It is perhaps not a coincidence that the heart shape is the accepted symbol for love. One of the most fascinating ideas in Swedenborg is that there is an intricate and complete correspondence between the physical human body and the spiritual human being, with each part of the physical body illuminating a corresponding spiritual function — and in that system, the heart corresponds to love, to our most essential desires and motivations.
This makes sense if you think about it. The heart is the first and most essential of all the organs, pumping blood full of oxygen and nutrients to other organs and fibers to keep them alive and let them do their work. It doesn’t sort the blood, create new substances or tell other organs what to do, it simply fills them with life, giving them the energy and capacity to do what they do. Isn’t that a lot like love? We are filled with love, driven by love (some good, some bad), and only after receiving it can we give form to that love in all our actions and decisions.
This seems to be something people have long known, on some level. Not only is the heart associated with romantic love, but someone sad could be “heartsick,” we seek mercy by asking people to “have a heart” and an athlete who loves his or her sport is said to “play with heart.”
So it follows that when “heart” is mentioned in the Bible, it is a reference to our state of love, to our most essential motivations.
Of course, Swedenborg says that love does not originate with us, that ultimately love itself is the origin of reality and the essence of the Lord, and that we (and everything that exists, both spiritual and natural) are expressions of that love. The love we have is love that is received from the Lord. So “heart” in the Bible can also mean the aspect of ourselves through with we receive love, the conduit the Lord uses to fill us. In many cases that is closely linked to the idea of “the church,” or the part of us that is open to the Lord and receptive of the Lord.
Passages from Swedenborg
Divine Love and Wisdom (Rogers) n. 399
399. (1) Love or the will is a person’s very life. This follows from the correspondence of the heart with the will, as discussed in nos. 378-381 above; for as the heart functions in the body, so the will does in the mind. Moreover, as all the constituents of the body depend for their existence and motion on the heart, so all the constituents of the mind depend for their existence and life on the will. We say on the will, but we mean on love, because the will is the recipient vessel of love, and love is life itself (see nos. 1-3 above), and love which is life itself comes from the Lord alone.
It can be known from the heart and its extension throughout the body by means of the arteries and veins that love or the will is a person’s life, because things that correspond to each other function similarly, with the difference that one is natural and the other spiritual.
[2] How the heart functions in the body is apparent from the study of anatomy, as for example, that everything is alive or is responsive to life where the heart operates through vessels issuing from it, and that everything is lifeless where the heart does not operate through its vessels. Moreover, the heart is also the first and last organ to function in the body. Its being the first is clear from fetuses, and its being the last is clear from people dying; and that it functions without the concomitant operation of the lungs is clear from cases of suffocation and fainting.
It can be seen from this that as the subsidiary life of the body depends on the heart alone, so likewise does the life of the mind depend on the will alone, and that the will likewise continues to live if thought ceases, as the heart does if respiration ceases-as is also apparent from fetuses, from people dying, and from cases of suffocation and fainting.
It follows from this that love or the will is a person’s very life.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 637
637. The implications of ‘I will destroy them together with the earth’ meaning that the human race would perish together with the Church are as follows: If the Lord’s Church had been completely wiped out on earth, the human race could not have remained in being at all, for all without exception would have perished. As previously stated, the Church is as the heart. As long as the heart is alive, surrounding organs and limbs are able to live as well. But the moment the heart dies, everything else dies as well. The Lord’s Church on earth is as the heart, and from it the human race, even that part of it lying outside of the Church, has life. The reason why is totally unknown to anybody. But so that something of this may be known, let it be said that the whole human race on earth is like the body and all its parts, with the Church resembling the heart. And if there were no Church, with which as a kind of heart the Lord might unite Himself by way of heaven and the world of spirits, there would be a severance; and once the human race was severed from the Lord it would perish instantly. This is the reason why since man was first created there has always been some Church in existence; and as often as the Church has begun to perish it has nevertheless remained with certain people.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 9050
9050. The fact that ‘soul’ means spiritual life is clear from the meaning of ‘soul’ as a person’s life – the life of his faith, which is spiritual life. Various places in the Word use the expression ‘heart and soul’, and in those places ‘heart’ means the life of love and ‘soul’ the life of faith. A person has two mental powers for receiving life from the Lord, one being called the will, the other the understanding. Love belongs to the power called the will, for forms of the good of love compose its life; but faith belongs to the power called the understanding, for the truths of faith compose its life. Yet these two powers of life with a person nevertheless make one; and when they make one matters of faith are also aspects of love because they are loved, and aspects of love in turn are also matters of faith because they are believed. This is the kind of life that all in heaven possess.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 9276
[6] The Church also resembles an actual human being in this respect, that a person has two fountains of life, namely The Heart and The Lungs. It is well known that when human life begins the first part to develop is the heart and that the second is the lungs, and that from these two as fountains of life every other part of the body receives life. The heart of the Grand Man, that is, of heaven and the Church, is composed of those who are governed by love to the Lord and love towards the neighbour, and so, considered without reference to persons, consists in love of the Lord and love of the neighbour. But the lungs in the Grand Man, or heaven and the Church, are composed of those who are governed by charity towards the neighbour, which comes from the Lord, and from this by faith, and so, considered without reference to persons, consists in charity and faith coming from the Lord. The remaining organs and members in the Grand Man however are composed of those who are governed by external forms of good and external truths, and so, considered without reference to persons, consist in external forms of good and external truths, by means of which internal truths and forms of good can be brought in. Just as the heart, then, flows first into the lungs, and subsequently from itself through these into the organs and members of the body, so too the Lord flows through the good of love into internal truths, and through these into external truths and forms of good.