The Year of the Word
By Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence
The Swedish seer in his mature theosophy claims that before the current “Word” came to be there was an earlier “Word” in the world that maintained the crucial nexus between heaven and earth. Abiding among peoples in “Greater Tartary,” a region in his time understood to encompass the eastern third of the Asian continent, Swedenborg claims to have spoken with spirits from that long ago context, and he reports an intriguing tale about an ancient lost Word that predates the texts we have today.
This “Ancient Word” that abided with these primordial civilizations, Swedenborg identifies as the “Ancient Church,” and he seemed to believe this “Ancient Word” in some form still existed among those living in “Greater Tartary.” More than one Swedenborgian enthusiast in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries went looking for it, but to no avail. Though lost to us, Swedenborg says the Ancient Word provides the basis for the first eleven chapters of Genesis—those mythic tales of the Creation, the Garden of Eden, the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel.
Swedenborg students will know that there was a “Church” before the Ancient Church that he called the “Most Ancient Church.” The “Word,” however, in the Most Ancient Church was not a written Word, according to Swedenborg, but instead was “revealed” to everyone who was of the church (see Secrets of Heaven, §2896). Swedenborg likened these peoples to having such close connections to the spiritual world that the Word was essentially “inscribed on their hearts.”
The Ancient Word, however, was a written Word, and as with the current Word it apparently carried its spiritual themes through the correspondence of its mythic tales. The chronicles were not factual in a literal way but instead profoundly true through their transcendental symbolism. Spiritual world angels carefully preserved and guarded these ancient scriptures and religious practices predating the Hebrew Bible, according to Swedenborg, such that this so-called “Ancient Word” provided the basis for later Judaism and Christianity.
In True Christianity §265, Swedenborg describes conversations he had with these spirit beings:
Of that ancient Word which existed in Asia before the Israelitish Word, I am permitted to state this new thing, namely, that it is still preserved there among the people who dwell in Great Tartary. In the spiritual world I have talked with spirits and angels from that country, who said that they have a Word, and have had it from ancient times; and that they conduct their Divine worship according to this Word, and that it consists solely of correspondences. They said, that in it also is the Book of Jasher, which is mentioned in Joshua (10:12, 13), and in 2 Samuel (1:17, 18); and that they have also among them the books called the Wars of Jehovah and Enunciations, which are mentioned by Moses (Numbers 21:14, 15, and 27–30); and when I read to them the words that Moses had quoted therefrom, they searched to see if they were there, and found them; from which it was evident to me that the ancient Word is still among that people. While talking with them they said that they worshiped Jehovah, some as an invisible God, and some as visible.
Swedenborg constructed a large overview of history consisting of five epochs if the defining characteristic is a spiritual one according to the ability to connect with the divine and live out spiritual precepts. He believed his own work on revealing the Word in the Judeo-Christian scriptures preparatory for New Church. He gave us considerable information on how to understand the true Word, whose only message is regeneration. We honor the Word when we do the work, and sometimes getting the big picture of history helps to re-center our living.
Read the full issue of the Winter 2025 Messenger
Meet Jim Lawrence
Rev. Dr. Jim Lawrence is the president of the Swedenborgian Church of North America. He was the dean of the Center for Swedenborgian Studies for 21 years prior to being elected President in 2022.
