10258. 'And cassia' means truth even more interior, springing from good. This is clear from the meaning of 'cassia' as the interior truth of the internal man. The fact that 'cassia' has this meaning is evident from what has been stated and shown above; for heavenly realities follow in that sequence, from outermost to inmost. Inmost truth therefore is what 'cassia' means, being the fourth in the sequence. The reason why 'cassia' means truth springing from good is that inmost truth emanates directly from good and acts jointly with good on lower levels, as is the case when the understanding acts altogether in unison with the will, so completely that one cannot tell whether an action springs from the will or from the understanding. Also, the more internal heavenly things are, the more perfect they are; for all perfection increases towards the more internal parts, and all perfection springs from good, that is, comes from the Lord through good.

[2] Cassia is mentioned as one of those wares that mean heavenly things, in Ezekiel,

Dan and Javan exchanged yarn in your dealings; wrought iron, cassia, and calamus were in your trading. Ezekiel 27:19.

This refers to Tyre, by which cognitions or knowledge of truth and good in the Church are meant, see 1201, and by 'Dan and Javan' those possessing the cognitions of heavenly things. 'Wrought iron' is last and lowest heavenly truth, and 'cassia' inmost truth.

[3] Cassia is not mentioned anywhere else in the Word, though 'kessia' ¹ is in David, which also is a species of cassia,

God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness. With myrrh, aloes, and kessia [He has anointed] all Your garments. Psalms 45:7-8.

The whole of this Psalm refers to the Lord, in particular to the glorification of His Humanity. No one lacking knowledge of the internal sense of the Word can by any means know what is meant, when the Lord is the subject, by 'anointing all His garments with myrrh, aloes, and kessia'.

[4] It is evident that what should be thought of is not garments nor the myrrh, aloes, and kessia with which they were anointed, but the Divine Truths springing from Divine Good with which the Lord clothed His Human; for anointing was nothing other than a representative sign of the Divine Good within the Lord's Divine Human. Consequently 'myrrh, aloes, and kessia' means Divine Truths in their own proper order, emanating from the Divine Good that was within Him; and therefore His Divine Human is meant by 'garments'. Whether you say the Lord's Divine Human or Divine Truth, it amounts to the same thing, for while He was in the world the Lord was Divine Truth itself, and when He left the world He made Himself Divine Good, from which Divine Truth flows, see in the places referred to in 9199(end), 9315(end). Besides, the term 'garment' is used in the Word for that which clothes something else, whatever this may be. The Lord's garments in Isaiah 63:2-3, and elsewhere, have this kind of meaning. For the meaning of 'garments' as truths clothing good, see 2576, 4545, 4763, 5248, 5319, 5954, 9093, 9212, 9216, 9952. From all this it is now evident that 'kessia' in the Psalm, which is a species of cassia, means Divine Truth, emanating directly from Divine Good, which truth is inmost truth.

Footnotes:

3246. 'And to the concubines' sons, whom Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts' means that places in the Lord's spiritual kingdom were allotted to spiritual people adopted by the Lord's Divine Human. This is clear from the meaning of 'the concubines' sons' as those who are spiritual, to be dealt with below; from the representation of 'Abraham' here as the Lord's Divine Human (so that the words 'whom Abraham had' mean that they - those who were spiritual - were adopted by the Lord's Divine Human); and from the meaning of 'the gifts which Abraham gave them' as allotted places in the Lord's spiritual kingdom.

[2] From what has been shown several times already about those who constitute the Lord's spiritual kingdom and who are called the spiritual, as in 3235 and elsewhere, it becomes clear that they are not sons of the marriage itself of good and truth, but of a certain covenant not so conjugial. They are indeed descended from the same father but not from the same mother, that is, from the same Divine Good but not from the same Divine Truth. Indeed with those who are celestial, since they are the product of the marriage itself of good and truth, good exists and truth rooted in that good. They never make investigations into what the truth may be but have a perception of it from good. Nor in conversation do they say more than this regarding what is true, 'Yes, that is so', in keeping with the Lord's teaching in Matthew,

Let your words be Yes, yes; No, no; anything beyond this is from evil. ¹ Matthew 5:37.

But those who are spiritual, since they are the product of a covenant not so conjugial, do not have any perception from which they can know what is true. Instead they call that the truth which parents and teachers have told them to be the truth. Consequently with them there is no marriage of good and truth. Nevertheless that which they believe to be the truth for the reason just given is adopted by the Lord as truth when goodness of life exists with them; see 1832. This now explains why the spiritual are here called 'the concubines' sons', which is used to mean all the sons of Keturah mentioned already, and also those descended from Hagar, dealt with shortly below in verses 12-18.

[3] In former times - to enable both those who are celestial and those who are spiritual to be represented in marriages - a man was allowed to have a concubine in addition to a wife. That concubine was given to the husband by his wife (uxor), in which case the concubine was called his wife (mulier), or was said to have been given to him as a wife (mulier), as when Hagar the Egyptian was given to Abraham by Sarah, Genesis 16:3, when the servant-girl Bilhah was given to Jacob by Rachel, Genesis 30:4, and when the servant-girl Zilpah was given to Jacob by Leah, Genesis 30:9. In those cases they are called 'wives' (mulier), but elsewhere concubines, as is Hagar the Egyptian in the present verse, Bilhah in Genesis 35:22, and even Keturah herself in 1 Chronicles 1:32.

[4] The reason why those men of old had concubines in addition to a wife, as not only Abraham and Jacob did, but also their descendants, such as Gideon, Judges 8:31; Saul, 2 Samuel 3:7; David, 2 Samuel 5:13; 15:16; Solomon, 1 Kings 11:3, was that they were permitted to do so for the sake of the representation. That is to say, the celestial Church was represented by the wife, and the spiritual Church by the concubine. They were permitted to do so because they were the kind of men with whom conjugial love did not exist; so that to them marriage was not marriage but merely copulation for the sake of begetting off-spring. With such persons those permissions were possible without any harm being done to love or consequently to the conjugial covenant. But such permissions are never possible among people with whom good and truth are present and who are internal people, or potentially so. For as soon as good and truth, and internal things, exist with the human being, such permissions come to an end. This is why Christians are not allowed, as the Jews were, to take a concubine in addition to a wife, and why such is adultery. Regarding the adoption of those who are spiritual by the Lord's Divine Human, see what has been stated and shown already on the same subject in 2661, 2716, 2833, 2834.

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