4674. 'And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father' means that this showed up the essential nature of those people. This is clear from the representation of 'Joseph' as the Divine Spiritual or Divine Truth from the Lord, dealt with in 4286, 4675; ¹ from the meaning of 'father' as good, dealt with in 3703, 3704, in this case the good of the Ancient Church, which is represented by 'Jacob', as will be seen at the end of this chapter; and from the meaning of 'a bad report' as faults and blemishes in those meant by 'Joseph's brothers' who, it was stated above in 4671, are members of the Church who turn aside from goodness and truth. From all this one may see what these words mean in the proximate internal sense, namely that the faults and blemishes meant by 'Joseph's brothers' were brought into focus, that is, were shown up by Divine Truth when this was directed by the good of the Ancient Church to look at them. Or what amounts to the same, the essential nature of those people was thereby shown up by it.

[2] As regards the falsities and evils of the Church - that is, of people in the Church - they are not seen by those people, because from falsities one cannot see falsities, nor from evils see evils. For false assumptions altogether darken truths, and a life of evil snuffs them out. Both of these - false assumptions and a life of evil - make falsities look like truths and truths like falsities, and good look like evil and evil like good, as experience abundantly makes plain. But the Church, or its members, are seen completely differently in heaven, for in heaven Divine Truth from the Lord is present, and Divine Truth constitutes the light there. Within that light the essential nature of those people is revealed, for the soul or spirit of every one is present in some community, whether it is one of angels or of devils. His thought exists there, but his speech and actions exist among men in their associating with one another.

[3] Further evidence that the essential nature of members of the Church is shown up by Divine Truth, that is, within Divine Light, is provided by the following: Before casting themselves into hell evil spirits recently arrived from the world desire more strongly than anyone else to be accepted into heaven. They believe that it is merely a matter of being accepted and that anyone, irrespective of what he is really like, may by grace be admitted into heaven. They are sometimes told that the Lord refuses heaven to none and that they can be admitted if they feel able to live there. Some are even taken up to the first communities situated in the outskirts of heaven. But when these get there they start to be seized with pain and to be almost suffocated, because of the strain placed on the life of their thought and will - the life of their thought consisting of false assumptions and the life of their will of the evil life they led in the world. And when they look at themselves in the light there they see themselves as devils, some being corpse-like, some monster-like. For this reason they cast themselves down headlong from that community, passing from the light there into a hellish mist, where they start to breathe again as they had done previously and where they are deluded into thinking they look like spirits who are not evil ones. This is the way they get to know what they are like essentially. From this it is now plain how one is to understand the explanation that this - Divine Truth - showed up the essential nature of those people.

Poznámky pod čarou:

4675. 'And Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons' means a joining of the Divine Spiritual of the Rational to the Divine Spiritual of the Natural. This is clear from the representation of Jacob, when he is called 'Israel', as the Divine Spiritual of the Natural, or the celestial manifestation of the spiritual from the natural, dealt with in 4286, 4598; from the representation of 'Joseph' as the Divine Spiritual of the Rational, or the celestial manifestation of the spiritual from the rational, dealt with in 4286, 4592; and from the meaning of 'loving' as being joined together, for love is a joining together spiritually. From all this it is evident that 'Israel loved Joseph' means a joining of the Divine Spiritual of the Rational to the Divine Spiritual of the Natural. That joining together being referred to here, Jacob is not called Jacob at this point, as he is above in verses 1 and 2, but 'Israel'. From this change of name too one may conclude that the internal sense here contains a specific arcanum. But the exact nature of that joining together - of the Divine Spiritual of the Rational to the Divine Spiritual of the Natural - cannot as yet be explained because it is not the subject in the present chapter but in those that follow, where it is going to be explained as far as it is possible to do so. Only this need be mentioned here, that the expression spiritual is used both of the rational and of the natural, for the spiritual is Divine Truth received from the Lord, which is called the spiritual of the rational when it shines within the rational or the internal man, and the spiritual of the natural when it shines from there within the natural or the external man.