1153. And fine flour and wheat signifies profaned worship from truths and goods that are from a spiritual origin. This is evident from the signification of "fine flour," as being truth from a spiritual origin (of which presently); also from the signification of "wheat," as being good from a spiritual origin (See n. 374, 375). These also signify worship because the meal offering was composed of them, which was offered with the sacrifices upon the altar the same as the wine and the oil; for the meal offerings were prepared with oil and the drink offerings with wine. And because of the crops of these they had rejoicings in festivals which were instituted to celebrate their harvests. "Fine flour" signifies truth from spiritual good because it is prepared from wheat, which signifies spiritual good, as truth comes from good.

[2] As this truth of the church was signified by "fine flour," it was prescribed what quantity of it should be used in the cakes that were called the meal offerings, which were offered with the sacrifices upon the altar (respecting which see Exodus 29; Leviticus 5 - Leviticus 7, 23; Numbers 18, 28, 29); also the quantity of fine flour in the show bread (Leviticus 23:17; 24:5); for it was commanded that the meal offering that was to be offered on the altar should be prepared from fine flour, and oil and frankincense poured thereon (Leviticus 2:1). Because of this signification of "fine flour," when Abraham talked with the three angels he said to Sarah his wife:

Hasten, knead three measures of flour, of fine flour, and make cakes (Genesis 18:6).

[3] "Fine flour" also signifies the truth of good from a spiritual origin in Ezekiel:

Thou didst eat fine flour, honey, and oil, whence thou didst become exceeding beautiful, and didst prosper even to a kingdom. My bread which I gave thee, fine flour, honey, and oil, with which I fed thee, thou didst offer before idols as an odor of rest (Ezekiel 16:13, 19).

This is said of Jerusalem, which signifies the church as to doctrine, and in that chapter is described what it had been in its beginning and what it became afterwards. "Fine flour and oil" signify truth and good from a spiritual origin, and "honey" good from a natural origin. "Thou didst become exceeding beautiful" signifies to be intelligent and wise; "to prosper even to a kingdom" signifies even to becoming a church, "kingdom" being the church; "to offer these to idols as an odor of rest" signifies the idolatrous worship into which the true worship of the church was afterwards changed.

[4] But "flour" from barley signifies truth from a natural origin, for "barley" signifies natural good, as "wheat" signifies spiritual good. Thus in Isaiah:

Take the millstone and grind flour, make thyself bare (Isaiah 47:2).

This is said of Babylon. "To take a millstone and grind flour" signifies to falsify the truths of the Word, and "to make oneself bare" signifies to adulterate the goods of the Word. In Hosea:

They sow the wind and they reap the whirlwind; he hath no standing corn, the blade shall yield no flour; and if perchance it do, strangers shall devour it (Hosea 8:7).

Here, too, "flour" signifies truth from a natural origin.

(Continuation respecting the Athanasian Faith)

[5] 5. The fifth law of the Divine providence is, That from sense and perception in himself man cannot know how good and truth flow in from the Lord, and how evil and falsity flow in from hell; nor can he see how the Divine providence operates in favor of good against evil; if he did he could not act from freedom according to reason as if from himself. It is sufficient for him to know and acknowledge this from the Word and from the doctrine of the church. This is what is meant by the Lord's words in John:

The wind bloweth where it willeth, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the spirit (John 3:8).

Also by these words in Mark:

The kingdom of God is like a man that casteth seed upon the earth and then sleepeth and riseth night and day; but the seed springeth up and groweth up when he knows it not, for the earth beareth fruit of herself, first the blade, then the ear, at length the full corn in the ear; and when the fruit is produced, he putteth in the sickle because the harvest is at hand (Mark 4:26, 29).

[6] Man does not perceive the operation of the Divine providence within him, because that would take away his freedom, and thus his ability to think as if of himself, and with it every delight of life; thus man would be like an automaton, in which there is no reciprocal, and by that, conjunction; also he would be a slave and not free. The Divine providence moves so secretly that scarcely a trace of it is seen, although it acts upon the most minute things of man's thought and will, which regard his eternal state, chiefly for the reason that the Lord continually wills to impress His love on man, and through it his wisdom, and thus create him into His image. Consequently the operation of the Lord is into man's love and from that into his understanding, and not the reverse. Love with its affections, which are manifold and innumerable, is perceived by man only by a most general feeling, and thus so slightly that there is scarcely anything of it; and yet that man may be reformed and saved he must be led from one affection of love into another according to their connection from order, a thing that no man and even no angel can at all comprehend.

