15.教会里的人持有这些观念的另一个原因是，他们以为在最后审判之前，没有人会上天堂或下地狱；并且他们所以为的最后审判是这样：到那时，可见的世界会毁灭，一个新的世界将要出现；灵魂将返回它的肉体，人因它们的结合而再次作为人活着。这种信念牵涉到关于天使的另一个信念，即：他们是起初被造的；因为相信在世界结束之前，没有人上天堂或下地狱，就不可能相信天堂和地狱皆来自人类。
但为叫人确信事实并非如此，我蒙允许与天使相交，还与地狱里的人交谈，这种互动如今已经进行许多年了，有时甚至从早上一直持续到晚上；我以这种方式得到关于天堂和地狱的指教。这是为了让教会之人对审判之日的复活，在此期间灵魂的状态，以及天使和魔鬼的性质不再持守错误的信仰。这些信仰都是虚假的，故充满黑暗；对那些出于自己的聪明思想这类事的人来说，这些信仰会导致怀疑，最终导致否认。因为他们心里说：“如此浩瀚的穹苍，如此众多的星辰，如何能与日月一道毁灭和消散？比地球还大的众星如何能从天上坠落于地？被虫子吃光、腐烂净尽并分散于四风的尸体如何能为自己的灵魂再次收聚？而在此期间，灵魂又在哪里？没有在身体中所拥有的感觉，灵魂算什么呢？这些和许多类似问题因无法理解，故成了不可信的。对许多人来说，这些问题甚至摧毁了对人的永生、天堂和地狱，以及教会信仰的其它一切原则的信念。
这种摧毁从问下面这些话的人身上明显看出来，即：有谁从天上来告诉我们这是真的？什么是地狱？它真的存在吗？人永远被火折磨是什么意思？什么叫审判之日？人们岂不是徒然等候数百年了吗？以及涉及否认这一切的更多问题。为防止如此思想的人（如大多数因拥有世俗的专业知识而被视为博学，受过良好教育的人所行的那样）不再扰乱并迷惑信仰和心思都很简单的人，在神、天堂、永生和相关主题上带来地狱的黑暗，主打开我灵的内层。这使得我与所有活在肉身时我所认识并已死去的人交谈成为可能；其中，有的交谈了数天，有的交谈了数月，有的交谈了一整年。我还与其他许多人交谈过，这些人保守来说也有十万，他们当中有很多在天堂的，也有很多在地狱的。
我与过世才两天的人也有过交谈，告之其葬礼正在筹备；对于葬礼，他们说，他们很高兴能够脱去为肉体及其在世上的功能而服务于他们的东西，并想让我说，他们没有死，而是仍作为人活着，和以前一样，只是从一个世界跨入另一个世界。他们说，他们没有意识到自己有任何损失，因为他们仍拥有跟以前一样的一个身体和身体感觉，也有跟以前一样的一个理解力和一个意愿；因此，他们的思维和情感，感官知觉，快乐和欲望都世上的一样。
大多数刚刚死去的人，当发现自己仍作为人活着，和以前一样，并处于相似的状态时，都因还活着而有喜从天降的感觉，声称他们从来没有想到事情会是这样。每个人死后的生命状态一开始都和在世时一样，但会逐渐发生变化，或进入天堂或进入地狱。他们也非常惊讶他们以前对自己死后的生命状态如此无知和盲目，更惊讶的是，教会成员竟然也如此无知和盲目；而在全世界所有人当中，他们是最应该在这些问题上得到光照的。
这时，他们才第一次看到这种盲目和无知的原因。也就是说，外在事物，就是世俗和肉体事物，如此占据并充满他们的心智，以致他们无法被提升到天堂之光，从而看见超越教会教义的教会事物。因为当肉体和世俗事物如今天那样受到欢迎和热爱时，纯粹的黑暗就从这些事物流入，充满凡想要超越其教会教义的规定而思想天上事物之人的心智。
15. Another reason people in the church have these ideas is that they believe no one will get to heaven or hell before the Last Judgment; and the picture of the Last Judgment they have adopted is that everything visible to the eye is going to be destroyed, that new things will come into being, and that souls will be reunited to their bodies, allowing people to live as human beings again. 1This belief goes along with another, namely, a belief in angels as beings created in the beginning, since you cannot believe that heaven and hell are from humankind when you believe that no human being will get to heaven or hell until the end of the world.
