therefore when they have attained to the innocence of
wisdom, the innocence of childhood, which in the meanwhile has served
them as a plane, is joined to them. [3] The innocence of children has
been represented to me as a wooden sort of thing, almost devoid of
life, which becomes vivified as they are perfected by knowledges of
truth and affections for good. Afterwards genuine innocence was
represented by a most beautiful child, naked and full of life; for
the really innocent, who are in the inmost heaven and thus nearest to
the Lord, always appear before the eyes of other angels as little
children, and some of them naked; for innocence is represented by
nakedness unaccompanied by shame, as is said of the first man and his
wife in Paradise (Gen. 2:25); so when their state of innocence
perished they were ashamed of their nakedness, and hid themselves
(chap. 3:7, 10, 11). In a word, the wiser the angels are the more
innocent they are, and the more innocent they are the more they
appear to themselves as little children. This is why in the Word
"childhood" signifies innocence (see above, n. 278).

342. I have talked with angels about little children, whether they
are free from evils, inasmuch as they have no actual evil as adults
have; and I was told that they are equally in evil, and in fact are
nothing but evil;{1} but, like all angels, they are so withheld from
evil and held in good by the Lord as to seem to themselves to be in
good from themselves. For this reason when children have become
adults in heaven, that they may not have the false idea about
themselves that the good in them is from themselves and not from the
Lord, they are now and then let down into their evils which they
inherited, and are left in them until they know, acknowledge and
believe the truth of the matter. [2] There was one, the son of a
king, who died in childhood and grew up in heaven, who held this
opinion. Therefore he was let down into that life of evils into which
he was born, and he then perceived from the sphere of his life that
he had a disposition to domineer over others, and regarded adulteries
as of no account; these evils he had inherited from his parents; but
after he had been brought to recognize his real character he was
again received among the angels with whom he had before been
associated. [3] In the other life no one ever suffers punishment on
account of his inherited evil, because it is not his evil, that is,
it is not his fa