THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT
part 1

Selection from Apocalypse Explained ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Thus far five commandments of the Decalogue have been explained. Now follows the explanation of the sixth commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Who at this day can believe that the delight of adultery is hell with man, and that the delight of marriage is heaven with him, consequently so far as man is in the one delight so far he is not in the other, because so far as man is in hell so far he is not in heaven? Who at this day can believe that the love of adultery is the fundamental love of all infernal and diabolical loves, and that the chaste love of marriage is the fundamental love of all heavenly and Divine loves; consequently so far as a man is in the love of adultery so far he is in every evil love, if not in act yet in endeavor; and on the other hand, so far as man is in the chaste love of marriage so far he is in every good love, if not in act yet in endeavor? Who at this day can believe that he who is in the love of adultery believes nothing of the Word, thus nothing of the church, and even in his heart denies God; and on the other hand, that he who is in the chaste love of marriage is in charity and in faith, and in love to God; also that the chastity of marriage makes one with religion, and the lasciviousness of adultery makes one with naturalism?

All this at this day is unknown because the church is at its end, and is devastated as to truth and as to good; and when the church is such, the man of the church, by influx from hell, comes into the persuasion that adulteries are not detestable things and abominations, and thus comes into the belief that marriages and adulteries do not differ in their essence, but only as a matter of order, and yet the difference between them is like the difference between heaven and hell. That such is the difference between them will be seen in what follows. This, then, is why in the Word in its spiritual sense heaven and the church are meant by nuptials and marriages, and hell and the rejection of all things of the church are meant in the Word in its spiritual sense by adulteries and whoredoms.

Since adultery is hell with man and marriage is heaven with him, it follows that so far as a man loves adultery he removes himself from heaven; consequently adulteries close heaven and open hell, and this they do so far as they are believed to be allowable and are perceived to be more delightful than marriages. The man, therefore, who confirms himself in adulteries and commits them from the favor and consent of his will, and turns away from marriage, closes heaven to himself, until finally he ceases to believe anything of the church or of the Word, and becomes a wholly sensual man, and after death an infernal spirit; for, as has been said above, adultery is hell, and thus an adulterer is a form of hell. And since adultery is hell it follows that unless a man abstains from adulteries and shuns them and turns away from them as infernal he shuts up heaven to himself, and does not receive the least influx therefrom. Afterwards he reasons that marriages and adulteries are alike, but that marriages must be maintained in kingdoms for the sake of order and on account of the education of offspring; also that adulteries are not criminal, since offspring are equally born from them; and they are not harmful to women, since they can endure them, and by them the procreation of the human race is promoted. He does not know that these and other like reasonings in favor of adulteries ascend from the Stygian waters of hell, and that the lustful and bestial nature of man which inheres in him from birth attracts them and sucks them in with delight, as a swine does excrement. That such reasonings, which at this day possess the minds of most men in the Christian world, are Stygian, will be seen in what follows.

That marriage is heaven and that adultery is hell cannot be better seen than from considering their origin. The origin of love truly conjugial is the Lord's love for the church and this is why the Lord is called in the Word the "Bridegroom" and the "Husband," and the church the "bride" and the "wife." It is from this marriage that the church is the church in general and in particular. The church in particular is a man in whom the church is. From this it is clear that the Lord's conjunction with a man of the church is the very origin of love truly conjugial; and how that conjunction can be the origin shall be told. The Lord's conjunction with a man of the church is a conjunction of good and truth; good is from the Lord, and truth is with man, and from this is the conjunction that is called the heavenly marriage. From that marriage, love truly conjugial exists between two partners that are in such conjunction with the Lord. From this it is now evident that love truly conjugial is from the Lord alone, and exists with those who are in the conjunction of good and truth from the Lord. As this conjunction is reciprocal it is said by the Lord that:

They are in Him, and He in them (John 14:20).

