2831. 'Behind [him] caught in a thicket' means entangled in natural knowledge. This is clear from the meaning here of 'caught in' as being entangled in, and from the meaning of 'a thicket' or fan entanglement' as factual knowledge, to be dealt with in what follows. Those who are spiritual are caught and entangled in natural knowledge as regards truths of faith for the following reasons: Those who are spiritual do not possess the perception of good and truth as those who are celestial do. Instead of perception they have conscience, which is formed from the goods and truths of faith which from early childhood they have taken in from parents and teachers, and after that from the doctrine of the faith into which they were born. The only way that those who do not possess the perception of good and truth can receive confirmation is from facts. Everyone forms some concept for himself regarding the things he has learned, and also regarding the goods and truths of faith. Without that nothing remains in the memory except as an empty vessel. Details that serve to confirm - derived from other cognitions, and even from factual knowledge - are added to and fill in the concept. The concept itself confirmed by many details not only causes itself to be fixed in the memory, from which it may be called forth into thought, but also enables faith to be instilled into it.

[2] As regards perception in general, since few know what perception is, this must be stated here. There is the perception of what is good and true in things that are celestial and spiritual; there is the perception of what is just and fair in public life; and there is the perception of what is honourable in private life. As regards the perception of what is good and true in celestial and spiritual things, this is the perception which the more interior angels possess from the Lord. It was also the perception which members of the Most Ancient Church possessed, and it is the perception which celestial people possess, who are moved by love to the Lord. These people know in an instant from a certain inner awareness whether a thing is good and whether it is true, for the Lord instills it into them because they are joined by love to Him. But spiritual people do not possess such perception of what is good and true in celestial and spiritual things. Instead of perception they have conscience which dictates. Conscience however, as has been stated, is formed from cognitions of good and truth which they have taken in from parents and teachers and later on from their own devotion to doctrine and the Word. And on these cognitions they pin their faith, even though these may not be goods and truths to any great extent. This being so, people can have a conscience that is derived from any variety of doctrine; even gentiles possess something not unlike conscience, derived from their own form of religion.

[3] The fact that those who are spiritual have no perception of the good and truth of faith but say and believe to be true that which they have learned and grasped becomes quite clear from the consideration that everyone calls his own tenets the truth - heretics more than others - and from the consideration that they are unable to see, let alone acknowledge, the truth itself, even though thousands of things might declare it. Let everyone search within himself to see whether he is able to perceive from any other source whether a thing is true, and whether when that which is absolutely true is made plain to him he still does not acknowledge it. Take for example someone who makes faith and not love the essential of salvation. Even if all the things were read out to him which the Lord spoke regarding love and charity, see 2371, and even if he knew from the Word that all the Law and all the Prophets hung on love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, he would still persist in the idea of faith and would say that this alone was what saved. It is altogether different in the case of those who possess celestial and spiritual perception.

[4] But as regards the perception of what is just and fair in public life, those in the world who are rational possess this, together with the perception of what is honourable in private life. So far as these two types of perception are concerned, one person differs from the next; but this in no sense implies that such persons possess the perception of the good and truth of faith, since this kind of perception is higher or more interior and flows in from the Lord by way of the inmost part of the rational.

[5] A further reason why spiritual people do not possess a perception of the good and truth of faith is that good and truth are not implanted in the will part of their minds, as in the case of celestial people, but in the understanding part; see 863, 875, 927, 1023, 1043, 1044, 2256. This is why spiritual people are not able to enter the first region of the light that celestial people dwell in, 2718, but in comparison with them are in obscurity, 1043, 2708, 2715. The fact that those who are spiritual are entangled in natural knowledge as regards truths of faith follows from this.

[6] As regards 'a thicket' or 'an entanglement' in the internal sense meaning natural knowledge, that is, factual knowledge such as becomes fixed in the exterior memory, this may also be seen from other places in the Word: in Ezekiel,

Behold, Asshur was a cedar in Lebanon, beautiful in its boughs, and a forest shade, and lofty in height, and its trunk among entangled boughs. Ezekiel 31:3.

This refers to 'Egypt', which is knowledge, 1164, 1165, 1186, 1462. 'Asshur' stands for the rational, 119, 1186, which in the Word is also 'a cedar', and 'Lebanon' as well. 'Among entangled boughs' stands for among facts, for the human rational is based on the facts known to it which it commands.

