What Is Believed

14. WHAT IS BELIEVED It is believed in the Christian world that angels have assumed human bodies, and have thus appeared to men; but they did not assume them, but the eyes of man's spirit were opened, and so they were seen. So did angels appear to Abraham and to the others; so did the horses and chariots of fire appear around Elisha, where it is said, "Open his eyes" (2 Kings 6:17). That the Lord appeared thus, is known; but with the difference that the Lord appeared as to the body which He had in the world; angels, however, as to the bodies which belong to spirits, which are in human form, but not as the Lord was.

15. So were seen by John the things which are in Revelation. He also says this (Rev. 1:10).

16. It is known that men are made spiritual through temptations. Much more was this the case with the Lord, because He was God from conception.

17. Through temptations man becomes spiritual and is conjoined to heaven. But the Lord through temptations conjoined His Human to the Divine Itself which was in Him, and so He became God as to the Human.

18. Anyone can see that the Soul which was the very Divine could not dwell in an infirm body such as it is from its own nature. The case is different with the bodies of men who from the father are born into evil affections.

19. All are allotted places in the heavens according to the idea of their faith in respect to the Divine Human of the Lord, and therefore according to their reception of the Lord through truths and goods. (Let the Gentiles be considered, concerning whom . . .)