In the ancient world cities were nearly nations unto themselves – they existed within walls, with their own laws and customs, generally centered on the common purpose of trade. This is not as much the case in the modern world, but we still tend to divide ourselves city by city in terms of sports teams, accents, music and culture, and still tend to generalize the character of people from other cities. It follows, then, that in the Bible cities represent various doctrines – collections of inter-related ideas about spiritual reality. Such doctrines can be based on anything from the Lord’s true teachings – the New Jerusalem seen by John in Revelation – to the falsity and heresy of Sodom and various cities obliterated by the people of Israel at God’s command. On the most personal level, a city can also represent the natural mind of one person – which makes sense since we each to some extent have our own doctrine and our own set of ideas and beliefs.

2557. 'My father's daughter but not my mother's daughter' means that the rational was conceived from celestial good as the father but not from spiritual truth as the mother. This becomes clear from the conception of the rational, that is to say, it comes into being through an influx of Divine celestial good into the affection for factual knowledge, dealt with in 1895, 1902, 1910. Two arcana are present here, the first being that man's rational is conceived from Divine celestial good as the father, and that there is no other way in which any rational may come into being; and the second, that the rational is not conceived from spiritual truth as the mother. As regards the first arcanum - that man's rational is conceived from Divine celestial good as the father, and that there is no other way in which any rational comes into being - this may become clear from what has been stated already in 1895, 1902, 1910, as well as from what anybody may know if he reflects.

[2] For it is well known that man is born without any knowledge and without any actual rationality, and with only the ability to acquire these; also that after he is born he learns and absorbs all things gradually, chiefly by means of sensory impressions received through hearing and sight; and as he learns and absorbs them so he becomes rational. The fact that these things are accomplished by way of the body, which is an external way, because they are accomplished through hearing and sight, is self-evident. But the thing man does not know, because he does not reflect on the matter, is that something is flowing in constantly from within which receives those things that thus enter in and are implanted through hearing and sight, and arranges them into order. That which flows in, receives, and arranges them is Divine celestial good, which comes from the Lord. This is the source of the life of those things, the source of their order, and the source of all the separate relationships among them, as has been stated. From all this it may become clear that man's rational springs from Divine celestial good as the father, in accordance with the words in this verse, 'she is my father's daughter'.

[3] As regards the second arcanum - that the rational is not conceived from spiritual truth as the mother - this becomes clear from what has been stated in 1902. For if spiritual truth were to flow in from within, as good does, man would be born with total rationality and at the same time with complete knowledge, so that he would have no need to learn anything. But since man is such that because of his heredity he is under the influence of every evil and consequently of every falsity, so that if truths themselves also were to flow in he would adulterate them and falsify them and in so doing would perish for ever, the Lord has provided against any truth at all flowing in by way of man's internal being, only by way of his external. From this it becomes clear that man's rational does not spring from spiritual truth as the mother, in accordance with the words in this verse, 'but not my mother's daughter'. It pleased the Lord that His own Rational as well should be formed according to the same order, to the end that by His own power He might make Divine all things with Him that were Human, and might implant Divine spiritual Truth in, and unite it to, Divine celestial Good, and implant Divine celestial Good in, and unite it to, Divine spiritual Truth.