[2] To convince people that this is not the case, I have been allowed to meet with angels and have conversations with people in hell. I have been engaged in this interaction for many years now, 2sometimes without interruption from morning to evening; and in this way I have been taught about heaven and hell. This has happened so that people of the church will no longer remain in their misconceived beliefs about a resurrection on Judgment Day, about the state of souls in the meanwhile, and about the nature of angels and the Devil. Because these beliefs are false, they are full of darkness; and for people who base their thinking about these matters on a sense of their own intelligence, these beliefs lead to doubt and ultimately to denial. They say in their hearts, “How can such a vast heaven with so many stars, with the sun and the moon, be destroyed and disintegrate? How can stars then fall to earth from heaven, stars that are larger than the earth is? How can bodies that have been eaten by worms, devoured by rot, or scattered to the winds be reassembled and reattached to their souls, and where have these souls been in the meanwhile? What kind of experience have these souls been having without the physical senses they had in their bodies?” 3These and many similar questions, because they are incomprehensible, are not believable; for many, they even destroy belief in our eternal life, in heaven and hell, and in all the rest of the principles of the church's faith.
[3] We can see this destruction taking place in people who say, “Who has come from heaven and told us that this is true? 4What is hell? Does it actually exist? What is this business of people being tormented by fire to eternity? What is the Judgment Day? Haven't people been waiting in vain for it for centuries?” All this and more, leading to a rejection of everything. 5
To prevent people who think this way-as most people do who are held to be learned and well educated because they have worldly expertise-from further distressing and misleading people of simple faith and heart and bringing about hellish darkness in regard to God, heaven, eternal life, and related matters, the Lord has opened the deeper levels of my spirit. This has made it possible for me to talk after their deaths with all the people I have ever known during their physical lives; with some of these I have talked for days, with some for months, with some for a whole year. I have also talked with so many other people that saying there were a hundred thousand of them would be an understatement. Many of these were in the heavens and many were in the hells.
I have talked with some people on the third day after they died, and have told them that arrangements were being made for their burial and funeral, which prompted them to say that they had done well in casting off what had served them for a body and its functions in the world. They wanted me to tell [their loved ones] that they were not dead but alive, and were just as human now as ever. They said they had simply crossed over from one world into another and had no awareness of having lost anything, since they had a body and sensory faculties just as they had had before; they had understanding and will just as before; they had the same kinds of thoughts and feelings, the same kinds of sensations, even the same kinds of pleasures and desires as they had had in the world.
[4] Many who have just died, on seeing that they are still people and are still alive as they were before, and in similar circumstances (since for all of us, our first state after death is much like the one we had in the world, though this changes gradually for us into either heaven or hell), are touched with a new joy at being alive and say they had not believed it would be like this. They are also absolutely amazed that they had been so ignorant and blind about what happens to us after death, and are even more amazed that people in the church have the same ignorance and blindness, even though they of all people on the planet have access to light on such matters. 6
[5] Then they begin for the first time to see the reason for this blindness and ignorance-that outward concerns, worldly and bodily preoccupations, 7had so completely taken over and filled their minds that they could not be raised into heaven's light and look beyond the things they had been taught, and so see what the church is really all about. When bodily and worldly things are loved as much as they are nowadays, nothing but utter darkness flows in from them when we try to think about heavenly realities beyond the teachings on faith proclaimed by our church.
