4802. There are also spirits who, even though they are evil ones, do to some extent allow the light of heaven to come in and who accept the truths of faith, so that they have some perception of truth. They accept the truths enthusiastically, yet not so that they may live according to them, but so that they may boast about being seen to have more understanding and keen-sightedness than others. For the human understanding is such that it can accept truths, even though none make truths their own except those people who live according to them. Unless the human understanding was like this no one could be reformed.

[2] Those who have been like this in the world, that is to say, have understood truths and yet have led a life of evil, remain the same in the next life. But there they put their ability to understand truths to the misuse of gaining dominion over others; for there they know that in truths they have a means of communication with some communities of heaven, and consequently that they can exist among the evil and be strong; for truths in the next life have power within them. But because their life is one of evil they are in hell.

[3] I have talked to two who during their lifetime were like this. They were amazed they should be in hell even though they had believed very strongly in the truths of faith. But I told them that the light in them by which they understood truths was like that of winter in the world. I said that objects in all their beauty and colours were no less visible than in the light of summer; yet in that winter light everything died off and nothing at all pleasant and delightful showed itself. Then I told those two spirits that because the end they had in view to understanding truths had been their own exaltation and consequently had been a selfish end, the sphere emanating from their ends in view when these rose towards the interior heavens, to the angels there, who perceived solely people's ends, could not be tolerated and were cast aside. This is why they were in hell.

[4] I went on to say that in former times people of this kind, more than any others, were called serpents of the tree of knowledge; for when life is the subject of their reasoning they speak against truths. They are, what is more, like a woman who has a lovely face but a foul stench, and who is therefore an outcast from society wherever she goes. Like her, when such people in the next life move towards angelic communities they are in actual fact emitting a stench, which even they themselves are aware of when they approach those communities. From this also one may see what faith is when devoid of the life of faith.

7089. 'And afterwards Moses and Aaron came' means the Divine Law and the teachings derived from it. This is clear from the representation of 'Moses' as the Lord in respect of the Divine Law, dealt with in 6752; and from the representation of 'Aaron' as teachings that present what is good and true, dealt with in 6998. The expression 'Divine Law', which Moses represents, is used to mean the Word as it is in its internal sense, thus as it is in heaven, whereas the expression 'teaching' is used to mean the Word as it is in its literal sense, thus as it is on earth. How great the difference is may be recognized from the explanations given so far that have regard to the internal sense of the Word. Let the Ten Commandments, which specifically are called the Law, be used to illustrate the point. The literal meaning of them is that one should honour one's parents, not kill, commit adultery, or steal, and so on. But the internal sense is that one should worship the Lord, not harbour hatred, falsify what is true, or claim for oneself what is the Lord's. These are the ways in which those four commandments are understood in heaven, and the rest too in their own manner. For in heaven they know no other Father than the Lord; therefore instead of honouring parents they take the commandment to mean that the Lord should be worshipped. In heaven they do not know what it is to kill, for they live for ever; but instead of killing they understand harbouring hatred and harming another person's spiritual life. Nor in heaven do they know what it is to commit adultery; consequently they perceive instead what corresponds to that prohibition - being forbidden to falsify what is true. And instead of stealing they take the prohibition to mean that one should not take away from the Lord anything such as goodness and truth and claim it as one's own.

[2] This is what the Law and also the whole of the Word is like in heaven, and so what it is like in its internal sense. Indeed it is far more profound, for most of what they think and say in heaven cannot find expression in the words of human speech, because they are in the spiritual world, not the natural world, and things belonging to the spiritual world are as greatly superior to those belonging to the natural world as non-material things are to material. Yet because material things nevertheless correspond to them, material things can be used to disclose them. That is, natural speech can be used but not spiritual, for spiritual speech does not consist of material words but of spiritual words. And spiritual words consist of ideas that are converted into words in the spiritual atmosphere, and are represented by variegations of heavenly light, heavenly light being in itself nothing other than Divine intelligence and wisdom radiating from the Lord. All this shows what is meant by the Divine Law in its genuine sense, which 'Moses' represents, and what is meant by teaching, which 'Aaron' represents.