370. En Jehovah zei tot Kaïn: Waar is Abel, uw broeder? En hij zei: Ik weet het niet, ben ik mijns broeders hoeder? Jehovah zei tot Kaïn, betekent een zekere gewaarwording van binnen uit, welke ten aanzien van de naastenliefde, of Abel zijn broeder, een innerlijke stem liet horen; dat hij zei:

‘Ik weet het niet, ben ik mijns broeders hoeder’, betekent, dat hij de naastenliefde, waaraan hij niet dienstbaar wilde zijn, teniet deed, en dat hij dus zo alles wat tot de naastenliefde behoorde, geheel en al verwierp. Van dien aard is hun leer geworden.

2145. 'He was sitting at the tent door' means the holiness which existed with Him at that time, namely the holiness of love, which is meant by 'as the day was getting warmer', dealt with in what follows next. This is clear from the meaning of 'a tent' as holiness, dealt with in 414, 1102, 1566. And for the reason why 'tents' meant forms of holiness, see the same paragraphs. Since the Lord at this time had the perception meant by the oak-groves of Mamre, which is a lower rational perception, yet more interior than that meant by the oak-grove of Moreh, dealt with in 1442, 1443, it is here represented and so is meant by his sitting at the tent door, that is, at the entrance to holiness. As regards perceptions being more interior or less interior, this may be illustrated from the perceptions which the most ancient people had. From these people I have heard that the more they were immersed in mere facts acquired from the objects of hearing and sight the lower their perceptions became; but the more they were raised up from them towards the celestial things of charity and love the more interior these perceptions became, as they were then closer to the Lord.