[ssf] A Theologian in Death

[jlb]

  The angels told me
  that when Melancthon died
  he was provided with a house
  deceptively like the one
  in which he lived in this world

  ( This happens to most newcomers
    in eternity upon their first arrival --

     it is why they are ignorant of their death
     and think they are still in the natural world )

  All the things in his room
  were similar to those he had had before:

   * the table
   * the desk with its drawers
   * the shelves of books

  As soon a Melancthon awoke
  in his new abode
  he sat at his table
  took up his literary work
  and spent several days writing
  ( as usual )
  on justification by faith alone
  without a single word on charity

  The omission being remarked by the angels
  they sent messengers to question him:

   'I have proved beyond refutation,'
   -- Melancthon replied to them --
   'that there is nothing in charity
    essential to the sole
    and that to gain salvation
    faith is enough'

  He spoke with great assurance
  unsuspecting that he was dead
  and that his lot lay outside Heaven

  When the angels
  heard him say these things
  they departed ...


  After a few weeks
  the furnishing in his room
  began to fade away and disappear
  until at last there was nothing left
  but the armchair
   the table
    the paper, and
     his inkstand

  What is more
  the walls of the room
  became encrusted in lime
  and the floor with a yellow glaze

  Melancthon's own clothes
  were now much coarser

  He wondered at these changes
  but he went on writing about faith
  while denying charity
  and was so persistent in this exclusion
  that he was suddenly transported underground
  to a kind of workhouse
  where there were other theologians
  like him

  Locked up for a few days
  Melancthon fell to doubting his doctrine
  and was allowed to return to his former room

  He was now clad in a hairy skin
  but he tried hard to convince himself
  that what had happened to him
  was no more than a hallucination
  and he went back to extolling faith
  and belittling charity ...


  One evening
  Melancthon felt cold

  He began examining the house
  and soon discovered that the other rooms
  no longer matched
  those of his old house
  in the natural world

  One was cluttered
  with instruments
  whose use he did not understand;
   another had shrunk so small
    that entrance was impossible;
     a third had not changed
      but its doors and windows
       opened onto vast sandbanks

  One of the rooms
  at the back of the house
  was full of people who worshiped him
  and who kept telling him
  that no theologian
  was ever as wise as he

  These praises pleased him
  but since visitors were faceless
  and others seemed dead
  he ended up hating and distrusting them

  It was at this point
  that he decided to write
  something concerning charity

  The only difficulty was
  that what he wrote one day
  he could not see the next

  This was because the pages
  had been written without conviction ...


  Melancthon received many visits
  from persons newly dead
  but he felt shame
  at being found
  in so run down a lodging

  In order to have them
  believe he was in Heaven
  he hired a neighbouring magician
  who tricked the company with appearances
  of peace and splendour

  The moment his visitors had gone
  ( and sometimes a little before )
  these adornments vanished
  leaving the former plaster
  and draughtiness ...


  The last I heard of Melancthon
  was that the magician
  and one of the faceless men
  had taken him away into the sand hills
   where he is now
    a kind of servant
     of demons

--
  Emanuel Swedenborg
  From the *Arcana Coelestia* ( 1749 - 1756 )