Swedenborg's Maximus Homo/Swedenborg's Maximus Homo/Chapter 1
SWEDENBORG'S
Maximus Homo.
I.
ITS MEANING EXPLAINED.
In the early part of his work on "Heaven and Hell"—a volume which contains more true spiritual philosophy than all other works ever written—Swedenborg says that heaven is in the human form. Not only every angel and every society of angels, but the entire angelic heaven, he assures us, is in this form; so that the angels viewed collectively, appear before the Lord as one man. And in his other works he often speaks of the whole heaven of angels as Maximus Homo—the Grand Man, as commonly translated.
This, we are aware, has an odd sound to the ears of most people when they hear it for the first time. Perhaps there are few things in the writings of the Swedish seer which appear more arbitrary or fanciful—or, to some minds, more ridiculous—than this. It is usually one of the first things which an opponent of his teachings seizes upon and flouts. It is often referred to by Christian ministers as sufficient evidence in itself of the wild and fantastic character of his teachings. Thus the Rev. Dr. Pond, in his "Swedenborgianism Reviewed," after devoting two or three pages to a statement of the doctrine, adds—
Let us see, then, if this doctrine be either ridiculous or unreasonable. But first let us endeavor to learn what the doctrine is—what the author means, and what he intended his readers should understand, by the term Maximus Homo.
When Swedenborg says that heaven is in the human form, he uses the word form in the sense in which we use it when speaking of civil, social, or ecclesiastical affairs. We speak of a form of government; but when such expression is used, no one thinks of any external or visible shape, but of the nature and adjustment of the various parts composing the government, and by means of which it is administered. A person who reads and understands the constitution or organic law of the State, sees therein its form of government. We speak, also, of the form of society in a particular age or nation; and by this is meant the nature and relation of the several parts composing such society—the nature and arrangement of its social, industrial, commercial, educational, artistic, moral, and religious elements. Again, we speak of the form of a church, or of church polity; and by this we mean the character, connection, order, subordination, etc., of its various functionaries, the mode of their appointment, and their respective duties.
When it is said, therefore, that heaven is in the human form, the meaning is that it is in human order; that all its parts, or all the innumerable societies of which it consists, are so arranged and adjusted as to express most perfectly the truly human principles which constitute the essential spirit and life of heaven. In other words, the relation, mutual dependence, and intercommunication of the societies composing the whole angelic heaven, and the uses they respectively perform, correspond to those existing among the various organs of the human body and their respective uses. One is a perfect type or representative image of the other.
Accordingly, Swedenborg often speaks of the angelic societies as located in different parts or organs of the Grand Man; of some as in the head, some in the heart, some in the spleen, some in the liver; and of others, again, as in the eye, ear, knee, or foot. And his meaning is, that such societies correspond to these bodily organs; that is to say, their relation to the other societies of heaven and the special functions which they perform in the Grand Man, correspond to the relation existing among such bodily organs; and to their respective uses in the human body. To cite here & single passage;—
It thus becomes plain what Swedenborg means when he says that heaven is in the human form It is a spiritual and not a natural idea which he is endeavoring to express. And when we shall have fairly grasped his meaning, and duly considered the subject, we shall see that he could have employed no other terms which would express so fully and with such brevity the beautiful and orderly arrangement of the whole angelic heaven, and the harmonious relation of its innumerable and diverse societies.
But let us push our inquiry on the subject a little further, that we may see more distinctly the ground and origin as well as the truth of this heavenly doctrine of the Grand Man.
Everything that exists must exist in some form. And the forms of all things will be found to correspond to their essential nature, or to the kind of life that determines and moulds their forms. The form always corresponds to the essence. The ox, the eagle, the lion, the dove, each has a form suited to its needs, or correspondent to its own peculiar life. It hence follows, that the higher and nobler the life, the more beautiful and perfect will be the form; otherwise there would be no correspondence or agreement one with the other. If we look at the lowest creatures in the animal kingdom, we find them closely allied to vegetables, consisting of few parts, and these comparatively simple in their structure. Their forms are inferior, and their wants and capacities correspondingly limited. As we ascend the scale of animated nature we find a gradual increase of wants; powers more varied; faculties enlarged and multiplied. And corresponding to this increase of desires, and enlargement and multiplication of faculties, we find the forms of life also becoming more complex and perfect. We find them rising above the earth, provided with the means of locomotion, and simulating, in degrees more or less remote, the human form; until at length we arrive at man, the last link in the great chain connecting all below with all above him. Created to stand erect with his feet upon the earth and his face toward heaven, he alone is capable of looking above himself, and of intelligently reciprocating or giving back the love and wisdom which flow from God. In man, therefore, the circle of life is complete. In a state of order he is the image and likeness of his Maker. He is the complex, therefore, of all the powers and gifts of other creatures, with the two human faculties—liberty and rationality—superadded.
