8. [To Oetinger, November 8, 1768]
Most Rev. And Excellent Herr Councillor:
It was with pleasure that I received your letter dated Murrhard, October 28. I am sorry that you have not yet received the three copies of my new work on Conjugial and Scortatory Love. I took them to the place here in Amsterdam, from which such parcels are dispatched to different places in Germany, first, I think, to Arnheim, and thence by coach or wagon to the designated places. I wrote on it "Wurtenburg." If he has arrived, perhaps it is in a guesthouse or an inn there, where these carriers call and stay. If opportunity offers, or some way is found, 9 other copies will be dispatched, together with the work on the Planets. I asked the servant who brought your letter, whether his master knew of any opportunity, but he has not yet returned with the answer. If I find a way, nothing will be wanting.
You bring up a doubt, most reverend Sir, that power over all flesh was given to Christ, when yet angels and heavenly beings do not have flesh, their bodies being luminous. To this, kindly receive the following answer:
In that passage, by all flesh is meant every man, and therefore in the Word it is sometimes said all flesh. As regards the bodies of angels, they do not appear as luminous but as fleshy; for they are substantial and not material, and in the sight of angels things substantial are not transparent. In its origin every material thing is substantial. It is into this substantial that every man comes when by death he puts off the material exuviae. This is the reason why man is a man after death, but a purer man- comparatively as the substantial is in respect to the material. That the Lord has power not only over every man but also over all angels, is evident from His own words: "Unto me is given all power in heaven and on earth" [Matt.] 28: 18.
Since in your letter you make mention of the natural and spiritual sense of the Word, therefore, lest it be thought that I have written anything contradictory concerning them, I add a separate sheet of paper on which these two senses are described.
I will be,
most reverend and excellent Sir Your most devoted servant Eman. Swedenborg Amsterdam Nov. 8, 1768 [Enclosure]
ON THE NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL SENSE OF THE WORD
That in the Word in its external or natural sense there is an internal or spiritual sense as a noble gem in its matrix, or as a beautiful infant in its swaddling clothes, has hitherto been entirely unknown in the Christian world. Therefore also unknown, is all that is meant by the consummation of the age, the Advent of the Lord, the Last Judgment, and the New Jerusalem, of which many things are said and foretold in the Word of both Testaments, the Old and the New.
Without the unfolding and unswathing of the sense of the letter of the Word by means of its spiritual sense, who can know from his understanding what is signified by the things predicted by the Lord in Matthew, chapter 24, and also in the Apocalypse? likewise the things predicted in Daniel, and in many places in the Prophets? Try it, if you wish. Read here and there in the Prophetic Word where it treats now of beasts and wild beasts, now of pools and marshes, now of woods and thickets, now of valleys and mountains, now of screech owls, ochim, tziim, satyrs, etc; are you going to perceive anything divine in these things, had you not believed that, since the Word is inspired by God, it lay within them as a gem in its matrix, as said above? That the gems or precious jewels which lie within are the things contained in the internal sense, has been fully demonstrated in the Doctrine of the New Jerusalem concerning the Sacred Scripture, n. 5-26; and, moreover, in the same work, n. 27-36, that the sense of the letter of the Word is the base, containant, and firmament of its spiritual sense; and that in the sense of the letter of the Word, Divine Truth is in its holiness and in its power, n. 37-49; and also that the doctrine of the Church must be drawn from the sense of the letter of the Word and confirmed by it, n. 50-61 ; and, furthermore, that by the sense of the letter of the Word, with its mediate spiritual sense, there is conjunction with the Lord and consociation with angels, n. 6269.
To the above I will add something new from the spiritual world: Leaders of the Church who come into that world after death, are first taught concerning the Sacred Scripture, that in it, is a spiritual sense which was unknown to them in the world. It is also told them that angels of heaven are in that sense when a man is in the sense of the letter; and, furthermore, that, with man, the translation or mutation of the latter sense into the former is effected when he reads the Word in a state of holiness, and that there is an unfolding or unswathing in like manner as, when the shell around an almond is broken, the shell is dispersed and the bared almond passes into heaven and is received by angels. It is also like as when seed is cast into earth, and there, bared of its coverings, gives forth a germ. The seed is the Word in the sense of the letter, and the germ brought forth from it is the spiritual sense. The latter passes on to the angels, while the former is quiescent with the man. Yet with the man, that seed remains in his mind as in its soil; and in time it produces its germ, and the germ becomes fruitful, provided the man is conjoined to the Lord and thus consociated with angels by the seeds of life which are the truths of faith and the goods of charity.
Furthermore, the leaders are admonished wholly to receive the faith, that in its bosom the Word, being Divine, is spiritual; and that unless they have received this faith, they are open to being seduced by satans even until they deny the holiness of the Word; and when this is denied then, with them, the Church disappears. They are also brought to the conviction that if they do not believe in this internal sense of the Word, it is possible that the Word will at last seem to them a chaotic and uncouth writing, or as a book containing all heresies, since from the sense of its letter as from a lake can be drawn and confirmed heresies of every kind.
After this, those who believe in the internal sense of the Word are received into companies of angelic spirits, who afterwards are lifted up into heaven and become angels. But they who do not believe are sent away to companies of spirits who are afterwards cast into hell and become satans. There, they are called Satans, who in the world have falsified every truth of the Word, and are so imbued with falses therefrom that they no longer see any least thing of truth.