De Conjugio (On Marriage) · 1 of 25

The Representation of Conjugial Love

1.THE REPRESENTATION OF CONJUGIAL LOVE BY MOST BEAUTIFUL THINGS. Love truly conjugial is represented in heaven by various things. It is represented by adamantine auras; sparkling as if from rubies and carbuncles; also by most beautiful rainbows and golden rains, which, when they are beheld, fill the bystanders with such pleasurableness and such delights, that they affect the inmosts of the mind. I have heard the angels, when conjugial love was so represented in the paradises of heaven, say that they were filled with such delight, that they could not express it otherwise than that it was delight itself, from which, as from their origin, all the rest of delights arise; and this delight was said to be a pure delight of the mind without any excitation of lust, for such is conjugial love in its origin.

2.Since love truly conjugial is in its origin pure delight itself of the mind, and that love is the fundamental of all loves, and from love is all the beauty of the angels in heaven, for love or the affection of love forms everyone, wherefore every angel is as to his face the image of his love or affection, hence it is that all the beauty of the angels in heaven is from their conjugial love; for the inmost of their life which shines through is thence. An angel was seen by me, who was in pure conjugial love (he was from the third heaven); such was his beauty that the bystanders were carried away with admiration, saying that it was beauty itself in its essence.

3.That love truly conjugial is such beauty, and also such delight, is from its first origin, which is the union of the Divine love of the Lord with His Divine wisdom; then the marriage of the Lord with heaven, and with the church, and thence with everyone the marriage of good and truth, concerning which origins of love truly conjugial it shall be spoken in their places.