The Shorter Works of 1758

This volume contains four shorter works by the influential eighteenth-century mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. Translators George F. Dole and Jonathan S. Rose have produced an accessible rendering of these important yet easily overlooked works. 

New Jerusalem: In this work Swedenborg outlines his theology in twenty-three brief chapters on major Christian topics such as love, faith, regeneration, the inner self and outer self, and the nature of the Bible. Nearly every chapter ends with what is in effect an index to that topic as it appears in his much larger study Secrets of Heaven.

Last Judgment: This work on the “end times” asserts that the Last Judgment foretold in the Bible does not involve the end of the physical world. Rather, the Last Judgment was an event of tremendous upheaval in the spiritual world, a nonmaterial apocalypse which has already occurred and which Swedenborg himself witnessed.

White Horse: This brief work is divided into two parts. The first presents the inner meaning of the white horse mentioned in chapter 19 of the book of Revelation. The second is effectively an index to passages concerning the Bible and its inner meaning in Swedenborg’s much larger work Secrets of Heaven. This work is a good short introduction to Swedenborg’s principle of correspondences between the spiritual and physical worlds, as well as to his unique view of the nature of the Bible.

Other Planets: Building on the eighteenth-century fascination with the possibility of life on other worlds and with traveler’s tales of other cultures, this work describes life on other planets in our solar system and elsewhere in the universe. Swedenborg undertook this work specifically to demonstrate that Jesus is God not just of planet Earth but also of the universe as a whole.