2. Maar dat het geheel zowel als het bijzondere, ja het meest bijzondere, tot de kleinste jota toe, geestelijke en hemelse dingen betekent en omhult, weet tot dusver de Christelijke wereld in de verste verte niet, om welke reden zij dan ook voor het Oude Testament weinig aandacht heeft Niettemin kan het hieruit alleen al blijken, dat het Woord – daar het van de Heer is en van de Heer komt - nooit zou kunnen bestaan, tenzij het innerlijk die dingen bevatte, welke van de hemel, de kerk en van het geloof zijn. Anders kon het niet het Woord van de Heer genoemd worden, evenmin zou gezegd kunnen worden, dat daarin enig leven is; want vanwaar zou het leven anders kunnen komen, dan uit de dingen die van het leven zijn, dat wil zeggen, daarvandaan dat het geheel zowel als elke bijzonderheid betrekking heeft op de Heer, Die het leven Zelf is. Iets dat innerlijk niet op Hem ziet, leeft dus niet, ja zelfs, een woord in het Woord, dat niet Hem onthult, of op haar wijze op Hem betrekking heeft, is niet goddelijk.

551. All the People Who Are in the Hells Are Absorbed in Evils and Consequent Falsities because of Their Love for Themselves and the World

All the people who are in the hells are devoted to evil goals and the distortions that result. There is no one there devoted to evil goals and interested in true perceptions. Many evil people in the world know about spiritual truths, the truths of the church, since they have learned them first in childhood and later from sermons and from reading the Word and have gone on to take them for granted in their conversations. Some of them have even led others to believe that they were Christians at heart because they had learned from these truths how to talk with apparent affection and to behave honestly as though motivated by a spiritual faith. As for the ones who inwardly thought the opposite, though, and who carefully refrained from doing the evil things they were thinking of simply because of civil laws and for the sake of their reputation and rank and profit, they are all evil at heart, involved in what is true and good only physically, not in spirit. So when their outer layers are stripped off in the other life and the inner natures that constituted their spirits are unveiled, they are wholly absorbed in evil and false concerns, unconcerned with anything true and good. Then one can see that the true and good values simply dwelt in their memories as things they had learned about, and that they retrieved them from memory when they were talking and imitated good deeds as though they were motivated by a spiritual love and faith.

When people like this are let into their inner natures - into their evils, that is - they can no longer say anything true. They can only say what is false because their speech arises from their evil intentions. It is impossible to say anything true for evil ends because by then their spirits are made up of nothing but their own evil, and falsity emanates from evil.

Every evil spirit is distilled to this state before he or she is thrown into hell (see above, 499-512). This is called being stripped down as to what is true and good. ¹ The stripping down is simply the process of being let into their own inner natures, into what they have claimed as spirits, then, or into their spirits themselves. See also 425 above on these matters.

각주: