10331. 'In wisdom, and in intelligence, and in knowledge, and in all [manner of] work' means in respect of those things which compose the will and those which constitute the understanding within the internal man and within the external man. This is clear from the meaning of 'wisdom' as those things which compose the will within the internal man; from the meaning of 'intelligence' as those things which constitute the understanding, also within the internal man; from the meaning of 'knowledge' as those things which constitute the understanding and consequent speech within the external man; and from the meaning of 'work' as those things which compose the will and consequent practice within the external man. So the words used here mean everything - everything interior and everything exterior residing with a person in whom the good of celestial love exists - that receives the influx of Divine Truth from the Lord and is consequently seen in light. This influx and enlightenment are dealt with immediately above.

[2] But a brief statement needs to be made showing what wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, and work are. People who do not know what the internal man is and what the external man is, nor what understanding and will are, cannot see in what ways wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, and work are distinct and separate each from the others. They cannot do so because they cannot form any clear idea of one or of another. The people therefore who do not know those things call someone wise when he is merely intelligent or has only knowledge. But someone wise is a person who is moved by love to put truths into practice; someone intelligent is a person who is moved by faith to put them into practice; someone with knowledge is a person who applies his knowledge to doing so; and 'work' is that which is actually done by them. Thus 'work' means those three talents when put to use, within which they all combine.

[3] Nobody therefore can be said to have wisdom, intelligence, or knowledge in the true sense of these words if they are not put to use by him; for wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge have to do with the life a person should lead, and not with doctrine without reference to that life. Life is the end for the sake of which they exist. What the end is like therefore determines what kind of wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge they are. If real good, which is the good of love to the Lord and of charity towards the neighbour, constitutes the end, then they are wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge in the proper sense of these three words; for then these three as they exist with a person have their origin in the Lord. But if acting for the sake of some good desired by self-love and love of the world constitutes the end, they are not wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge, because then those three as they exist in a person have their origin in self. For any good which self-love and love of the world have as their end in view is evil, and when evil is the end in view nothing of wisdom and intelligence, nor even of knowledge, can be attributed in any way at all. For what use is knowledge if it does not hold an intelligent understanding of truth and a wise discernment of good within it? Knowledge devoid of these leads a person to think that evil is good and falsity is truth.

[4] In the case of those in whom the good of love to the Lord is present wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, and work follow in order from inmost to last and lowest. Wisdom there is inmost, since it consists in a will, inspired by love, that desires what is right. Intelligence is second, since it consists in an understanding, governed by a will desiring what is right, that perceives what is right. These two belong to the internal man. Knowledge consists in knowing what is right, and work in doing what is right, each governed by the will desiring what is right. These two belong to the external man. From this it is evident that wisdom must exist within intelligence, this within knowledge, and this within work. The work accordingly contains and embraces all the inner virtues, since it is last and lowest and that in which they terminate.

[5] From all this it becomes clear what should be understood by 'works' and 'deeds', mentioned so many times in the Word, as in the following places: In Matthew,

The Son of Man will repay everyone according to his deeds. Matthew 16:27.

In Jeremiah,

I will requite them according to their work and according to the deed of their hands. Jeremiah 25:14.

In the same prophet,

... O Jehovah, whose eyes have been opened upon all the ways of man, giving to everyone according to his ways and according to the fruit of his works. Jeremiah 32:19.

In the same prophet,

Turn back each of you from his evil way, and cause your works to be good. Jeremiah 35:15.

In Hosea,

I will punish his ways ¹ , and requite him for his works. Hosea 4:9.

In Zechariah,

Jehovah deals with us according to our ways and according to our works. Zechariah 1:6.

In John,

I will give to you each according to his works. Revelation 2:23.

In the same book,

They were judged every one according to their works. Revelation 20:13, 15.

In the same book,

Behold, I am coming, and My reward with Me, to give to everyone according to his works. Revelation 22:12.

By 'works' in these places all that exists within a person should be understood, because all that constitutes what a person wills and understands is present in his works; for the things in his will and understanding are what causes him to do them. From what is within them the works derive their life; for without it works are like a shell without the nut or a body without the soul. What proceeds from a person does so from the things within him; therefore works are manifestations of those inner things, and they are effects through which those inner things reveal themselves.

[6] It is a general rule that as is a person's character, so is every work he performs. For this reason 'the works' according to which there will be reward or retribution must be taken to mean a person's character so far as his love and faith are concerned. For works are the product of the love and faith residing in a person. Nothing other than his love and his faith constitute the person, or what amounts to the same thing, his good and his truth, see 10076, 10177, 10264, 10284, 10298.

[7] Furthermore the actual desires in a person's will are what constitute a work; for what a person desires in his will he also does, provided that nothing insurmountable stands in the way. Consequently being judged according to one's deeds means being judged according to the desires of one's will. In the Word those who do good because it is their will to do it are called 'the righteous', as is evident in Matthew 25:37, 46. Of them it is said that they will shine forth like the sun in heaven, Matthew 13:43; and in Daniel,

Those who have intelligence will shine like the brightness of the expanse, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars. Daniel 12:3.

'Those who have intelligence' are those who are moved by their intelligence to do what is true; and 'those who turn many to righteousness' are those who are stirred by the desires in their will to do what is good.

