413. 21. The Lord provides there that the innocence of early childhood in them become an innocence of wisdom, and that the little children thus become angels. Many people may suppose that little children remain little children and become angels immediately after death. But it is intelligence and wisdom that make an angel. Consequently, as long as little children do not have that intelligence and wisdom, they are indeed among angels, but are not themselves angels. They become angels for the first time only when they have become intelligent and wise.

Little children are therefore led from the innocence of early childhood to the innocence of wisdom; that is, from an external innocence to an internal one. This latter innocence is the goal in all their instruction and advancement. Consequently, when they reach the innocence of wisdom, attached to it is the innocence of their early childhood, which in the meantime had served them as a foundation.

I once saw the nature of the innocence of early childhood represented by something woody, almost without life, but which becomes more alive as children acquire concepts of truth and affections for good. Then afterwards the nature of the innocence of wisdom was represented by a live and naked little child.

Angels of the third heaven are more than all others in a state of innocence from the Lord, and to the eyes of spirits who are below the heavens, they appear as naked little children. Being, moreover, wiser than the rest, they also are more alive. The reason is there is a correspondence between innocence and early childhood, and between innocence and nakedness. Therefore it is said of Adam and his wife, when they were in a state of innocence, that they were naked and not ashamed, but that after they lost their state of innocence, they were ashamed of their nakedness and hid themselves (Genesis 2:25, 3:7-8, 10-11). In short, the wiser angels are, the more innocent they are.

What the innocence of wisdom is like can be seen in some measure from the innocence of early childhood described above in no. 395, provided that the Lord is substituted for the parents there as the Father by whom such people are guided and to whom they attribute all that they receive.

3413. 'And filled them up with dust' means by means of earthly things, that is, by means of self-love and love of material gain. This is clear from the meaning of 'dust' as such, dealt with in 249. The meaning is that those who are called 'the Philistines', that is, who are not concerned with life but with doctrine, efface interior truths by means of earthly loves, which are self-love and love of gain. Because of those loves they are called 'the uncircumcised', 2039, 2049, 2056, 2632. Indeed people who are under the influence of those loves cannot avoid 'filling up the wells of Abraham with dust', that is, effacing the interior truths of the Word by means of earthly things, for there is no way in which they are able from these loves to see spiritual things, that is, things which belong to the light of truth from the Lord. In fact those loves introduce darkness, and this banishes that light, for as stated just above in 3412, as the light of truth from the Lord draws nearer, people who are concerned with doctrine alone and not with life are plunged into complete darkness and stupidity. Indeed they become like those in a rage, doing all they can to destroy truths in every way. For self-love and the love of gain are such that they do not allow any truth at all from the Divine to come anywhere near them. Nevertheless those people are able to boast of and pride themselves in the fact that they know truths; indeed they proclaim them with seeming zeal. It is however the fires of self-love and love of gain which inflame them and spur them on, and their zeal is merely the enthusiasm fired by those loves. This becomes quite clear from the fact that even though truths run counter to such persons' actual lives they are able to proclaim them with the selfsame zeal or enthusiasm. These are the earthly things which block the Word itself, the fountain of all truth.