[7] If a man should learn anything of these arcana, he could not be withheld from leading himself; and in this he would be continually led from heaven into hell, while the Lord's leading is continually from hell towards heaven. For from himself man constantly acts against order, while the Lord acts constantly according to order; for man, from the nature derived from his parents, is in the love of self and the love of the world, and consequently perceives from a feeling of delight everything belonging to those loves as good; nevertheless, those loves as ends must be removed; and this is done by the Lord in infinite ways, that appear like a labyrinth even before the angels of the third heaven.

[8] All this makes clear that man would find no help at all in knowing anything about this from sense or perception, but it would do him harm instead, and would destroy him forever. It is sufficient for man to know truths, and by means of truths to know what is good and what is evil, and to acknowledge the Lord and His Divine auspices in every least thing. Then so far as he knows truths, and by means of them what is good and evil, and does what is good as if from himself, so far the Lord leads him from love into wisdom, conjoining love to wisdom and wisdom to love, and making them to be one, because they are one in Himself. These ways by which the Lord leads man may be compared to the vessels through which the blood in man courses and circulates, also the fibers and their foldings within and without the viscera of the body, especially in the brain, through which the animal spirit flows and gives life.

[9] How all these things flow in and flow through, man knows nothing; and yet he lives if only he knows what he needs to do and does it. But the ways by which the Lord leads man are far more complicated and inexplicable, both those by which the Lord leads man through the societies of hell and away from them, and also those by which he leads him through the societies of heaven and interiorly into them. This, therefore, is what is meant by "the wind bloweth where it willeth, and thou knowest not whence it cometh and whither it goeth" (John 3:8), also by "the seed springeth up and groweth up, the man knoweth not how" (Mark 4:27). Moreover, of what consequence is it for a man to know how seed grows up, provided he knows how to plow and harrow the land, to sow the seed, and when he reaps his harvest to bless God?

4459. 'Jacob's sons answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully means evil thought and intention regarding the truth and the good of the Church among the Ancients. This is clear from the representation of 'Shechem' as truth among the Ancients, or what amounts to the same, truth from the ancient Divine stock, dealt with in 4399, 4454; from the representation of 'Hamor' as the good from which that truth sprang, dealt with in 4399, 4431, 4447, 4454; and from the meaning of 'deceit' as evil thought and intention. In general deceit implies evil against another and against what he says and does, for the thought and intention of the one who is deceitful is different from that of the other person, as is also clear from the outcome of events described in this chapter. From this it is evident that 'the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully' means evil thought and intention regarding the truth and the good of the Church among the Ancients.

[2] The sons of Jacob, that is, his descendants, could have none but an evil thought and intention regarding the truth and the good belonging to the internal man, because they were interested in external things devoid of internal, 4281, 4293, 4307, 4429, 4433. They saw no value at all in internal things, and therefore utterly despised them. Such is also the nature of that nation at the present day, and so it is of all who are interested only in external things. People who are interested only in external things do not even know what it is to be interested in internal things, since they have no knowledge of what is internal. If anyone in their presence mentions that which is internal they either endorse the existence of it because they know from doctrine of its existence, though that endorsement is attributable to their deceit, or else they deny the existence of it with their lips as they do in their hearts. For they do not go further than the experiences of the senses of the external man, and as a consequence do not believe in any life after death. Nor do they believe any resurrection to be possible apart from their rising again in the physical body. That being so, they are allowed to have these thoughts concerning the resurrection, or else they would not have any at all. For they centre the whole of life in the body, not knowing that the life of their body flows from the life of their spirit which lives after death. People who are interested only in external things cannot possibly have any faith, for external things with them annihilate all thought concerning internal ones, and consequently all belief in them.

[3] Since this kind of ignorance reigns at the present day, an explanation needs to be given of what it is to be interested in external things devoid of internal. All people who are devoid of conscience are interested only in external things, for the internal man reveals itself through conscience. Anyone is devoid of conscience if he thinks and does what is true and good not for the sake of what is true and good but for the sake of his own personal position and gain, and also merely because he fears the law and fears for his own life. For if reputation, position, gain, and life were not endangered he would plunge without conscience into every unmentionable act. This is quite evident from those in the next life who were such during their lifetime. Because interior things are laid bare in that life those people are constantly endeavouring to destroy others, on account of which they are in hell, where they are held in bonds in a spiritual manner.