This conjunction or this marriage was thus established from creation. The man was created to be the understanding of truth, and the woman to be the affection of good; and thus the man to be truth, and the woman good. When the understanding of truth which is with the man makes one with the affection of good which is with the woman, there is a conjunction of the two minds into one. This conjunction is the spiritual marriage from which conjugial love descends. For when two minds are so conjoined as to be one mind there is love between them; and when this love, which is the love of spiritual marriage, descends into the body it becomes the love of natural marriage. That this is so anyone can clearly perceive if he will. A married pair who interiorly or as to their minds love each other mutually and reciprocally also love each other mutually and reciprocally as to their bodies. It is known that all love descends into the body from an affection of the mind, and that apart from such an origin no love exists.

Since then the origin of conjugial love is the marriage of good and truth, which marriage in its essence is heaven, it is clear that the origin of the love of adultery is the marriage of evil and falsity, which in its essence is hell. Heaven is a marriage because all who are in the heavens are in the marriage of good and truth; and hell is adultery because all who are in the hells are in the marriage of evil and falsity. From this it follows that marriage and adultery are as opposite as heaven and hell are.

Man was so created as to be spiritual and celestial love, and thus an image and likeness of God. Spiritual love, which is the love of truth, is the image of God; and celestial love, which is the love of good, is the likeness of God. All the angels in the third heaven are likenesses of God; and all the angels in the second heaven are images of God. Man can become the love which is an image or likeness of God only by a marriage of good and truth; for good and truth inmostly love one another, and ardently long to be united that they may be one; and for the reason that the Divine good and the Divine truth proceed from the Lord united, therefore they must be united in an angel of heaven and in a man of the church. This union is by no means possible except by the marriage of two minds into one, since, as has been said before, man was created to be the understanding of truth, and thus truth, and woman was created to be the affection of good, and thus good; therefore in them the conjunction of good and truth is possible. For conjugial love which descends from that conjunction is the veriest means by which man [homo] becomes the love that is the image or the likeness of God. For the two partners who are in conjugial love from the Lord love one another mutually and reciprocally from the heart, thus from inmosts; and therefore although apparently two they are actually one, two as to their bodies, but one as to life. This may be compared to the eyes, which are two as organs but one as to the sight; also to the ears, which are two as organs but one as to hearing; so, too, the arms and the feet are two as members but one as to use, the arms one as to action, and the feet one as to walking. So with the other pairs with man. All these have reference to good and truth, the organ or member on the right to good, and that on the left to truth. It is the same with a husband and wife between whom there is love truly conjugial; they are two as to their bodies but one as to life; consequently in heaven two partners are not called two angels but one. All this makes clear that through marriage man becomes a form of love, and thus a form of heaven, which is the image and likeness of God.

Man is born into the love of evil and falsity, which love is the love of adultery; and this love cannot be converted and changed into spiritual love, which is the image of God, and still less into celestial love, which is the likeness of God, except by the marriage of good and truth from the Lord, and not fully except by the marriage of two minds and two bodies. From this it is clear why marriages are heavenly and adulteries infernal; for marriage is an image of heaven, and love truly conjugial is an image of the Lord, while adultery is an image of hell, and love of adultery is an image of the devil. Moreover, conjugial love appears in the spiritual world in form like an angel, and the love of adultery in form like a devil. Reader, treasure this up within you, and after death, when you are living as a spirit-man, inquire whether this is true, and you will see.

How profane and thus how much to be detested adulteries are can be seen from the holiness of marriage. All things in the human body, from the head to the heel of the foot, both interior and exterior, correspond to the heavens, and in consequence man is a heaven in its least form, and also angels and spirits are in form perfectly human, for they are forms of heaven. All the members devoted to generation in both sexes, especially the womb, correspond to societies of the third or inmost heaven, and for the reason that love truly conjugial is derived from the Lord's love for the church, and from the love of good and truth which is the love of the angels of the third heaven; therefore conjugial love, which descends therefrom as the love of the heavens, is innocence, which is the very being [esse] of every good in the heavens. And for this reason embryos in the womb are in a state of peace, and after birth infants are in a state of innocence; so, too, is the mother in relation to them.

