Most Well-Born Sir Doctor, Bishop Pro-Chancellor! *In a few days I shall leave for Amsterdam, where I shall publish the WHOLE THEOLOGY OF THE NEW CHURCH, the foundation of which will be the worship of the Lord our Saviour. If a temple will not now be built on the foundation of this worship, brothels are likely to rise up upon it later.

As I have learned that the religious matter concerning Doctors Beyer and Rosen has been settled in an unexpected manner in the council, and as it is likely to be talked about here and there in my absence, therefore in order to offset malevolent opinions which without fail may be expected from the mouths of certain persons, and this from their folly and internal perverseness, and therefore because of the importance of the matter, it devolves on me to communicate what I have submitted to his Royal Majesty.

I heard from two gentlemen of the Supreme Court of Appeals that the Privy Council is Pontifex Maximus in religious cases. To this I made no answer at the time, but if I should again hear the same thing from them, I shall answer that the council is in no way Pontifex Maximus, but only the vicar of the vicar of Pontifex Maximus. For Christ our Saviour is alone Pontifex Maximus, the estates of the realm are His vicar and are therefore responsible to Him, and the Privy Council is the vicar of the estates because authorised by these, and so the council is the vicar of the vicar of Pontifex Maximus. It is arrogant of the Pope of Rome to call himself Pontifex Maximus, because he has taken to himself and ascribed to himself all the power of Christ our Saviour, and has placed himself on His throne, and allows the people to believe that he is Christ on earth.

Every lesser pontifex or vicar of Pontifex Maximus ought to have his consistory. The estates of the realm have theirs in the revered Estate of the Clergy, and the Privy Council has its especially at the universities; but in concluding the present case it has made the Goteborg Consistory its own consistory, and, as I understand, has abided by its report word for word; not knowing that this case has been the most important that has appeared before any council for 1700 years, because it concerns the New Church proclaimed by our Lord in Daniel and in the Revelation and because it agrees with what the Lord said in Matthew xxiv 22.

I remain, etc. Eman. Swedenborg**

Stockholm 20 July 1770

P.S. I have not yet received an answer from the council. The matter was before it once, and it was decided that it should rest until the return of those members of the Council who had examined it.

* The day after writing to Astromer, Swedenborg sent a similar letter to Bishop Mennander again enclosing a copy of the appeal to the King. Copies of this letter were also sent by Swedenborg to the Universities of Lund (through his nephew, C. J. Benzelius) and of Uppsala. The Russian conquest of Finland in 1809, in which land the bishopric of Abo was situated, accounts for the unexpected present location of this letter in the Leningrad State Public Library. ** Except for the personal courtesies the identical letter was sent to the University of Lund through Swedenborg's nephew C.J. Benzelius, then a professor there and later Bishop of Strangnas, and also directly to the University of Uppsala. Bishop Mennander of Abo, Finland, was at the same time Pro-Chancellor of the University there. Thus Swedenborg sent the same message to all three universities of the realm. Finland was at the time part of Sweden.