230. IN THE LORD THE THREE DEGREES OF HEIGHT ARE INFINITE AND UNCREATE, BUT IN MAN THE THREE DEGREES ARE FINITE AND CREATED.
In the Lord the three degrees of height are infinite and uncreate, because the Lord is Love itself and Wisdom itself (as has been already shown); and because the Lord is Love itself and Wisdom itself, He is also Use itself. For love has use for its end, and brings forth use by means of wisdom; for without use love and wisdom have no boundary or end, that is, no home of their own, consequently they cannot be said to have being and have form unless there be use in which they may be. These three constitute the three degrees of height in subjects of life. These three are like first end, middle end which is called cause, and last end which is called effect. That end, cause and effect constitute the three degrees of height has been shown above and abundantly proved.
231. That in man there are these three degrees can be seen from the elevation of his mind even to the degrees of love and wisdom in which angels of the second and third heavens are; for all angels were born men; and man, as regards the interiors pertaining to his mind, is a heaven in least form; therefore there are in man, by creation, as many degrees of height as there are heavens. Moreover, man is an image and likeness of God; consequently these three degrees have been inscribed on man, because they are in God-Man, that is, in the Lord. That in the Lord these degrees are infinite and uncreate, and in man finite and created, can be seen from what was shown in Part First; namely, from this, that the Lord is Love and Wisdom in Himself; and that man is a recipient of love and wisdom from the Lord; also, that of the Lord nothing but what is infinite can be predicated, and of man nothing but what is finite.
232. These three degrees with the angels are called Celestial, Spiritual, and Natural; and for them the celestial degree is the degree of love, the spiritual the degree of wisdom, and the natural the degree of uses. These degrees are so called because the heavens are divided into two kingdoms, one called the celestial, the other the spiritual, to which is added a third kingdom wherein are men in the world, and this is the natural kingdom. Moreover, the angels of whom the celestial kingdom consists are in love; the angels, of whom the spiritual kingdom consists are in wisdom; while men in the world are in uses; therefore these kingdoms are conjoined. How it is to be understood that men are in uses will be shown in the next Part.
233. It has been told me from heaven, that in the Lord from eternity, who is Jehovah, before His assumption of a Human in the world, the two prior degrees existed actually, and the third degree potentially, as they do also with angels; but that after the assumption of a Human in the world, He put on over these the third degree, called the natural, thereby becoming Man, like a man in the world; but with the difference, that in the Lord this degree, like the prior degrees, is infinite and uncreate, while in angel and in man they are all finite and created. For the Divine which, apart from space, had filled all spaces (n. 69-72), penetrated even to the outmosts of nature; yet before the assumption of the Human, the Divine influx into the natural degree was mediate through the angelic heavens, but after the assumption it was immediate from Himself. This is the reason why all churches in the world before His Advent were representative of spiritual and celestial things, but after His Advent became spiritual-natural and celestial-natural, and representative worship was abolished. This also was the reason why the sun of the angelic heaven, which, as was said above, is the first proceeding of His Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, after the assumption of the Human shone out with greater effulgence and splendor than before the assumption. And this is what is meant by these words in Isaiah:
In that day the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days (30:26).
This is said of the state of heaven and of the church after the Lord's coming into the world. Again, in the Apocalypse:
The countenance of the Son of man was as the sun shineth in his strength (1:16);
and elsewhere (as in Isaiah 60:20; 2 Sam. 23:3, 4; Matt. 17:1, 2). The mediate enlightenment of men through the angelic heaven, which existed before the coming of the Lord, may be compared to the light of the moon, which is the mediate light of the sun; and because after His coming this was made immediate, it is said in Isaiah,
That the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun (30:26);
and in David:
In His days shall the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace until there is no longer any moon (72:7).
This also is said of the Lord.
234. The reason why the Lord from eternity, that is, Jehovah, put on this third degree by the assumption of a Human in the world, was that He could enter into this degree only by means of a nature like human nature, thus only by means of conception from His Divine and by birth from a virgin; for in this way He could put off a nature which, although a receptacle of the Divine, is in itself dead, and could put on the Divine. This is meant by the Lord's two states in the world, which are called the state of exinanition and the state of glorification, which are treated of in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Concerning the Lord.
235. Of the threefold ascent of the degrees of height this much has been said in general; but these degrees cannot here be discussed in detail, because (as was said in the preceding chapter) there must be these three degrees in things greatest and things least; this only need be said, that there are such degrees in each and all things of love, and therefrom in each and all things of wisdom, and from both of these in each and all things of use. In the Lord all these degrees are infinite; in angel and man they are finite. But how there are these three degrees in love, in wisdom, and in uses cannot be described and unfolded except in series.
Emanuel Swedenborg: Angelic Wisdom Concerning The Divine Love And The Divine Wisdom
DEGREES OF BOTH KINDS IN THE GREATEST AND IN THE LEAST
THREE DEGREES OF HEIGHT ARE IN EVERY MAN FROM BIRTH
Table of Contents
Good angels of the Old Testament
Good angels in the New Testament
Appearance of good angels
Opinions concerning good angels
Apparitions of good genii
Bad angels
Of magic
Objections to the reality of magic
Reply to objections to the reality of magic
Examination of the affair of Hocque, magician
Magic of the Egyptians and Chaldeans
Magic among the Greeks and Romans
Examples which prove the reality of magic