As this is the correspondence of the genital organs of both sexes, it is evident that from creation they are holy, and therefore they are devoted solely to chaste and pure conjugial love, and are not to be profaned by the unchaste and impure love of adultery, by which man converts the heaven with himself into hell; for as the love of marriage corresponds to the love of the highest heaven, which is love to the Lord from the Lord, so the love of adultery corresponds to the love of the lowest hell. The love of marriage is so holy and heavenly because it has its beginning in the inmosts of man from the Lord Himself, and it descends according to order to the ultimates of the body, and thus fills the whole man with heavenly love and brings him into a form of the Divine love, which is the form of heaven, and is an image of the Lord, as has been said above. But the love of adultery has its beginning in the ultimates of man from an impure lascivious fire there, and thus, contrary to order, penetrates towards the interiors, always into the things that are man's own [proprium], which are nothing but evil, and brings these into a form of hell, which is an image of the devil. Therefore a man who loves adultery and turns away from marriage is in form a devil.

As the organs of generation in each sex correspond to the societies of the third heaven, and the love of a marriage pair corresponds to the love of good and truth, so those organs and that love correspond to the Word. The reason is that the Word is the Divine truth united to the Divine good proceeding from the Lord; and this is why the Lord is called "the Word," also why in every particular of the Word there is a marriage of good and truth, or a heavenly marriage. That there is such a correspondence is an arcanum not yet known in the world, but it has been made evident and proved to me by much experience. From this also it is clear how holy and heavenly marriages are in themselves, and how profane and diabolical adulteries are. And for this reason adulterers make no account of Divine truths and thus of the Word, and if they were to speak from the heart they would even blaspheme the holy things that are in the Word. This they do when they have become spirits after death, for every spirit is compelled to speak from the heart that his interior thoughts may be revealed.

As all the delights that a man has in the natural world are turned into correspondences in the spiritual world, so are the delights of the love of marriage and the delights of the love of adultery. The love of marriage is represented in the spiritual world as a virgin, whose beauty is such as to inspire the beholder with the charms of life; while the love of adultery is represented in the spiritual world by an old woman, whose deformity is such as to inspire in the beholder a coldness and death to every charm of life. Therefore in the heavens the angels are beautiful according to the quality of conjugial love with them, and in the hells the spirits are deformed according to the quality of the love of adultery with them. In a word, the angels of heaven have life in their faces, in the movements of their body, and in their speech, according to their conjugial love, while the spirits of hell have death in their faces according to their love of adultery. In the spiritual world the delights of conjugial love are represented to the sense by odors from fruits and flowers of various kinds, while the delights of the love of adultery are there represented to the sense by the stenches from excrements and putridities of various kinds. Moreover, the delights of the love of adultery are actually turned into such things, since all things pertaining to adultery are spiritual filth. Therefore from the brothels in the hells stenches pour forth that excite vomiting.

How holy in themselves, that is, from creation, marriages are can be seen from the fact that they are seminaries of the human race; and as the angelic heaven is from the human race they are also the seminaries of heaven; consequently by marriages not only the earths but also the heavens are filled with inhabitants; and as the end of the entire creation is the human race, and thus heaven, where the Divine Itself may dwell as in its own and as it were in itself, and as the procreation of mankind according to Divine order is accomplished through marriages, it is clear how holy marriages are in themselves, that is, from creation, and thus how holy they should be esteemed. It is true that the earth might be filled with inhabitants by fornications and adulteries as well as by marriages, but not heaven; and for the reason that hell is from adulteries but heaven from marriages. Hell is from adulteries because adultery is from the marriage of evil and falsity, from which hell in the whole complex is called adultery; while heaven is from marriages because marriage is from the marriage of good and truth, from which heaven in its whole complex is called a marriage, as has been shown above in its proper article. That is called adultery where its love reigns, which is called the love of adultery, whether it be within matrimony or out of it, and that is called marriage where its love reigns, which is called conjugial love. Whether the earth might be filled with inhabitants by fornications and adulteries as well as by marriages will be further considered in the following article.

