Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
First Edition . .
Reprinted
Revised and Reprinted . .
1932
l 938
1964
of
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
WHAT MARRIAGE IS
A married pair who love each other are interiorly
united, and the essential of a marriage is the union of
dispositions and minds. Such as their essential dispositions or minds are, such is their union and such their
love for each other. (H.H. 375.)
It is internal conjunction, or conjunction of souls,
which makes marriage. (C.L. 49.)
Conjugial love is such that the love existing mutually
between the partners is so intense that they desire to be
one, and each to impart to the other whatever is his own.
(S.D. 4192.)
He who does not live in the love of faith cannot live
in the true love of marriage and although he may seem to
himself to do so, yet it is nothing else than a certain
kind of adultery or lewdness. (S.D. 4076.)
The conjunction of two minds into one is the spiritual
marriage from which descends conjugial love. For when
two minds are conjoined so as to be one mind, there is
love between them, and this love which is the love of
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BETROTHAL, OR ENGAGEMENT
After the declaration of consent, pledges are to be
given, that is, gifts, which are tokens of mutual consent.
Because love is in them, those favours are dearer and
more precious than all other gifts. It is as though their
hearts were in them. (C.L. 300.)
The consent is to be strengthened and confirmed by
formal betrothal. (C.L. 3or.)
By betrothal, each is prepared for conjugial love; the
mind of the one is conjoined to the mind of the other,
so that a marriage of the spirit may take place before
that of the body. (C.L. 302-3.)
During the time of betrothal, it is not allowable to be
conjoined corporeally; for thus the order which is inscribed on conjugial love perishes.
In human minds there are three regions, the highest of
which is called celestial, the middle spiritual, and the
lowest natural. It is into this lowest region that man is
born. He ascends into his higher region, the spiritual,
by a life according to the truths of religion, and into the
highest by the marriage of love and wisdom.
Conjugial love if it is to become chaste, must be
elevated from the lowest region into the highest that
from what is chaste it may then be let down through the
middle and lowe ~ t regions into the body. When this is
done, this lowest region is purified of its unchastities by
the descent of what is chaste, and then the ultimate of
II
(H.H. 382.)
15
(C.L.
222.)
16
With those who are in truly conjugial love, the happiness of dwelling together increases, but with those who
are not in conjugial love it decreases. This is because
they love each other mutually with every sense. The
wife sees nothing more lovable than the man, and the
man nothing more lovable than the wife. (C.L. i.13.)
LOVE OF CHILDREN
The sphere of the love of infants is a sphere of
protection and support of those who cannot support
themselves. (C.L. 391.)
With spiritual partners the love of infants is the same
in appearance as the love of infants with natural partners,
but it is more internal and hence more tender, inasmuch
as it exists from the innocence with themselves, and
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NO INFERENCE TO BE DRAWN
There are marriages in which there is no appearance
of conjugial love and yet it is there, and there are
marriages in which there is an appearance of conjugial
love and yet it is not there.
Conclusion as to whether a man has or has not
conjugial love must not be made from the appearance
of marriage. Therefore, Judge not, thatye be not condemned
(Matt. vii, I). (C.L. 53i.)
FOR THE UNMARRIED
For those who desire truly conjugial love the Lord
provides similitudes, and if not given on earth, He
provides them in the heavens. (C.L. 229.)