159. Before this was said, they believed that our company also was of those who wished to confuse them by the idea of three concerning God. When therefore they heard these things, they were affected with joy, and said that some were also sent to them by God, whom they then called the Lord, who teach them concerning Him; and that they were not willing to admit visitors who disturb them, especially by the idea of three Persons in the Divinity, since they know that God is one, consequently that the Divine is one, and not a unanimity of three, unless they would think of God as of an angel, in whom the inmost of life is something invisible, from which he thinks and is wise, and the external of life what is visible under the human form, from which he sees and acts, and the proceeding of life that which is the sphere of love and faith from him, for from every spirit and angel proceeds a sphere of life by which he is known at a distance; and as to the Lord, that the proceeding of life from Him is the Divine Itself which fills and constitutes the heavens, because it proceeds from the esse itself of the life of love and faith. They said that in this and in no other way could they perceive a Trine and a One at the same time. On hearing this, it was given me to say that such an idea of a Trine and a One together agrees with the angelic idea of the Lord; and that it is from the Lord's own teaching concerning Himself; for He teaches that the Father and He are one; that the Father is in Him, and He in the Father; that whoso sees Him, sees the Father; and that He who believes in Him, believes in the Father and knows Him; also that the Comforter, by whom is meant the proceeding Divine, and whom He calls the Spirit of truth, as also the Holy Spirit, proceeds from Him, and speaks not from Himself, but from Him. Moreover, that the idea of a Trine and of One at the same time agrees with the esse and existere of the Lord's life, when He was in the world. The esse of His life was the Divine Itself, for He was conceived of Jehovah, and the esse of any one's life is that from which he is conceived; the existere of life from that esse is the Human in form. The esse of every man's life which he has from his father, is called the soul; and the existere of life therefrom is called the body. The soul and the body constitute one man. The likeness between both is like that between that which is in effort and that which is in the act thence, for the act is the effort acting, and so the two are one. Effort in man is called the will, and effort acting is called action. The body is the instrument, by which the will, which is the principal, acts; and the instrument and the principal in acting are one; thus the soul and the body are one. The angels in heaven have such an idea concerning the soul and the body; and thus they know that the Lord made His Human Divine from the Divine in Himself, which He had as His soul from the Father. The faith also received everywhere in the Christian world does not dissent from this, for it teaches: "Although Christ is God and Man, yet He is not two, but one Christ; yea, He is altogether a one and only Person; for as the body and the soul are one man, so also God and Man is one Christ."# Because there was such a union, or such a One in the Lord, He therefore, otherwise than any man, rose not only as to the soul, but also as to the body, which He glorified in the world; concerning which He also instructed His disciples, saying:
Handle Me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have.##
These things those spirits well understood, for such things fall into the understanding of angelic spirits. They then added that the Lord alone has power in the heavens, and that the heavens are His. To which it was given me to respond that the church on our earth also knows this, from the mouth of the Lord Himself, before He ascended into heaven; for He then said:-
All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.
# From the Athanasian Creed.
## Man rises again as to his spirit immediately after death, and he is the human form, and that as to each and every particular he is a man (n. 4527, 5006, 5078, 8939, 8991, 10,594, 10,597, 10,758). Man rises again only as to his spirit, and not as to his body (n. 10,593, 10,594). The Lord alone rose again as to the body also (n. 1729, 2083, 5078, 10,825).
