Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 150

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

150. VIII. THAT CHASTITY CANNOT BE PREDICATED OF INFANTS; NOR OF BOYS AND GIRLS: NOR OF YOUTHS AND VIRGINS BEFORE THEY FEEL THE LOVE OF THE SEX IN THEMSELVES. The reason is because the chaste and the unchaste are predicated solely of marriages and of such things as pertain to marriages (see above, no. 139), and with those who know nothing concerning things conjugial, there is no predication of chastity. With them, it is as nothing, and there can be no affection of nothing, nor can there be any thought concerning it. But with the first sensation of the conjugial,* which pertains to love of the sex, then, after that nothing, springs up a something. That virgins and youths are commonly called chaste until they feel the love of the sex within themselves, comes from ignorance of what chastity is. * The Latin is conjugii (of marriage), but the apposition of love of the sex indicates that it should be conjugialis as in the translation.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church