The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #122
122. The Lord's twelve disciples represented all the various forms of faith and caring that together constitute the church, as did the twelve tribes of Israel: 2129, 3354, 3488, 3858, 6397. Peter, James, and John represented faith, caring, and good actions that come from caring, respectively: preface to Genesis 18. Peter represented faith: preface to Genesis 22, §§4738, 6000, 6073, 6344, 10087. John represented good actions that come from caring: preface to Genesis 18. The fact that in the last times of the church there would be no faith in the Lord because there would be no caring is represented by Peter's denying the Lord three times before the rooster crowed for the third time; 1 in a symbolic sense, Peter in that passage means faith: 6000, 6073. Both "the crowing of the rooster" and "twilight" in the Word mean the last times of the church (10134); and "three" or "three times" means what is completed (2788, 4495, 5159, 9198, 10127). Much the same is meant by the Lord's saying to Peter, when Peter saw John following the Lord, "What is that to you, Peter? Follow me, John," 2 because Peter had said of John, "What about him?" (John 21:21, 22): 10087. Since John represented good actions that come from caring, he leaned on the Lord's chest [John 13:23-25; 21:20]: 3934, 10087. Likewise, what the Lord said to John from the cross meant that good actions from a caring heart are what constitute the church: "When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing by her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, behold your son!' And he said to the disciple, ‘Behold your mother!' And from that hour the disciple accepted her into his household" (John 19:26, 27). John means good actions that come from a caring heart, and "the woman" and "mother" mean the church; therefore the whole statement means that wherever good actions are being done from a caring heart is where the true church will be found. "Woman" in the Word means the church: 252, 253, 749, 770, 3160, 6014, 7337, 8994. The same holds true for "mother": 289, 2691, 2717, 3703, 4257, 5581, 8897, 10490. All the names of individuals and places in the Word symbolize qualities in the abstract: 768, 1888, 4310, 4442, 10329.
Notes de bas de page:
1. See Matthew 26:34, 69-75; Mark 14:30, 66-72; Luke 22:34, 54-62; and John 13:38; 18:25-27. The accounts in Matthew, Luke, and John suggest that Peter's three denials will occur before the rooster crows even once, though the language there is sometimes understood to refer generally to "cockcrow," or the series of calls the rooster makes at dawn; the account in Mark specifies two crowings by the rooster. [GFD, SS]
2. See John 21:20-22. The name "John" does not occur in the Greek text of this biblical passage, and there the command to follow seems clearly to be addressed to Peter. It should be noted that quotation standards were not as strict in Swedenborg's day as they are today. The line between direct quotation and paraphrase in Swedenborg's Latin is often unclear, and Swedenborg may have intended "John" to be a gloss on the biblical text rather than a direct quotation of it. In three other places ( Last Judgment 39[7]; Revelation Explained [= Swedenborg 1994-1997a] §§250:7, 785:5) Swedenborg also adds "John" to this verse. However, in several other places ( Secrets of Heaven 6073[3], 10087; Revelation Explained 9[3-5], 820:6-7, 821:8) he quotes the passage without adding "John," indicating that he was aware that "John" does not appear in the original Greek. In two places he states contrariwise that the words "follow me" in either John 21:19 or John 21:22 are addressed to Peter ( Revelation Explained 9[5], 821:8). The interpretation that the words "follow me" were addressed to John, and the general interpretation that John, not Peter, followed Jesus, seems to stem from John 21:20, in which John (called in that verse "the disciple whom Jesus loved") is said to be following Jesus. This is further supported by statements in Revelation Unveiled 17[5] and Revelation Explained 229[3], 443:4 that John rather than Peter followed Jesus. [LSW, GFD]
