Page:Emanuel Swedenborg, Scientist and Mystic.djvu/360

342 speaking to them? You call them "visionaries and enthusiasts." "But where is that specific difference which distinguishes you from them?"

It appeared a sensible question. But it must be remembered that Cuno was not at all asking it from a modern point of view. He thought that Swedenborg was out of his head because he did not believe in all the accepted Christian dogmas. Swedenborg thought Cuno was out of his to accept them.

Cuno had, however, doubted Swedenborg's "mission." He says he waited a few days, then when no answer came, he went to see him, and for the first time he found him quite cold, "Nay, to say the truth, he appeared to me even a little angry."

Swedenborg might well have been angry because Cuno bad side-stepped an answer to the charges against both Protestants and Catholics, but undoubtedly there was also another reason. As in the case of the Gothenburg clergy, his gentle tranquillity was broken when doubt was cast on his possession of "divine testimony" for the reinterpretation of the Bible.

On the contrary, if people doubted his ability to converse with spirits, there are many witnesses to the effect that this did not anger him in the least. He wrote once, "I am unable to put the state of my sight and speech into their heads, in order to convince them." 3

But his anger with Cuno was short-lived. Soon he came to him and put a little piece of paper into his hand. It was the last paragraph of a new book he was writing. In it he stated that it was the study of natural truth (or science) which led him to study divine truth. And at the end he said that his whole theology consisted in two principles: That God is One, and that there is a conjunction of charity and faith.4 Or, as he sometimes also put it, the union of love and wisdom is God.

In April, 1769, Swedenborg left for Paris and London, but first he came to take leave of his friend. "I shall never forget, as long as I live, the leave which he took of me in my own house," Cuno wrote. Swedenborg hoped to see Cuno once more in Amsterdam, "for I love you." Cuno said that he at least did not expect a long life, and Swedenborg replied that we were obliged to remain as long as Divine Providence and Wisdom see fit. "If anyone is