134. Those on the NORTH then began to declare their sentiments, and said, "A man is born without knowledges, to the end that he may receive them all; whereas supposing him to be born into knowledges, he could not receive any but those into which he was born, and in this case neither could he appropriate any to himself; which they illustrated by this comparison: a man at his first birth is like ground in which no seeds are implanted, but which nevertheless is capable of receiving all seeds, and of bringing them forth and fructifying them; whereas a beast is like ground already sown, and tilled with grasses and herbs, which receives no other seeds than what are sown in it, or if it received any it would choke them. Hence it is, that a man requires many years to bring him to maturity of growth; during which time he is capable of being cultivated like ground, and of bringing forth as it were grain, flowers, and trees of every kind; whereas a beast arrives at maturity in a few years, during which no cultivation can produce any thing in him but what is born with him." Afterwards, those on the WEST delivered their sentiments, and said, "A man is not born knowledge, as a beast is; but he is born faculty and inclination; faculty to know, and inclination to love; and he is born faculty not only to know but also to understand and be wise; he is likewise born the most perfect inclination to love not only the things relating to self and the world, but also those relating to God and heaven; consequently a man, by birth from his parents, is an organ which lives merely by the external senses, and at first by no internal senses, to the end that he may successively become a man, first natural, afterwards rational, and lastly spiritual; which could not be the case if he was born into knowledges and loves, as the beasts are: for connate knowledges and affections set bounds to that progression; whereas connate faculty and inclination set no such bounds; therefore a man is capable of being perfected, in knowledge, intelligence, and wisdom to eternity." Those on the SOUTH next took up the debate, and expressed their sentiments as follows: "It is impossible for a man to take any knowledge from himself, since he has no connate knowledge; but he may take it from others; and as he cannot take any knowledge from himself, so neither can he take any love; for where there is no knowledge there is no love; knowledge and love being undivided companions, and no more capable of separation than will and understanding, or affection and thought; yea, no more than essence and form: therefore in proportion as a man takes knowledge from others, so love joins itself thereto as its companion. The universal love which joins itself is the love of knowing, of understanding, and of growing wise; this love is peculiar to man alone, and not to any beast, and flows in from God. We agree with our companions from the west, that a man is not born into any love, and consequently not into any knowledge; but that he is only born into an inclination to love, and thence into a faculty to receive knowledges, not from himself but from others, that is, by others: we say, by others, because neither have these received any thing of knowledge from themselves, but from God. We agree also with our companions to the north, that a man is first born as ground, in which no seeds are sown, but which is capable of receiving all seeds, both useful and hurtful. To these considerations we add, that beasts are born into natural loves, and thereby into knowledges corresponding to them; and that still they do not know, think, understand, and enjoy any knowledges, but are led through them by their loves, almost as blind persons are led through the streets by dogs, for as to understanding they are blind; or rather like people walking in their sleep, who act from the impulse of blind knowledge, the understanding being asleep." Lastly, those on the EAST declared their sentiments, and said, "We agree with our brethren in the opinions they have delivered, that a man knows nothing from himself, but from and by others, to the end that he may know and acknowledge that all knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, is from God; and that a man cannot otherwise be conceived, born, and generated of the Lord, and become an image and likeness of him; for he becomes an image of the Lord by acknowledging and believing, that he has received and does receive from the Lord all the good of love and charity, and all the truth of wisdom and faith, and not the least portion thereof from himself; and he becomes a likeness of the Lord by his being sensible of those principles in himself, as if they were from himself. This he is sensible of, because he is not born into knowledges, but receives them; and what he receives, appears to him as if it was from himself. This sensation is given him by the Lord, to the end that he may be a man and not a beast; since by willing, thinking, loving, knowing, understanding, and growing wise, as from himself, he receives knowledges, and exalts them into intelligence, and by the use thereof into wisdom; thus the Lord conjoins man to himself, and man conjoins himself to the Lord. This could not have been the case, unless it had been provided by the Lord, that man should be born in total ignorance." When they had finished speaking, it was the desire of all present, that a conclusion should be formed from the sentiments which had been expressed; and they agreed upon the following: "That a man is born into no knowledge, to the end that he may come into all knowledge, and may advance into intelligence, and thereby into wisdom, and that he is born into no love, to the intent that he may come into all love, by application of the knowledges from intelligence, and into love to the Lord by love towards his neighbour, and may thereby be conjoined to the Lord, and by such conjunction be made a man, and live for ever."
