2. Before dealing with the New Jerusalem and its teachings, I need to say something about the new heaven and the new earth. In the booklet " The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed" you will find an explanation of the meaning of the first heaven and the first earth that passed away. 1 After they had passed away-that is, after the Last Judgment 2 was complete-the Lord created, or formed, a new heaven. This heaven is made up of all the people who, from the time of the Lord's Coming to the time of the judgment, had lived lives of faith and caring, 3 because only they were forms of heaven. This is because the form of heaven that governs all the relationships and communications there is the form of the divine truth, derived from divine goodness, that radiates from the Lord, and we take on this form spiritually by living in harmony with divine truth. On this as the source of heaven's form, 4 see Heaven and Hell 5 200-212, and on all angels as being forms of heaven, see Heaven and Hell 51-58, 73-77.
This makes it possible for us to know which people make up the new heaven and therefore also what they are like-namely, that they are of one mind, because when we live a life of faith and caring we love our neighbors as we love ourselves, and love that is mutually felt joins us to them and them to us. This joining is reciprocal and mutual because in the spiritual world love is a joining together. 6 So when everyone is acting on the same principle, then a single mind arises from the many-from countless individuals, in fact, who are gathered in harmony with heaven's form. 7 People become one in this way because there is nothing that separates or divides them; everything connects and unites them.
Notes de bas de page:
1. "The first heaven," also referred to as "the former heaven," is treated in Last Judgment 65-72. "The first earth" (that is, the former church; see note 3 in New Jerusalem 4 below on the meaning of "church") is covered in Last Judgment 45-64, without being explicitly labeled as such. On "the first earth," see also Supplements 9-10. In this context, "the first heaven" is a reference to Revelation 21:1, in which "first" is a temporal term denoting a heaven that passes away and is replaced by a new heaven (compare note 1 in Last Judgment 69). This should not be confused with the "first heaven" that is the lowest in Swedenborg's system of three heavens arranged vertically one above the other, in which context "first" serves as a spatial analogy (see note 2 in New Jerusalem 4). [GFD, LSW]
2. Swedenborg begins Last Judgment by insisting that the term "the Last Judgment" does not refer to the end of the world. In Last Judgment 46, he notes two previous "last judgments," one at the time of the Flood and the other at the time of the Incarnation. He takes the word "last" in the familiar phrase "the Last Judgment" to refer to the end of a religious era; and the era he usually means is the one which began with the life and resurrection of Jesus Christ and which by his account ended with a cataclysmic upheaval in the spiritual world in 1757. [JSR, GFD]
3. Much like "goodness" and "truth" (see note 9 in New Jerusalem 1), "faith" (Latin fides) and "caring" (Latin charitas; sometimes elsewhere in this edition rendered "thoughtfulness," "goodwill," or the more traditional "charity") are treated by Swedenborg as a pair. In True Christianity 365 faith and caring (goodwill) are in fact defined together in terms of goodness and truth: "‘Faith' means all the truth from the Lord that we perceive, think, and speak. ‘Goodwill' means all the goodness from the Lord which moves us and which we then intend and do. " The Latin word charitas is an abstract noun related to the adjective charus, also spelled carus, meaning "dear," "beloved"; this connection is made quite explicitly in New Jerusalem 108. "Caring" is here used with the intent of suggesting that meaning. [JSR, GFD]
4. Without ever specifying exactly what the form is, Swedenborg mentions "the form of heaven" or "a form like heaven" in almost a hundred descriptions of spiritual objects in his published theological works. As Swedenborg says, "Heaven's form by its very nature can never be fathomed even in a general way and is thus incomprehensible even to angels" (Heaven and Hell 212). The phrase is occasionally plural (as it appears later in the sentence in question here), and apparently these forms are varied ( Marriage Love 14[2]). The chief characteristics of these forms are that they are "human," they incorporate a great variety of elements into one harmonious arrangement, and each element can be viewed as the central one; see Secrets of Heaven 4040, 4043, 6607, 9846, 9877. Even household utensils in the spiritual world may have this form ( Marriage Love 137[7]). See also Heaven and Hell 202. [JSR, SS]
5. Heaven and Hell was published by Swedenborg in London at some time in 1758. It would seem from the references to that volume throughout New Jerusalem that the date of the composition of Heaven and Hell was likely to have been earlier than that of New Jerusalem. On the order of composition of Swedenborg's works of 1758, see the editors' preface to this volume, pages 29-33. [GFD]
6. The Latin word here translated "a joining together" is conjunctio. Swedenborg uses the word to denote the relationship that develops when two people or things come together, without either element losing its identity. It may be used of our relationship with the Lord as well as of the relationship between inanimate objects or qualities of the mind. [JSR]
7. On the function of a fullness and variety of many differing individuals or parts working harmoniously together in the approach to the perfection of a form, see note 3 in Other Planets 9. [Editors]