[7] In the same prophet,

Thus said the Lord Jehovih, Because you are exalted in height, and he has set his trunk up among entangled boughs, and his heart has become lifted up in his height, foreigners, the violent of the nations, will cut him down and cast him out. Ezekiel 31:10, 12.

This refers to Egypt. 'Setting his trunk among entangled boughs' stands for sticking to facts and looking at spiritual, celestial, and Divine things, from them as the standpoint. In the same prophet,

This is in order that none of all the trees by the waters may exalt themselves in their height, and set their trunk up among entangled boughs, and that none of all that drink water may reach above them in their height, for they will all be given over to death, to the lower earth in the midst of the sons of men, to those going down to the pit. Ezekiel 31:14.

This refers to those who wish by means of reasonings based on factual knowledge to penetrate the mysteries of faith; these become totally blind, see 215, 232, 233, 1072, 1911, 2196, 2203, 2568, 2588. Reasoning based on facts is the meaning of 'setting their trunk up among entangled boughs'. In the same prophet,

It had strong shoots as sceptres for those who have dominion, and its height rose up above among entangled boughs. Ezekiel 19:11.

Here the meaning is similar.

[8] In the same prophet,

The slain of Israel in the midst of their idols, around their altars, and under every green tree, and under every entangled oak. Ezekiel 6:13.

This refers to the kind of worship which people invent for themselves who have faith in themselves, and so in those things which they hatch out from their factual knowledge. 'An entangled oak' stands for facts as they exist in that particular state, 'oaks' meaning perceptions arising out of facts, see 1442, 1443, 2144. The same feature occurs elsewhere in the same prophet,

They looked at every high hill and every entangled tree, and there they offered their sacrifices. Ezekiel 20:28.

'Entangled tree' stands for things which are not dictated by the Word but by a person's own factual knowledge. The fact that worship used to take place in groves and depended for its meaning on the nature of the trees, see 2722.

[9] In Isaiah,

For wickedness will burn like a fire, it will consume brier and thorn, and will kindle the entangled boughs of the wood. Isaiah 9:18.

'Brier and thorn' stands for falsity and evil desire, 'the entangled boughs of the wood' for facts. In the same prophet,

Jehovah Zebaoth will hew down the entangled boughs of the wood with an axe, and Lebanon will fall by a majestic one. Isaiah 10:34.

'The entangled boughs of the wood' stands for facts, 'Lebanon' for rational concepts. In Jeremiah,

Raise a standard towards Zion, for I am bringing evil from the north, and a great destruction. A lion has risen up from his thicket, and a destroyer of nations has set out and come from his place to make your land a waste. Your cities will be destroyed, and left without inhabitants. Jeremiah 4:6-7.

'From his thicket' stands for from factual knowledge, and that which 'rises up' from this and enters into Divine arcana 'makes the land a waste', that is, lays waste the Church.

[10] The reason why in the Word facts are called 'thickets' is that facts are by nature like thickets, especially when the desires of self-love and love of the world, and false assumptions, exert an influence on them. Celestial and spiritual love is a love which arranges into order the facts that belong to the external memory, whereas self-love and love of the world disrupt that order and bring confusion to everything there. These are matters of which man is not aware because he takes that to be order which in fact is perverted order, that to be good which in fact is evil, and that to be truth which in fact is falsity; therefore those things are 'in a thicket'. He is also unaware of these matters because the things that belong to the external memory where facts reside are - in comparison with those that belong to the internal memory, where rational concepts reside - in a thicket, or in some gloomy woodland. How shadowy, gloomy, and darkened it is there in comparison, nobody can know as long as he lives in the body, for during that time he imagines that all wisdom and intelligence arise from facts; but he will know it in the next life when he has entered the things that belong to the internal memory. In the external memory which is proper to man during his life in the world nothing is more lacking than the light of wisdom and intelligence. But that everything there is by comparison dark, disordered, and entangled, see 2469-2494.

