7127. 'By no means do I give you straw' means that the most general factual knowledge was no longer made available from that source. This is clear from the meaning of 'by no means giving' as no longer supplying; and from the meaning of 'straw' as the most general factual knowledge of all, dealt with in 7112. What these words imply has been stated [in that paragraph] above. But in addition to this it should be mentioned that in the next life the ones who toss straw - that is, the most general factual knowledge of all - in the way of the upright whom they molest are primarily people who have belonged to the Church. They are people who convinced themselves that faith alone saved, yet did not lead a life of faith but a life of evil. In the next life these people are the same as they were in the world; they know the arguments that are used to substantiate faith alone, which they say saves a person irrespective of the life he has been leading.

[2] But those substantiations are nothing else than reasonings that agree with the initial proposition; for anything at all, even that which is extremely false, can be substantiated by means of reasonings, and can also be presented to simple persons as the truth by the use of clever speaking and drawing of conclusions. For this purpose those people use chiefly the most general statements of all in the Word, which without the internal sense of the Word can be twisted to support any opinion at all. These kinds of statements are what they toss in the way of those who belong to the spiritual Church; they use such to molest them. But these statements are still no more than 'straw for making bricks'. For those people exclude the absolutely essential virtue, namely charity. They do, it is true, say that the works of charity are the fruits of faith; but they still consider them to be worthless and convince others that regardless of what kind of life a person has led he is saved by faith alone, even during the last hour of his life, and so is saved by faith without its fruits, thus without a life of faith and charity.

[3] So long as such ideas are tossed in their way the upright in the next life possess arguments to fight with and can defend themselves; for they see that reasonings are unsound when the essential virtue, which is charity, is so excluded, and also when they see that such people set no store by the life a person leads. These are the considerations that every single facet of the next life enables them to see, as in broad daylight. These then are the things that are to be understood by the basest kind of factual knowledge, the most general of all, meant by 'straw'. People who have convinced themselves that faith alone saves and yet have led a life of evil are in hell, quite deep down and slightly in front over to the right, from where - as I have heard them - they molest the upright with their reasonings. But being led by the Lord by means of angels, the upright have rejected those reasonings as worthless, and they have also detected the fallacies contained in proofs and arguments based on general truths in the Word.

7112. 'You shall no longer give the people straw' means factual knowledge, the basest and most general kind of all. This is clear from the meaning of 'straw' as factual truths, dealt with in 3114, in particular the basest and most general kind of factual knowledge, for since 'straw' is the food of beasts 'straw' means the basest kind of food in the spiritual sense. Factual knowledge is said to be the basest when it is full of the illusions of the senses. It is what the evil misuse to pervert forms of good and truth and so lend support to evils and falsities; for on account of the illusions it contains that knowledge can be twisted round in favour of false suppositions and evil desires. That kind of factual knowledge is also the most general of all, and unless it is filled out with less general and more specific truths it can be of use to evils and falsities. But the more it is filled out with truths, the less it can have that kind of use. Such knowledge is the means by which the upright in the next life are molested by those who, when they were in the world, proclaimed belief in faith alone and yet led a life of evil. But because it is banished by the angels the narrative says at this point that they should no longer give the people straw to make bricks, that is, no longer provide such knowledge for producing fabrications and falsities which are to be introduced. This is the internal sense of these words, which does indeed seem remote from the sense of the letter; but it should be recognized that there is nothing in the natural world that does not correspond to some reality in the spiritual world. The angels present with a person understand in a spiritual way everything understood by the person in a natural way. They do not know what straw is, or what bricks are either. Such things were well known to those angels when they were in the world, but they forgot about them when they entered heaven, because there they moved on to spiritual things. This explains why when a person's ideas of such things in the natural world are perceived by angels they convert them into the corresponding spiritual realities. The fact that 'straw' or 'grass' means the basest kind of factual knowledge, and 'bricks' fabrications and falsities, may be seen from a number of considerations; for herbaceous plants, and also those that produce straw, are nothing else than such knowledge. But seeds, barley-grains, wheat-grains, and the like are interior truths and forms of good; and stones that are not man-made are truths.