1573. And the Canaanite and the Perizzite were then living in the land symbolizes evil and falsity in the Lord's outer self, as can be seen from the following: The Canaanite symbolizes evil in his outer self, inherited from his mother, as dealt with earlier, in §1444. And the Perizzite symbolizes falsity coming out of that evil, to be dealt with below [§1574].
His outer self contained evil inherited from his mother, as noted before; see §§1414 and 1444. It follows that falsity came out of this evil. Wherever there is inherited evil, there is also falsity. The one gives birth to the other. But evil cannot give birth to falsity until we have absorbed secular and religious knowledge. Evil has no other object it can act on or influence but these kinds of knowledge. So the evil that exists on our volitional side turns into falsity on the intellectual side. As a result, since this falsity in the Lord was spawned by his heredity, it too was inherited, unlike falsity that develops out of [consciously adopted] false premises. But it was located in his outer self, and his inner self could see that it was false.
[2] Because the Lord inherited evil from his mother before he was trained in secular and religious knowledge — before Abram emigrated to Egypt — verse 6 of the last chapter says that the Canaanite was in the land, but it does not say that the Perizzite was. Here, however, after he had absorbed both kinds of knowledge, it says that the Canaanite and the Perizzite were living in the land, which shows that a Canaanite symbolizes evil and a Perizzite falsity.
It also shows that mention of the Canaanite and Perizzite forms no part of a story line, since nothing above or below deals with them; and the same is true in verse 6 of the last chapter, which mentions a Canaanite. This makes it plain that the verse contains some kind of secret that can be known only from the inner meaning.
[3] Anyone might be astonished to hear that the Lord had evil inside him inherited from his mother, but since the present verse says so openly, and the inner sense is talking about the Lord, no one can doubt that it was so.
One human being could never be born to another without inheriting evil from him or her. But the evil we inherit from our father and the evil we inherit from our mother are very different. The evil we inherit from our father lies deep within and remains forever, because it can never be rooted out. This was not true of the Lord, because he was the son of his Father Jehovah and was therefore divine or Jehovah on the inside. The evil we inherit from our mother, conversely, belongs to our outer self. This evil was present in the Lord, and it is called the Canaanite in the land, while the falsity that develops from it is called a Perizzite.
The Lord, then, was born like any other person and had weaknesses like any other person.
[4] The fact that he underwent spiritual trials provides clear evidence that he inherited evil from his mother. No one who is free of evil can ever be tempted; it is the evil in us that is the source and means of our trials.
The Lord was tested and underwent trials so severe that no one could ever endure even a millionth of what he went through. He endured them alone and completely overcame evil (or the Devil and the whole of hell) by his own power. These things too are evident.
Luke says the following about the Lord's trials:
Jesus was led in the spirit into the desert, where he was tested for forty days by the Devil, so that he did not eat during those days. But after the Devil had finished all his testing [of Jesus], he left Jesus alone for a while. So Jesus returned in the strength of the spirit into Galilee. (Luke 4:1-2, 13-14)
[5] And Mark says this:
The spirit forced Jesus out into the wilderness, and he was in the wilderness forty days, where he was tested; and he was with the animals. (Mark 1:12-13)
The animals symbolize hell. Furthermore, he was tested to the point of death, so that he sweated drops of blood:
And when he was in agony, he prayed more intensely. And his sweat became as drops of blood falling on the ground. (Luke 22:44)
[6] No devil can ever put an angel to the test. As long as the angel remains in the Lord, evil spirits cannot even approach at a distance without being seized immediately by horror and terror. Much less could hell have approached the Lord if he had been born divine, free of any evil clinging to him from his mother.
[7] It is a common saying among preachers that the Lord also bore the wickedness and evil of the human race. But it would be impossible to draw wickedness and evil off into himself except by way of heredity. Divinity is not susceptible to evil.
In order to conquer evil by his own strength, therefore — which no human ever was or ever will be able to do — and become the sole embodiment of uprightness, the Lord wished to be born like any other person.
Otherwise being born would have been of no use to the Lord. He could have taken on a human identity without birth, as he sometimes did when appearing to the earliest church and to the prophets as well. In order to clothe himself also in evil that he could fight against and overthrow, however, he did come into the world, and by this means he would unite the divine nature to the human nature in himself.
[8] The Lord had no actual evil, or evil of his own, however, as he also says in John:
Which one of you will denounce me for sin? (John 8:46)
These remarks now demonstrate clearly what it means when it says just above that there was controversy between the herders of Abram's livestock and the herders of Lot's livestock; the reason was that the Canaanite and the Perizzite were living in the land.
