4923. 'Saying, This one came out first' means that it had priority of place. This is clear from the meaning of 'coming out first', or being the firstborn, as priority of place and a higher position, dealt with in 3325. Dealt with here and in the remainder of this chapter is the birthright. Anyone unacquainted with the internal sense of the Word may suppose that merely the birthright, and consequently the privileges which the firstborn might lawfully acquire, are dealt with. But one who does have some knowledge of the internal sense may see plainly enough that something of higher significance also lies concealed in this description. He may see this not only from the actual fact that one of the infants put out a hand and then drew it back, at which point the other infant came out, but also from the fact that they received their names from this, and from the fact that the midwife bound a twice-dyed thread on the hand of him who was first. Other descriptions may also lead him to see the same, such as the incident very like the present one when, after Esau and Jacob had struggled together in the womb, Esau came out first with Jacob grasping his - Esau's - heel, Genesis 25:23-24, 26. In addition to this there is the incident involving the two sons of Joseph; when blessing them Jacob placed his right hand on the younger and his left on the older, Genesis 48:17-19.

[2] The Jews and also some Christians do, it is true, believe that these, along with all other descriptions in the Word, contain some hidden meaning which they call mystical, the reason for that belief being the holiness, so far as the Word is concerned, which has been impressed on them since early childhood. But when asked what that mystical meaning may be, they do not know. One may tell them that because the Word is Divine the mystical meaning within it must of necessity be the kind of meaning the angels in heaven understand, and that the Word cannot have any other mystical content, or if it does, that content would be either mythical, magical, or idolatrous. One may in addition tell them that this mystical meaning understood by the angels in heaven is nothing else than what is called spiritual and celestial, the sole subject of which is the Lord, His kingdom and the Church, and consequently good and truth, and that if they knew what good and truth were, or what love and faith were, they would also be acquainted with that mystical sense. Yet scarcely any Jew or Christian believes any of this when told it. Indeed members of the Church are so lacking in knowledge at the present day that any mention of that which is celestial and spiritual is barely intelligible to them. But even so, because in the Lord's Divine mercy I have been allowed to be simultaneously in heaven as a spirit and on earth as a man, and consequently to talk to angels, doing so now without a break for many years, what else can I do but disclose those things which are called the mystical contents of the Word, that is, its interiors, which are the spiritual and celestial things of the Lord's kingdom? What the details recorded here hold within them in the internal sense - the details regarding Tamar's two sons - will be stated in what follows below.

1076. That 'Ham' means the corrupted Church is clear from what has been stated already about 'Ham'. A Church is called corrupted which acknowledges the Word and has a certain worship similar to that of the true Church but nevertheless separates faith from charity, and so separates it from its essential element and very life. As a consequence faith becomes a thing that is dead, with the result that the Church is inevitably corrupted. What kind of people its members become is made clear by the fact that they cannot possibly have any conscience; for conscience that is truly conscience never exists unless it derives from charity. Charity is what makes conscience, that is, the Lord does so by means of charity. What is conscience but not doing wrong to anyone in any way at all, or doing well to everybody in every possible way? So conscience is an attribute of charity and never of faith separated from charity. If such persons do have any conscience it is a false conscience, about which see what has appeared already. And because they are devoid of conscience they rush into everything unspeakable, so far as external restraints are removed.

[2] Nor indeed do these people know what charity is, but only that it is a word having some meaning. And being devoid of charity they do not know what faith is. When questioned they can only reply that it is a sort of thought Some reply that it is trust, others that it is cognitions of faith. A few say that it is living according to those cognitions, while scarcely any say that it is the life of charity, that is, of mutual love. And if they are told this and are given the opportunity to reflect, their only reply is that all love begins from self, and that anyone who does not consider his own interests and his family's is worse than a heathen. Consequently they are concerned about nothing but themselves and the world. This leads to their living in the proprium, the nature of which has been described frequently already. These are the people who are called 'Ham'.