or Angel; and are often called by Swedenborg Maximus Homo—the Grand Man. The meaning of this is, that the connection, interdependence, and mutual relation of the innumerable societies composing the whole angelic heaven, and the uses which they severally perform, correspond to the harmonious relation existing between the different organs of the human body, and their respective functions.
And since the mutual relation and dependence of all the angelic societies is such that the whole heaven appears before the Lord as one symmetrical and colossal Man or Angel, so the infernal societies are so related and united that all hell appears as one gigantic and deformed Monster or Devil. The difference in their appearance corresponds exactly to the difference in their character. And this is as the difference between a single angel and devil, one of whom is a form of all that is pure and good, and therefore indescribably beautiful; the other a form of all that is evil and loathsome, and therefore hideous.
This, according to Swedenborg, is what we are to understand by the Devil and Satan so often mentioned in Scripture. Each of these is a collective term when used in its widest sense, and denotes all the infernal societies viewed as a single individual. There is an organic connection among infernal spirits. One life pervades them all, and that is the life of self-love and the lusts therein originating,—just as one kind of blood, pure or impure,
