775. "Every vessel of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these because they do not have any knowledge of the goods and truths in ecclesiastical affairs to which such things correspond.

This statement is similar to the ones explained in nos. 772, 773, and 774 above. The difference is that the valuables here are various forms of knowledge, which are the lowest ones in a person's natural mind. And because they differ in character owing to the essence that lies within them, they are called vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble. For vessels symbolize forms of knowledge, here forms of knowledge in ecclesiastical affairs. Because various forms of knowledge are the containing vessels of goodness and truth, they are like vessels containing oil or wine.

Forms of knowledge are also found in great variety, and their recipient vessel is the memory. They are of great variety because they contain the interior elements of a person. They are also introduced into the memory either by intellectual deliberation or by hearing or reading them, according to the varying perception then of the rational mind. All of these things are present in forms of knowledge, as is apparent when they are reproduced, which is the case when a person speaks or thinks.

[2] But we will briefly say what vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron and marble symbolize. A vessel of precious wood symbolizes something known as the result of rational goodness and truth. A vessel of bronze symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness. A vessel of iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural truth. And a vessel of marble symbolizes something known as the result of an appearance of goodness and truth.

That wood symbolizes goodness may be seen just above in no. 774. That precious wood here symbolizes both rational goodness and rational truth is due to the fact that wood symbolizes goodness, and preciousness is predicated of truth. For one variety of goodness is symbolized by the wood of the olive tree, another by the wood of the cedar, of the fig tree, of the fir tree, of the poplar and of the oak.

A vessel of bronze and iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness and truth, because all metals, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead, in the Word symbolize goods and truths. They symbolize because they correspond, and because they correspond they are also found in heaven. For everything in heaven is a correspondent form.

[3] However, this is not the place to confirm from the Word what each kind of metal symbolizes owing to its correspondence. We will cite only some passages to confirm that bronze symbolizes natural goodness, and iron, therefore, natural truth, as can be seen from the following: That the feet of the Son of Man looked like bronze, as though fired in a furnace (Revelation 1:15). That Daniel saw a man whose feet were like the gleam of burnished bronze (Daniel 10:5-6).

That the feet of cherubim were seen sparking as with the gleam of burnished bronze (Ezekiel 1:7). (Feet symbolize something natural, as may be seen in nos. 49, 468, 470, 510.) That an angel appears whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze (Ezekiel 40:3). And that the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw was as to its head golden, as to its breast and arms silver, as to its belly and sides bronze, and as to its legs iron (Daniel 2:32-33). The statue represented the successive states of the church which the ancients called the golden age, silver age, bronze age, and iron age.

Since bronze symbolizes something natural, and the Israelite people were purely natural, therefore the Lord's natural humanity was represented by the bronze serpent, which people bitten by serpents had only to look at to be cured (Numbers 21:6, 8-9).

That bronze symbolizes natural goodness may also be seen in Isaiah 60:17, Jeremiah 15:20-21, Ezekiel 27:13, Deuteronomy 8:7, 9, 33:24-25

540. And seven jewels ¹ on its heads. This symbolizes all the Word's truths falsified and profaned.

Jewels or precious stones symbolize the Word's truths, specifically truths in the Word's literal meaning, but here those truths falsified and profaned because the jewels were seen on the dragon's seven heads, which symbolize irrationality owing to a falsification and profanation of truths (no. 538).

[2] That jewels or precious stones symbolize truths in the Word's literal meaning may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Sacred Scripture, nos. 43-45. We showed there that Divine truths in their outmost expressions, which are the truths in the Word's literal sense, were symbolized by the twelve precious stones on Aaron's breastpiece, namely, the Urim and Thummim (Exodus 28:6, 15-21, 30), and also by the precious stones in the Garden of Eden, where the king of Tyre is said to have been (Ezekiel 28:12-13). And they were symbolized as well by the twelve precious stones which formed the foundations of the wall of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:17-20).

Truths in the literal meaning of the Word are symbolized by jewels or precious stones because everything in the Word's literal meaning is, in the eyes of angels, translucent in consequence of the Word's spiritual meaning, thus in consequence of the light of heaven in which the Word's spiritual truths reside. For a stone in the Word symbolizes truth in its outmost expressions, and thus a precious stone, that truth translucent.

[3] The Word's truths falsified and profaned are also called jewels because they are luminous in themselves, whoever possesses them, like jewels on earth, no matter in whose hand they are. I have occasionally been given to see adulterous women adorned with jewels on their first arrival from earth into the world of spirits, and also Jews selling jewels that they acquired from heaven. It was apparent from this that the evils and falsities in those people did not alter the radiance and sparkle of the Word's truths.

The ten jewels on the horns of the beast rising up out of the sea consequently have the same symbolism (Revelation 13:1), and so, too, the precious stones on the woman sitting on the scarlet beast (Revelation 17:3-5).

That it is the Word's truths that jewels symbolize is clearly apparent from the statement in the book of Revelation, that on the head of Him who sat on the white horse were seen many jewels, and that His name was The Word of God (Revelation 19:12-13).

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