Philosophy of Religion

Arcana Caelestia

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Emanuel Swedenborg

1749

Swedenborg's first and longest theological work — eight volumes of verse-by-verse commentary on Genesis and Exodus interpreted through his doctrine of correspondences, in which every element of Scripture has a precise spiritual counterpart. The literal sense is not denied but treated as the outer shell of an inner spiritual and celestial sense accessible only to those who understand the language of correspondence. Interspersed throughout are accounts of Swedenborg's own experiences in the spiritual world — conversations with angels and evil spirits, descriptions of heavenly communities, observations of the fate of souls after death. It established the framework for all his subsequent theological writing.