237. And knowest not that thou are wretched, signifies that they do not know that their falsities have no coherence with truths. This is evident from the signification of "wretchedness," as meaning the breaking up of truth by means of falsities, and also no coherence; this shows what is meant by "the wretched." They are so because their doctrine is founded on two false principles, which are faith alone and justification by faith; consequently falsities flow in from these in constant succession, and the truths which they adduce from the sense of the letter of the Word to confirm these are weakened and falsified, and truths when falsified are in themselves falsities. This is described in many passages in the Word, and is meant by the "vanities" that the prophets see, and the "lies" that they speak. It is described also by the "breaches" in the walls and houses so that they fall; likewise by "idols" and "graven images" that the artificer makes and connects by chains that they may cohere; for "idols" and "graven images" signify the falsities of doctrine; the like is signified by "breaches of the walls" and "of the houses," and by "the prophets who see vanities and speak lies;" for "prophets" mean doctrines, "vanities" such things as are of no account, and "lies" falsities. But as these things are mentioned in many passages in the Word they cannot be cited here on account of their abundance; they will therefore be omitted, and a few only quoted here in which "wretchedness" and "wall" are mentioned, that it may be known that these signify the weakening of truth by falsities, and thus no coherence.

[2] In Isaiah:

Thy wisdom and thy knowledge it hath misled thee, when thou hast said in thine heart, I, and none like me besides. Therefore shall wretchedness fall upon thee, and devastation shall come upon thee (Isaiah 47:10-11).

Here also those are described who believe that they know all things and that they are more intelligent than all others, when yet they know and understand nothing of truth; and that therefore the understanding of truth is taken away from them. Their belief that they are more intelligent than all others is meant by "Thy wisdom and thy knowledge it hath misled thee, when thou hast said in thine heart, I, and none like me besides;" and the loss of all understanding of truth is meant by "wretchedness shall fall upon thee, devastation shall come upon thee."

[3] In Ezekiel:

Wretchedness shall come upon wretchedness; therefore they shall seek a vision from the prophets; but the law hath perished from the priest, and counsel from the elders. The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with astonishment (Ezekiel 7:26-27).

Here the vastation of the church is treated of, which takes place when there is no truth that is not falsified. Falsity from falsity is meant by "wretchedness upon wretchedness;" "a vision from the prophet" is doctrine, here the doctrine of falsity; "the law hath perished from the priest" means that the Word is not understood, for "law" signifies the Word, and the "priest" one who teaches; "counsel hath perished from the elders" means that right has perished from the intelligent, "counsel" signifying right, and "elders" the intelligent; "the king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with astonishment," means that there is no longer any truth, "king" signifying truth, and "prince" truths that are primarily of service.

[4] In David:

Right is not in their mouth, wretchedness is in their inward part (Psalms 5:9);

where "wretchedness" likewise stands for falsities not cohering with any truth. So too in Jeremiah:

Lament, and wander among the walls; for their king is gone into exile, and his priests and his princes together (Jeremiah 49:3).

"Wandering among the walls" is among truths destroyed by falsities; "the king gone into exile" signifies truth; and "his priests and princes together" signify the goods and truths of life and doctrine (See above).

[5] In Ezekiel:

When they build a wall [maceriem], behold they daub it with untempered mortar. Say to them which daub it with untempered mortar, that the wall [paries] shall fall. Is it not said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it? (Ezekiel 13:10-12).

"The wall which they daub with untempered mortar" signifies falsity assumed as a principle, and by application of the Word from the sense of the letter made to appear as truth; "daubing" is application and seeming confirmation thereby; "untempered mortar" is what has been falsified; and because the truth of the Word is thus destroyed, and the truths used to confirm become truths falsified, which in themselves are falsities, and these with the false principle perish together, it is said, "Behold, the wall shall fall. Is it not said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?"

[6] In Hosea:

Behold, I obstruct thy way with thorns, and I will encompass wall with wall, that she shall not find thy ¹ paths (Hosea 2:6).

"To obstruct the way with thorns" is to obstruct all thoughts by falsities of evil, that truths be not seen; falsities of evil are "thorns;" "to encompass wall with wall" is to heap falsities upon falsities; "that she shall not find thy paths" means that nothing of truth can be seen; this comes to pass because truths and falsities of evil cannot be together, as heaven cannot be with hell; for truths are from heaven, and falsities of evil are from hell; therefore when falsities from evil reign communication with heaven is taken away, and when that is taken away truths cannot be seen, and if presented by others they are rejected. For this reason, those who are in false principles, as those who are in the principles of faith alone and justification by faith, cannot be in any truths (as may be seen above, n. 235, 236).

[7] But let examples illustrate this. Those who have adopted faith alone and justification by faith as a principle of religion, when they read the Word and see that the Lord says that man shall be recompensed according to his deeds and works, and that he who has done good, shall come into heaven, and he who has done evils into hell, call the good things that they do fruits of faith, not knowing or not wanting to know, that the good things called fruits are all from charity, and none of them from faith separate, which is called faith alone; every good also is of charity, and truth is of the faith therefrom. From this it is clear that they pervert the Word; and they do this because they cannot otherwise apply truth to their principle, believing still that the two may thus cohere; but the result is that truth perishes and becomes falsity, and not only falsity but also evil.

[8] From this falsities evidently follow in constant succession, for they teach that the good works that man does are meritorious, not being willing to see that as faith with its truths are from the Lord, and thus not meritorious, so are charity with its goods. They teach also that as soon as a man receives faith he is reconciled to God the Father through the Son, and that the evils thenceforth done, as well as those done before, are not imputed; for they say that all are saved however they have lived, if only they receive faith, even though it be in the hours before death. But these, and many other things which are deductions from the falsity of the principle, do not cohere with the truths from the Word, but destroy them, and truths destroyed are falsities, even such falsities as emit a bad odor. From these a grievous smell is perceived in the other life, which is such that it cannot be endured by any good spirit; it is like the stench of purulent matter from the lungs. Many other examples might be adduced; there is an abundance of them; for whatever is deduced from a false principle becomes thereby a falsity, since in the deduction the principle only is regarded to which it clings because from this it flows and to this it is applied.