359. And he went forth conquering and that He might conquer, signifies the removal of evils and of falsities thence to the end of life, and afterwards to eternity. This is evident from the signification of "to conquer" in the Word as being to conquer spiritually, which is to subjugate evils and falsities; but as these are not conquered otherwise than that they are taken away by the Lord, "to conquer" signifies the removal of evils and falsities. (That evils and falsities are removed, and not wiped out, or that man is withheld from them, and kept in good and truth by the Lord, see in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem 166; and Arcana Coelestia 865, 868, 887, 894, 929, 1581, 2116, 2406, 4564, 8206, 8393, 8988, 9014, 9333-9338, 9446-9448, 9451, 10057, 10060.) It is said "he went forth conquering and that He might conquer," and "He went forth conquering" signifies the removal of evils and of falsities thence to the end of life; "and that He might conquer" signifies their removal afterwards to eternity; for he who fights against evils and falsities and conquers them, in the world even to the end of life, conquers them to eternity; for such as man is at the end of his life in consequence of his past life, such he remains to eternity. "To conquer" signifies to conquer spiritually, because the Word is in its bosom spiritual, that is, in its bosom it treats of spiritual things, and not of earthly things; the earthly things that are in the sense of its letter merely serve its spiritual sense as a basis, into which spiritual things close and in which they are. "To conquer [or to overcome]" has a like signification in the following passages.

[2] In Revelation:

To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God (Revelation 2:7).

He that overcometh shall not be hurt by the second death (Revelation 2:11).

He that overcometh and keepeth My works unto the end, I will give him power over the nations (Revelation 2:26).

He that overcometh I will make him a pillar in the temple of God (Revelation 3:12).

He that overcometh I will give to him to sit with Me in My throne (Revelation 3:21).

They overcame the dragon through the blood of the Lamb, and through the word of the testimony (Revelation 12:11).

He that overcometh shall possess all things, and I will be to him God, and he shall be to Me a son (Revelation 21:7).

And in John:

Jesus [said] to the disciples, These things I have spoken unto you that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but confide, I have overcome the world (John 16:33).

The Lord's "overcoming the world" means that He subjugated all the hells; for "the world" here signifies all evils and falsities, which are from hell (as also in John 8:23; 12:31; 14:17, 19, 30; 15:18, 19; 16:8, 11; 17:9, 14, 16).

[3] "To conquer" has a like signification when predicated of the Lord in Isaiah:

Who is this that cometh from Edom, His garments sprinkled from Bozrah? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people not a man was with Me; therefore have I trodden them in Mine anger, and trampled them in My wrath; wherefore their victory is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My raiment. But I have made their victory to descend to the earth (Isaiah 63:1, 3, 6).

This treats of the Lord, and His combats against the hells and their subjugation. He Himself in respect to His Divine Human is here meant by Edom, His garments sprinkled from Bozrah," "His garments" signifying the Word in the letter, for "garments" signify truths investing, and in reference to the Lord they signify Divine truths, consequently the Word, since in it are all Divine truths (See above, n. 195). The Word in the sense of the letter is also meant here by "garments," because it contains investing truths, for the sense of the letter serves as a garment to the spiritual sense. And as the Word, in respect to that sense, was torn asunder by the Jewish people, and Divine truth was thereby adulterated, it is said, "His garments sprinkled from Bozrah, their victory is sprinkled upon My garments, and I have stained all My raiment," "garments from Bozrah" signify the ultimate of the Word which is the sense of the letter, "their victory upon My garments" signifies the wrong interpretation and application of the truth by those who wrest the sense of the letter to favor their own loves, and the principles thence assumed, as was done by the Jews, and is done also at this day by many; this is meant by "their victory upon My garments."

That the Lord fought alone is signified by "I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people not a man was with Me," "wine-press" signifying combat from Divine truths against falsities, because in wine-presses the wine is pressed out from grapes, and "wine" signifies Divine truth; therefore "to tread it alone, and of the people not a man was with Me," signifies alone, with no aid from anyone. That the Lord subjugated the hells is signified by, "I have trodden them in Mine anger, and trampled them in My wrath;" it is said, "I have trodden" and "I have trampled," because of the reference to the wine-press, and because destruction is signified; it is said, "anger" and "wrath" because the hells are destroyed; and in the sense of the letter this is attributed to the Lord, when nevertheless nothing of anger or wrath pertains to Him, but only to those who are against Him; it is according to appearance that it is so said here and in very many places elsewhere. That such were subjugated and condemned to hell is signified by, "I have made their victory to descend to the earth," "to the earth" meaning into damnation, thus into hell. (That "earth" also signifies damnation, see above, n. 304)