4736. 'Throw him into [this] pit in the wilderness' means that for the time being they should conceal it among their falsities, that is, that they should consider it a falsehood but nevertheless keep it because it is of importance to the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'the pit' as falsities, dealt with above in 4728, and from the meaning of 'the wilderness' as a place where there is no truth; for 'wilderness' has a wide range of meanings. It is a place that is uninhabited and so uncultivated, and when used to refer to the Church means a place where there is no good and consequently no truth, 2708, 3900. Thus 'the pit in the wilderness' is used here to mean falsities among which no truth is present because no good is there.

[2] The expression 'no truth is present because no good is there' is used for the reason that if a person believes that faith saves without works, truth may indeed exist. Even so, it is not truth residing with him, because it does not look to good nor is it rooted in good. This truth is not a living one because it contains a false premise, and therefore when a truth of this kind exists with that person it is nothing but a falsehood based on the false premise that reigns within it. That premise may be likened to the soul from which all else has its life. On the other hand falsities can exist which are accepted as truths if good lies within them, especially if it is the good of innocence, as with gentiles and even with many within the Church.

109. That for all their appearance in man wisdom and intelligence belong, as has been said, to the Lord alone is plainly stated by means of similar representatives in Ezekiel,

Behold, waters were issuing from below the threshold of the House towards the east, for the House faced eastwards. And He said, These waters are issuing out to the boundary towards the east; and they go down over the plain and come to the sea. Having been brought into the sea, the waters will be healed. And it will happen that every living creature ¹ that creeps, even to everything to which the water of the rivers comes, will live. And beside the river there will rise up upon its bank, on this side and on that, every tree for food. Its leaf ² will not wither, and its fruit will not fail; it is reborn monthly, for these its waters flow out from the Sanctuary, and its fruits will be for food and its leaf for medicine. Ezekiel 47:1, 8-9, 12.

Here the Lord is meant by 'the east' and also by 'the Sanctuary from which waters and rivers flowed forth'. Similarly in John,

He showed me a pure river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. In the middle of its street, and of the river, on this side and on that, was the tree of life bearing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaf of the tree was for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:1-2.

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