0. The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture ¹

By Emanuel Swedenborg, (First published in 1763)

Translator’s Table of Contents:

The Sacred Scripture, or Word, Is Divine Truth Itself. 1

The Word Contains a Spiritual Meaning, One Previously Unknown. 4

1. What the spiritual meaning is. 5
2. The presence of the spiritual meaning in each and every particular of the Word. 9
3. The spiritual meaning is what causes the Word to be Divinely inspired and holy in every word. 18
4. The spiritual sense of the Word has been previously unknown. 20
5. The Word’s spiritual meaning is granted after this only to someone who possesses genuine truths from the Lord. 26

The Word’s Literal Sense Is the Foundation, Containing Vessel and Buttress of Its Spiritual and Celestial Meanings. 27

In the Word’s Literal Sense, Divine Truth Is Present in Its Fullness, in Its Holiness, and in Its Power. 37

Truths in the Word’s literal sense are meant by the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21. 43

Truths and goods in the Word’s literal sense are meant by the Urim and Thummim. 44

Truths in the Word’s literal sense are meant by the precious stones in the Garden of Eden in which the King of Tyre is said in Ezekiel to have been. 45

The Word’s literal sense is symbolized by the curtains and veils of the Tabernacle. 46

The outer constituents of the Temple in Jerusalem represented the outer constituents of the Word, which are those of its literal sense. 47

When the Lord was transfigured, He represented the Word in its glory. 48

The Church’s Doctrine Must Be Drawn from the Word’s Literal Sense and Verified by It. 50

1. The Word is not understood apart from doctrine. 51
2. Doctrine must be drawn from the Word’s literal sense. 53
3. Genuine truth, of which doctrine ought to consist, is apparent in the Word’s literal sense only to people who are enlightened by the Lord. 57

The Word’s Literal Sense Makes Possible a Conjunction with the Lord and Affiliation with Angels. 62

The Word Exists in All of the Heavens, and Is the Source of the Angels’ Wisdom. 70

The Church Is Formed by the Word, and Its Character Is Such as Its Understanding of the Word. 76

Every Single Constituent of the Word Contains a Marriage of the Lord and the Church, and So a Marriage of Goodness and Truth. 80

Heresies May Be Seized On from the Word’s Literal Sense, But It Is Harmful to Affirm Them. 91

The Lord Came into the World to Fulfill Everything in the Word, and to Become as a Consequence Divine Truth, or the Word, Also in Outmost Expressions. 98

Before the Current Word in the World Today, There Was a Word That Has Been Lost. 101

The Word Is the Means by Which Those Have Light Who Are Outside the Church and Do Not Have the Word. 104

Without the Word No One Would Have Any Knowledge of God, of Heaven and Hell, of Life after Death, and Still Less of the Lord. 114

Translator's Notes or Footnotes:

8. Since the Word is inwardly spiritual and celestial, it has therefore been written solely in terms of correspondences, and something written solely in terms of correspondences is written in its outmost sense in the kind of style found in the Prophets and Gospel writers. Even though this style seems to be an ordinary one, still it conceals in it Divine wisdom and all the wisdom of angels.

13. In the ninth chapter of the book of Revelation we read:

The fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth, and to him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke came locusts upon the earth, and to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.... The locusts in appearance were like horses prepared for battle, and on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. And they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of many...chariots rushing into battle. They had tails like scorpions, and there were stings in their tails, and their power was to hurt men five months. And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, who in Greek has the name Apollyon.

No one would understand this either unless the spiritual sense were revealed to him; for nothing was said there idly; everything down to the least detail has some symbolic meaning.

The subject there is the state of the church when all concepts of truth from the Word have been lost, so that people, having become sense-oriented, persuade themselves that falsities are truths.

[2] The star fallen from heaven symbolizes the lost concepts of truth. The darkened sun and air symbolize a thoroughly darkened light of truth. The locusts that came out of the smoke of the pit symbolize falsities of the lowest sort, such as are found in the case of people who have become sensual and who view and judge everything in accordance with fallacies. A scorpion symbolizes their persuasiveness.

The locusts’ looking like horses prepared for battle symbolizes their reasonings as though stemming from an understanding of truth. The locusts’ having what looked like crowns of gold on their heads, and their faces being like the faces of men, means symbolically that they seemed to themselves to be conquerors and wise. Their having hair like the hair of women means symbolically that they seemed to themselves to have an affection for truth. Their having teeth like lions’ teeth means symbolically that matters of the senses, which constitute the lowest elements of the natural self’s life, appeared to them to have power over all else.

[3] Their having breastplates like breastplates of iron symbolizes their arguments based on fallacies, with which they battled and prevailed. The sound of their wings being like the sound of chariots rushing into battle symbolizes their reasonings, as though founded on doctrinal truths from the Word, which they had to defend. Their having tails like scorpions symbolizes their persuasions. Their having stings in their tails symbolizes their clever arts to deceive by those persuasions. Their having the power to hurt men five months symbolizes their inducing a kind of numbness in people possessing an understanding of truth and a perception of goodness.

Their having as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, who has the name Abaddon or Apollyon, symbolically means that their falsities originated from hell, where the inhabitants are merely natural and caught up in their own intelligence.

[4] This is the spiritual meaning of these words, nothing of which is apparent in the literal sense. The case is the same throughout the book of Revelation.

It must be known that everything in the spiritual sense hangs together in an unbroken connection, and that every word in the literal or natural sense contributes to forming the connection. Consequently, if the smallest word were to be taken away, the connection would be broken and the continuity perish. To keep this from happening, therefore, at the end of this prophetic book a warning is added not to take away a word (Revelation 22:19).

The case is the same with the prophetic books of the Old Testament, from which nothing was to be taken away. Of the Lord’s Divine providence, it came to pass that everything in those books, even the very letters, were counted — this by the Masoretes.