Divine Love and Wisdom (Ager) n. 291

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

291. This also, among other things, is shown in Part Second:-that the spiritual sun is not the Lord, but is a Proceeding from His Divine Love and His Divine Wisdom. It is called a proceeding, because the sun was brought forth out of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom which are in themselves substance and form, and it is by means of this that the Divine proceeds. But as human reason is such as to be unwilling to yield assent unless it sees a thing from its cause, and therefore has some perception of how it is, - thus in the present case, how the sun of the spiritual world, which is not the Lord, but a proceeding from Him, was brought forth - something shall be said on this subject. In regard to this matter I have conversed much with the angels. They said that they have a clear perception of it in their own spiritual light, but that they cannot easily present it to man, in his natural light, owing to the difference between the two kinds of light and the consequent difference of thought. The matter, however, may be likened, they said, to the sphere of affections and of thoughts therefrom which encompasses each angel, whereby his presence is made evident to others near and far. But that encompassing sphere, they said, is not the angel himself; it is from each and everything of his body, wherefrom substances are constantly flowing out like a stream, and what flows out surrounds him; also that these substances, contiguous to his body, as they are constantly moved by his life's two fountains of motion, the heart and the lungs, arouse the same activities in the atmospheres, and thereby produce a perception as of his presence with others; therefore that it is not a separate sphere of affections and of thoughts therefrom that goes forth and is continuous from him, although it is so called, since the affections are mere states of the mind's forms in the angel. They said, moreover, that there is such a sphere about every angel, because there is one about the Lord, and that the sphere about the Lord is in like manner from Him, and that that sphere is their sun, that is, the sun of the spiritual world.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church