Heaven and Hell - Swedenborg Foundation

HEAVEN AND HELL 264
childhood, which in the meanwhile has served them as a plane,
is joined to them.
[3] The innocence of children has been represented to me as
a wooden sort of thing, almost devoid of life, which becomes
vivified as they are perfected by knowledges of truth and
affections for good. Afterwards genuine innocence was
represented by a most beautiful child, naked and full of life; for
the really innocent, who are in the inmost heaven and thus
nearest to the Lord, always appear before the eyes of other
angels as little children, and some of them naked; for
innocence is represented by nakedness unaccompanied by
shame, as is said of the first man and his wife in Paradise (Gen.
2:25); so when their state of innocence perished they were
ashamed of their nakedness, and hid themselves (Gen. 3:7, 10,
11). In a word, the wiser the angels are the more innocent they
are, and the more innocent they are the more they appear to
themselves as little children. This is why in the Word
“childhood” signifies innocence (see above, n. 278).
342. I have talked with angels about little children, whether
they are free from evils, inasmuch as they have no actual evil as
adults have; and I was told that they are equally in evil, and in
fact are nothing but evil; 225
but, like all angels, they are so
225. All kinds of men are born into evils of every kind, even to the
extent that what is their own is nothing but evil (n. 210, 215, 731, 874–876,
987, 1047, 2307, 2308, 3518, 3701, 3812, 8480, 8550, 10283, 10284,
10286, 10731). Consequently man must needs be reborn, that is, regenerated
(n. 3701). Man’s inherited evil consists in his loving himself more than God,
and the world more than heaven, and in making his neighbor, in comparison
with himself, of no account, except for the sake of self, that is, himself alone,
thus it consists in the love of self and of the world (n. 694, 731, 4317, 5660).
All evils are from the love of self and of the world, when those loves rule (n.
1307, 1308, 1321, 1594, 1691, 3413, 7255, 7376, 7488, 7490, 8318, 9335,
9348, 10038, 10742). These evils are contempt of others, enmity, hatred,
revenge, cruelty, deceit (n. 6667, 7370–7374, 9348, 10038, 10742). And
from these evils comes all falsity (n. 1047, 10283, 10284, 10286). These