Week 6    Day 2

    Listen:

O How Just

False notions of Justice

CL 231. I once heard noisy outcries which as it were gurgled up through waters from beneath. One on the left was, “O, how just!” Another on the right, “Oh, how learned!” And a third from behind, “Oh, how wise!” And as it came into my thought [to wonder] whether there are any who are just, learned, and wise, also in hell. I was impressed with the desire of seeing whether there were any such there, and it was said to me out of heaven, “You shall see and hear.” And in spirit I went out of the house and saw an opening before me. I drew near and looked down, and behold, a stairway. By this I descended, and when I reached the bottom, I saw level plains overgrown with trees mingled with thorns and nettles. And I asked if this was hell. They said, “It is the lower earth, which is next above hell.” And then I went on following the outcries in order. I came to the first, “Oh, how just!” and saw an assembly of those who in the world were judges for the sake of friendship and for gifts. Then I came to the second, “Oh, how learned!” and saw an assembly of those who in the world had been reasoners; and to the third cry, “Oh, how wise!” and saw an assembly of those who in the world had been confirmers.

[2] I turned away from these to the first, where there were judges [who judged] for friendship and for gifts, and who were proclaimed to be just. And I saw at one side as it were an amphitheater built of brick and roofed with black tiles, and I was told that they called it the Tribunal. Into this there opened on the north side three entrances, and three on the west side; but on the south and the east sides there were none, an indication that their judgments were not the judgments of justice but arbitrary decisions. In the middle of the amphitheater a fireplace appeared, into which servants having the charge of it were throwing pitch- pine wood impregnated with sulphur and bitumen. The flickering light from this fire, thrown up on the plastered walls, presented pictured images of birds of evening and of night. The fireplace and the flickerings of light from it in the forms of those images were representations of their judgments, in that they could light up the subject matters of any question with colored dyes and present them in forms according to their inclination.

[3] After half an hour I saw old men and young enter wearing long robes and gowns, who taking off their hats, took their places in chairs at the tables to sit in judgment. And I heard and perceived how skillfully and ingeniously from the aspect of friendship they warped and inverted judgments, into the appearance of justice; and this so completely that they themselves did not see the unjust to be otherwise than as just, and on the other hand the just as unjust. Such persuasions about them were apparent from their faces and audible from their speech. At that time enlightenment was given me from heaven, by which I perceived in each case whether the judgment was of right (juris) or not of right. And I saw how assiduously they covered over the unjust and induced on it the appearance of justice; and how, out of the laws, they selected what was favorable and drew the rest to their side by skillful reasoning. After the judgment the decisions were conveyed to the clients, their friends and favorers; and to repay the judges for their favor these shouted for a long distance, “O how just! O how just!”

[4] After this I conversed with angels of heaven about these things and narrated to them something of what I had seen and heard. And the angels told me that such judges appear to others as gifted with most penetrating acuteness of understanding, when yet they see not the least of what is just and equitable. If you take away their friendship for anyone, they sit in judgment mute as statues, and only say, “I assent, I agree with this one or that one.” The reason is that all their judgments are prejudices, and prejudice with favor pursues the case from beginning to end. Hence they see nothing but what is in favor of their friend; everything that is against him they set aside, and if they take it up again, they entangle it in reasonings, as a spider does its prey in the filaments of its web and consumes it. This is why if they do not follow the web of their prejudice, they see nothing of the right. They were explored as to whether they could see, and it was found that they could not. “The inhabitants of your world,” said the angels, “will be surprised that this is so; but tell them that it is the truth, explored by angels of heaven. Because these see nothing of what is just, we in heaven regard them not as men but as monsters, of whom matters of friendship make the head, those of injustice make the breast, matters of confirmation the feet, and those of justice the soles which, if they do not favor a friend are overthrown and trodden under foot. But how they appear to us from heaven, you shall see; for their end is nigh.” And behold, suddenly the ground then opened, and tables fell upon tables, and with the whole amphitheater, the men were swallowed up and were thrown into caverns and imprisoned. And the angels then said to me, “Do you wish to see them there?” And behold, they appeared as with faces of polished steel, with a body from the neck to the loins as of sculptured stone clothed in garments of panther’s skins, and with feet like serpents. And I saw the law books which they had laid on the tables turned to playing cards; and now, instead of sitting in judgment, the employment was given them of making vermilion into rouge, with which to deck the faces of harlots and thus transform them into beauties.

After seeing these I desired to go to the two other assemblies, to the one where were the mere reasoners, and to the other where there were mere confirmers. But then it was said to me, “Rest a little. Angel companions will be given you from the society next above them. Through them light will be given you by the Lord and you will see strange things.”

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