Pot
Pots" and other large vessels in the Bible represent facts and factual ideas, which serve as containers for truth the same way pots serve as containers for water or wine. Pots fill their function because they are hard, strong and impervious; facts are also absolute and unchanging, filling their function the same way. And pots must be filled to serve any use, just as facts must be filled with truth to serve any purpose. To some extent this meaning also applies to cups, bowls and other smaller vessels, though it is a little more immediate. Generally you don't fill a cup so you can store a liquid; you fill it to drink it. Smaller vessels then often take more of their meaning from the substance they contain, and in many cases ("cup" and "wine" especially) actually mean the same thing.
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings # 33
33. People who are focused on what is good and true have both will and understanding, while people who are focused on what is evil and false do not have will or understanding. Instead of will they have craving, and instead of understanding they have mere information. Any will that is truly human is receptive to goodness, and any understanding that is truly human is open to truth. This means anything that is evil cannot [properly] be labeled "will," and anything that is false cannot [properly] be labeled "understanding," because these things are opposites, and opposites are mutually destructive. That is why anyone who is focused on something evil and therefore on what is false cannot be called rational, wise, or intelligent. Then too, the deeper levels of our minds are closed when we are evil, and those levels are where our will and understanding principally reside.
We assume that we have will and understanding even when we are evil because we say that we are willing things and understanding them, but our "willing" is nothing but craving and our "understanding" is mere information. 1
სქოლიოები:
1. To understand the points made in this section, it is necessary to read some of the key terms using Swedenborg's more specialized definitions of them rather than applying the broader meanings they have when he is speaking more loosely. In their broader meanings, the Latin words voluntas (translated in this and other passages as "will," though sometimes elsewhere in this edition as "volition," "intention," or the like) and intellectus (here translated "understanding" and elsewhere translated "intellect" or "discernment") refer to the two basic faculties of the human mind as defined by Swedenborg. "Will" refers to the faculty that encompasses human loves, emotions, motives, and desires. "Understanding" refers to the faculty that encompasses human perception, comprehension, rationality, and knowledge. (For additional discussion of these faculties, see note 1 in New Jerusalem 28.) In the broad sense of these terms, all human beings, whether good or evil, have both will and understanding on whatever level their minds operate. However, in the more specific sense in which Swedenborg is using them here, they refer to faculties of the inner, spiritual level of the human mind. In this sense, will and understanding are defined as faculties that receive what is good and true, respectively (see New Jerusalem 29), in the inner self. In people who are focused on what is evil and false, the inner, spiritual level where these faculties reside is closed off from conscious awareness, and functions only as a conduit for more generalized life. This happens because such people reject the good and truth that would otherwise flow into their outer, conscious self through their inner self. It is in this more specialized sense of the terms that people who are focused on what is evil and false do not have will or understanding. On the Latin term scientia, here translated "mere information," see note 1 in New Jerusalem 27. On the inner and outer self, see New Jerusalem 36-53. For a fuller discussion of the ideas in this section, see Secrets of Heaven 977-978. [LSW]
