Swedenborg's Maximus Homo/The New Church/Chapter 2
II.
RELATION OF THE NEW CHURCH TO THE OLD.
In the foregoing chapter we showed that the relation of the New to the Old or former Christian Church is very different from the relation of Christianity to Judaism. While the New Church is not a new and different religion from the Old, as some suppose, but is rather a revival or reestablishment of the Church instituted eighteen hundred years ago, the same cannot be said of the first Christian Church in its relation to the Jewish Church. That was not a re-establishment of Judaism, but a new and altogether different religion, with a new view of the Divine Being and the Sacred Scripture, a new ritual, and a new priesthood or ministry which was not representative like that of the Jewish Church. We desire now to strengthen our argument with additional evidence.
The Lord at his first advent revealed the paternal character of God. He brought the Father forth to the view of mortals. He manifested in his own Person, and on the natural human plane, the Divine character and attributes—the love and wisdom and power of God. He was Himself "God manifest in the flesh." And He not only declared that "his words are spirit and life," but He opened and revealed some of the interior and heavenly meaning of the Jewish Scriptures—as much of it, indeed, as was suited to the states of people at that day; and all of those Scriptures, He said, were written concerning Himself (Luke xxiv, 27). To quote briefly from the Writings:—
"The successive states of the Church after the end of the Jewish, or from the time of the Lord to the present day, have been as those of a man who grows in intelligence and wisdom, or is regenerated; for which end the interior things of the Word, of the Church, and of worship were revealed by the Lord when He was in the world; and now, lastly, things still more interior are made known.". (A. E. 641.)
"When the Lord came into the world the interior of the Word was opened; for when He was in the world He revealed interior divine truths to serve for the use of the New Church then to be established by Him, and also did serve; at this day also, for like reasons, the interior of the Word is opened, and divine truths still more interior are thence revealed for the use of the New Church which will be called the New Jerusalem." (Ibid. 948.)
"After the end of that Church [the Israelitish] interior divine truths were revealed by the Lord for the Christian Church, and now truths still more interior for the Church which is to come [that is, for the New Jerusalem "]. (Ibid.)
Here we are plainly taught that the relation of the New to the Old or former Christian Church is very different from that of Christianity to Judaism. Instead of being a new and altogether different religion or Church from that established eighteen hundred years ago, it is in reality the self-same religion or Church in its more advanced and mature stage, or more complete development. It bears a relation to the first Christian Church similar to that which the full-grown and regenerate man bears to the inexperienced and innocent being he was when a child. The man is the same identical individual, but how changed from the little child! He has passed through deep waters and miry places; has had dark days and encountered fearful storms; has had many a battle with the hosts of hell, and exhibited at times, it may be, the loathsomeness of the abyss. But his rough voyage has taught him many things; and, in lieu of the ignorance and innocence of childhood, he now has attained to manly intelligence and the innocence of wisdom.
The Christian Church, from the time of its establishment, has passed through similar or corresponding states. During the first few centuries of our era it was in its childhood. Since that time its states, we are told, "have been as those of a man who grows in intelligence and wisdom." The primitive Church, therefore, was the New Jerusalem in its childhood. In its simple and innocent state it had some clear perception of spiritual things; and accordingly it is said that "some of the interior things of the Word, of the Church, and of worship were revealed by the Lord when He was in the world." And now, to the New Jerusalem—the self-same Church, observe, but arrived at a more mature state, and able, therefore, to receive higher wisdom—"truths still more interior are revealed," and in much larger measure.
And see how fully the facts of history confirm, or how perfectly they agree with, what Swedenborg teaches in the passages above quoted. The Apostles knew that the Scriptures have an interior and spiritual meaning which the Jews had no perception of. When the disciples saw the Lord after his crucifixion, "then He opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures" (Luke xxiv, 45.) "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself" (v. 27),—which was a virtual declaration that all the Old Testament Scriptures contain a meaning deeper than that which the Jews saw, and which cannot be perceived until the understanding is opened. And very clearly did Paul, that prince of Apostles, see this when his understanding was opened; and very emphatically did he teach the existence of a spiritual sense in the Jewish Scriptures. To quote a single passage (we might quote many) by way of illustration: Referring, in his letter to the Corinthians, to the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, he says:—
And referring to what befell "some of them" in the wilderness, he continues:—
And this fact of the symbolic character of the Scriptures proclaimed at the first Advent, and this spiritual interpretation of them, was handed down by Paul and the other Apostles to their immediate successors; so that the primitive Christian Church almost universally believed that there is a deeper meaning to the Scriptures than that which the natural man sees in the letter; and many of the most pious and eminent Biblical scholars of that period had their understandings opened to a pretty clear perception of the spiritual meaning of Scripture. Of this we have abundant proof in their published writings. The celebrated historian, Dr. Mosheim, speaking of the most distinguished luminaries of the church in the second century, says:—
And, speaking of "the principal writers that distinguished themselves" in the third century by their learned and pious productions, the same historian says:—
"The most eminent of these, whether we consider the extent of his fame or the multiplicity of his labors, was Origen, presbyter and catechist of Alexandria, a man of vast and uncommon abilities, and the greatest luminary of the Christian world that this age exhibited to view. His virtues and labors deserve the admiration of all ages." (Cent. III, Part 2, Chap. ii, § 7.)