Footnotes:
1. On the belief that all people who have died will be resurrected in their physical bodies at the end of the world, an event commonly identified with the Last Judgment, see note 1 in Other Planets 165. [Editors]
2. The exact point of commencement of Swedenborg's daily, waking, ongoing interaction with angels and spirits is variously stated in his writings. To cite just a few representative examples: (1) In a diary passage apparently written in early 1746, Swedenborg states that his interaction with spirits and angels dates a medio Aprilis 1745, “from mid-April 1745” (Spiritual Experiences [= Swedenborg 1998-2013] [8a]). (2) In two later passages, one in a theological manuscript of early 1763 and one in a letter of November 11, 1766, he assigns the commencement a date of 1744 (for the manuscript, see Draft on Divine Wisdom chapter 7, item 1 = 95 [Mongredien's numbering] [= Swedenborg 1994-1997c, 480]; for the letter, see Acton 1948-1955, 627). (3) In a still later letter to a British follower, Thomas Hartley (1708-1784), on August 5, 1769, he states that his sight was “opened into the spiritual world” in 1743 (Acton 1948-1955, 679). In other words, as the years passed, Swedenborg saw the commencement of his interaction as having occurred earlier and earlier. Some of this variation may derive from his changing assessment of which event constituted the true beginning of his spiritual experiences. Even if the variations are taken at face value, the dates that he mentions for this commencement all fall within the range 1743-1745. See Tafel 1877, 1118-1127, for a list of the relevant passages, with discussion. For a detailed account of the onset of Swedenborg's spiritual experiences, see Acton 1927, 26-118. [JSR, GFD, SS]
3. The popular belief concerning the future cosmic cataclysm described here is based on biblical passages such as Isaiah 13:9-13; 34:1-4; Revelation 21:1. In particular, the belief that the stars will fall is based on a literal interpretation of such biblical passages as Matthew 24:29; Mark 13:25; Revelation 6:13; 12:4. On the belief that bodies will be raised from the dead in the flesh, see note 1 in Other Planets 165. Swedenborg decries these beliefs in many passages, including Secrets of Heaven 931, 1850, 2117-2133; Heaven and Hell 312; Revelation Unveiled 877; Marriage Love 182:6; True Christianity 769-771. [LSW, SS]
4. On the theme of going to the spiritual world and returning to report on it, see note 2 in Other Planets 124. [Editors]
5. While Swedenborg's characterization of the nonbeliever's position is fairly general, it does reflect a polemic that took place in his time, as the eighteenth-century Enlightenment brought the validity and necessity of the Christian revelation into serious question for the first time since the creation of a monolithic European “Christendom” during the Middle Ages. Most of Christianity's Enlightenment “deniers” were not atheists but Deists, who thought the existence of a benevolent and all-powerful God could be deduced from a rational contemplation of the elegant design of the universe. English Deists such as John Toland (1670-1722) and Matthew Tindal (1657-1733) argued that the Christian revelation was indeed authentic but provided no truths that human reason could not discern unaided. In France, more vehemently anticlerical thinkers such as Voltaire (1694-1778) rejected Christianity as a superstitious impediment to any true understanding of the Supreme Being. Atheism proper, however, was never openly professed, probably because of the threat of legal penalties, though it certainly can be documented among the members of the upper classes. One notable example of atheism can be found in the French salon of Paul-Henri Dietrich, Baron d'Holbach (1723-1789), who hosted radical luminaries like Denis Diderot (1713-1784) and published his own antitheistic polemics under a variety of pseudonyms (Kors 2003, 2:213-215). Another well-known atheist was the Catholic priest Jean Meslier (1664-1729), whose memoir repudiating Christianity in its entirety was discovered after his death. His book was subsequently abridged and published by Voltaire, and the abridgment includes such passages as: “What then are the worthless resources of these Christ-worshipers? . . . Their miracles? But what people do not have their own such things, and who among the wise do not scorn them as fables? Their prophecies? Has not their falsity been proven? . . . Their doctrine? But is that not the height of absurdity?” (Meslier 1830, 363-364; translated by SS). On the further movement from Deism to atheism in the later Enlightenment, see note 1 in Last Judgment 16. [RS, DNG, SS]
6. [Swedenborg note] Nowadays, few people in the Christian world believe that after we die we immediately rise again: preface to Genesis 16, 4622, 10758. They believe instead that our resurrection will happen when the visible world is destroyed at the time of the Last Judgment: 10595. The reason for this belief:10595, 10758. But in fact we do rise again immediately after death, and are then complete human beings in every detail: 4527, 5006, 5078, 8939, 10594, 10758. The “soul” that lives after death is the human spirit, the true self that lies within us; in the other life it has a complete human form (322, 1880, 1881, 3633, 4622, 4735, 5883, 6054, 6605, 6626, 7021, 10594); illustrated by eyewitness experience (4527, 5006, 8939); illustrated from the Word (10597). An explanation of what is meant by the dead appearing in the holy city in Matthew 27:53: 9229. How we are revived from death: 168–189 (described on the basis of personal experience). Our state after being revived: 317, 318, 319, 2119, 5078, 10596. Some wrong opinions concerning the soul and resurrection: 444, 445, 4527, 4622, 4658.
