The Divine Sphere of the Lord in Heaven is Love to Him, and Charity to the Neighbour (13-19)

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13. The Divine Sphere proceeding from the Lord is called in heaven Divine Truth for a reason that will appear in what follows. This Divine Truth flows into heaven from the Lord out of His Divine Love. Divine Love and Divine Truth therefrom are like the fire of the sun and the light therefrom in the world; love being like the fire of the sun and truth therefrom like its light. Fire also corresponds to and signifies love; and light signifies truth thence proceeding. From this it is clear that Divine Truth proceeding from the Divine Love of the Lord is in its essence Divine Good united with Divine Truth; and by virtue of this union, it gives life to all things of heaven, as the heat of the sun united with light in the world makes all things of the earth fruitful, as in spring and summer. It is otherwise when heat is not united with light, and when light is therefore cold, for then all things lie torpid and dead. Divine Good, which is compared to heat, is the good of love with angels; and Divine Truth, which is compared to light, is the means by which they receive that good.

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14. The Divine Sphere in heaven which constitutes heaven is love because love is spiritual conjunction. Love conjoins the angels with the Lord and conjoins them with each other; and it so conjoins them that they are all as one in the sight of the Lord. Moreover, love is the very Being of every one’s life and therefore both angels and men derive their life therefrom. Every one who reflects may know that love is the source of man’s inmost vital principle; for he grows warm at its presence, cold at its absence, and when deprived of it he dies. But it is to be observed that the character of every one’s life is determined by his love.

15. In heaven there are two distinct kinds of love—love to the Lord and love to the neighbour. Love to the Lord prevails in the inmost or third heaven; love to the neighbour prevails in the second or middle heaven. Both proceed from the Lord and both make heaven. How these two kinds of love are distinct from each other and how they are nevertheless conjoined is seen in heaven in the clearest light but in the world only obscurely. In heaven to love the Lord does not mean to love Him as to His person, but to love the good which proceeds from Him; and to love good is to will and to do good from love. So also to love the neighbour does not mean to love another as to his person, but to love the truth derived from the Word; and to love truth is to will and do what is true. It is evident, therefore, that these two kinds of love are distinct like goodness and truth; and that they are conjoined as goodness with truth; but a man can hardly form any idea on these subjects unless he understands what is meant by love, by goodness and by the neighbour.

16. I have sometimes talked with angels on this subject. They expressed their astonishment that members of the church do not know that to love the Lord and the neighbour is to love goodness and truth and to act willingly in accordance with them; whereas they might know that every one shows his love for another by willing and doing what is agreeable to him, and it is this which brings about mutual love and union—not loving another without doing his will, which it itself is not loving him at all. They also said that men might know that the good which proceeds from the Lord is like Himself because He is in it; and that those grow like Him and are conjoined with Him who make goodness and truth the principles of their life by willing and acting in accordance with them. Willing also consists in loving to act. That this is so the Lord also teaches in the Word where he says, “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them {he it is that loveth me}, and I will love him and make my abode with him”(John 14: 21, 23); and again, “If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love”(John 15:10).

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17. All experience in heaven testifies that the Divine Sphere proceeding from the Lord which affects the angels and constitutes heaven is love. For all those who are in heaven are forms of love and charity; they are of indescribable beauty, love beaming forth from their faces, their speech and every particular of their life. Moreover, from every angel and form every spirit proceed spiritual spheres of life which are diffused around them and by which the character of their affections and of their love can be recognized, sometimes at a considerable distance. For these spheres flow from the emotional and intellectual life of every one, or from the life of his love and thence of his faith. The spheres which flow forth from the angels are so full of love that they affect the inmost life of those who are in their company. I have sometimes perceived these spheres and they have thus affected me.

That love is the source from which angels derive their life is also manifest from the fact that every one in the other life turns himself in a direction accordant with his love. Those who live in love to the Lord and in love to the neighbour turn themselves constantly towards the Lord; but those who live in the love of self turn themselves constantly away from the Lord. This continues to be the case however their bodies may turn; for in the other life space depends on the mental states of those who dwell there; the four quarters also are not fixed as in the world but are determined according to the direction of their faces {…?} Yet it is not the angels who turn themselves to the Lord; but it is the Lord who turns to Himself all those who love to do those things that are from Him. But on these subjects more will be said when we come to treat of the four quarters in the other life.

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18. The Divine Sphere of the Lord in heaven is love, because love is the receptacle of all the constituents of heaven, which are peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness. For love receives all things whatever, that are congenial to itself; it desires them, seeks them and absorbs them as it were spontaneously, because it desires to be continually enriched and perfected by them. This is known also to man, for his love inspects, as it were, the stores of his memory and draws forth thence all things that are in agreement with itself, collecting and arranging in and under itself,—it itself, that they may be its own, and under itself, that they may be subservient to it; but the other things which are not in agreement with itself it rejects and expels. That there is inherent in love every faculty for receiving congenial truths together with the desire of uniting them to itself, clearly appears from the case of those who are raised to heaven. Though they may have been simple persons in the world, nevertheless on coming among the angels they enter fully into angelic wisdom and heavenly felicity; the reason of this is that they have loved goodness and truth for their own sake and implanted them in their lives and thereby acquired the faculty of receiving heaven with all its ineffable perfections. But those who live in the love of self and the world are not capable of receiving these gifts; they turn away from them, reject them, flee away the moment they feel their influence and associate themselves with those in hell whose love is similar to their own.

There were spirits who doubted whether such faculties were inherent in heavenly love and longed to know the truth; whereupon all obstacles being temporarily removed, they were brought into a state of heavenly love and were borne forward some distance where there was an angelic heaven; while there, they told me that they experienced an inward felicity which it was beyond their power to express in words, and lamented greatly that they must return to their former state. Others were also raised to heaven, and as their elevation became more interior and exalted, they came into such intelligence and wisdom, as to be capable of perceiving things which before had been incomprehensible to them. It is therefore evident, that love proceeding from the Lord is the receptacle of heaven and of all things therein.

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19. That love to the Lord and love to the neighbour comprehend in themselves all divine truths may be evident from what the Lord said concerning them, “Thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul. This is the first and great commandment; and the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang the law and the prophets”(Matt. 22:37-40). The law and the prophets are the whole Word, and therefore all Divine Truth.

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- torpid: 무감각한; 활기 없는; 동면중인
- conjoin: 결합하다;합치다.
- congenial: pleasant; in agreement with one’s tastes and nature.
- subservient: (1:derog) habitually willing to do what others want; tending to obey others’ wishes. (2:fml) less important; subordinate.
- felicity: (1) happiness. (2: an example of) the quality of being felicitous.
- felicitous: (fml) (of a word or remark) suitable and well-chosen.
- ineffable: (1) too wonderful to be described. (2: esp. of the name of the God in some religions) not to be spoken aloud