§342 children 187
c. We are all born in evils of every kind, to the point that our own identity is nothing but evil:
210 , 215 , 731 , 874 , 875 , 876 , 987 , 1047 , 2307 , 2308 , 3518 , 3701 , 3812 , 8480 , 8550 , 10283 , 10284 ,
10286 , 10731 [ 10732 ]. So we need to be reborn—that is, regenerated: 3701. The evil we inherit is
loving ourselves more than God and the world more than heaven, and regarding our neighbor as
nothing compared to ourselves, except for our own benefi t and therefore for ourselves; so that
inheritance is love for oneself and for the world: 694 , 731 , 4317 , 5660. It is from love for oneself
and for the world, when they rule, that all evils come: 1307 , 1308 , 1321 , 1594 , 1691 , 3413 , 7255 , 7376 ,
7480 [ 7490 ], 7488 , 8318 , 9335 , 9348 , 10038 , 10742 ; which evils are a contempt for others, hostility,
hatred, vengefulness, cruelty, and deceit: 6667 , 7372 [ 7370 ], 7373 , 7374 , 9348 , 10038 , 10742 ; and
from these evils comes everything that is false: 1047 , 10283 , 10284 , 10286. These loves rush in to
the extent that they are given free rein, and love for oneself aspires even to the throne of God:
7375 , 8678.
the goal of their whole process of instruction. Consequently, when they
arrive at the innocence of wisdom, the innocence of infancy that had
served them as a matrix in the interim is united to them.
[ 3 ] The nature of children’s innocence was portrayed to me as some-
thing woody and almost lifeless that was brought to life as the children
were brought toward fulfi llment by recognizing truth and beginning to
love what is good. Afterward the nature of real innocence was portrayed
as a supremely beautiful child, naked and very much alive. The actual
innocent people who are in the inmost heaven look to the eyes of other
angels simply like children, some of them naked, since innocence is por-
trayed as a nakedness without embarrassment, as we read concerning the
fi rst man and his wife in the garden (Genesis 2 : 25 ). So too, when they
lost their innocence they were ashamed of their nakedness and hid them-
selves (Genesis 3 : 7 , 10 , 11 ).
In short, the wiser angels are, the more innocent they are; and the
more innocent they are, the more they look like children. This is why
infancy in the Word means innocence (see above, § 278 ).
I have talked with angels about children, wondering whether they 342
were free from evils because they did not have any realized evil the way
adults do. I was told, though, that they are equally involved in evil, even
to the point that they too are nothing but evil.c However, they, like all
angels, are withheld from their evils by the Lord and kept focused on
what is good to the point that it seems to them as though they were
focused on what is good of their own accord. So to prevent children from
having a false notion about themselves after they have grown up in
heaven—a belief that the good that surrounds them is from them and
not from the Lord—they are let back into their hereditary evils from
time to time and left in them until they know and recognize and believe
the way things really are.