135. After this they took the paper, and read the third subject of investigation, which was, WHAT IS DIGNIFIED BY THE TREE OF LIFE, WHAT BY THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL, AND WHAT BY EATING THEREOF? and all the others intreated as a favor, that those who were from the east would unfold this arcanum, because it required a more than ordinary depth of understanding, and because those who were from the east are in flaming light, that is, in the wisdom of love, this wisdom being understood by the garden of Eden, in which those two trees were placed. They said, "We will declare our sentiments; but as man does not take any thing from himself, but from the Lord, therefore we will speak from him; but yet from ourselves as of ourselves:" and then they continued, "A tree signifies a man, and the fruit thereof the good of life; hence the tree of life signifies a man living from God, or God living in man; and since love and wisdom, and charity and faith, or good and truth, constitute the life of God in man, therefore these are signified by the tree of life, and hence man has eternal life: the like is signified by the tree of life, of which it will be given to eat, Rev. ii. 7; chap xxii. 2, 14. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil signifies a man believing that he lives from himself and not from God; thus that in man love and wisdom, charity and faith, that is, good and truth, are his and not God's; believing this, because he thinks and wills, and speaks and acts to all appearance, as from himself: and as a man from this faith persuades himself, that God has implanted himself, or infused his divine into him, therefore the serpent said, 'God doth know, in the day that ye eat of the fruit of that tree, your eyes will be opened, and ye will be as God, knowing good and evil,' Gen. iii. 5. Eating of those trees signifies reception and appropriation; eating of the tree of life, the reception of life eternal, and eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the reception of damnation; therefore also both Adam and his wife, together with the serpent, were cursed: the serpent means the devil as to self-love and the conceit of his own intelligence. This love is the possessor of that tree; and the men who are in conceit, grounded in that love, are those trees. Those persons, therefore, are grievously mistaken who believe that Adam was wise and did good from himself, and that this was his state of integrity; when yet Adam himself was cursed by reason of that belief; for this is signified by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; therefore he then fell from the state of integrity in which he had been, in consequence of believing that he was wise and did good from God and not at all from himself; for this is meant by eating of the tree of life. The Lord alone, when he was in the world, was wise and did good from himself; because the essential divine from birth was in him and was his; therefore also from his own ability he was made the Redeemer and Saviour." From all these considerations they came to this conclusion, "That by the tree of life, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and eating thereof, is signified that life for man is God in him, and that in this case he has heaven and eternal life; but that death for man is the persuasion and belief, that life for him is not God but self; whence he has hell and eternal death, which is condemnation."
136. After this they looked into the paper left by the angels upon the table, and saw written underneath, COLLECT YOUR OPINIONS ON THESE THREE QUESTIONS INTO ONE DECISION. Then they collected them, and saw that they cohered in one series, and that the series or decision was this, "That man is created to receive love and wisdom from God, and yet to all appearance as from himself; and this for the sake of reception and conjunction: and that therefore a man is not born into any love, or into any knowledge, and also not into any ability of loving and growing wise from himself; therefore if he ascribes all the good of love and truth of wisdom to God, he becomes a living man; but if he ascribes them to himself, he becomes a dead man." These words they wrote on a new piece of paper, and placed it on the table: and lo! on a sudden the angels appeared in bright light, and carried the paper away into heaven; and after it was read there, those who sat on the seats heard these words from thence, "Well, well;" and instantly there appeared a single angel as it were flying from heaven, with two wings about his feet, and two about his temples, having in his hand prizes, consisting of robes, caps, and wreaths of laurel; and he alighted on the ground, and gave those who sat on the north robes of an opaline color; those who sat on the west robes of scarlet color; those who sat on the south caps whose borders were ornamented with bindings of gold and pearls, and which on the left side upwards were set with diamonds cut in the form of flowers; but to those who sat to the east he gave wreaths of laurel, intermixed with rubies and sapphires. Then all of them, adorned with their respective prizes, went home from the school of wisdom; and when they shewed themselves to their wives, their wives came to meet them, being distinguished also with ornaments presented to them from heaven; at which the husbands wondered.
