LOVE PRODUCES HEAT

This is because love is life itself, and the living force of all things in the universe. All efforts, forces, activities and motions in the universe have no other origin than the Divine Love which is the Lord, Who in the heavens before the angels is seen as a Sun. That love is one thing and heat another, is quite evident from the distinction between them in both angels and men. From love an angel wills and thinks, perceives and discerns, feels bliss and satisfaction inwardly in himself, and moreover loves; the same with a man; these things are in the mind. In the body, on the other hand, they each feel warmth, and this as something apart from the bliss and satisfaction. Clearly, then, heat is the effect of activity of life, or of love. That heat is the effect of love, can be established from many things: as, for instance, that a human being, from innermost things grows warm according to the loves of his life, even in mid-winter, the heat of this world's sun having nothing in common with that heat; as the ardour of his love increases, so he begins to grow warm, is kindled and is fired: and as it decreases, so he begins to get listless, grows cold, and becomes inactive; thus, it is altogether in accordance with the activity of his life's love. [2] It is similar, too, with the living creatures of the earth and the flying creatures of the air. Either of these may at times lie warmer in mid-winter than in mid-summer, their hearts beating, their blood hot, their fibre warm, every part, small and great, engaging in their vital functions. This heat also is not derived from the sun, but from the life of their soul, which is ion.

[59.] The reason love produces heat, is because it is the life of every force in the universe, which life cannot enter into the recipient substances that have been created, except with an active as intermediary; and heat is that intermediary. The Lord in creating the universe prepared for Himself all intermediaries from the first even to the last, by which at every stage to bring uses into existence. The universal proximate medium of conjunction is heat, in which the essence of love's activity can come into existence. [3] As a result of heat coming forth immediately from love, there is correspondence between love and heat, there being correspondence between every cause and its effect. It is on account of correspondence that the Sun of heaven, which is the Lord, is seen as fiery, and also that the Love proceeding from it is felt by angels as heat, just as the Lord's Divine Wisdom is seen in the heavens as light; and that, similarly:

The Lord's countenance during the Transfiguration "shone as the sun" (Matthew xvii. 2).

It is on account of that correspondence that the holiness of the Lord's love was represented by the altar fire, and by the fire in the lamp of the tabernacle lampstand: also, that the Lord appeared in a fire on Mt. Sinai and in a flame of fire by night over the tabernacle: and also that many nations used to light sacred fire and appoint virgins-vestal virgins they were called in Rome-to tend it. It is on account of that correspondence that by "fire" and "flame," occurring in many places in the Word, is meant "love"; moreover, it is due to an interior perception of that correspondence that we pray that sacred fire may kindle our hearts, meaning thereby holy love. It is on account of that same correspondence that in heaven celestial love appears at a distance like fire, for which reason, too, the Lord said:

The righteous shall shine forth as the sun in their Father's Kingdom (Matthew xiii. [43]).

Infernal love likewise appears in hell at a distance like fire, concerning which see the work HEAVEN AND HELL, NOS. 566 - 575.