unimportant to Swedenborg?
And while we’re at it, let’s consider how Swedenborg’s published theological
writings end. With an index! Just as they began, they end with an index of
spiritual experiences. At the end of True Christianity there is a 47-page index
of these experiences, which includes many details not covered in the main
text, and ends with a whole additional memorable occurrence, all of which has
often been cut. (For details, see my translator’s preface to True Christianity vol.
2 in the deluxe, purple edition.)
So, indexing was not superfluous to what Swedenborg was doing; it was an
integral part from start to finish. And the nature of these indexes went beyond
what is normal.
Threefold Indexing
More evidence of how important this material was to Swedenborg is how much
work he put into it. Let’s consider how he produced the indexlike material that
constitutes 69 percent of New Jerusalem.
The Rev. John Elliott made a significant contribution to our understanding
in his wonderful Latin edition of Swedenborg’s Indexes to Arcana Coelestia.
He points out that there are two types of material in these indexes. This led
Stuart Shotwell and me to realize that what is present in New Jerusalem is yet a
third type; that is, this material took a threefold process to create.
First, Swedenborg would go through Secrets of Heaven paragraph by
paragraph and write an entry in his index under some appropriate keyword.
For example, in his index entry for cor, the Latin word for “heart,” all the
numbers are in sequential order, starting with 170 and ending with 10335 (see
Elliott 2004, 82). The result is a numerically ordered, but topically random,
list of statements with usually just a single reference each. This is what we call
first-order indexlike material.
Then Swedenborg would reread this and copy it over but re-sort the
information into a new synthesis. (See Elliott 2004, 83) The format of the
text changes. In the case of the entry on the heart, Swedenborg has taken all
the mentions of the will in the first-order entry on the heart, and combined
them into one statement with a string of numbers at the end. Then he took all
the mentions of love and combined those. The result is a series of individual,
disconnected statements but they now have more topical density and each has
a string of numbers at the end. This is second-order indexlike material.
Finally, Swedenborg would take that second-order material and rework it
yet again, rearranging the points and crafting them into paragraphs of prose,
which is third-order indexlike material; at times he even provides it with
internal headings.
I don’t have an example about the heart, so let’s look at one from the NCE
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