other the Angel of Wisdom. Swedenborg's guide told him that the two
Angels had been linked together on earth by an inward friendship and
ever united though separated in life by great distances. Consent, the
essence of all good marriage upon earth, is the habitual state of
Angels in Heaven. Love is the light of their world. The eternal
rapture of Angels comes from the faculty that God communicates to them
to render back to Him the joy they feel through Him. This reciprocity
of infinitude forms their life. They become infinite by participating
of the essence of God, who generates Himself by Himself.

"The immensity of the Heavens where the Angels dwell is such that if
man were endowed with sight as rapid as the darting of light from the
sun to the earth, and if he gazed throughout eternity, his eyes could
not reach the horizon, nor find an end. Light alone can give an idea
of the joys of heaven. 'It is,' says Swedenborg ('Angelic Wisdom,' 7,
25, 26, 27), 'a vapor of the virtue of God, a pure emanation of His
splendor, beside which our greatest brilliance is obscurity. It can
compass all; it can renew all, and is never absorbed: it environs the
Angel and unites him to God by infinite joys which multiply infinitely
of themselves. This Light destroys whosoever is not prepared to
receive it. No one here below, nor yet in Heaven can see God and live.
This is the meaning of the saying (Exodus xix. 12, 13, 21-23) "Take
heed to yourselves that ye go not up into the mount--lest ye break
through unto the Lord to gaze, and many perish." And again (Exodus
xxxiv. 29-35), "When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two
Tables of testimony in his hand, his face shone, so that he put a veil
upon it when he spake with the people, lest any of them die." The
Transfiguration of Jesus Christ likewise revealed the light
surrounding the Messengers from on high and the ineffable joys of the
Angels who are forever imbued with it. "His face," says Saint Matthew