When procreations of the human race are effected by marriages in which the holy love of good and truth from the Lord reigns, then it is on earth as it is in the heavens, and the Lord's kingdom on earth corresponds to the Lord's kingdom in the heavens. For the heavens consist of societies arranged according to all the varieties of celestial and spiritual affections, from which arrangement the form of heaven springs, and this preeminently surpasses all other forms in the universe. There would be a like form on the earth if the procreations there were effected by marriages in which love truly conjugial reigned; for then, however many families might descend in succession from one head of a family, there would spring forth as many images of the societies of heaven in a like variety. Families would then be like fruit-bearing trees of various kinds, forming as many different gardens, each containing its own kind of fruit, and these gardens taken together would present the form of a heavenly paradise. This is said in the way of comparison, because "trees" signify men of the church, "gardens" intelligence, "fruits" goods of life, and "paradise" heaven. I have been told from heaven that with the most ancient people, from whom the first church on this globe was established, which was called by ancient writers the golden age, there was such a correspondence between families on the earth and societies in the heavens, because love to the Lord, mutual love, innocence, peace, wisdom, and chastity in marriage then reigned; and it was also told me from heaven that they were then inwardly horrified at adulteries, as at the abominable things of hell.

That heaven is from marriages and hell from adulteries has been shown above. What this means shall now be told. The hereditary evils into which man is born are not from Adam's having eaten of the tree of knowledge, but from the adulteration of good and the falsification of truth by parents, thus from the marriage of evil and falsity, from which the love of adultery exists. The ruling love of parents by means of an offshoot is derived from them and transcribed into the offspring and becomes its nature. If the love of the parents is the love of adultery it is also the love of evil for falsity and of falsity for evil. From this source man has all evil, and from evil he has hell. All this makes clear that it is from adulteries that man has hell, unless he is reformed by the Lord by means of truths and a life according to them. And no one can be reformed unless he shuns adulteries as infernal and loves marriages as heavenly. In this and in no other way is hereditary evil broken and rendered milder in the offspring.

It is to be noted, however, that while from adulterous parents man is born a hell, he is not born for hell but for heaven. For the Lord provides that no one shall be condemned to hell on account of hereditary evils, but only on account of the evils that the man has actually made his own by his life, as can be seen from the lot of infants after death, all of whom are adopted by the Lord, educated under His auspices in heaven, and saved. This makes clear that every man is born not for hell but for heaven, although from connate evils he is a hell. It is the same with every man born from adultery if he does not himself become an adulterer. Becoming an adulterer means living in the marriage of evil and falsity by thinking evils and falsities from a delight in them and by doing them from a love for them. Every man who does this becomes an adulterer. It is from Divine justice that no one is punished for the evils of his parents, but for his own; therefore the Lord provides that hereditary evils shall not return after death, but one's own evils, and it is for those that return that a man is then punished.

It has been said abode that the difference between the love of marriage and the love of adultery is like that between heaven and hell. There is a like difference between the delights of these loves; for delights derive their all from the loves from which they spring. The delights of the love of adultery derive what they are from the delights of doing evil uses, thus of evil doing; and the delights of the love of marriage from the delights of doing good uses, thus of well-doing. Therefore such as the delight of the evil is in doing evil such is the delight of their love of adultery; because the love of adultery descends therefrom. That it descends from that scarcely anyone can believe; and yet such is its origin. From this it is evident that the delight of adultery ascends from the lowest hell. But the delight of the love of marriage, since it is from the love of the conjunction of good and truth and from the love of doing good, is a heavenly delight; and it comes down from the inmost or third heaven, where love to the Lord from the Lord reigns.