7. On the meaning of the word “bodily” here, see note 3 in New Jerusalem 9 and note 3 in Last Judgment 38.[Editors]
15. A further reason why people in the church hold such views is that they believe that no one can go to heaven or to hell before the time of the Last Judgment. On this subject they have come to believe that everything visible will then be destroyed and be replaced by new things; that each soul will then return to its proper body, and on joining up the person will resume a personal life. This belief carries with it the other one about angels being created from the beginning. For it is impossible to believe that heaven and hell are from the human race, if it is thought that people go there only at the end of the world.
[2] But I have been allowed, so as to convince people that this is untrue, to associate with angels and to talk with those in hell, and this for many years now, sometimes from morning till evening without a break, and so to learn about heaven and hell. This has been allowed in order to prevent people in the church from persisting in their mistaken belief about resurrection on the day of Judgment, about the state of the soul meanwhile, as well as about angels and the Devil. This being a belief in what is false, brings with it darkness, and plunges into doubt those who use their own intelligence to think about these subjects, so that they end up denying them. For they say to themselves, 'How can the vastness of the sky with all its many constellations, along with the sun and the moon, be destroyed and scattered? How can the stars then fall out of the sky upon the earth, when they are bigger than the earth? And how can bodies which have been eaten by worms, or rotted away and scattered to the four winds, be reconstructed to join their souls? Where do souls live meanwhile, and what are they like if they lack the power of sensation they had in the body?' They add many similar arguments which, being incomprehensible, pass belief, and in many cases destroy belief in personal everlasting life, heaven and hell, and consequently all the rest of the church's beliefs.
[3] The destruction of faith is plain from people who say: 'Who has come to us from heaven and told us that it exists? What about hell? Is there such a place? What about people being tortured in fire for ever? What is the day of Judgment? Have not people been waiting for it for ages, and in vain?' And a great deal more, which leads to a denial of everything. So to prevent those who think like this - and most of those do who have a reputation as educated and learned men as the result of their worldly wisdom - going on upsetting and leading astray those who have a simple belief and affection, throwing the darkness of hell over God, heaven, everlasting life and the other beliefs dependent on these, the Lord has laid open the interiors of my spirit. I have thus been permitted to speak after their death with all the people whom I had known in bodily life. In some cases this has been for days, in others for months, with others for a year, as well as with so many others that a hundred thousand would be an underestimate. Many of these were in the heavens and many in the hells. I have also spoken with some only two days after they died, and told them that their funerals and burial-services were being arranged. In reply they said they were happy to cast off what had served them for a body and its functions in the world, and they wanted me to say that they were not dead, but were living as human beings just as much as they were before, having only passed from one world into another. They said they were unaware of having suffered any loss, since they still had a body and bodily sense-perceptions as before, as well as an intellect and a will as before, so that their thoughts and affections, their sense-perceptions, pleasures and desires were all similar to those they had had in the world.
