The speech of the celestial angels abounds in the vowels A (ah, as in father), and U (as u in rule). One may often determine from the Hebrew vowels in a passage which words belong to the class of celestials and which to the spirituals — i.e., whether they involve good or truth. The former use more frequently the sounds of O and U, for they have a full tone, and also occur oftener in the Third Heaven. (Heaven and Hell 241; True Christian Religion 278;, Spiritual Experiences 5112, 5620, 5787)

241. Angels who live in the Lord's heavenly kingdom talk much the same way as angels who are citizens of the Lord's spiritual kingdom. However, heavenly angels talk from a deeper level of thought than spiritual angels do. Further, since heavenly angels are attuned to the good of love for the Lord, they talk from wisdom, while spiritual angels — being attuned to the good of thoughtfulness toward their neighbor (which in its essence is truth, see 215)-talk from intelligence. For wisdom comes from what is good and intelligence from what is true.

The speech of heavenly angels is like a gentle stream, soft and virtually unbroken, while the speech of spiritual angels is a little more resonant and crisp. Then too, the vowels U and O tend to predominate in the speech of heavenly angels, while in the speech of spiritual angels it is the vowels E and I. The vowels stand for the sound and in the sound there is the affection; for as already noted (236), the sound of angels' speech is responsive to their affection, and the articulations of the sound, or the words, correspond to the individual ideas that stem from their affection. For this reason, the vowels do not belong to the language but to a raising of its words, by means of sounds, toward various affections according to the state of each individual. So in Hebrew the vowels are not written and are also pronounced variously. This enables angels to recognize what someone's quality is in respect to affection and love.

Further still, the language of heavenly angels lacks any hard consonants and rarely puts two consonants together without inserting a word that begins with a vowel. This is why the little word and is inserted so often in the Word, as can be determined by people who read the Word in Hebrew, in which language that word is soft and in either pronunciation is a vowel sound. We can also learn some of this from the vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible, since the words belong to either a heavenly or a spiritual category. That is, they involve either what is good or what is true, with the expressions involving what is good making ample use of the vowels U and O and to some extent A, and the expressions involving what is true making use of E and I.

Since affections are expressed primarily through sounds, words that use U and O are well loved in human language to express great matters like heaven and God. Musical sounds tend in this direction as they rise, when they are dealing with such matters, but not when they are dealing with lesser things. This is why the art of music is so adept at expressing various kinds of affection.

278. The second experience.

Once a paper was sent down to me from heaven written in Hebrew letters, but in the script used in ancient times; the letters which nowadays have in places straight lines were curved, with flourishes pointing upwards. The angels who were then present with me said that they gathered complete ideas from the letters themselves, knowing them especially from the curves of the lines and the serifs of the letters. They explained what these meant separately and what when combined. They said that H, which was added to the names of Abram and Sarai, meant what is infinite and eternal. They also explained in my presence the meaning of a verse of the Word, Psalm 32:2, simply from the letters or characters; their meaning was in short that the Lord is merciful to those who do wrong.

They told me that writing in the third heaven consists of letters bent into various curves, each of which conveys some meaning. Vowels there stood for the sound which corresponds to an affection. In that heaven they cannot pronounce the vowels i and e, but substitute for them y and eu ¹ , They used the vowels a, o and u, because they give a full sound. They also said that they did not pronounce any consonants harshly, but softly; and this was why certain Hebrew letters have a point inside, as a sign they are pronounced softly. They said that harshness in letters was used in the spiritual heaven, because there they possess truths, and the truth admits harshness, but good does not, and the angels of the Lord's celestial kingdom, that is, the third heaven, possess good.

They also said that they had among themselves the Word written in curved letters with flourishes and serifs which conveyed a meaning. This made it plain what these words of the Lord mean:

Not a jot nor a stroke shall pass away from the Law, until all things are done, Matthew 5:18.

Also:

It is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to fall out, Luke 16:17.

Примітки: