viiConventions Used in This Work
A
LTHOUGH True Christianitywas originally published as a single
volume, in this edition it has been broken into two volumes.
Following a practice common in his time, Swedenborg divided his
published theological works into sections numbered in sequence from
beginning to end. His original section numbers have been preserved in
this edition; they appear in boxes in the outside margins. Because many
sections throughout Swedenborg’s works are too long for precise cross-
referencing, Swedenborgian scholar John F. Potts ( 1838 – 1923 ) further
divided them into subsections; these have since become standard. They
are indicated by bracketed arabic numbers that appear in the text itself:
[ 2 ], [ 3 ], and so on. Since the beginning of the first subsection coincides
with the beginning of the section, it is not labeled in the text.
As is common in Swedenborgian studies, text citations of Swedenborg’s
works refer not to page numbers but to section numbers, which are uni-
form in most editions. Thus “Secrets of Heaven 29 ” refers to section 29 (§ 29 )
of Swedenborg’s Secrets of Heaven.Subsection numbers are given after a
colon; a reference such as “ 29 : 2 ” indicates subsection 2 of section 29.
Biblical citations in this edition follow the accepted standard: a semi-
colon is used between book references and between chapter references, and
a comma between verse references. Therefore “Matthew 5 : 11 , 12 ; 6 : 1 ; 10 : 41 ,
42 ; Luke 6 : 23 , 35 ” refers to Matthew chapter 5 , verses 11 and 12 ; Matthew
chapter 6 , verse 1 ; Matthew chapter 10 , verses 41 and 42 ; and Luke chapter
6 , verses 23 and 35.
Swedenborg refers to the Hebrew Scriptures as the Old Testament
and to the Greek Scriptures as the New Testament; his terminology has
been adopted in this edition. As was the custom in his day, he refers to
the Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteron-
omy) as the books of Moses, or simply as “Moses”; for example, in § 218
he writes “in Moses we read the following” and then quotes a passage
from Exodus. Similarly, in sentences or phrases introducing quotations
he sometimes refers to the Psalms as “David,” and to both the Gospel