Now it is because human life is the highest and noblest kind of life—because human wants are more numerous, and the human faculties more enlarged, exalted, and varied than those of any other creature, that the human form through whose instrumentality alone these faculties can manifest themselves, is the very perfection of all forms. God himself, who is the perfection of all that is human, is in this form. He is a perfect Divine Man. In him everything truly human exists in infinite fullness, variety, and perfection. Therefore when He manifested himself on earth to the eye of sense, he appeared in the human form. And when in more ancient times he filled the body of an angel with his own Divine life, and thus became manifest to the spiritual senses of his chosen seers as "the angel of Jehovah," his form was always the human.
And it is a Divinely-revealed truth that man was created in the image and likeness of God. His form, therefore, is one capable of receiving and expressing in a finite degree something of that truly human life which flows from the Divine Human. This life when received, becomes in man the life of love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbor. And this is the essential life of heaven. Other creatures below man receive and enjoy lower degrees of life; but he alone can receive and enjoy this higher or heavenly life, because he alone is in the human form. And the more we receive of this life, the more truly human do we become in our thoughts, feelings, dispositions, and purposes; and the more faithfully do we express through our human form—by our looks, words, and actions—the love and wisdom which are the essential constituents of true humanity. For the most beautiful and perfect form is that which best expresses the purest and most exalted human love.
And as it is with a single individual, so with a society or community—with men in the aggregate. The more of true human life each member of a community receives, or the more each one suffers himself to be governed by the highest good and truth, the more orderly, industrious, united, healthy, and happy is that community. The more truly human does it become in its form, organization, and activities. It appoints its wiseet and best men to preside over its interests, because every one is aiming to subject himself to the government of the highest good and truth. And so the form or order of that community becomes more and more human. All its corporate acts express more and more faithfully the human thoughts and feelings with which the minds of its individual members are imbued. Such community is in the human form, therefore, just so far as the individual minds composing it are human. It is the tendency of true human life wherever it exists, to mould the collective as well as the individual man into a corresponding human form.
But a consideration of the wonderful mechanism of the human body, and of the mutual relation and dependence of its various parts, will furnish the best idea of the human form, and reveal most clearly the form or order of heaven. For as the body in its entireness corresponds to the soul, so its different parts correspond to the various faculties and functions of the soul, or to the goods and truths of heaven in their various orders and degrees. Therefore the bodily organs correspond to the various societies of which the whole angelic heaven is composed, and which are the living embodiment of these goods and truths.
On a careful survey of the human system, we find it composed of numerous parts which are all different from each other. Its structure is the most complex of any object in the universe. There is no other created thing which consists of so many parts; yet no two of these parts are found to be precisely alike. Some of them differ widely both in form and function. But notwithstanding the endless number and diversity of parts, they are all mutually dependent, mutually adapted to each other's wants, and work together in admirable harmony. Every organ, however minute, has its post assigned it, and its appropriate work given it to do. The brain, heart, liver, pleura, lungs, pancreas, and abdominal viscera—how different are these from each other in their form and structure! How different also in their functions, or in the work given them to do! Yet how admirably they do harmonize! What entire unanimity among these numerous and diverse parts! What perfect concert of action! All the more perfect because of their diversity. With what beautiful brotherly love do they all work together, and what tender regard has each for the welfare of all the rest! If one is out of order, all the others are more or less uncomfortable and restless. If one suffers, all the rest sympathize and suffer with it. It is a law—and herein we have a beautiful illustration of the universal law of brotherhood—that each shall discharge its appropriate function, not apart from the others and for the sake of itself alone, but in harmony with, and for the welfare of all the rest. And the more faithfully it labors to do this, the more does it promote its own health and strength as well as the health and strength of the other members. The welfare of each is linked indissolubly with that of all the others. One life pervades them all, and each receives and enjoys that life in proportion as it respects and faithfully works for the good of the whole. The moment one ceases to do its work, or appropriates more than its share of the juices elaborated, or more than it needs to fit it for the performance of its appointed use, that moment comes disease—disease to itself and disease to all the rest. And if it persevere in this abnormal course, sooner or later death inevitably ensues.
