5061. By way of corollary I may add this memorable circumstance. There were some spirits who had long lain concealed, shut up in a peculiar hell, from which they could not break out. I sometimes wondered who they were. One evening they were let out, and then was heard from them a very tumultuous noise of murmurs, which continued a long time; and when opportunity was given, I heard from them scoffings against me, and perceived that they desired and were endeavoring to come up and destroy me. I asked the angels the reason of this; and they said that during their lifetime these persons had hated me, although I had never harmed them; and I was instructed that when such spirits merely perceive the sphere of the person whom they have hated, they breathe his destruction; but they were sent back into their own hell. From this it is evident that those who have hated each other in the world meet in the other life, and attempt many evils against each other, as has often been granted me to know by other examples. For hatred is opposite to love and charity, and is an aversion, and as it were a spiritual antipathy; and therefore the moment that such spirits perceive in the other life the sphere of the person against whom they have borne hatred, they come as it were into a fury. It is plain from this what is involved in the Lord's words in Matthew 5:22-26.