246. The Jewish people was like this, and this is why, since it possessed the Word, the Lord likened it to a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and feasted magnificently every day, yet had not drawn from the Word even so much truth and good as to be sorry for Lazarus, the poor man, who lay before his door covered in sores. That people had not only failed to make any truths from the Word its own, but had absorbed such vast quantities of falsities that finally they could not see any truth; for falsities do not merely eclipse truths, but wipe them out and drive them away. That was why they did not recognise the Messiah, although all the prophets had foretold His coming.