Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/570

 474 MARRIAGE.

The Beauty op the Angels originates from Conjtjgial Love. That IS beautiful which in the sight of the eye is true and good. (D. P. n. 312.) All beauty is from good in which there is innocence. Good itself produces beauty when it flows from the internal man into the external. All human beauty is from this origin. This may be seen too, from the fact that no one is affected merely by the face of another, but by the affection which beams from the face ; and that those who are in good are affected by the affection of good that is in them ; and in the degree that there is innocence in the good. Thus it is the spiritual in the natural that affects [as beauty], and not the natural without the spiritual. They that are in good are affected in a similar manner by little children, who appear beautiful to them in proportion as the innocence of charity is in their face, action, and speech. (A. C. n. 3880.) Spiritual beauty is an affection for interior truth, because truth is the form of good. It is good itself, which is from the Divine in heaven, from which the angels have life ; but the form of their life is by the truths which are from that good. Yet the truth of faith does not produce beauty, but the affection itself that is in the truths of faith, which affection is from good. Beauty from the truth of faith only is like the beauty of a painted or sculptured face; but beauty from an affection for truth, which is from good, is like the beauty of a living face animated vrith heavenly love. For such as is the quality of the love, or such as is the quality of the affection beaming from the face, such is the beauty. Hence it is that the angels appear of ineffable beauty. The good of love beams from their faces by the truth of faith ; which not only appear to the sight, but are perceived also by the spheres that proceed from them. {lb. n. 5199.) The marriage union of good and truth is the origin of conjugial love. (C. L. n. 60.) The angels derive all their beauty from conjugial love ; so that each angel is beautiful according to that love in him. For all the angels are forms of their affections ; for the reason, that in heaven no one is permitted to feign with the countenance things which are not of his affection. Their face is therefore the type of their mind. And consequently when they are possessed of conjugial love, of love to the Lord, of mutual love, of the love of* good and the love of truth, of the love of wisdom, these loves in them give form to their faces, and present themselves as the fires