[4] Most of the recently dead on seeing that they were living as human beings as before were filled with unexpected joy at being alive, saying that they had never believed it would be so. Everyone's state after death is at first like that he experienced in the world; but this gradually changes into heaven or hell. They were very surprised at their previous ignorance and blindness about how they would live after death; and the more so in the case of church members, who ought above all others in the whole world to be enlightened on these subjects. 1
[5] It was then that they first saw the reason for their ignorance and blindness. It was that external matters, worldly and bodily concerns, had so taken up and filled their minds, that they could not be lifted into the light of heaven, so as to view religious matters beyond the level of the church's teaching. When bodily and worldly concerns are as popular as they are to-day, utter darkness pervades the mind of anyone who wants to think about heavenly matters beyond the scope of the faith taught by his church.
Footnotes:
1. Few people in Christendom to-day believe that people rise again at once after death (Preface to Genesis chapter 16, AC 4622, 10758).
They think rather that this will occur at the time of the Last Judgment, when the visible world will cease to exist (10595).
The reason for this belief (10595, 10758).
In fact people rise again at once after death, and they are then human beings in every detail (4527, 5006, 5078, 8939, 8991, 10594, 10758).
The soul which survives death is a person's spirit, constituting his essential personality, and in the other life it is endowed with a perfect human form (322, 1880-1881, 3633, 4622, 4735, 5883, 6054, 6605, 6626, 7021, 10594).
Experiences supporting this (4527, 5006, 8939) and passages from the Word (10597).
An explanation of the meaning of the dead seen in the Holy City (Matthew 27:53, 9229).
An experience showing how a person is brought back to life from the dead (168-189).
His condition after being brought back to life (317-319, 2119, 5070, 10596).
False views about the soul and resurrection (444-445, 4527, 4622, 4658).
15. Another cause of such a belief in the man of the church is, that he believes that no one can go to heaven or hell before the time of the Last Judgment; of which he has conceived this opinion that the visible world is then to perish, and a new one will come into existence, and that then the soul will return into its body, and from their conjunction man will again live a man. This belief involves another about the angels, that they were created from the beginning; for it is impossible to believe that heaven and hell are from the human race, when it is believed that no man goes there till the end of the world. But in order that man may be convinced that it is not so, it has been granted me to have fellowship with angels, and also to speak with those who are in hell, and this now for many years, sometimes continuously from morning even to evening, and thus to be informed concerning heaven and hell; to the end that the man of the church may no longer remain in his erroneous belief, about a resurrection at the day of judgment, about a state of the soul in the interval, as well as about angels, and about the Devil; which belief, since it is a belief in falsity, induces darkness; and with those who think of such things from their own intelligence, brings on doubt, and at length denial; for they say in heart, how can so vast a heaven, and so many stars, with sun and moon, be destroyed and dissipated? and how can the stars fall from heaven upon the earth, which yet are larger than the earth? and how can bodies, eaten up by worms, consumed by putrefaction, and scattered to all the winds, be collected again for its own soul? in the meantime, where is the soul, and what is it without the senses which it had in the body? with such like sayings on matters, which being incomprehensible, fall not within belief, and destroy in many the faith in man's eternal life, in heaven and hell, and with them, in all the remaining things of the faith of the church. That faith has thus been destroyed is evident from those who say, Who ever came from heaven and told us that it exists? What is hell? Is it anything at all? What is the meaning of man's being tormented with fire to eternity? What is the day of judgment? Has it not been expected for ages in vain? and many more questions which involve a denial of all things. Lest therefore, they who think thus (as do many who, from their knowledge in worldly matters are reputed skilful and learned), should any longer disturb and seduce the simple in faith and heart, and induce infernal darkness concerning God, heaven, eternal life, and other subjects dependent upon these, the interiors of my spirit have been opened by the Lord, and thus it has been granted one to speak with all those of the deceased whom I ever knew in the life of the body, with some for days, with some for months, and with some for a year, and also with so many others, that I should come short if I reckoned them at an hundred thousand, of whom many were in the heavens, and many in the hells. I have also spoken with some two days after their decease, and told them that solemn preparations were then making for their funerals; to which they said, that it was well to reject that which had served them for a body and its functions in the world: and they desired me to say that they are not dead, but alive and equally men as before, and that they had only passed out of one world into another; and they did not know that they had lost anything, since they are in a body and its senses as before, and in intellect and will as before, and have like thoughts and affections, like sensations, pleasures, and desires, as in the world. Most of those newly deceased, when they saw that they were living men as before, and in a similar state (for after death the state of every one's life is at first similar to what it was in the world, but is successively changed with him either into heaven or into hell), were affected with new joy at being alive, and said that they had not believed this. But they greatly wondered that they had been in such ignorance and blindness concerning the state of their own lives after death; and more especially, that the man of the church is in such a state, when yet he of all in the world can be in light concerning them. 1Then for the first time they saw the cause of this blindness and ignorance, which is, that external things, which are worldly and corporeal, had occupied and filled their minds to such an extent, that they could not be elevated into the light of heaven and behold the things of the church, which are beyond its doctrinals. For mere darkness inflows from corporeal and worldly things, when they are so much loved as they are at the present day, when man wishes to think of the things of heaven, beyond the dictate of the doctrine of faith of his church.
