V. Swedenborg Spiritual Advent and Carnal Jerusalem Theories

EMANUEL SWEDENBORG (1688-1772), Swedish scientist and Spiritist, must not be overlooked. Son of a Swedish clergyman, he was born in Stockholm, and took a precocious interest in religious matters. In 1734 he published Prodromus Philosophiae Ratiocinant is de Infiniteet Causa Finali Creationis (A Philosophical Argument on the Infinite and the Final Cause of Creation), which also tried to establish a nexus between body and soul. From this time he applied himself to discovering the nature of soul and spirit by means of anatomical studies, and published a number of books. Later in life he professed to obtain a new and free access to the supernatural, claiming ability to communicate with inhabitants of the spirit world. Believing himself to be the recipient of celestial revelations, he published his experiences in Arcana Coelestia (Heavenly Secrets), during 1749-1756. In this he stresses a fanciful correspondence between the natural and spiritual that led to grave extremes.PFF2 705.2

Swedenborg also wrote The True Christian Religion. He claimed that the old church of Christianity passed away and all things became new in the founding of the New Jerusalem church—the judgment enacted in the world of spirits in 1757. ^{31J. F. Blunt, Dictionary of Sects, pp. 579-583.} He not only interpreted the Bible in an allegorical way but saw in its verses enshrined an inner spiritual sense, or rather a series of spiritual meanings. He treated the book of Revelation in the same manner. Books which did not yield to a spiritual interpretation were set aside. On angels he remarked:PFF2 705.3

“There is not a single angel in the universal heaven who was originally created such, nor any devil in hell who was created an angel of light and afterwards cast down thither; but all, both in heaven and in hell, are from the human race.” ^{32George Trobridge, Swedenborg, Life and Teaching, p. 179.}PFF2 706.1

The year 1757, he insisted, marked the transition into a new age of the world, by the coming of the Lord to spirits and to men in the opening of his Word in its spiritual sense. The good were to recognize the Lord Jesus Christ in His glorified humanity, and follow Him in a life of faith and charity, and so compose the new Christian heaven. ^{33Frank Sewall, “Swedenborg,” The New Schaff-Herzog, vol. 11, p. 186.} Such was his strange interpretation of the Revelation.PFF2 706.2