2454. That 'his wife looked back behind him' means that truth turned away from good and looked towards matters of doctrine is clear from the meaning of 'looking back behind him' and from the meaning of 'a wife'. Looking back behind him means looking towards matters of doctrine, which have a relationship with truth, and not towards life in accordance with them, which has a relationship with good, as stated above in 2417. That which is secondary is referred to as 'behind him' and that which is primary as 'before him'. The fact that truth is secondary and good primary has been shown quite often. For truth belongs to good, since the essence and life of truth is good. 'Looking behind him' therefore means looking towards truth which constitutes doctrinal teaching, and not towards good which constitutes life in accordance with doctrinal teaching. That these points are what is meant becomes quite clear from the Lord's words, where also, referring to the final period of the Church or close of the age, He says in Luke,

On that day, whoever will be on the housetop with his vessels in the house, let him not come down to take them away; and whoever is in the field, let him likewise not turn back to behind him. Remember Lot's wife. Luke 17:31-32.

[2] These words of the Lord are by no means intelligible without the internal sense, and so are unintelligible unless one knows what is meant by 'being on the housetop', by 'vessels in the house', by 'coming down to take them away', by 'the field', and lastly by 'turning back to behind him'. According to the internal sense 'being on the housetop' means resting on good; for 'a house' means good, see 710, 2231, 2233. 'Vessels in the house' means truths which belong to good; for truths are the vessels for good, see 1496, 1832, 1900, 2063, 2269. 'Going down to take them away' means, as is evident, turning away from good towards truth, for since good is primary it is also higher, while truth, being secondary, is also lower. That 'the field' is the Church, so called from the seed which it receives, and consequently that those people are 'fields' in whom there is the good taught by doctrine, is clear from many places in the Word. These considerations show what 'turning back to behind him' means, namely turning away from good and looking towards matters of doctrine. And it is because these things are meant by the expression 'Lot's wife', that 'remember Lot's wife' is added. The reason it is not said that she looked 'behind herself' but 'behind him' is that 'Lot' means good, see 2324, 2351, 2371, 2399. This explains why, when Lot was told what to do, verse 17, the words used were, 'Do not look back behind you'.

[3] The reason why in Luke it is said 'let him not turn back to behind him' and not 'to the things behind him' is that celestial people are unwilling even to mention anything that is a matter of doctrine, see 202, 337. This is why no such thing is mentioned in Luke, only the words 'to behind him'.

[4] These same matters are described in Matthew as follows,

When you see the abomination of desolation, foretold by the prophet Daniel, then let those who are in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything away out of his house; and let him who is in the field not return back to take his clothes. Matthew 24:15-17.

Here 'the abomination of desolation' is the state of the Church when there is no love and no charity. When these have been destroyed abominable things predominate. 'Judea' means the Church, and in particular the celestial Church, as is evident from both the historical and prophetical sections throughout the Old Testament Word, while 'the mountains into which they were to flee' means love to the Lord and consequent charity towards the neighbour, see 795, 1430, 1691. 'He who is on the housetop' means good flowing from love, as stated just above. 'Going down to take anything away out of his house' means turning away from good towards truth, as has also been stated above, while 'he who is in the field' means members of the spiritual Church, as is evident from the meaning of 'field' in the Word. 'Let him not return back to take his clothes' means not turning away from good towards truth that constitutes doctrinal teaching - 'clothes' meaning truths, for truths clothe good like garments, see 1073. Anyone may see that all those things which the Lord has said in that section about the close of the age mean things altogether different and embody arcana, such as that those in Judea were to flee into the mountains, that the one on the housetop was not to go down and bring anything out of the house, and that the one in the field was not to return back to take his clothes. Similar to this is the statement in verse 17 that Lot was not to look back behind him, and that made here that his wife did look back behind him and became a pillar of salt. In addition this matter is clear from the meaning of 'a wife' as truth, dealt with in 915, 1468, and from the meaning of 'Lot' as good, dealt with in 2324, 2351, 2371, 2399; hence the words 'after him'.

[5] Truth is said to turn away from good and look towards matters of doctrine when the member of the Church no longer takes to heart what kind of life he leads, only what kind of doctrine he possesses. Yet it is life according to doctrine, not doctrine separate from life, that makes anyone a member of the Church; for when doctrine is separated from life, then because good, in which life consists, has been vastated, truth as well, in which doctrine consists, is vastated, that is, it becomes 'a pillar of salt'. This is something anyone who looks to doctrine alone and not to life may know, by considering whether, even though doctrine teaches such things, he in fact believes in the resurrection, heaven, hell, and indeed the Lord, and so in everything else which doctrine teaches.

1900. 'Go in now to my servant-girl' means a joining to the more exterior man. This too is clear from what has been stated already - that the rational part of man's mind is conceived and begotten from the internal man as its father and from the exterior as its mother. Man's very life springs from the internal man, which cannot have any communication with the external, other than a very obscure communication, until the formation of recipient vessels belonging to the memory has been effected by means of cognitions and knowledge.

[2] The influx of the internal man occurs as an influx into the cognitions and factual knowledge that are present in the exterior man - affection being the means. Meanwhile, before they are present, a communication does indeed exist, but solely through those affections that control the external man; so that not more than very general stirrings and certain appetites occur there, and also certain blind inclinations such as reveal themselves in small children. But this life grows by degrees more definite as vessels are formed in the memory by means of cognitions and in the inner memory by rational concepts. As these vessels are formed and arranged into a sequence - into such a sequence in fact that they stand mutually related to one another like blood relatives and relatives by marriage, or like communities and families - so the correspondence is perfected of the external man with the internal man, and even better so through rational concepts, which are intermediate.

[3] But if the cognitions by means of which those vessels are formed are not truths, a lack of congruity still exists, for the celestial and spiritual things belonging to the internal man do not discover any correspondence for themselves except within truths. Such truths constituting the organic forms of the two memories ¹ are the genuine vessels into which the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith may be introduced fittingly; for when they are so introduced they are arranged by the Lord according to the pattern and image of the communities of heaven, that is, of the Lord's kingdom - insomuch that the person becomes, in miniature, heaven or the Lord's kingdom, as also in the Word the minds of those people are called in whom the celestial things of love and the spiritual things of faith are present. But these matters have been stated for the benefit of those minds that like to go more deeply.

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