sented themselves, and said,
"We have perceived and understood what you have heretofore meditated
upon; but the things upon which you are now meditating pass away, and we
do not perceive them. Say nothing about them, for they are of no value."
But I replied, "This love, on which I am now meditating, is not of no
value; because it exists." But they said, "How can there be any love,
which is not from creation? Is not conjugial love from creation; and
does not this love exist between two who are capable of becoming one?
How can there be a love which divides and separates? What youth can love
any other maiden than the one who loves him in return? Must not the love
of the one know and acknowledge the love of the other, so that when they
meet they may unite of themselves? Who can love what is not love? Is not
conjugial love alone mutual and reciprocal? If it be not reciprocal,
does it not rebound and become nothing?" On hearing this, I asked the
two angels from what society of heaven they were? They said, "We are
from the heaven of innocence; we came infants into this heavenly world,
and were educated under the Lord's auspices; and when I became a young
man, and my wife, who is here with me, marriageable, we were betrothed
and entered into a contract, and were joined under the first favorable
impressions; and as we were unacquainted with any other love than what
is truly nuptial and conjugial, therefore, when we were made acquainted
with the ideas of your thought concerning a strange love directly
opposed to our love, we could not at all comprehend it; and we have
descended in order to ask you, why you meditate on things that cannot be
understood? Tell us, therefore, how a love, which not only is not from
creation, but is also contrary to creation, could possibly exist? We
regard things opposite to creation as objects of no value." As they said
this, I rejoiced in heart that I was permitted to converse with angels
of such innocence, as to be entirely ignorant of the nature and meaning
of adultery: wherefore I was free to converse with them, and I
instructed them as follows: "Do you not know, that there exist both good
and evil, and that good is from creation, but not evil; and still that
evil viewed in itself is not nothing, although it is nothing of good?
From creation there exists good, and also good in the greatest degree
and in the least; and when this least becomes nothing, there rises up on
the other side evil: wherefore