In youth he learned Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, also the oriental
languages, with which he became so familiar that many distinguished
scholars consulted him, and he was able to decipher the vestiges of
the oldest known books of Scripture, namely: 'The Wars of Jehovah' and
'The Enunciations,' spoken of by Moses (Numbers xxi. 14, 15, 27-30),
also by Joshua, Jeremiah, and Samuel,--'The Wars of Jehovah' being the
historical part and 'The Enunciations' the prophetical part of the
Mosaical Books anterior to Genesis. Swedenborg even affirms that 'the
Book of Jasher,' the Book of the Righteous, mentioned by Joshua, was
in existence in Eastern Tartary, together with the doctrine of
Correspondences. A Frenchman has lately, so they tell me, justified
these statements of Swedenborg, by the discovery at Bagdad of several
portions of the Bible hitherto unknown to Europe. During the
widespread discussion on animal magnetism which took its rise in
Paris, and in which most men of Western science took an active part
about the year 1785, Monsieur le Marquis de Thome vindicated the
memory of Swedenborg by calling attention to certain assertions made
by the Commission appointed by the King of France to investigate the
subject. These gentlemen declared that no theory of magnetism existed,
whereas Swedenborg had studied and promulgated it ever since the year
1720.
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