454. Their power was in their mouth. (9:19) This symbolically means that they prevailed only by their discourse affirming faith.

Power in the mouth symbolizes a power in discourse affirming doctrine. For a harmony, elegance, feigned zeal and clever defense of falsity in speaking, especially in citing appearances of truth in the Word, with an air of authority, a closing of the intellect, and many other such expedients, accomplish everything, and neither the truth nor the Word anything. For truth shines only in the eyes of people who are directed by charity and its accompanying faith, and it is only these that the Word teaches.

6316. The majority of the learned, it will surprise you to learn, think on the level of the senses. The reason for this is that they have studied different branches of knowledge solely for the sake of renown. They have studied them so that they may be promoted to important positions and thereby earn material gain, not to the end that they may be made wise; for all branches of knowledge that exist in the world of learning are means that may serve to make a person wise or that may serve to make him insane. Once those learned people have been raised to important positions they live, more than those who are simple, on the level of the senses, and they then think it a sign of simplicity to attribute anything to the Divine instead of attributing it to prudence and natural instinct and all else to chance.