1007. At the hand of a human means by everything in that person's will, and at the hand of a man, one's brother, means by everything in the person's intellect. This is established by the symbolism of a human, because the essential nature and life of human beings is their will, although the character of the will determines what kind of people they are. It is also established by the symbolism of a man, one's brother. Our intellectual side is called a man and brother, as shown above in §367. 1 Whether it is a true intellect, a sham one, or a misguided one, it is still called a man and brother, because the intellect is called a man (§§158, 265) and the brother of the will (§367).
The reason the terms a human and a man, a brother, are used here to refer to a polluted will and polluted intellect is that the current passage is talking about profanation. Heaven cannot bear to hear profanation mentioned or see it represented without rejecting it vigorously and immediately. That is why such mild words appear here and why the meaning of the words in this verse is fairly ambiguous: so that heaven need not even see that this is the burden of the passage.
Fußnoten:
1. The passage Swedenborg cites here, §367, does not, strictly speaking, give the intellect as the symbolism of brotherhood; rather, it identifies faith and charity as symbolic brothers. However, the intellect is in several passages correlated with men and with faith, so by extension the intellect apparently may be considered to be included under the symbolism of a brother. See, for example, §476, where the symbolism of the male as the intellect and thus as a symbol of "the qualities of faith" is mentioned. A similar extrapolation is necessary when §367 is cited below in support of the symbolism of the intellect as the brother of the will. For more on the complex and variable meaning of the sexes in Swedenborg's theology, see §§915, 1468, 4434:9, 4823:2, 5198:1. [Editors]