Such is the law, fixed and unalterable. There is no escape from it. And what a striking exemplification does it furnish of the great law of spiritual life, the law of neighborly love!—yes, and the sure consequence of a persistent violation of this law!
Although one life pervades all the bodily organs, they do not all receive it in like measure. Their receptivity is as various as their forms. Some receive it in a higher degree than others, and form more important and varied functions, and may therefore be said to be of a higher grade. And so there are gradations of rank among the members of the body. No one is entirely independent of the rest. No one is so high that it can dispense with the services of the most humble, and no one so low that it cannot do something to promote the health and strength of the highest. The head needs the foot, and the heart the hand, no less than the foot needs the head or the hand the heart. And even the hair and nails and the coarse cuticle on the soles of the feet have their use, and add to the completeness and perfection of the whole.
Behold here, then, in the human body, a representative image of heaven! the most perfect image of order, harmony, unity, freedom, mutual dependence and brotherly love! The relation of the bodily organs to each other, and the uses they respectively perform, are as the relation existing among the angelic societies, and their respective uses; because heaven as a whole and in each of its parts, is in the human form. And notwithstanding there are in heaven as in the human body gradations of rank and office, notwithstanding some there have more important functions to perform than others, there is no pride or disdain on the one hand, nor envy or humiliation on the other, any more than among the different members of the body. Notwithstanding there exist authority and obedience, there is nothing like tyranny on the one hand or slavishness on the other. There is the most perfect freedom coupled with unspeakable bliss; for every one acts as his ruling love prompts, but he loves nothing which is not good and true. Be his office high or low, he does precisely that which he is qualified to do best, and in the doing of which he finds a pure delight. Conscious that he could not be so useful or happy in any other sphere, he has no desire to be anywhere or anything else than he is. Whatever there is, therefore, of exaltation or subordination, of authority or obedience there, neither is felt or thought of as such, any more than in the human body.
From what has now been said, we trust that Swedenborg's meaning, when he says that heaven is in the human form, will be sufficiently plain. And although the heavenly societies are innumerable, and all different from each other, yet there exists the most perfect union among them—a union corresponding to, and beautifully symbolized by, that among the different organs of the human body. And herein is revealed the true nature of that union among Christians on earth, to which the Lord refers when he speaks of his disciples being made "perfect in one" or perfected into one. It is a union of parts that are as different as are the different members of the human body; parts animated, nevertheless, by one and the same life, as in the case of the bodily organs; for the essential life of all in heaven, is the life of love to the Lord and the neighbor.
Now it will not be denied that the human form is the most perfect of all forms. And if the Lord's disciples (and all those composing the heavenly societies are to be reckoned as his disciples) are "made perfect in one," then must the whole heaven of angels be in the human form; and the doctrine of the Grand Man as revealed through Swedenborg, must be true. For under any other form than the human, or arranged in any other order than that of the different parts of the human body, the heavenly societies could not be said to be "perfected into one;" since their arrangement would be less beautiful and orderly, and their union less perfect than it might be.
Then the testimony of the great Apostle to the Gentiles may be cited in support and corroboration of the truth of this doctrine. Writing to the Church at Rome, he says: "For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office, so we, being many, are one body in Christ." (Rom. xii, 4,5.) Again to the Corinthian Church: "For the body is not one member, but many; and ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." He further says there is no schism among the bodily members, and that there ought not, therefore, to be any in the body of Christ; that the various parts or members of this body (the church), "should haνe the same care one for another."
Now, the Church on earth ought to be, and so far as it is a true and living Church it will be, an image of heaven. And Paul, in the passages referred to, plainly teaches that the Church of Christ is in the human form; that its various parts or members, in their mutual relation and dependence, correspond to the different parts of on the human body. And if many persons on earth—all of them disciples of the Lord—are "one body in Christ, and every one members one of another," should not the same be true in heaven? Should not the diversity be even greater there than in the church on earth, and the harmony and union at the same time more complete? and the form or order of heaven, therefore, more perfectly human than that of the church?
This doctrine of the Grand Man may be thought by some to have no practical value, even if its truth be admitted; and the discussion of it may therefore seem to them like unprofitable speculation. But it is not so—far from it. Like every other disclosure concerning the Hereafter which we find in the writings of Swedenborg, it has important practical bearings. It teaches a great and valuable lesson, and one from the study of which we may all derive profit.