THE SEVENTH & EIGHTH COMMANDMENT
Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
In what now follows something shall be
said about the seventh commandment, which is, "Thou shalt not kill."
In all the commandments of the Decalogue, as in all things of the
Word, two internal senses are involved (besides the highest which is
a third), one that is next to the letter and is called the spiritual
moral sense, another that is more remote and is called the spiritual
celestial sense. The nearest sense of this commandment, "Thou shalt
not kill," which is the spiritual moral sense, is that one must not
hate his brother or neighbor, and thus not defame or slander him;
for thus he would injure or kill his reputation and honor, which is
the source of his life among his brethren, which is called his civil
life, and afterwards he would live in society as one dead, for he
would be numbered among the vile and wicked, with whom no one would
associate. When this is done from enmity, from hatred, or from
revenge, it is murder. Moreover, by many in the world this life is
counted and esteemed in equal measure with the life of the body. And
before the angels in the heavens he that destroys this life is held
to be as guilty as if he had destroyed the bodily life of his
brother. For enmity, hatred, and revenge, breathe murder and will
it; but they are restrained and curbed by fear of the law, of
resistance, and of loss of reputation. And yet these three are
endeavors towards murder; and every endeavor is like an act, for it
goes forth into act when fear is removed. This is what the Lord
teaches in Matthew:
Ye have heard that it was said to
them of old, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall
be liable to the judgment. But I say unto you, that whosoever is
angry with his brother rashly shall be liable to the judgment;
whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be liable to the
council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be liable to
the Gehenna of fire (5:21-26).
This may be seen explained above (n.
693, 746).
But the more remote sense of this
commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," which is called the celestial
spiritual sense, is that one shall not take away from man the faith
and love of God, and thus his spiritual life. This is murder itself,
because from this life man is a man, the life of the body serving
this life as the instrumental cause serves its principal cause.
Moreover, from this spiritual murder moral murder is derived;
consequently one who is in the one is also in the other; for he who
wills to take away a man's spiritual life is in hatred against him
if he cannot take it away, for he hates the faith and love with him,
and thus the man himself. These three, namely, spiritual murder,
which pertains to faith and love, moral murder, which pertains to
reputation and honor, and natural murder, which pertains to the
body, follow in a series one from the other, like cause and effect.
As all who are in hell are in hatred
against the Lord, and thus in hatred against heaven, for they are
against goods and truths, so hell is the essential murderer or the
source of essential murder. It is the source of essential murder
because man is man from the Lord through the reception of good and
truth; consequently to destroy good and truth is to destroy the
human itself, thus to kill man.
That those who are in hell are such
has not yet been known in the world, because with those who belong
to hell and therefore after death come into hell, there does not
appear any hatred against good and truth, nor against heaven, nor
still less against the Lord. For everyone while he lives in the
world is in externals; and these externals are taught and trained
from infancy to counterfeit such things as are honest and decorous,
just and equitable, and good and true. Nevertheless, hatred lies
concealed in their spirit, and this in equal degree with the evil of
their life. And as hatred is in the spirit it breaks forth when the
externals are laid aside, as is the case after death.
This infernal hatred
against all who are in good is deadly hatred because it is hatred
against the Lord. This can be seen particularly from their delight
in doing evil, which is such as to exceed in degree every other
delight, for it is a fire that burns with the lust for destroying
souls. Moreover, it has been ascertained that this delight is not
from hatred against those whom they attempt to destroy, but from
hatred against the Lord Himself. Now since man is a man from the
Lord, and the human which is from the Lord is good and truth, and
since those who are in hell are, from a hatred against the Lord,
eager to kill the human, which is good and truth, it follows that
hell is the source of murder itself.
From what has been said above it can
be seen that all who are in evils as to life, and in the falsities
therefrom, are murderers; for they are enemies and haters of good
and truth, since evil hates good and falsity hates truth. The evil
man does not know that he is in such hatred until he becomes a
spirit; then hatred is the very delight of his life. Consequently
from hell, where all the evil are, there constantly breathes forth
the delight in doing evil from hatred; but from heaven, where all
the good are, there constantly breathes forth the delight in doing
good from love. Therefore two opposite spheres meet each other in
the middle region between heaven and hell, and engage in reciprocal
combat. While man lives in the world he is in this middle region. If
he is then in evil and in falsities therefrom he passes over to the
side of hell, and thus comes into the delight of doing evil from
hatred. But if he is in good and in truths therefrom, he passes over
to the side of heaven, and thus comes into the delight of doing good
from love.
The delight of doing
evil from hatred, which breathes forth from hell, is the delight in
killing. But as they cannot kill the body they wish to kill the
spirit; and to kill the spirit is to take away spiritual life, which
is the life of heaven. This makes clear that the commandment, "Thou
shalt not kill," involves also "thou shalt not hate thy neighbor,
also thou shalt not hate the good of the church and its truth;" for
if one hates good and truth he hates the neighbor; and to hate is to
wish to kill. This is why the devil, by whom hell in the whole
complex is meant, is called by the Lord, "A murderer from the
beginning" (John 8:44).