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1072. 'He was drunk' means that he consequently sank into errors. This is clear from the meaning of 'a drunken man' in the Word. Those people are called drunk who do not believe anything except that of which they have a mental grasp, and who for that reason probe into mysteries of faith. And because they probe into them by means of knowledge, either factual or philosophical, acquired through the senses, man being what he is inevitably sinks as a consequence into errors. Man's thought is altogether earthly, bodily, and material because it is born of things that are earthly, bodily, and material which cling to it all the time and which the ideas comprising his thought are based on and encompassed by. Consequently to think and reason about Divine matters from such things is to run into errors and perversities, and from that position it is as impossible to acquire faith as it is 'for a camel to go through the eye of a needle'. The error and insanity that result are in the Word called 'drunkenness'. What is more, souls or spirits in the next life who reason about and against the truths of faith become like drunken men and behave as these do. These people will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described later on.

[2] Spirits are clearly distinguished from one another as to whether they possess, or do not possess, faith that inheres in charity. Those who possess such faith do not engage in reasoning about the truths of faith. Instead they immediately declare them to be true, and also confirm them, so far as they are able, by means of sensory evidence, factual knowledge, and analytical arguments. But as soon as something obscure comes up which they do not perceive they lay it aside and never allow anything like that to lead them into doubt. They say that the things they are able to grasp are very few and that therefore to think that something is not true because they themselves do not grasp it would be madness. These people are those who are governed by charity. But those who do not possess faith inhering in charity have no other desire than to reason whether a thing is true and to know how it is so. They say that if they cannot know how it is so, they are unable to believe that it is so. From this attitude of mind alone they are instantly recognized as those who have no faith at all, and it is a sign not only that they entertain doubts about everything but also that at heart they are deniers. And even when they are informed as to how something is so they remain unmoved and raise all kinds of objections, and would never give up even if this went on for ever. Those who are thus unmoved pile up errors upon errors. These people, or such as they, are in the Word called 'drunk from wine or strong drink'.

[3] As in Isaiah,

These err through wine, and go astray through strong drink. The priest and the prophet err through strong drink. They are swallowed up by wine, they err from strong drink. They err in vision. All tables are full of vomit. Whom will He teach knowledge, and whom will He cause to understand the report? Those weaned from milk, those torn away from the breasts? Isaiah 28:7-9.

Such people are clearly meant here. In the same prophet,

How do you say to Pharaoh, I am a son of the wise, a son of kings of old? Where are your wise men now? Let them, I pray, tell you. Jehovah has mingled in the midst of her a spirit of perversity, and they have made Egypt err in all her works, as a drunken man errs in his vomit. Isaiah 19:11-12, 14.

'A drunken man' stands for people who wish from facts to probe into spiritual and celestial things. 'Egypt' means facts, which also is why he calls himself 'a son of the wise'. In Jeremiah,

Drink and get drunk, and vomit, and fall, and do not get up again. Jeremiah 25:27. This stands for falsities.

[4] In David,

They reel and stagger like a drunken man, and all their wisdom will be swallowed up. Psalms 107:27.

In Isaiah,

Come, I will get wine, and we will be drunken from strong drink, and tomorrow will be like this day, a great abundance. Isaiah 56:12.

This has reference to things that are contrary to the truths of faith. In Jeremiah,

Every wineskin will be filled with wine, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with drunkenness. Jeremiah 13:12-13.

'Wine' stands for faith, 'drunkenness' for errors. In Joel,

Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, over the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation is coming up over My land; it is turning My vine into a desolation. Joel 1:5-7.

This refers to the Church vastated as regards truths of faith. In John,

Babylon caused all nations to drink from the wine of the anger of whoredom. The inhabitants of the earth have got drunk with the wine of whoredom. Revelation 14:8, 10; 16:19; 17:2; 18:3; 19:15.

'The wine of whoredom' stands for adulterated truths of faith, to which 'drunkenness' has reference. Similarly in Jeremiah,

Babel was a golden cup in Jehovah's hand, making all the earth drunken. The nations have drunk of her wine, therefore the nations are mad. Jeremiah 51:7.

[5] Since 'drunkenness' meant inanities surrounding truths of faith, it also became representative; and Aaron was forbidden to be drunk, as the following shows,

Aaron and his sons were not to drink wine and intoxicating drink when they entered the Tent [of Meeting] lest they died, so that they might distinguish between what was holy and what was unholy, what was unclean and what was clean. Leviticus 10:8-10.

People who believe nothing except what they grasp through sensory evidence and factual knowledge are also called in Isaiah 'heroes at drinking',

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and in their own sight intelligent! Woe to heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink! Isaiah 5:21-22.

They are called 'wise in their own eyes, and in their own sight intelligent' because people who reason against truths of faith imagine that they are wiser than everybody else.

[6] People however who pay no attention to the Word and the truths of faith, and thus who are unwilling to know anything about faith, and so deny its fundamental teachings, are called 'drunk without wine'. In Isaiah,

They were drunk but not with wine, they were staggering, but not with strong drink. For Jehovah has poured out upon you a Spirit of sleep, and has closed your eyes. Isaiah 19:9-10.

That they are such is clear from what comes before and after this description of them in the prophet. People who are 'drunk' in this sense imagine that they are more alert than anybody else, yet they are in a deep sleep. The fact that the Ancient Church when it began was such as is described in this verse, especially those who belonged to the stock of the Most Ancient Church, becomes clear from what has been stated already in 788.