§378 marriage 215
d. Everything in the universe, both in heaven and on earth, goes back to what is good and what is
true: 2451 [ 2452 ], 3166 , 4390 , 4409 , 5232 , 7256 , 10122 ; and to their union: 10555. There is a mar-
riage between what is good and what is true: 1094 [ 1904 ], 2173 , 2503 [ 2508 ]. What is good loves
what is true, and from its love desires it and desires its union with itself, so it is in an unceasing
effort toward union: 9206 , 9207 , 9495. The life of the true comes from the good: 1589 , 1997 , 2579
[ 2572 ], 4070 , 4096 , 4097 , 4736 , 4757 , 4884 , 5147 , 9667. The true is the form of the good: 3049 ,
3180 , 4574 , 9154. The true is to the good as water is to bread: 4976.
of the union of minds depends entirely on the quality of the true and
good elements that constitute those minds. This means that the most
perfect union is a union of minds formed from things that are genuinely
true and good.
It does need to be realized that there is no greater love than the love
between the true and the good, which is why real marriage love comes
down from that love.d What is false and what is evil also love each other,
but this love later turns into hell.
We may conclude from what has been said thus far about the origin 376
of marriage love just which people are actually involved in it and which
people are not. People who are focused on divinely good realities because
of divine truths are in marriage love; and marriage love is genuine to the
extent that the truths that are united to the good are themselves more
genuine. Further, since everything good that is united to truths comes
from the Lord, it follows that no one can be in real marriage love who
does not acknowledge the Lord and his divine nature, since apart from
this acknowledgment the Lord cannot fl ow in and be united to the truths
within us.
We can see from this that people who are caught up in false thoughts 377
are not involved in marriage love, especially if those false thoughts stem
from evil. In people who are engaged in evil and consequently in false
thoughts, the deeper levels of their minds are closed. This means that
there cannot be any source of marriage love within them. However, on a
lower level, in the outer or natural person divorced from the inner, there
is a union of the false and the evil, a union that is called a hellish marriage.
I have been allowed to see what marriage is like between people who
are caught up in false thoughts of an evil origin, which is called hellish
marriage. They do talk to each other and even cohabit out of lust, but
inwardly they burn with a mutual hatred so murderous as to be beyond
description.
Marriage love does not occur between people of different religions, 378
either, because the truth of one is not in harmony with the good of the