123.  Since the Lord as a sun is constantly in the east, the ancients, with whom all things of worship were representative of spiritual things, turned their faces to the east in their devotions; and that they might do the like in all worship, they turned their temples also in that direction.  From this it is that, at the present day, churches are built in like manner.

124.  The quarters in the spiritual world are not from the lord as A sun, but from the angels according to reception.

It has been stated that the angels dwell separate from each other; some in the eastern quarter, some in the western, some in the southern, and some in the northern; and that those who dwell in the eastern quarter are in a higher degree of love; those in the western, in a lower degree of love; those in the southern, in the light of wisdom; and those in the northern, in the shade of wisdom.  This diversity of dwelling-places appears as though it were from the Lord as a sun, when, in fact it is from the angels.  The Lord is not in a greater and lesser degree of love and wisdom, that is, as a sun He is not in a greater or lesser degree of heat and light with one than with another, for He is everywhere the same.  But He is not received by one in the same degree as by another; and this makes them appear to themselves to be more or less distant from one another, and also variously as regards the quarters.  From this it follows that quarters — in the spiritual world are nothing else than various receptions of love and wisdom, and thence of heat and light from the Lord as a sun.  That this is so is plain from what was shown above (n. 108-112), that in the spiritual world distances are appearances.

125.  As the quarters are various receptions of love and wisdom by angels, the variety from which that appearance springs shall now be explained.  The Lord is in the angel, and the angel in the Lord (as was shown in a preceding article).  But on account of the appearance that the Lord as a sun is outside of the angel, there is also the appearance that the Lord sees him from the sun, and that he sees the Lord in the sun.  This is almost like the appearance of an image in a mirror.  Speaking, therefore, according to that appearance, it may be said that the Lord sees and looks at each one face to face, but that angels, on their part, do not thus behold the Lord.  Those who are in love to the Lord from the Lord see Him directly in front; these, therefore, are in the east and the west; but those who are more in wisdom see the Lord obliquely to the right, and those who are less in wisdom obliquely to the left; therefore the former are in the south, and the latter in the north.  The view of these is oblique because love and wisdom (as has been said before), although they proceed from the Lord as one, are not received as one by angels; and the wisdom which is in excess of the love, while it appears as wisdom, is not wisdom, because in the overplus of wisdom there is no life from love.  From all this it is evident whence comes the diversity of reception according to which angels appear to dwell according to quarters in the spiritual world.