102 HEAVEN and HELL §196
discontinuities. This is even more the case for angels because their sight
acts in unison with their thought, and their thought in unison with their
affection, and also because things seem near or remote, and things
change, in response to the states of their deeper natures, as already noted.197 This is why places and spaces in the Word (and everything that
involves space) mean matters that involve state—distances, for instance,
and nearness and remoteness, paths, journeys, emigrations, miles, stadia,
plains, fi elds, gardens, cities, streets, motion, various kinds of measure-
ment, length, breadth, height, and depth, and countless other things—
for so many things that enter our thought from our world derive
something from space and time.
[ 2 ] I should like only to highlight what length, breadth, and height
mean in the Word. In this world we call something long and broad if it is
long and broad spatially, and the same holds true for “high.” In heaven,
though, where thinking does not involve space, people understand length
as a state of good and breadth as a state of truth, while height is their dif-
ference in regard to level (discussed above in § 38 ). The reason these three
dimensions are understood in this way is that length in heaven is from
east to west, which is where people live who are in the good of love.
Breadth in heaven is from south to north, where people live who are in
truth because of what is good (see above, § 148 ); and height in heaven
applies to both in regard to their level. This is why qualities of this sort
are meant in the Word by length and breadth and height as in Ezekiel
40 – 48 , where the measurements are given of the new temple and the
new earth, with its courts, rooms, doors, gates, windows, and surround-
ings, referring to the new church and the good and true things that are in
it. So too all the measurements elsewhere. [ 3 ] The New Jerusalem is sim-
ilarly described in Revelation, as follows:
The city was laid out foursquare, its length the same as its breadth; and
[the angel] measured the city with the reed at twelve thousand stadia;
the length and breadth and height were equal. (Revelation 21 : 16 )Here the New Jerusalem means a new church, so its measurements
mean attributes of that church, length referring to the good of its love,
breadth to the truth that derives from that good, and height to both the
good and the true in respect to their level. Twelve thousand stadia means
everything good and true taken together. Otherwise, what would be the
point of having its height be twelve thousand stadia like its length and its
breadth?