Since hatred, which is to will to
kill, is the opposite of love to the Lord and also of love towards
the neighbor, and since these loves are what make heaven with man,
it is evident that hatred, being thus opposite, is what makes hell
with him. Nor is infernal fire anything else than hatred; and in
consequence the hells appear to be in a fire with a dusky glow
according to the quality and quantity of the hatred, and in a fire
with a dusky flame according to the quantity and quality of the
revenge from hatred.
Since hatred and love are direct
opposites, and since hatred in consequence constitutes hell with
man, just as love constitutes heaven with him, therefore the Lord
thus teaches:
If thou shalt offer thy gift upon
the altar, and shalt there remember that thy brother hath aught
against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go; first
be reconciled to thy brother, and then coming, offer thy gift. Be
well disposed towards thine adversary whiles thou art in the way
with him; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and
the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt not come out thence till thou
hast paid the last farthing (Matt. 5:23-26).
To be delivered to the
judge, and by the judge to the officer, and by him to be cast into
prison, describes the state of the man who is in hatred after death
from his having been in hatred against his brother in the world,
"prison" meaning hell, and "to pay the last farthing" signifies the
punishment that is called everlasting fire.
Since hatred is infernal fire it is
clear that it must be removed before love, which is heavenly fire,
can flow in, and by light from itself give life to man; and this
infernal fire can in no wise be removed unless man knows whence
hatred is and what it is, and afterwards turns away from it and
shuns it. There is in every man by inheritance hatred against the
neighbor; for every man is born into the love of self and of the
world, and in consequence conceives hatred, and from it is inflamed
against all who do not make one with him and favor his love,
especially against those who oppose his lusts. For no one can love
himself above all things and love the Lord at the same time; neither
can anyone love the world above all things and love the neighbor at
the same time; since no one can serve two masters at the same time
without despising and hating the one while he honors and loves the
other. Hatred is especially with those who are in the love of ruling
over all; with others it is enmity.
It shall be told what
hatred is. Hatred has in itself a fire which is an endeavor to kill
man. That fire is manifested by anger. There is a seeming hatred and
consequent anger with the good against evil; but this is not hatred,
but an aversion to evil; neither is it anger, but a zeal for good in
which heavenly fire inwardly lies concealed. For the good turn away
from evil, and are seemingly angry at the neighbor, in order that
they may remove the evil; and thus they have regard to the
neighbor's good.
When a man abstains
from hatred and turns away from it and shuns it as diabolical, then
love, charity, mercy and clemency flow in through heaven from the
Lord, and then first the works which he does are works of love and
charity. The works he had done before, however good might be their
appearance in the external form, were all works of the love of self
and of the world, in which hatred lurked whenever they were not
rewarded. So long as hatred is not put away so long man is merely
natural; and the merely natural man remains in all his inherited
evil, nor can he become spiritual before hatred, with its root,
which is the love of ruling over all, is removed; for the fire of
heaven, which is spiritual love, cannot flow in so long as the fire
of hell, which is hatred, stands in the way and shuts it out.
The eighth commandment
of the Decalogue, "Thou shalt not bear false witness," shall now be
explained. "To bear false witness" signifies in the sense nearest to
the letter to lie about the neighbor by accusing him falsely. But in
the internal sense it signifies to call what is just unjust, and
what is unjust just, and to confirm this by means of falsities;
while in the inmost sense it signifies to falsify the truth and good
of the Word, and on the other hand to prove a falsity of doctrine to
be true by confirming it by means of fallacies, appearances,
fabrications, knowledges falsely applied, sophistries and the like.
The confirmations themselves and the consequent persuasions are
false witnesses, for they are false testimonies. From this it can be
seen that what is here meant is not only false witness before a
judge, but even a judge himself who in perverting right makes what
is just unjust, and what is unjust just, for he as well as the
witness himself acts the part of a false witness. The same is true
of every man who makes what is right to appear crooked, and what is
crooked to appear right; likewise any ecclesiastical leader who
falsifies the truth of the Word and perverts its good. In a word,
every falsification of truth, spiritual, moral, and civil, which is
done from an evil heart, is false witness.
When a man abstains
from false testimonies understood in a moral and spiritual sense,
and shuns and turns away from them as sins, the love of truth and
the love of justice flow in from the Lord through heaven. And when,
in consequence the man loves truth and loves justice he loves the
Lord, for the Lord is truth itself and justice itself. And when a
man loves truth and justice it may be said that truth and justice
love him, because the Lord loves him; and as a consequence his
utterances become utterances of truth, and his works become works of
justice.
Apocalypse Explained
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