4341. 'And four hundred men with him' means a state, in this case the state when Divine Good and Truth within the Natural are joined together, since that joining together is the subject. In the Word 'four hundred' means a state of temptation and the duration of it, 1847, 2959, 2966. And since every joining together of good and truth is effected by means of temptations it is the state of temptations that is meant here. For temptations are the means by which goods are joined to truths, see 2272, 3318, and temptations come when good starts to play the leading role, 4248, 4249; also the union of the Lord's Divine Essence with His Human Essence was effected by means of temptations, 1737.

[2] It is not the good itself which is to be joined to truth that is tempted, but the truth. Nor is truth tempted by good but by falsities and evils, and also by misconceptions and illusions, and by the affection for these, which cling to the truths within the natural. For when good flows in, which it does by an internal route, that is, through the internal rational man, the ideas possessed by the natural man which have been formed from the misconceptions of the senses and from illusions resulting from these cannot bear the approach of it, for they do not accord with it; and this gives rise to distress within the natural and to temptation. These are the factors which in the internal sense of this chapter are described by the fear and therefore the distress that Jacob felt, and his consequent state of submission and humiliation when Esau was coming with four hundred men. For the joining together of good and truth is never effected by any other means. From this it may be seen that 'four. hundred men' means a state of temptations - 'four hundred' the actual state itself, 'men' rational truths which have been joined to good when this flows into the natural. For 'men' means things of the understanding and of the rational, see 265, 749, 1007, 3134.

[3] But these considerations are such that they pass into the unlit parts of the human mind, the reason being that while a person is living in the body the difference between the rational and the natural cannot be seen. It is not seen at all by those who are not regenerate, and barely so by those who are, since they neither reflect on nor are even interested in the matter. For knowledge of the interior aspects of the human being has been virtually wiped out, yet in former times that knowledge constituted the whole of intelligence among people within the Church. Those considerations are however able to be substantiated to some extent from what has been shown already about the rational and its influx into the natural, that is to say, from the explanation that the natural is regenerated by means of the rational, 3286, 3288, and that the rational receives truths before the natural does so, 3321, 3368, 3671. It is these truths which flow, accompanied by good, from the rational into the natural that are meant in the internal sense by the four hundred men who accompanied Esau.

2261. 'If I find in Sodom fifty righteous persons in the midst of the city' means if truths are full of goods. This is clear from the meaning of 'fifty' as that which is full, and from the meaning of 'the midst of the city' as that which is present inwardly, or within truth, dealt with above in 2252, which see since the same words occur there. It may be assumed that a person is certain to be saved if truths are full of goods. But it should be recognized that very few truths exist with man; and if they do, that they have no life unless there are goods within them; and if they have goods within them, that he is saved, but on account of mercy. For as has been stated, very few truths reside with a person, and the goods contained within them receive their character from the truths and from that person's life.

[2] Regarded in themselves truths do not confer life; but goods do so. Truths are simply the recipients of life, that is, of good. Nobody is ever able to say therefore that he can be saved by means of truths or as is commonly asserted, by faith alone - not, that is, unless within the truths, which are part of the faith, good is present. And this good which must exist within them must be the good that flows from charity. This explains why in the internal sense faith itself is nothing else than charity, as shown above in 2231. When people say that the acknowledgement of truth is the faith that saves, it should be recognized that no acknowledgement can possibly exist with people who lead lives immersed in things contrary to charity, only some kind of persuasion which has the life of self-love or of the love of the world allied to it, so that the acknowledgement which they speak of does not have within it the life of the faith which is that of charity. The worst people of all, acting from self-love or from love of the world, that is, acting for the sake of excelling others in what are called intelligence and wisdom, and so acting for the sake of earning exalted positions, reputation, and gain, have the ability to grasp the truths of faith and to confirm them in many ways; but with them those truths are nevertheless dead. The life of truth and so of faith comes solely from the Lord, who is Life itself.

[3] The Lord's life is mercy, which is that of love towards the whole human race. Those people cannot possibly be drawing on the life that is the Lord's who, although they profess the truths of faith, despise others in comparison with themselves, and who, where their self-love and love of the world are affected, harbour hatred towards the neighbour and are delighted when he experiences loss of wealth, position, reputation, and life. But the position with the truths of faith is that it is by means of them that one is regenerated, for they are the actual vessels for receiving good. As are the truths therefore, also the goods within those truths, and the combination of those truths and goods and from this their capacity to be perfected in the next life, so is the state of blessedness and happiness of that person after death.