest degree, or an inmost or highest something, into which the Divine of the Lord primarily or proximately flows, and from which it disposes the other interiors in him that follow in accordance with the degrees of order. This inmost or highest degree may be called the entrance of the Lord to the angel or man, and His veriest dwelling-place in them. It is by virtue of this inmost or highest that a man is a man, and is distinguished from irrational animals, for these do not have it. From this it is that man, unlike the animals, is capable, in respect to all his interiors which pertain to his mind and disposition, of being raised up by the Lord to Himself, of believing in the Lord, of being moved by love to the Lord, and thereby beholding Him, and of receiving intelligence and wisdom, and speaking from reason. Also, it is by virtue of this that he lives to eternity. But what is arranged and provided by the Lord in this inmost does not distinctly flow into the perception of any angel, because it is above his thought and transcends his wisdom.

40. These now are the general truths respecting the three heavens; but in what follows each heaven will be particularly treated of.

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Arcana Coelestia 5728. THE BOOK OF GENESIS

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH

1. And he commanded him that was over his house, saying, Fill the men’s bags with food, as much as they can carry, and put every one’s silver in his bag’s mouth.

AC 5728. THE BOOK OF GENESIS

CHAPTER THE FORTY-FOURTH

1. And he commanded him that was over his house, saying, Fill the men’s bags with food, as much as they can carry, and put every one’s silver in his bag’s mouth.