1824. A heifer means items that serve to represent the more superficial heavenly aspects; a she-goat, those that represent the deeper ones; and a ram, those that represent the heavenly-spiritual aspects. This can be seen from the sacrifices, which will be discussed later where they are the focus, the Lord in his divine mercy willing [§§2180:2, 2830, 3519, 9391, 10042].
There are heavenly qualities that are relatively superficial and ones that are relatively deep; there are also heavenly qualities that are spiritual. The more superficial heavenly qualities are those that belong to the outer self; the deeper ones are those that belong to the inner self; and the spiritual ones are offshoots. 1 Heavenliness itself is love for the Lord and for our neighbor. This heavenly influence flows from the Lord through the inner self into the outer. In the inner self, it is called the heavenly core; in the outer self, it is called the heavenly surface. The heavenly surface is formed of every desire for what is good; in fact it includes every form of sensual pleasure produced by that desire. So far as both of these — desire for what is good, and the resulting pleasures — contain a loving, charitable goodness, they contain what is heavenly and happy.
The spiritual side of heavenliness, however, is every desire for truth that contains within it the desire for what is good. In other words, it is a desire for truth generated by a desire for what is good. So it is faith that contains charity, or faith generated by charity.
Footnotes:
1. The expected conclusion of the sequence "The more superficial heavenly qualities are those that belong to the outer self; the deeper ones are those that belong to the inner self" would be "heavenly qualities that are spiritual are between the outer and inner self." This order is in fact implied in §1827. [LHC]