And the same authority tells us that this illustrious man believed and taught that the highest and chief wisdom of the written Word lies within or above the sense of the letter. To quote again from his history of the third century:—
"Origen alleged . . . that there were, indeed, certain notions conveyed under the outward terms [of Scripture] according to their literal force and import; yet it was not in these that the true meaning of the sacred writers was to be sought, but in a mysterious and hidden sense arising from the nature of the things themselves. This hidden sense he endeavors to investigate throughout his commentaries." (Ibid., Chap. iii, § 5.) And he adds: "A prodigious number of interpreters, both in this and the succeeding ages, followed the method of Origen."
In confirmation of what Dr. Mosheim says, and to show how strong was Origen's conviction of the spiritual sense of Scripture, and how clear was his perception of this sense in many cases, we will give a few brief extracts from his writings. In his fifth homily on Leviticus (p. 205) he says:—
"As, therefore, a mutual affinity exists between things visible and things invisible, earth and heaven, soul and flesh, body and spirit, . . . so also Holy Scripture, we may believe, is made up of visible and invisible parts; first, as it were, of a kind of body, that is, of the letter which we see with our eyes; next of a soul, that is, of the sense which is discovered within that letter."
"They are to be accounted kings and princes (unto God) who can remove the earth of the letter which covers the well of life, and draw forth the spiritual sense, like living waters, from that interior rock where Christ is." (In Levit., Cap. vii..)
"Since the law is a shadow of the good things which are to come, and contains an account of marriages and of husbands and wives, we are not to understand it as of marriages according to the flesh, but as relating to the spiritual marriage between Christ and his Church . . . Whosoever, therefore, when he reads in the Scriptures about marriages understands no more by them than carnal marriages, errs, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God." (In Matt Tractat.)
"Moses and Elias appeared in glory when they talked with Jesus; and in this fact the Law and the Prophets are shown to agree with the Gospels, and to be resplendent with the same glory when spiritually understood."
"Unless thou ascend the mountain of God and there meet with Moses, unless thou ascend the lofty sense of the Law, unless thou reach the height of spiritual intelligence, thy mouth is not opened by God. If thou abide in the low plain of the letter, and do no more than make Jewish narratives of the historical text, thou hast not met Moses on the mount of God." (In Exod., Cap. iv.)
"There is an interior sense to the events which are recorded in the Evangelists." (In Matt., Cap xv.
"The true miracles of Christ and the healing of the sick are of a spiritual kind." (Ibid., xxv.)
The works which Jesus then did were the symbols of those things which by his power He is always doing." (In Matt., Cap. xv.)
And many pages similar in character to the extracts here given might be quoted from the writings of Origen. And in perfect agreement with his idea of Sacred Scripture were Jerome and Augustine, and Cyril and Theophilus, and Ignatius and Barnabas, and Pamphilius and, in short, all of the most learned and illustrious Fathers of the primitive Christian Church.
Now, all of those early Christians, be it remembered, were a part of what is familiarly called the "Old Church." They belonged to the first Christian Dispensation. And so far was theirs from being a different religion from that of the New Christian Church, it is clearly seen to be the very same religion and Church in its infantile or immature state. The relation, therefore, of the New Church to the Old is by no means similar to that of Christianity to Judaism. And the idea, so prevalent among Swedenborgians, of the necessity of a new ordination, a new ministry, a new baptism, etc., is seen to be a mistaken idea, and wholly unauthorized by the teachings of Swedenborg. In the degree that the old and false dogmas which ecclesiastical councils have super-induced upon the early Christian Church, together with the selfish, bigoted, and infernal spirit that is so often the sure accompaniment of such dogmas, are cast out, and the new light and life through the New Heaven is received, the New Church is established and built up. And that this church-renewing process is steadily going on all around us, must be plain to every careful observer of the religious thought and life of our times.
Thus may the New Jerusalem be seen descending from God out of heaven, not as a new and visible institution, not as a new and separate church organization, but rather as new and higher wisdom—as new light and new life—entering into the heart of Christendom and moulding it anew; a Church not antagonistic to the Old organizations, but renewing, enlightening, and reanimating them all; a Church not distinguished merely by its new doctrines, new ministry, and new ordinances, but the entire body of professing Christians becoming more and more Christlike in purpose, thought, and deed—filled, or gradually becoming filled, with the Divine Master's spirit, "beautiful as a bride adorned for her husband."