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378 [Doc. 245.
TRIAL AT GOTTENBURG.
No answer was received by Swedenborg to this letter, be
fore he left for Amsterdam at the close of July, 1770, as ap
pears from the following letter to one of his friends in Gotten
burg, in which a copy of what he had written to the King
was enclosed :
"
Well-born Sir,
Y.
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG TO AUGUSTUS ALSTRÖMER.***
"As I shall leave next week for Amsterdam,
and as I understand that the religious trial of Drs. Beyer and
Rosén has been settled by the Privy Council in an unexpected
manner (cfr. Document 245, T], and as this will probably be
talked about for a long time in Gottenburg, I have the honour
to communicate to you what I submitted on this subject to
His Majesty, so as to break the force of the malicious com
ments, which will no doubt issue from the mouths of cer
tain persons, originating in their interior stupidity and per
versity.
"Two gentlemen of the Supreme Court of Appeals (Justi
tia Revisionen) told me that the Privy Council was the pontifex
maximus in religious matters. At the time I did not make
any reply; if, however, they should repeat this statement to
me, I should say that, far from being the pontifex maximus,
they are simply the vicarius vicarii pontificis maximi, since
Christ, our Saviour is alone pontifex maximus ; that the Houses
of the Diet are His vicarius, and therefore are responsible to
Him ; and that the Privy Council is the vicarius of the Houses
of the Diet, and only as such has plenipotentiary power ; and,
consequently, it is the vicarius vicarii pontificis maximi. Nor
am I able to see in what their pontifical power consists, as
they have simply assented to the opinion expressed by the
Consistory of Gottenburg ; and, without examining any of the
* A copy of the Swedish original of this Document is preserved among
Swedenborg’s letters to Dr. Beyer in the Library ofthe Academy of Sciences
in Stockholm.
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