Index Rerum (1) in Apocalypsi Revelata #0

Preface (in English) to the First Draft of the Index to Apocalypse Revealed

Recently the Heavenly Doctrine Publishing Foundation (HDPF) sponsored the scanning of the entire collection of the works of Swedenborg at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. Among these works was Codex 7 which contains a first draft of an index made by Swedenborg for Apocalypse Revealed. This index is made mostly on the right page of the codex with some entries extending onto the facing page on the left. On the facing pages Swedenborg also made an index to the first 83 numbers of a work on marriage, the text of which has been lost. (See the preface to the Indexes to Angelic Wisdom concerning Marriage.)

Although the fair copy or Second Draft of the Index to The Apocalypse Revealed has been transcribed and published in Latin in 1813 and 1881, the text of the first draft of this Index has, to the best of this editor's knowledge, never been transcribed before. To accompany the scans of Codex 7, the Latin text of this rough draft now been transcribed. Because of the difficulty of reading Swedenborg's handwriting in the first draft, the editor made extensive use of the Latin electronic text of the fair copy. For more information on the transcription of the first draft of this Index please see the preface to the Latin edition of this work done in the year 2021.

After transcribing the text of the first draft, a translation was made of this index making extensive use of the English translation by John Whitehead of the second draft, or fair copy, of this index found at the end of the second volume of the Apocalypse Revealed published by the Swedenborg Foundation.

Although the content of the first draft is quite similar to that of the fair copy or second draft, the order and wording of the entries are often different. The first draft was clearly made by reading through the work The Apocalypse Revealed from beginning to end, making entries under the different subjects as he read through it. For this reason, the references under each subject are usually in the order of the book. But the second draft of this index was made from the first, the entries were rearranged and usually combined, and often more words were used to fill out the idea. Occasionally new entries and references were added, or entries and references from the first draft were left out.

[%2] In this first English edition of The First Draft of the Index to the Apocalypse Revealed, we have kept the notes made in the Latin transcription to indicate some of the differences between the first draft and the fair copy, especially when something is found in one index and not in the other. In a few cases certain words indexed in the first draft were not transferred to the fair copy. (See the entries for Benedictio, Jesabel and Spatium.). We have also used special marks to indicate the differences between the first and second drafts as follows:

[%3] Those using this Index will also find other notes and abbreviations as follows:

In general followed the style of Whitehead's by using parentheses around the references to other subjects in the index, e.g. (See #103 Heaven.) We have also maintained the use of quotation marks around words from Scripture. The manuscript uses neither parentheses nor quotation marks in this way. But key words are underlined, but these in this translation these are marked by an & or # followed by a number.

Often accompanying the references to the Apocalypse Revealed, the reader will see certain abbreviations such as sho., ill., and illustr.. These are from the manuscript, when sho. stands for ost. which is short for ostensum or shown, and ill. and illustr. are abbreviations for illustrated. We find the following explanation of these abbreviations in the manuscript of the second draft of the index as follows: "In this Index, Ill. or illustrated signifies more fully explained, and Ost. signifies shown from the Word." In the first draft these abbreviations are usually written out more fully as ostens. and illustr., but the shorter forms are used as well.

Frequent use of the abbreviation sign. is also found in the manuscript. This can stand for both the active or passive forms of the Latin verb for signify (significat). When it clearly refers to the passive we have supplied the verb to be in front of sign. as part of the translation. E.g. "By 'height' is sign. the good and truth of the church in every degree."

[%4] As this is the first time this first index to The Apocalypse Revealed has been translated into English, there are most likely some errors in in the text, and the HDPF would be quite thankful if readers would let us know of any mistakes that you may come across when using this translation. The easiest way to let us know is by sending an e-mail to andyhdpf@kncs.org.

Although it was a struggle to transcribe accurately what was written as a first draft by the Lord through Swedenborg, and then to rearrange Whitehead's translation, or translate something not in the Fair Copy, it is also a joy and a privilege to bring to the light in both Latin and English what has been hidden away in a manuscript for over 250 years.

Andrew J. Heilman, secretary of the HDPF.

Kempton, PA - August 2022