5621. “蜡, 没药” 表内层属世层的良善之真理. 这从 “蜡” 和 “没药” 的含义清楚可知: “蜡”, 即此处的香蜡, 是指良善之真理, 如下文所述; “没药” 也是指源于良善的真理 (参看4748节). 之所以表示内层属世层的良善之真理, 是因为这些香料比乳香和蜂蜜更纯粹, 因此其次被提及. 事实上, 在圣言中, 这类物质是照着次序被列举的. 但此处所说的 “蜡” 不是指普通的蜡, 而是指香蜡, 如苏合香. 原文中所用的词就表示这种蜡, 这个词也表示香料. 由此可见为何这种香蜡表示良善之真理; 因为所有香料闻起来都很香甜, 故在内义上表示源于良善的真理.

这一点从以下事实可以看出来: 在天上, 源于良善的真理和世上的香物一样感觉令人愉快. 而且当天使的感知转化为气味时 (主若乐意, 这种事经常发生), 它们闻起来就像香料和鲜花发出的芳香. 这就是为何乳香和香由芳香物质复合而成, 发挥神圣的功用; 这也是为何芳香物质会与膏油调和在一起. 人若不知道这些做法背后的原因就在于天上的人所感知到的事物, 就会以为这些做法被吩咐, 纯粹是为了使外在敬拜蒙悦纳; 但在这种情况下, 它们里面丝毫没有天堂之物, 或神圣之物, 因而这类宗教习俗没有任何神性事物在里面. 关于这些事, 可参看前面的说明: 乳香和香, 以及用于膏油的芳香物质是属灵和属天事物的代表 (4748节); 信与爱的气场会转化为怡人的气味, 因而是怡人的香甜气息; 而且香味表示源于爱之良善的信之真理 (1514, 1517-1519, 4628节).

5511. 'Hard words to us' means that no joining together with this took place because no agreement existed. This is clear from the meaning of 'speaking hard words', when used to refer to the internal in relation to the external separated from it, as no joining together because no agreement existed, dealt with above in 5422, 5423. For if no agreement of the external with the internal exists, everything in the internal and coming from the internal seems 'hard' to the external, because the two are not joined together. Take for example a situation in which the internal, that is, someone living in his internal, declares that nothing at all of a person's thought begins in himself, but that his thought comes to him either from heaven (that is, from the Lord by way of heaven) or else from hell: he declares that any thought he has of good comes from the Lord by way of heaven, while any thought of evil comes from hell. Such an idea seems to be a thoroughly 'hard' one to anyone who wants what he thinks to come from himself and who believes that if that 'hard' idea is true, he is nothing. Yet that idea is absolutely true, and all in heaven perceive it to be so.

[2] It is similarly the case when the internal, or those living in their internal, declare that the joy experienced by the angels originates in love to the Lord and charity towards the neighbour, that is to say, when they are actually engaged in performing deeds of love and charity, and that those deeds hold within them so much joy and happiness that these are beyond description. This will come as a 'hard' idea to those whose joy springs solely from self-love and love of the world and who take no interest in their neighbour other than for their own selfish reasons. Yet heaven and heavenly joy start to exist in a person when self-regard vanishes from the useful deeds he performs.

[3] Take as yet another example the situation in which the internal declares that a person's soul is nothing else than the internal man and that after death the internal man appears to be exactly the same person as lived in the world, having a similar face, similar body, similar sensory powers, and a similar power of thought. People who have entertained the idea that the soul exists only on the level where thought does and is for that reason something ethereal lacking any outward form, and that the soul is to be reclothed with its body, imagine that what is declared by the internal about the soul is very far from the truth. Indeed those who believe that there is nothing more than the body to a human being will find the idea 'hard' when they hear that the soul is the real person and that the body which is buried serves no use at all in the next life. I know this is true because I have in the Lord's Divine mercy gone among such people, not among just some but among many, not just once but often, and I have talked to them on this matter. The same may also be said about countless other matters.