Footnotes:
1. At this day few in Christendom believe that man rises again immediately after death, Pref. to chap. 16 of Genesis and (4622, 10758). But at the time of the Last judgment, when the visible world is to perish (10591). The cause of such belief (10594, 10758). Nevertheless man does rise again immediately after death, and that then he is a man as to each and all things (4527, 5006, 5078, 8939, 8991, 10594, 10758). The soul, which lives after death, is man's spirit, which is the real man in the man, and which also in the other life is in a perfect human form (322, 1880, 1881, 3633, 4622, 4735, 5883, 6054, 6605, 6626, 7021, 10597). The same from experience (4527, 5006, 8939) And from the word (10597). What in meant by the dead being seen in the holy city (Matthew 27:53) is explained (9229). How man is raised from the dead; by experience (168-189). Of his state after resuscitation (317-319, 2119, 5070, 10596). False opinions about the soul and the resurrection (444, 445, 4527, 4622, 4658).
15. Quod homo ecclesiae ita credat, etiam est causa, quia credit quod nullus homo in caelum aut in infernum prius veniat quam tempore ultimi judicii; de quo illam opinionem cepit, quod interitura tunc sint omnia quae coram oculis, et quod nova exstitura, et quod anima tunc reditura sit in suum corpus, ex qua conjunctione homo iterum vivet homo: haec fides involvit alteram de angelis quod sint a principio creati; nam non credi potest, quod caelum et infernum sint ex humano genere, quum creditur quod nullus homo illuc veniat quam in fine mundi. Sed ut evincatur homo quod non ita sit, datum est mihi consortium habere cum angelis, et quoque loqui cum illis qui in inferno sunt, et hoc nunc per plures annos, quandoque continue a mane usque ad vesperam, et sic informari de caelo et inferno; et hoc ob causam, ne homo ecclesiae ulterius permaneat in sua erronea fide de resurrectione tempore judicii, ac de animae statu interea, tum de angelis et de Diabolo: quae fides, quia est fides falsi, involvit tenebras; et apud eos, qui ex propria intelligentia de illis cogitant, infert dubitationem, et tandem negationem: dicunt enim corde, Quomodo potest tantum caelum cum tot sideribus, et cum sole et luna, destrui et dissipari? et quomodo possunt stellae e caelo tunc cadere in terram, quae tamen majores terra sunt? et quomodo possunt corpora a vermibus exesa, putredine consumpta, et in omnes ventos dissipata, recolligi ad animam suam? ubinam interea anima, et qualis illa cum absque sensu qui ei fuit in corpore? praeter plura similia, quae quia incomprehensibilia, non cadunt in fidem, et apud plures destruunt fidem de hominis vita aeterna, deque caelo et inferno, et cum illis reliqua quae fidei ecclesiae sunt. Quod etiam destruxerint, patet ex illis qui dicunt, Quis ex caelo ad nos venit et narravit quod sit? quid infernum? num sit? quid hoc quod homo cruciabitur igne in aeternum? quid dies judicii? annon is per saecula frustra exspectatus est? praeter plura, quae negationis omnium sunt. Ne itaque illi qui talia cogitant, (ut solent plures qui ex mundanis, quae sapiunt, eruditi et docti audiunt,) amplius perturbent