from Robert H. Kirven, "A Concise Overview of  Swedenborg's Theology, (Appleseed & Co. MA 2003)

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Notes

1. For more on God as order, see True Christianity Chapter 1, 52-54.

2. For Swedenborg, both freedom and reason are mental faculties. See Divine Providence 73, in the text below.

3. Many translations have "first man" here, but I find no warrant in the Hebrew, Greek, or Latin originals of any of the relevant texts for using a gender-distinguishing noun in this context.

4. "Adam" transliterates a word for "ground" in the Hebrew text of Genesis. This usage in the creation story led to the tradition of using the word as a symbol of the first human, and sometimes as the first name of that individual, illegitimately transferring the grammatical gender of the Hebrew word to the biological gender of English for the original human.

5. In Swedenborg's Latin, the rib was taken from homo, the word for human being or humanity before gender distinction appeared in the story. In verse 22, he tells how the rib from homo was inserted into mulier (woman); and in verse 23 the word vir (man) appears.

6. Swedenborg frequently used proprium—a word with no direct English equivalent, but meaning "something you own" or "something belonging to you"—to signify either "all that belongs to you" or "your own unique identity."

7. i.e., affections growing out of good actions (see Secrets of Heaven 990).

8. Marriage Love 156 refers to Secrets of Heaven 147, which reads in part: "Rib" means something that is truly our Own, highly treasured, although it has little life, and flesh in place of the rib means something that is our Own and does have a little more life.

9. See Exodus 33.

10. Since Swedenborg's time, it has been determined that the divine name which should not be spoken was a four-letter name usually transliterated as YHWH, and probably vocalized as Yahweh (the first H being a guttural sound uncommon in English). Out of respect for that biblical tradition, many Christians continue to follow the practice of the Gospel writers (who followed the practice of those who translated the Hebrew Bible into the Greek Septuagint) and replace the four-letter-name (or Tetragrammaton) with the word Lord, often printed in small capital letters.

11. The Hebrew Lo Chretzah, to kill, to commit murder, does not distinguish between criminal (intentional) and un-premeditated murder, but does prohibit all killing of Israelite human beings by Israelites, except under explicit authorization (such as capital punishment), while allowing the killing of animals and of enemies in war. Some of Swedenborg's translators, including John Faulkner Potts and John C. Ager, in the Swedenborg Foundation's Standard Editions of Arcana Coelestia (Secrets of Heaven  in later translations) and The True Christian Religion (True Christianity in later translations) have rendered his version of Lo Chretzah as "Thou shalt not kill," following the 1611 King James Version. The late British Latinist, John Chadwick, however, translated Swedenborg's non occides as "You are not to commit murder," following the Hebrew more closely than KJV's "Thou shalt not kill;" and I have followed him in translating Swedenborg's future indicative active as "You will not commit murder."

12. Swedenborg was deeply concerned about the doctrine of the Trinity (conceiving of God as three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). He considered the teaching to be based on truth but felt that teachers and preachers of his time had over-emphasized it to the point of perverting the truth into a kind of polytheism. In this statement, "God" is the inclusive name for the deity, and "the Lord" means the risen and glorified Jesus Christ, specifically a distinction made clear in Secrets of Heaven 14 and True Christianity 81. "The Lord" is the name by which Swedenborg most frequently refers to God; perhaps his most inclusive term elsewhere is "the Divine."

13. "Expelled" here, and similar expressions in Heaven and Hell 3 in the text below and other places, should be read in the light of Swedenborg's frequent statements parallel to the chapter title preceding Heaven and Hell 545: "The Lord Does Not Cast Anyone into Hell: People Cast Themselves in."

14. Socinians, followers of Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) and his uncle Laelius Socinus (1525-1562), were prototypical of Christians who denied the divinity of Christ.

15. It is important to note that the people discussed so far in Heaven and Hell 3 are those who have rejected the Lord as a deliberate choice and not by accident of birth or culture. Also, see Heaven and Hell 2 in the text above.

16. See Heaven and Hell 318-328.

17.  Also see extracts in Chapter 13.

18. See Heaven and Hell 57 in the text above.

19. See Heaven and Hell 2 in the text above.

20. Our first state is one of exteriors; our second is one of interiors (See Heaven and Hell 457).

21. See True Christianity 82 in the text above.

22. See True Christianity 97, 99, and 100 in the text above.

23. See passages selected for Chapter 13.

24. Swedenborg was writing in 1770. The theology of many people has changed.

25. Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, like A and Z in English.

26. This statement has support in biblical Hebrew, as in the quotation from Exodus in the text below.

27. That is, the Book of Genesis.

28. Arians (followers of Arius), emphasized the Lord's divine nature so much that they denigrated his human nature; and the followers of Socinus emphasized his humanity to an extent that precluded a divine nature.

29. In many translations, "levels" are called "degrees."

30. In many translations, "levels" are called "degrees!'

31. Swedenborg's terminology here follows Aristotle's in explaining everything in the full variety of experience by a limited number of "causes." Both saw a "First Cause" of everything, which Swedenborg called God the Creator; Aristotle (and, generally, Swedenborg) saw four other causes of each thing (or "effect"). One is the "material cause," or stuff of which a thing is composed; a second is "efficient cause," or means by which it came to be; a third is the "formal cause," roughly equivalent to the shape of a thing; and a "final cause," or "end"—the purpose for which it is used.

32. "Purpose, means, and result" sometimes is translated "end, cause, and effect."

33. This is Swedenborg's characterization of the popular wisdom of his time, a materialist bias he felt he needed to oppose.

34. This is Swedenborg's label for Rene Descartes' theory that a spiritual thing (something not extended in time or space) provides the opportunity or occasion for a physical thing to be extended in time and space; that is, to exist. Descartes used the Latin occasionalis to describe this influence, so it is often translated as Occasionalism.

35. This term evokes Gottfried von Leibniz, who related the non-extended and extended worlds in this way: a physically extended table supports a physically extended book laid on it; at the same moment our idea of a book rests on our idea of a table. That is not surprising because two perfect clocks made and set together by an infinitely perfect clockmaker should be expected to strike at the same time.

36. See note 32 above.

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