Arcana Coelestia

648 Pages·2009·1.95 MB·English

by  Emanuel Swedenborg

Arcana
Coelestia
The heavenly arcana contained in the
Holy Scripture or Word of the Lord
unfolded, beginning with
the book of Genesis
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG
Volume 1
(Numbers 1–1113)
Translated from the Original Latin by
John Clowes
Revised and Edited by
John Faulkner Potts
STANDARD EDITION
SWEDENBORG FOUNDATION
West Chester, Pennsylvania
© 2009 Swedenborg Foundation
This version was compiled from electronic files of the
Standard Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg as
further edited by William Ross Woofenden. Pagination of
this PDF document does not match that of the
corresponding printed volumes, and any page references
within this text may not be accurate. However, most if not
all of the numerical references herein are not to page
numbers but to Swedenborg’s section numbers, which are
not affected by changes in pagination. If this work appears
both separately and as part of a larger volume file, its
pagination follows that of the larger volume in both cases.
This version has not been proofed against the original, and
occasional errors in conversion may remain. To purchase the
full set of the Redesigned Standard Edition of Emanuel
Swedenborg’s works, or the available volumes of the latest
translation (the New Century Edition of the Works of
Emanuel Swedenborg), contact the Swedenborg Foundation
at 1-800-355-3222, www.swedenborg.com, or 320 North
Church Street, West Chester, Pennsylvania 19380.
Contents
Editor’s Preface
Reviser’s Preface
Genesis 1
Genesis 2
Entrance into Eternal Life
Genesis 3
Entrance into Eternal Life
Genesis 3
Entrance into Eternal Life
Genesis 4
The Nature of the Life of the Soul
Genesis 4
Some Examples . . . from . . . Spirits concerning What
They Had Thought . . . about the Soul
Genesis 5
Heaven and Heavenly joy
Genesis 5
Heaven and Heavenly joy
Genesis 6
Heaven and Heavenly joy
Genesis 6
The Societies Which Constitute Heaven
Genesis 7
The Hells
Genesis 7
The Hells
Genesis 8
The Hells
Genesis 8
The Hells
Genesis 9
The Hells
Genesis 9
The Hells
Critical Notes
ARCANA COELESTIA 1
Editor’s Preface
This edition of Arcana Coelestia is based on the translation of J.
Clowes and his revisers, as further revised by J. F. Potts. The text
for this edition was electronically scanned from the Foundation’s
Standard Edition. This process has allowed the book to be
completely redesigned and set in a new and more readable typeface.
Certain stylistic changes have also been introduced. These include
modernized spelling and punctuation as well as substituting new
words for terms whose meanings have become obscure or have
changed since the nineteenth century. Arabic numerals have
replaced roman numerals in Bible passages, and certain capitalized
words including pronouns referring to God have been lowercased
to reflect contemporary usage. All these changes have been carefully
made in order to make the book easier to read and use while
preserving the dignity and power of the original Latin. On the
whole, however, the Clowes/Potts translation has not been
materially altered.
Volume 1 of Arcana Coelestia begins Swedenborg’s verse-by-verse
exposition of the biblical text of the book of Genesis. As was the
custom in his day, Swedenborg referred to the Psalms as the book
of David, and to the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy) as the books of Moses. In this
volume Swedenborg also begins his practice of inserting topical
articles or “continuation” passages between each chapter of the
textual exegesis. The page number of the start of each of these
continuations is listed in the table of contents.
The reader may also wish to read the “Prefatory Notes by the
Reviser” in the front of this volume, as it contains further details
about the publishing history of this first and largest of
Swedenborg’s theological works. It also discloses a critical decision
ARCANA COELESTIA 2
made by Potts regarding his translating of the several words used by
Swedenborg to refer to “knowledge.” The reader needs to know
that this translation pattern was not followed by other translators of
Swedenborg.
As with previous printings, the bold numerals in brackets ([2],
[3], etc.) indicate divisions of Swedenborg’s longer numbered
sections that were added for the convenience of the reader by John
Faulkner Potts in his six-volume Swedenborg Concordance (London:
Swedenborg Society, 1888–1902).
William Ross Woofenden
Sharon, Massachusetts
ARCANA COELESTIA 3
Reviser’s Preface
The work commonly called Arcana Coelestia was originally
published by Emanuel Swedenborg in London in the years 1749 to
1756. It was issued in eight large quarto “parts,” or volumes, and
was written in Latin. In the original Latin the work was reprinted
by Jo. Fr. Immanuel Tafel, librarian of the University of Tubingen,
who issued the work in thirteen octavo volumes in the years 1833
to 1842. To this edition the editor added a carefully tabulated list
of the errata that had occurred in the first edition, which are rather
numerous, in consequence of the author, Swedenborg, whose
residence was in Stockholm, having had no opportunity to revise
the proof sheets.
At the request of Swedenborg, the second part or volume was
translated into English, and the translation so made was published
in London simultaneously with the Latin part of which it was a
translation.
With this exception the first translation of Arcana Coelestia was
the work of the Rev. John Clowes, rector of St. John’s, Manchester,
England, and was published in London in twelve octavo volumes,
in the years 1774 to 1806. The work has since been translated into
Swedish, French, and German; and in English has appeared in
numerous editions consisting for the most part of revisions and re-
revisions of the translation made by Clowes.
A new and original translation into English was made by George
Harrison, of Longlands, near Kendal, England, and was published
in London in twelve fine octavo volumes in the years 1857 to
1860; but although the work of an excellent Latin scholar, and
valuable for critical reference, the work was marred by editorial
linguistic idiosyncrasies of such a character as to impair very
seriously its general usefulness.
The eleventh volume was retranslated by Rudolph Leonard Tafel
and was published in London in the year 1890.
ARCANA COELESTIA 4
The first complete American edition was published in Boston in
the years 1837 to 1847, in twelve volumes octavo; and was a
revision made on the basis of the translation of Clowes and his
revisers. The first four volumes of this edition were issued by the
Boston Printing Society, and the rest of the volumes by private
persons.
The second American edition was published in New York in ten
volumes in the years 1853 to 1857, by the American Swedenborg
Printing and Publishing Society, being a reprint of the current
English edition.
The third American (Rotch) edition is now in course of
publication1 in 12mo. Fifteen volumes have already been issued,
and four more have yet to appear. The first nine volumes were
published in New York with the imprint of the New Church Board
of Publication, and the remainder are being issued in Boston with
that of the Massachusetts New Church Union. The whole of the
plates have been prepared at the cost of the Rotch legacy. The work
was undertaken at the suggestion of John Worcester, and wholly
under his direction. A set of rules was prepared for the guidance of
the various workers, and volumes were assigned to them for
revision (or retranslation if they so chose to make it) on the basis of
the old Boston revision, but with the understanding that the whole
would be revised and harmonized by the director, as editor, with
the assistance of his brother, Benjamin Worcester. Up to the
present time the revision or retranslation has been the work chiefly
of Samuel Mills Warren, Samuel Howard Worcester, Samuel C.
Eby, A. L. Kip, Theodore F. Wright, and Horace W. Wright; but
as the work of these gentlemen has been subjected by the two
editors to most careful and uncompromising revision, they cannot
fairly be held responsible for everything that exists in the several
volumes or portions of volumes labored on by them. The death of
the director occurred during the preparation for the press of the
thirteenth volume; since which time the direction of the work has
been continued in the hands of the surviving editor, Benjamin
Worcester. Although under the circumstances it was perhaps
inevitable that the work should display considerable variety of style
and excellence, it is unquestionable that the volumes of this edition

