TCR 508 - Nunc Licit

TCR 508

One day there appeared to me a magnificent temple.
It was square in form,
and its roof was in the shape of a crown,
with its lofty arches rising on high all round.
Its walls were continuous windows of crystal
and its gate of pearly substance.
Within on the south side, and facing the west
was a pulpit on the right of which lay the open Word,
surrounded with a blaze of light
whose brightness enveloped and illumined
the whole pulpit.
In the center of the temple was the shrine,
before which a veil was hung.
This was now drawn back,
and there stood a golden cherub
having in his hand a sword
which he waved this way and that.

While I was looking at these things
there flowed into my thought
a perception of what they all signified.
The temple signified the New Church;
the gate of pearl, entrance into this Church;
the windows of crystal, the truths which enlighten it;
and the pulpit, the priesthood and preaching.
The Word open upon the pulpit
and illuminating the upper part of it,
signified its internal sense,
which is spiritual, now revealed;
the shrine in the center of the temple,
the conjunction of that Church with the angelic heaven;
and the golden cherub within it,
the Word in the sense of the Letter.
The waving of the sword in the hand of the cherub
signified that the sense of the Letter
can be turned this way and that,
provided this is done in application to some truth;
and the drawing aside of the veil before the cherub
signified that now the Word is opened.

When I approached nearer
I saw this inscription over the gate,
"Now it is permitted" (Nunc licet);
which signified that one may now enter
with understanding into the mysteries of faith.
On seeing this inscription
I was impressed with the thought
that it is extremely dangerous
to enter with the understanding into dogmas of faith
which are the product of a person's own intelligence,
and therefore consist of falsities;
and still more dangerous
to confirm them from the Word.
For this closes the higher reaches of the understanding,
and gradually the lower also,
to such a degree that matters of a theological nature
not only become distasteful,
but drop out of the mind completely,
like writing from a worm-eaten book
and the nap from moth-eaten cloth.
The understanding is then engaged only
with political matters that concern a person's life
in the state to which he belongs,
with civil affairs that relate to his own employment,
and with the domestic affairs of his own household.
In all these a person devotes himself to nature,
and loves her for the allurements of her pleasures,
as an idolater loves the golden image
he hugs to his bosom.

The dogmas of the Christian Churches
at the present day
are not derived from the Word,
but are the product of man's own intelligence,
thus consisting of falsities, and they have, moreover,
been confirmed by some passages from the Word.
Therefore, among Roman Catholics,
of the Divine Providence of the Lord,
the Word has now been taken
out of the hands of the laity;
but among Protestants, it is an open Book,
although it is closed where it is maintained,
as is commonly asserted,
that the understanding is to be kept
under obedience to their faith.

It is otherwise, however, in the New Church.
Here one is permitted to enter with the understanding
into all its interior truths,
and also to confirm them by the Word.
The reason is
that its doctrines are truths in series from the Lord,
revealed by means of the Word;
and confirmation of these
by rational considerations
opens the higher reaches of the understanding
and so elevates it into the light
which the angels of heaven enjoy.
This light in its essence is truth,
and in this light
the acknowledgment of the Lord
as the God of heaven and earth
shines in all its glory.
This is meant by
the inscription over the gate of the temple,
"Now it is permitted" (Nunc licet),
and also by the veil of the shrine
being drawn aside before the cherub.
For it is a canon of the New Church
that falsities close the understanding
and truths open it.

After these things I saw, as it were,
an infant overhead, holding in his hand a paper.
As he approached me,
he gradually attained
the stature of a man of middle height.
He was an angel from the third heaven,
where all at a distance appear as infants.
When he reached me, he handed me the paper;
but as it was written in the curved letters
peculiar to that heaven,
I gave it back to him
requesting that some of the angels there
might express the meaning of the words in terms
adapted to the ideas of my thought.
He returned it; and this is what was written:
"Henceforward enter into the mysteries of the Word,
which has hitherto been a closed Book;
for all its truths are so many mirrors of the Lord."