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Doc. 233.] 259
ETINGER TO SWEDENBORG.
late Prelate Bengel,183 whose literal interpretation has acquired
fame everywhere, even in Rome.
Some, indeed, maintain that it is wrong to interrogate the
dead ; but you, in accordance with Hebrews xii, 25, and with
leave given from on high, have approached the living , the
spirits of the just who have been made perfect ; if therefore,
most venerable man, you would relate to us the conversations
you have had with Paul and John, with Moses and Luther,
each of your books would acquire much greater power. In
this particular, however, you do not favour us.
Most undoubtedly I have wondered much that you, from
being a philosopher, should have become a seer and prophet.
I have often said to the scoffers who pronounced me a fanatic
on your account : Is it possible that a philosopher who, like
Wolf,18 has weighed and measured everything, should all at
once, as is maintained, have become an imbecile ; that he should
have suddenly ceased to think according to the rules of order,
and yet, for twenty-two years have written, from his own see
ing and hearing, systematically and in agreement with sundry
passages of Scripture, on man’s state after death? Let philo
sophers solve the problem, how he could have come into such
a state while exhibiting so much symmetry. A book has
come into our hands entitled : Dreams of a Spirit-seer (Träume
eines Geistersehers), in which the author* exalts you as much
by praises on the one hand, as he drags you down by crimi
nations on the other, for fear of his seeming a fanatic. The
theologians in the universities condemn you on account of your
errors in respect to the Trinity, justification, and redemption,
which you explain according to Dippel’s185 method.
The nature of Christ’s descent to hell is most admirably
explained by you ; and if your books had no other use but
that, it would be sufficiently great. Many also by a perusal
of your writings believe in the immortality of the soul, which
they had denied before.
A most clear-headed man attributes [in your books] more
to the science of correspondences, than to prophecy. Of what use
is it, [says he,] to know anything from the mouth of angels,
The philosopher Immanuel Kant (see Note 184).
17*
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