[4] To enable anyone to have a fuller knowledge of what is meant by an interest in external things, and what by an interest in internal ones; to enable him to know also that people who are interested only in external things cannot have any conception of what internal ones are and so cannot feel any affection for them (for nobody feels any affection for things of which he has no conception) let the following, for example, be considered. One who is least in heaven is the greatest, one who is humble is exalted, and also one who is poor and needy is rich and affluent. People who are interested only in external things cannot have any conception of these matters, for they think that the least cannot possibly be the greatest, nor the humble be the exalted, and that the poor cannot possibly be rich or the needy affluent. Yet this is precisely how it is in heaven. And because they cannot have any conception of these matters they are consequently unable to feel any affection for them; and when they reflect on them from the point of view of the bodily and worldly things which interest them they feel an aversion to them. How it is in heaven they do not know at all, and as long as they are interested only in external things they do not wish to know, nor indeed are they capable of knowing. For in heaven one who knows, acknowledges, and believes in his heart that is, with affection - that none of his power is self-derived, but that all the power he has comes from the Lord, is called the least. Yet he is the greatest because his power comes from the Lord. Similarly so with one who is humble yet exalted; for one who is humble, acknowledging and believing from affection that he has no self-derived power at all, nor any self-derived intelligence and wisdom, nor any goodness and truth, has power, an intelligent understanding of truth, and a wise discernment of good, conferred on him by the Lord more than on others. And likewise so with the poor and the needy being rich and affluent; for he is called poor and needy who believes in his heart and with affection that nothing he possesses begins in himself, nor does anything he knows and is wise in, nor does anything he has power in. In heaven he is rich and is affluent, the Lord granting him total wealth since he is wiser and richer than all others and lives in most magnificent palaces, 1116, 1626, 1627, and among the treasures constituting all the riches of heaven.

[5] Take as another example someone who is interested only in external things. Such a person cannot have any conception at all that heavenly joy consists in loving the neighbour more than himself and the Lord above all things, and that happiness depends on the amount and the quality of that love. For one interested only in external things loves himself more than his neighbour, and if he does love others it is because they show him favour; and so he loves them for a selfish reason - and he therefore loves himself in them and them in himself. A person like this cannot know what loving others more than himself is; indeed he does not wish to know, and is incapable of knowing. Consequently when told that heaven consists in such love, 548, he is repelled by the idea. Hence those who have been like this during their lifetime are unable to draw near any heavenly community; and when they do draw near, because they feel repelled by it, they cast themselves down headlong into hell.

[6] Because few at the present day know what it is to be interested in external things and what it is to be interested in internal ones, and because the majority believe that those interested in internal things cannot be interested in external ones, and vice versa, let one further example be introduced to illustrate the matter. Take the nourishment of the body and the nourishment of the soul. A person who is interested in merely external pleasures takes care of his own skin, gratifies his stomach, likes to live sumptuously, and finds that the choicest food and drink yields him the highest pleasure. A person however who is interested in internal things also takes delight in those same pleasures, but his governing affection is to nourish the body with pleasurable foods so that it may be healthy, the end in view being a healthy mind in a healthy body. His primary concern is health of mind, for which health of the body serves as a means. One who is a spiritual man does not stop there but regards health of mind or of the soul as the means provided to acquire intelligence and wisdom, not for the sake of reputation, position, or gain, but for the sake of the life after death. And one who is spiritual in a more interior degree regards intelligence and wisdom as a mediate end enabling him to serve as a useful member in the Lord's kingdom; while one who is celestial regards the same as that which enables him to serve the Lord. To him bodily food is a means to the enjoyment of spiritual food; and spiritual food is a means to the enjoyment of celestial food. And because they ought to serve in this manner those foods also correspond, and are therefore called foods. From these examples one may see what is meant by being interested only in external things and what by being interested in internal ones.

[7] The Jewish and Israelite nation, which is the subject in this chapter in the internal historical sense, apart from those who have died as children, are for the most part such. They more than all others are interested in external things, for they are governed by avarice. Those who do not love profit and gain for the sake of any use, only for the sake of gold and silver, and who focus the whole delight of life in those possessions, dwell in the outermost or lowest places, since they are entirely earthly things which they love. But those loving gold and silver because of some use these may serve are people who rise above earthly things, in accordance with that use. The use itself which a person loves is what gives direction to his life and marks him off from others, an evil use making him like one in hell and a good use like one in heaven. It is not indeed the use itself that does so but the love behind it, for everyone's life is inherent in his love.