From this it can be seen that the difference between these two delights is like that between heaven and hell. And yet, what is wonderful, it is believed that the delight of marriage and the delight of adultery are similar; nevertheless the difference between them is such as has now been described. But the difference can be discerned and felt only by one who is in the delight of conjugial love. One who is in that delight very clearly feels that in the delight of marriage there is nothing impure or unchaste, thus nothing lascivious; and that in the delight of adultery there is nothing but what is impure, unchaste, and lascivious. He feels that unchastity comes up from beneath, and that chastity comes down from above. But one who is in the delight of adultery is incapable of feeling this, because he feels what is infernal as his heavenly. From all this it follows that the love of marriage, even in its ultimate act, is purity itself and chastity itself; and that the love of adultery in its acts is impurity itself and unchastity itself. Since the delights of these two loves are alike in outward appearance, although inwardly they are wholly unlike, because opposites, the Lord provides that the delights of adultery shall not ascend into heaven and that the delights of marriage shall not descend into hell; and yet that there shall be some correspondence of heaven with prolification in adulteries, though none with the delight itself in them.

It has been said that conjugial love, which is natural, descends from the love of good and truth, which is spiritual; this spiritual therefore is in the natural love of marriage as a cause is in its effect. So from the marriage of good and truth there exists the love of bearing fruit, namely, good through truth and truth from good; and from that love the love of producing offspring descends, in which there is all delight and pleasure. On the contrary, the love of adultery, which is natural, exists from the love of evil and falsity, which is spiritual; consequently this spiritual is in the natural love of adultery as a cause is in its effect. So from the marriage of evil and falsity by love there exists the love of bearing fruit, namely, evil through falsity and falsity from evil; and from that love descends the love of producing offspring in adulteries, and in that love there is every delight and pleasure.

There is every delight and pleasure in the love of producing offspring, because all that is delightful, pleasurable, blessed and happy, in the whole heaven and in the whole world, has been from creation brought together in the effort and thus into the act of producing uses; and these joys increase in an ascending degree to eternity, according to the goodness and excellence of the uses. This makes evident why the pleasure of producing offspring, which surpasses every other pleasure, is so great. It surpasses every other because its use, which is the procreation of the human race, and thus of heaven, surpasses all other uses.

From this, too, comes the pleasure and delight of adultery; but as prolification through adulteries corresponds to the production of evil through falsity and of falsity from evil, that pleasure or delight decreases and becomes vile by degrees until it is changed at last into loathing and nausea. Because, as has been said above, the delight of the love of marriage is a heavenly delight, and the delight of adultery is an infernal delight, so the delight of adultery is from a certain impure fire, which as long as it lasts, counterfeits the delight of the love of good, but in itself it is the delight of the love of evil, which is in its essence the delight of hatred against good and truth. And because this is its origin there is no love between an adulterer and an adulteress except such as the love of hatred is, which is such that they can be in conjunction in externals but not in internals. For in the externals there is something fiery, but in the internals there is icy coldness; therefore after a short time the fire is extinguished and icy coldness succeeds, either with impotence or with aversion as from one filthy.

It has been granted me to see that love in its essence, and it was such that within it was deadly hatred, while without it appeared like a fire from burning dung and putrid and stinking matters. And as that fire with its delight burnt out, so by degrees the life of mutual discourse and interaction expired, and hatred came forth, manifested first as contempt, afterwards as aversion, then as rejection, and finally as blasphemy and fighting. And what was wonderful, although they hated each other they could from time to time come together and for the time feel the delight of hatred as the delight of love; but this came from an itching of the flesh.