et seducant simplices fide et corde, ac inducant infernales tenebras de Deo, de caelo, de vita aeterna, ac de ceteris quae ex illis pendent, aperta sunt interiora, quae spiritus mei sunt, a Domino, et sic loqui datum est cum omnibus, quos usquam notos habui in vita corporis, postquam defuncti sunt; cum quibusdam per dies, cum quibusdam per menses, et cum quibusdam per annum, et quoque cum aliis tam multis ut parum dicerem si centum millia, ex quibus plures fuerunt in caelis, et plures in infernis: locutus etiam sum cum quibusdam post biduum ab obitu, et narravi quod nunc funeralia et exsequiae eorum parentur ut sepeliantur; ad quae dixerunt, quod bene faciant ut rejiciant id quod illis pro corpore et ejus functionibus inserviverat in mundo, ac voluerunt ut dicerem quod non mortui sint, sed quod vivant aeque homines nunc sicut prius, et quod transmigraverint solum ab uno mundo in alterum; et quod non sciant quod aliquid perdiderint, quoniam in corpore et hujus sensualibus sunt ut prius, et quoque in intellectu et in voluntate ut prius, et quod similes illis cogitationes et affectiones, similes sensationes, tum similes voluptates, et similia desideria, qualia in mundo. Plerique ex recens mortuis, cum se viderunt vivere homines sicut prius, ac in simili statu, (nam post mortem primum , cuivis similis status vitae est, qualis ei fuerat in mundo, sed ille successive apud eum mutatur vel in caelum vel in infernum,) novo gaudio affecti sunt quod vivant, et dixerunt quod hoc non crediderint: sed valde mirati, quod in tali ignorantia et caecitate de statu suae vitae post mortem fuerint; et magis quod in tali sit homo ecclesiae, qui tamen prae omnibus in universo terrarum orbe in luce de illis potest esse. 1Causam illius caecitatis et ignorantiae tunc primum videbant; quae est quod externa, quae sunt mundana et corporea, occupaverint et impleverint mentes eorum, in tantum ut non elevari possent in lucem caeli, ac intueri res ecclesiae ultra doctrinalia: ex corporeis enim et mundanis, cum tantum amantur quantum hodie, influunt merae tenebrae, cum homo de rebus caeli ultra dictamen doctrinae fidei quae suae ecclesiae est, cogitare vult.
(EX ARCANIS CAELESTIBUS)
Footnotes:
1. Quod hodie in Christianismo pauci credant, quod homo post mortem statim resurgat (Praefat. adGenesis 16, et 4622, 10758).
Sed quod tempore ultimi judicii, cum orbis aspectabilis periturus est (10594 (10595?)).
Causa, quod ita credatur (10594, 10758).
Quod usque homo statim post mortem resurgat, et quod tunc sit homo quoad omnia et singula (4527, 5006, 5078, 8939, 8991, 10594, 10758).
Quod anima quae vivit post mortem, sit spiritus hominis, qui in homine est ipse homo, et quoque in altera vita in perfecta forma humana (322, 1880-1881, 3633, 4622, 4735, 5883, 6054, 6605, 6626, 7021, 10594).
Ab experientia (4527, 5006, 8939).
Ex Verbo (10597).
Explicatur quid intelligitur per quod mortui visi in Sancta Urbe (Matthaeus 27:53) (9229).
Quomodo homo resuscitatur a mortuis, ab experientia (168-189).
De statu ejus post resuscitationem (317-319, 2119, 5070, 10596).
Falsae opiniones de anima, et de resurrectione (444-445, 4527, 4622, 4658.)