most closely who abhors them as so many dusky and
fiery devils. For evil and the devil are one and the same, and the
falsity of evil and satan are one and the same. As the Lord's influx is
into the love of good and into its affections and by these into the
perceptions and thoughts, which have it from the good in which a man is
that they are truths, so the influx of the devil, that is of hell, is
into the love of evil and its affections, which are lusts, and by these
into the perceptions and thoughts, which have it from the evil in which
the man is that they are falsities.

[4] _How the conjunction seems closer and closer._ The more the evils in
the natural man are removed by shunning and turning away from them, the
more closely a man is conjoined to the Lord. Love and wisdom, which are
the Lord Himself, are not in space, as affection which is of love, and
thought which is of wisdom, have nothing in common with space. In the
measure of the conjunction by love and wisdom, therefore, the Lord seems
nearer; and, contrariwise, in the measure of the rejection of love and
wisdom, more distant. There is no space in the spiritual world; distance
and presence there are appearances according to similarity or
dissimilarity of the affections. For, as we said, affections which are of
love, and thoughts which are of wisdom, in themselves spiritual, are not
in space (on this see what was shown in the treatise _Divine Love and
Wisdom,_ nn. 7-10, 69-72, and elsewhere).

[5] The Lord's conjunction with a man in whom evils have been put away is
meant by the Lord's words:

The pure in heart shall see God (Mt 5:8);

and by the words:

He who has my commandments and does them . . . with him will I make an
abode (Jn 14:21, 23).

"To have the commandments" is to know and "to do them" is to love, for it
is also said: "he who does my commandments, he it is that loves Me."

34. (iii) _The more closely one is conjoined to the Lord the wiser one
becomes._ As there are three degrees of life in man by creation and so
from birth (see just above, n. 32), there are specifically three degrees
of wisdom in him. These degrees it is that are opened in man according to
conjunction, that is, according to love, for love is conjunction itself.
Love's ascent by degrees, however, is only obscurely perceived by man;
but wisdom's ascent is clearly perceived by those who know and see what
wisdom is. The degrees of wisdom are perceived because love by its
affe