[9] What the religion of faith alone and of justification by faith is can be inferred from the simple fact that all who have confirmed these tenets in themselves by doctrine and life, send out from themselves in the other life a sphere of abominable adultery like that of a mother or stepmother with a son; this abominable adultery corresponds to such, and is also perceived from them wherever they go; from that sphere I have a thousand times recognized their presence. Such a sphere flows out from them because they adulterate the goods of charity and of the Word, and adulteries correspond to adulterations of good, while whoredoms correspond to the falsifications of truth (See Arcana Coelestia 2466, 2729, 3399, 4865, 6348, 8904, 10648).

[10] There is a like meaning in:

Reuben's lying with Bilhah, of whom his father begat Dan and Naphtali (Genesis 35:22);

And therefore he was also accursed (Genesis 49:4);

And because he defiled his father's couch the primogeniture was taken away from him and given to Joseph (1 Chronicles 5:1). For by "Reuben" in the Word faith is meant here faith alone (See Arcana Coelestia 3325, 3861, 3866, 3870, 4601, 4605, 4731, 4734, 4761, 6342, 6350); and by "Joseph," the good of faith (See 3969, 3971, 4669, 6417).

[11] That such things are to take place at the end of the church is predicted in Daniel, where the statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream is described in these words:

Whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of man; but they shall not cleave one to the other, even as iron doth not mingle with clay (Daniel 2:43).

By "iron" truth without good is meant; by "miry clay" the falsity that is from self-intelligence; by "the seed of man" the Word of the Lord (Matthew 13:24, 37). That these do not cohere is meant by "they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron doth not mingle with clay."

Poznámky pod čarou:

4295. 'And Jacob asked and said, Tell me, I pray, your name' means the angelic heaven and the nature of that heaven. This becomes clear from the representation of Jacob' as the Lord's Divine Natural, dealt with already, and from the meaning of 'God' whose name he asked for, and also of 'men', with whom he contended as a prince and prevailed, as truths and goods, and so as those who are governed by truths and goods, dealt with above in 4287. And since the angelic heaven is heaven by virtue of truths and goods it is that heaven specifically which is meant by God and men with whom the Lord prevailed. Angels are also sometimes called 'gods' in the Word, it being by virtue of truths and goods that they are called such, as in David,

God stands in the assembly of God, in the midst of the gods will He judge. I said, You are gods, and sons of the Most High, all of you. Psalms 82:1, 6.

Here it is quite plain that 'the assembly of God' and 'the gods' are the angelic heaven. In the same author,

Who in the sky will be compared to Jehovah? Who will be likened to Jehovah among the sons of gods? Psalms 89:6.

In the same author,

Confess the God of gods; confess the Lord of lords Psalms 136:2-3.

From these quotations it is evident - as it is also from the fact that no one can contend as a prince with God and prevail, and likewise from the fact that the one who is called a god was unwilling to reveal his name - that it was the angelic heaven with which the Lord fought. It is quite plain from the actual words themselves 'Why is it that you ask my name?' that an arcanum lies within them, for if he had been Jehovah God he would not have concealed his name. Nor would Jacob have asked 'What is your name?' for asking the name implies some person or persons other than God Himself.

[2] The truth that the Lord at length fought with actual angels, indeed with the whole angelic heaven, is an arcanum which has not been disclosed up to now. But the implications of this are as follows: Angels do indeed possess supreme wisdom and intelligence, yet all their wisdom and intelligence comes to them from the Lord's Divine. They have no wisdom or intelligence at all that originates in themselves, that is, in their proprium. Therefore it is only insofar as they are governed by truths and goods received from the Lord's Divine that they are wise and intelligent. The fact that angels have no wisdom or intelligence at all originating in themselves they themselves openly confess. Indeed they are also quite angry if anyone attributes to them any wisdom or intelligence at all, for they know and perceive that it would be taking away from the Divine that which is His and it would be claiming for themselves that which is not theirs, and so would be engaging in the crime of spiritual theft. Angels also say that their entire proprium consists in evil and falsity, both because of their heredity and also because of their own conduct in the world when they were men, 1880. Nor, they say, is evil or falsity separated - that is, wiped away - from them, whereby they are made righteous; rather, the whole of it remains with them, though the Lord withholds them from that evil and falsity and keeps them in good and truth, 1581. These things are confessed by every angel, and no one is allowed into heaven if he does not know and believe them. For otherwise they cannot dwell in the light of wisdom and intelligence coming from the Lord, nor consequently in good and truth. From this one can also know how the words in Job 15:15 stating that heaven is not pure in the eyes of God are to be understood.

[3] This being so, in order that the Lord might bring the whole of heaven into proper heavenly order, He even allowed angels into Himself to tempt Him, who, insofar as they acted from their proprium, did not do so from good and truth. These temptations are the inmost of all, for they go to work solely on the ends one has in view and with a subtlety such as can by no means be detected. But insofar as angels do not act from their proprium they act from good and truth and are unable to tempt anyone. What is more, angels are being perfected constantly by the Lord, and yet their perfection cannot ever reach the point when their wisdom and intelligence can be compared with the Lord's Divine wisdom and intelligence, since they are finite whereas the Lord is Infinite, and no comparison of finite with Infinite is possible. From all this one may now see what 'God with whom Jacob contended as a prince' is used to mean, and also why he was unwilling to reveal his name.