Conjugial Love (Acton) n. 65

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

65. V. THAT IT IS ALSO THE FUNDAMENTAL LOVE OF ALL CELESTIAL AND SPIRITUAL LOVES, AND THENCE OF ALL NATURAL LOVES. The reason why conjugial love, regarded in its essence, is the fundamental love of all the loves of heaven and the Church, is because its origin is from the marriage of good and truth, and from this marriage proceed all the loves which make heaven and the Church with man. The good of this marriage makes the love, and the truth thereof makes the wisdom; and when love approaches wisdom and conjoins itself therewith, then love becomes love; and when wisdom in turn approaches love and conjoins itself therewith, then wisdom becomes wisdom. Love truly conjugial is nothing else than the conjunction of love and wisdom. Two married partners, between whom is this love, that is, who are in it simultaneously, are an effigy and form of the love; and in the heavens, where faces are genuine types of the affections of their love, all angels are likenesses of it, for, as already shown [no. 37], it is within them in their whole being and in every part thereof. Now since two married partners are this love in effigy and form, it follows that every love which proceeds from the very form of love is a likeness thereof. Therefore, if conjugial love is celestial and spiritual, the loves proceeding from it are also celestial and spiritual. Conjugial love, therefore, is like a parent, and all other loves like his offspring. Hence it is, that from the marriages of angels in the heavens are generated spiritual offspring which are the offspring of love and wisdom or good and truth. Concerning this generation, see no. 51 above.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church