1. This preface was written in 1915. [Editor]
ARCANA COELESTIA 5
manifest a vast amount of painstaking and valuable labor, and the
present reviser here desires to acknowledge his great indebtedness to
the work of the Rotch translators and editors.
The fourth American edition is that of which the first volume is
now before the reader, and it claims to be no more than a revision
compiled from the best previous translations and revisions, the
most successful renderings of which have been carefully selected in
conjunction with a close continuous comparison with the original
Latin. Nevertheless new translation has been introduced in all cases
in which no previous satisfactory rendering of words or passages
had been made.
The translation of the group of words that includes cognoscere,
cognitio, scire, scientia, scientificum, scientificus, and in the plural,
scientifica, presents what is probably the greatest difficulty that is
encountered by the translator of Swedenborg’s theological works.
Used by him with definite and distinct meanings, in English we
have only the words “know” and “knowledge” wherewith to render
them, for “cognize” and “cognition,” and “science” and “scientific”
are by no means the equivalents of the corresponding or cognate
Latin words. Yet on account of the correspondential distinctions,
and also of the doctrinal ideas, involved, it is imperative that
Swedenborg’s distinctive use of these Latin words should in some
way be conveyed to the English reader.
By scire, scientia, and scientifica, Swedenborg indicates mere
memory-knowledge, that is, the knowledge men have in the
external memory without application to life and practice (see his
definition of these terms in Arcana Coelestia, n. 27, 1486, 2718,
5212); whereas cognoscere and cognitio are used in the stronger sense
of actual and real knowledge of the matter in question, either by
experience or in some other way; as when we say, “I do not think
so; I know it.” This is cognoscere.
An interesting example of the peculiar force there is in the former
class of words is Swedenborg’s expression fides scientifica. To render
this, as has been done, “scientific faith” may do but little injury to
the reader who is able to think in Latin, and who may therefore be
aware that it is a mere faith of the memory that is meant; but it is
evident that with such a rendering the average reader is bound to
go far and ludicrously astray.
ARCANA COELESTIA 6
Another such example is to be found in Swedenborg’s rather
common expression scientia cognitionum, used in connection with
the Philistines, and usually rendered “science of knowledges,” and
in the Rotch edition “learning of knowledges”; both of which
renderings utterly fail to convey the author’s meaning, which is
simply the “memory-knowledge of knowledges”; that is to say, the
people who are represented by the Philistines are those who store
up knowledges from the Word in the memory, but have no other
knowledge of them than a mere memory-knowledge; thus have not
the knowledge of them that comes from a life in accordance with
them. A most important point; and it is distressing that it should
be so completely lost from view as has been the case.
The same remark applies to the signification in the Word of
“Egypt.” Swedenborg’s definition of the signification of “Egypt” is
scientia, or scientifica. To render these terms “science” and
“scientifics” is attended with the disastrous result that the ordinary
reader supposes (and even preachers have habitually manifested the
same lamentable ignorance) that “Egypt,” as mentioned in the
Word, has something to do with science as generally understood;
and thus the whole point of the Divine instruction given in the
Word in connection with Egypt and the Egyptians is completely
lost.
In the present revision of Arcana Coelestia an effort has been
made to translate this group of words on a systematic plan, so as to
indicate to the English reader the terminology and the meaning
that exist in the original wherever these words occur. To this end
the following renderings have been adopted:
Cognitio, cognitiones: “knowledge,” “knowledges.”
Scientia (except when it really means “science”): “memory-
knowledge.”
Scientiae, scientifica: “memory-knowledges.”
Latin words have also been given in brackets wherever for any
reason this seemed to be called for.
John Faulkner Potts