Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 176
angels are, and in that state have talked with them, and I then
understood everything. But when I was brought back into my
former state, and thus into the natural thought proper to man,
and wished to recall what I had heard I could not; for there
were thousands of things unadapted to the ideas of natural
thought, and therefore inexpressible except by variegations of
heavenly light, and thus not at all by human words.
[3] Also the ideas of thought of the angels from which their
words spring are modifications of the light of heaven, and the
affections from which the tones of the words spring are
variations of the heat of heaven, the light of heaven being
Divine truth or wisdom, and the heat of heaven the Divine
good or love (see above, n. 126–140); and the angels have their
affection from the Divine love, and their thought from the
Divine wisdom. 172
240. Because the speech of angels proceeds directly from
their affection, and the ideas of their thought are the various
forms into which their general affection is distributed (see
above, n. 236), angels can express in a moment what a man
cannot express in half an hour; also they can set forth in a few
words what has been expressed in writing on many pages; and
this, too, has been proved to me by much experience. 173
Thus
the angels’ ideas of thought and the words of their speech make
one, like effecting cause and effect; for what is in the ideas of
thought as cause is presented in the words as effect, and this is
why every word comprehends in itself so many things. Also all
the particulars of angelic thought, and thus of angelic speech,
appear when pre sented to view like a thin wave or
172. The ideas of angels, from which they speak, are expressed by
wonderful variegations of the light of heaven (n. 1646, 3343, 3993).
173. Angels can express by their speech in a moment more than a man
can express by his in half an hour; and they can also express things that do
not fall into the expressions of human speech (n. 1641–1643, 1645, 4609,
7089).