What the delight of hatred and thus of doing evil is with those who are in hell can neither be described nor believed. To do evil is the joy of their heart, and this they call their heaven. Their delight in doing evil derives its all from hatred and vindictiveness against good and truth; when, therefore, they are moved by a deadly and diabolical hatred they rage against heaven, especially against those who are from heaven and who worship the Lord; for they violently burn to slaughter them, and because they cannot destroy their bodies they will to destroy their souls. It is, therefore, the delight of hatred which, becoming a fire in the extremes and being injected into the lusting flesh, becomes for the moment the delight of adultery-the soul in which the hatred lies concealed then withdrawing itself. It is for this reason that hell is called adultery, and also that adulterers are desperately unmerciful, savage and cruel. This, then, is the infernal marriage.

As adultery is fiery in the externals but cold in the internals, and as therefore the internal does not produce the external, as it does in marriages, but they mutually act against each other, so the man feels impotence if the woman desires the act, and still more if she importunes it; for the internal which is cold then comes into the effort and flows into what is fiery in the externals and extinguishes it, and so casts it off as unfit. Add to this that the lust of violating, which also enkindles that impure fire, then perishes.

It has been said that the love of adultery is a fire enkindled from impurities that soon burns out and is turned into cold, and into an aversion corresponding to hatred. But the reverse is true of the love of marriage. This is a fire enkindled from the love of good and truth and from the delight in well-doing, thus from love to the Lord and from love towards the neighbor. This fire, which from its origin is heavenly, is full of innumerable delights, as many, in fact, as are the delights and blessednesses of heaven. It has been told me that the charms and pleasantnesses of that love which are manifested from time to time are so many and such that they cannot be numbered or described. Moreover, they are multiplied with continual increase to eternity. These delights have their origin in the fact that the married pair wish to be united into one as to their minds, and into such a union heaven breathes from the marriage of good and truth from the Lord in heaven.

I will here say something about the marriages of angels in heaven. They declare that they are in continual potency, that after the acts there is never any weariness, still less any sadness, but eagerness of life and cheerfulness of mind, that the married pair pass the night in each other's bosoms as if they were created into one, that effects are constantly open, that they are never lacking when they have desire, since without these their love would be like the channel of a fountain stopped up. The effect opens that channel and causes continuance and conjunction that they may become as one flesh; for the vital of the husband adds itself to the vital of the wife and binds together. They declare that the delights of the effects cannot be described in the expressions of any language in the natural world, nor be thought of in any except spiritual ideas, and that even these do not exhaust them. These things have been told me by the angels.

That true conjugial love contains in itself so many ineffable delights that can neither be numbered nor described can be seen from the fact that this love is the fundamental love of all celestial and spiritual loves, since through that love man becomes love; for from it each of the marriage pair loves the other as good loves truth and truth loves good, thus representatively as the Lord loves heaven and the church. Such love can exist only through a marriage in which the man is truth and the wife is good. When a man through marriage has become such love he is also in love to the Lord and in love towards the neighbor, and thus in the love of all good and in the love of all truth. For from man as love there must proceed loves of every kind; therefore conjugial love is the fundamental love of all the loves of heaven. And as it is the fundamental love of all the loves of heaven it is also the fundamental of all the delights and joys of heaven, since every delight and joy is of love. From this it follows that heavenly joys, in their order and in their degrees, have their origins and their causes from conjugial love.

From the felicities of marriages a conclusion may be drawn respecting the infelicities of adulteries, namely, that the love of adultery is the fundamental love of all infernal loves, which are in themselves not loves, but hatreds; consequently from the love of adultery hatreds of every kind gush forth, both against God and against the neighbor, and in general against every good and truth of heaven and the church; therefore to it all infelicities belong, for, as has been said before, from adulteries man becomes a form of hell, and from the love of adulteries he becomes an image of the devil. That from the marriages in which there is true conjugial love all delight and felicities increase even to the delights and felicities of the inmost heaven, and that all that is undelightful and unhappy in the marriages in which the love of adultery reigns increases in direfulness even to the lowest hell, can be seen in the work on Heaven and Hell (n. 386).

Apocalypse Explained 980 - 993