341. To these things I will add this MEMORAALE OCCURRENCE. I saw as many as six hundred of the English clergy assembled, who were praying to the Lord to allow them to go up into a society of the higher heaven; and this was granted, and they went up. And when they entered they saw their king, the grandfather* of the king reigning at the present day, and they rejoiced. He then went to two bishops who were among them, whom he had known in the world, and speaking with them asked, 'How did you come here?'. They answered that they had made supplication to the Lord, and it was granted. He said to them, 'Why to the Lord, and not to God the Father?', and they said that they were so instructed below. And he said, 'Did I not say several times to you in the world that the Lord ought to be approached, and also that charity is primary? What did you then answer concerning the Lord?' And it was given them to remember that they had answered that when the Father is approached the Son also is approached. But the angels who were around the king said, 'You are mistaken. You did not think that; nor is the Lord approached when God the Father is approached, but God the Father is approached when the Lord is approached, because they are one as are soul and body. Who approaches a man's soul, and in that way his body? When a man is approached as to the body that he sees, is not his soul that he does not see approached also?' At these things they became silent. And the king went up to the two bishops, holding in his hand two gifts, saying, 'These gifts are of heaven.' They were heavenly figures of gold, and he wanted to make a presentation. But just then a dark cloud covered them over and separated them, and they descended the way they had come up. And they wrote these things in a book.
[2] The rest of the English clergy, having heard that their colleagues were permitted to go up into the higher heaven, assembled at the foot of a mountain where they were awaiting their return. And when they [the six hundred] returned they were greeting their brethren and telling them about what happened to them in the heaven, and that the two heavenly figures of gold, most beautiful to behold, had been given to the bishops by the king, but that they fell out of their hands. And then they went away out of the open space into a wood that was nearby, and were speaking among themselves, looking around to see if anyone might hear them, but [what they said] was heard nevertheless. They were speaking about unanimity and concord, and then about the primacy and dominion. The bishops were speaking, and the rest were disposed to agree. And suddenly, to my surprise, they were no longer appearing as many, but as one great man, whose face was like the face of a lion, having on his head a towering mitre with a crown on top, and he was speaking in a lofty tone, and taking long paces. And looking backwards, he said, 'Who else but me has a right to the primacy?' The king looked down out of the heaven and first saw all of them as one, and then as many of one accord, most of them being in secular garb, as he said. * This would be George II, the grandfather of George III.
This page is part of 
© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church