137. THE SECOND MEMORABLE RELATION. On a time when I was meditating on conjugial love, lo! there appeared at a distance two naked infants with baskets in their hands, and turtledoves flying around them; and on a nearer view, they seemed as if they were naked, handsomely ornamented with garlands; chaplets of flowers decorated their heads, and wreaths of lilies and roses of a hyacinthine blue, hanging obliquely from the shoulders to the loins, adorned their bosoms; and round about both of them there was as it were a common band woven of small leaves interspersed with olives. But when they came nearer, they did not appear as infants, or naked, but as two persons in the prime of their age, wearing cloaks and tunics of shining silk, embroidered with the most beautiful flowers: and when they were near me, there breathed forth from heaven through them a vernal warmth, attended with an odoriferous fragrance, like what arises from gardens and fields in the time of spring. They were two married partners from heaven, and they accosted me; and because I was musing on what I had just seen, they inquired, "What did you see?" And when I told them that at first they appeared to me as naked infants, afterwards as infants decorated with garlands, and lastly as grown up persons in embroidered garments, and that instantly I experienced a vernal warmth with its delights, they smiled pleasantly, and said, "In the way we did not seem to ourselves as infants, or naked, or adorned with garlands, but constantly in the same appearance which we now have: thus at a distance was represented our conjugial love; its state of innocence by our seeming like naked infants, its delights by garlands, and the same delights now by our cloaks and tunics being embroidered with flowers; and as you said that, as we approached, a vernal warmth breathed on you, attended with its pleasant fragrance as from a garden, we will explain to you the reason of all this." They said, "We have now been married partners for ages, and constantly in the prime of our age in which you now see us: our first state was like the first state of a virgin and a youth, when they enter into consociation by marriage; and we then believed, that this state was the very essential blessedness of our life; but we were informed by others in our heaven, and have since perceived ourselves, that this was a state of heat not tempered by light; and that it is successively tempered, in proportion as the husband is perfected in wisdom, and the wife loves that wisdom in the husband; and that this is effected by and according to the uses which each, by mutual aid, affords to society; also that delights succeed according to the temperature of heat and light; or of wisdom and its love. The reason why on our approach there breathed on you as it were a vernal warmth, is, because conjugial love and that warmth in our heaven act in unity; for warmth with us is love; and the light, wherewith warmth is united, is wisdom; and use is as it were the atmosphere which contains each in its bosom. What are heat and light without that which contains them? In like manner, what are love and wisdom without their use? In such case there is nothing conjugial in them, because the subject is wanting in which they should exist to produce it. In heaven where there is vernal warmth, there is love truly conjugial; because the vernal principle exists only where warmth is equally united to light, or where warmth and light are in equal proportions; and it is our opinion, that as warmth is delighted with light, and vice versa, so love is delighted with wisdom, and wisdom in its turn with love." He further added, "With us in heaven there is perpetual light, and on no occasion do the shades of evening prevail, still less is there darkness; because our sun does not set and rise like yours, but remains constantly in a middle altitude between the zenith and the horizon, which, as you express it, is at an elevation of 45 degrees. Hence, the heat and light proceeding from our sun cause perpetual spring, and a perpetual vernal warmth inspires those with whom love is united with wisdom in just proportion; and our Lord, by the eternal union of heat and light, breathes nothing but uses: hence also come the germinations of your earth, and the connubial associations of your birds and animals in the spring; for the vernal warmth opens their interiors even to the inmost, which are called their souls, and affects them, and communicates to them its conjugial principle, and causes their principle of prolification to come into its delights, in consequence of a continual tendency to produce fruits of use, which use is the propagation of their kind. But with men (homines) there is a perpetual influx of vernal warmth from the Lord; wherefore they are capable of enjoying marriage delights at all times, even in the midst of winter; for the males of the human race were created to be recipients of light, that is, of wisdom from the Lord, and the females to be recipients of heat, that is, of the love of the wisdom of the male from the Lord. Hence then it is, that, as we approached, there breathed on you a vernal warmth attended with an odoriferous fragrance, like what arises from gardens and fields in the spring." As he said this, he gave me his right hand, and conducted me to houses inhabited by married partners in a like prime of their age with himself and his partner; and said, "These wives, who now seem like young virgins, were in the world infirm old women; and their husbands, who now seem in the spring of youth, were in the world decrepit old men; and all of them were restored by the Lord to this prime of their age, because they mutually loved each other, and from religious motives shunned adulteries as enormous sins:" and he added, "No one knows the blessed delights of conjugial love, unless he rejects the horrid delights of adultery; and no one can reject these delights, unless he is under the influence of wisdom from the Lord; and no one is under the influence of wisdom from the Lord, unless he performs uses from the love of uses." I also saw on this occasion their house utensils, which were all in celestial forms, and glittered with gold, which had a flaming appearance from the rubies with which it was studded.
ON THE CHASTE PRINCIPLE AND THE NON-CHASTE.