99. And that thou canst not bear the evil, signifies that they reject evils. This is evident from the signification of "canst not bear," as being to reject, for what a man cannot bear he rejects. "The evil" signify evils, because the thought of angels is abstracted from persons; when, therefore, in the sense of the letter of the Word "the evil" are mentioned, angels think of evils; for by "the evil," men who are evil, thus persons, are meant. The thought of angels is of this character because they are in heavenly wisdom, and that wisdom has extension into the universal heaven; if therefore they should think with thought determined to persons, that extension would perish, and their wisdom with it. In this way the spiritual differs from the natural. This is why "the evil" signify evils. (Of the wisdom of the angels, that it is extended into the universal heaven because their thought is abstracted from space, time, and matter, see in the work on Heaven and Hell, n. 169, 191-199, 265-275; and that their thought is abstracted from persons, see Arcana Coelestia 8343, 8985, 9007)

169. The natural man might think that he would be deprived of all thought if the ideas of time, space, and material things were taken away; for upon these all the thought of man rests. ¹ But let him know that so far as thoughts partake of time, space, and matter they are limited and confined, but are unlimited and extended so far as they do not partake of these, since the mind is in that measure raised above bodily and worldly things. This is the source of wisdom to the angels; and such wisdom as is called incomprehensible, because it does not fall into ideas that are wholly made up of what is material.

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