Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 502

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

502. These three churches, "Man" "Seth" and "Enosh" constitute the Most Ancient Church, but still with a difference of perfection as to perceptions: the perceptive faculty of the first church gradually diminished in the succeeding churches, and became more general, as observed concerning fruit or its seed, and concerning the brain. Perfection consists in the faculty of perceiving distinctly, which faculty is diminished when the perception is less distinct and more general; an obscurer perception then succeeds in the place of that which was clearer, and thus it begins to vanish away.


This page is part of the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church