1790. [VOLUME 2, second part, containing paragraphs 1790 to 3427]
About the Lord's Prayer
When the Lord's prayer is being said, which embraces all heavenly and spiritual things within it, so much can be poured into every least detail that heaven itself is not great enough to contain it all, and this of course depending on the capacity and use of each individual.
As one penetrates more and more inwardly, the more plentiful and abundant is the content, and things that are understood in the heavens, are not grasped in the regions below, but are like secrets to them, some only comprehensible by a kind of mental faith, and some ineffable.
The more that heavenly mental images, which all come from the Lord, descend lower, or into people of a lower character, the more closed up they appear, so that finally it is as if there were something hard, in which there is little or nothing else but the literal meaning or mental images of the words.
As a result I was allowed to find out through the Lord's prayer what souls had been like in their bodily life in regard to religious doctrine, while they were allowed their meaning as it was prayed. 1748, 1 April.
A mental image therefore grows, going from bodily elements upwards and inwards, and in fact to an incalculable extent at each level, thus in the inward regions by countless numbers multiplied together; and again in the very inward regions, then likewise in the innermost.
1790. CONCERNING THE LORD'S PRAYER.
When the Lord's Prayer, which comprehends all celestial and spiritual things, is read, there may be infused into each particular so many things, that heaven itself shall not be capable of comprehending them, and that, too, according to the capacity and use of everyone. The more internally and intimately anyone penetrates, the more fully or abundantly the things of heaven are understood; by those in lower states they are not comprehended, but are a kind of arcana to them, some being comprehensible solely by an intellectual faith, and some being ineffable: celestial ideas which all emanate from the Lord, the lower they descend, or the lower the character of the men [to whom they come], the more complete appears the closing up [of the mind], till at length a certain hardness ensues in which there is little or nothing besides the sense of the letter or the ideas of the words; whence it was given to know, from the Lord's Prayer, what kind of souls they had been in the life of the body, as to the doctrine of their faith, inasmuch as it was granted to them to have their former sense [of these things] when offering prayer. - 1748, April 1.
Thus it is that the idea expands upwardly or inwardly from corporeal things, and indeed to indefinite extent in every degree, or in other words, through indefinitely multiplied expansions in the interiors, and so in the more interior parts, and in the inmosts.
1790. [VOLUMINIS SECUNDI pars altera, continens paragraphos ab 1790 ad 3427 numeratas] 1
De Oratione Dominica
Cum legitur oratio Domini, quae in se comprehendit omnia coelestia et spiritualia, tunc infundi possunt in singula, tantum, ut coelum non capax sit ea comprehendere, et quidem secundum cujusvis capacitatem, ac usum; quo interius ac intimius vadit, eo copiosius seu abundantius, quaeque in coelis intelliguntur, in inferioribus non comprehenduntur 2
, sunt quasi arcana iis, quaedam solum 3
fide intellectuali comprehensibilia, quaedam ineffabilia, quo plus ideae coelestes, quae omnes 4
a Domino veniunt, inferius descendunt, seu in hominem inferioris indolis, eo magis clausum apparet, tandem ut sit quasi quoddam durum, in quo pauca vel nihil praeter sensum literae seu ideas vocum; inde ex oratione Domini dabatur cognoscere, quales animae fuerunt in vita corporis, quoad doctrinam fidei eorum, cum iis concedebatur suum sensum habere 5
, dum orabatur. 1748, 1 April. Sic a corporeis sursum seu introrsum crescit idea, et quidem in indefinitum, in quovis gradu, ita per indefinitates in se multiplicatas in interioribus, et sic porro in intimioribus, tum similiter in intimis. 6
Footnotes:
1. vide praefationem hujus voluminis
2. The Manuscript has comprehunduntur
3. In the Manuscript solum aliena manu et erronee in sola mutatum est; vide annotationem 4
4. hoc verbum stilo alieno attactum est; vide annotationem 4
5. haec vox in the Manuscript manu B. Chastanier in litterae mutata est
6. hic articulus pertinet chronologice post 1795, ubi invenitur in the Manuscript De Oratio[ne] oblitum