775. "Every vessel of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these because they do not have any knowledge of the goods and truths in ecclesiastical affairs to which such things correspond.

This statement is similar to the ones explained in nos. 772, 773, and 774 above. The difference is that the valuables here are various forms of knowledge, which are the lowest ones in a person's natural mind. And because they differ in character owing to the essence that lies within them, they are called vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble. For vessels symbolize forms of knowledge, here forms of knowledge in ecclesiastical affairs. Because various forms of knowledge are the containing vessels of goodness and truth, they are like vessels containing oil or wine.

Forms of knowledge are also found in great variety, and their recipient vessel is the memory. They are of great variety because they contain the interior elements of a person. They are also introduced into the memory either by intellectual deliberation or by hearing or reading them, according to the varying perception then of the rational mind. All of these things are present in forms of knowledge, as is apparent when they are reproduced, which is the case when a person speaks or thinks.

[2] But we will briefly say what vessels of precious wood, bronze, iron and marble symbolize. A vessel of precious wood symbolizes something known as the result of rational goodness and truth. A vessel of bronze symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness. A vessel of iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural truth. And a vessel of marble symbolizes something known as the result of an appearance of goodness and truth.

That wood symbolizes goodness may be seen just above in no. 774. That precious wood here symbolizes both rational goodness and rational truth is due to the fact that wood symbolizes goodness, and preciousness is predicated of truth. For one variety of goodness is symbolized by the wood of the olive tree, another by the wood of the cedar, of the fig tree, of the fir tree, of the poplar and of the oak.

A vessel of bronze and iron symbolizes something known as the result of natural goodness and truth, because all metals, such as gold, silver, bronze, iron, tin, and lead, in the Word symbolize goods and truths. They symbolize because they correspond, and because they correspond they are also found in heaven. For everything in heaven is a correspondent form.

[3] However, this is not the place to confirm from the Word what each kind of metal symbolizes owing to its correspondence. We will cite only some passages to confirm that bronze symbolizes natural goodness, and iron, therefore, natural truth, as can be seen from the following: That the feet of the Son of Man looked like bronze, as though fired in a furnace (Revelation 1:15). That Daniel saw a man whose feet were like the gleam of burnished bronze (Daniel 10:5-6).

That the feet of cherubim were seen sparking as with the gleam of burnished bronze (Ezekiel 1:7). (Feet symbolize something natural, as may be seen in nos. 49, 468, 470, 510.) That an angel appears whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze (Ezekiel 40:3). And that the statue Nebuchadnezzar saw was as to its head golden, as to its breast and arms silver, as to its belly and sides bronze, and as to its legs iron (Daniel 2:32-33). The statue represented the successive states of the church which the ancients called the golden age, silver age, bronze age, and iron age.

Since bronze symbolizes something natural, and the Israelite people were purely natural, therefore the Lord's natural humanity was represented by the bronze serpent, which people bitten by serpents had only to look at to be cured (Numbers 21:6, 8-9).

That bronze symbolizes natural goodness may also be seen in Isaiah 60:17, Jeremiah 15:20-21, Ezekiel 27:13, Deuteronomy 8:7, 9, 33:24-25

772. 18:12 "Merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these things because they do not have any of the spiritual goods and truths to which these things correspond.

Their merchandise symbolizes just the things listed here, for we know that the Roman Catholic hierarchy possesses gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls in abundance, and that they have acquired them by the sanctities of their religion which they have presented as Divine and sacred.

Those coming from Babylon had these things before the Last Judgment, for it was then granted them to form for themselves apparent heavens and by various arts to procure for themselves such things from heaven, indeed to fill their storerooms with them as they did in the world. However, after the Last Judgment, when their counterfeit heavens were destroyed, all of these were then reduced to dust and ash and were carried away by an east wind and strewn over their hells as a profane dust. But on this subject, read what we witnessed and described in the short work, The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed (London, 1758).

[2] Since the overthrow of that religion and its adherents' being cast down into hell, they are in such a wretched state that they do not know what gold, silver, precious stones and pearls are. That is because gold, silver and precious stones correspond to spiritual goods and truths, and pearls to concepts of these; and since they do not have any of these truths and goods, nor any concepts of them, but instead of them have evils and falsities and concepts of these, they cannot have what they had before, but only such things as correspond, which are cheap and ugly-colored materials. They also have some seashells, and they set their heart on them, as they did previously on the valuables listed above.

[3] It should be known that the spiritual world contains everything found in the natural world, the only difference being that everything in the spiritual world is a correspondent form, for these forms correspond to the interior qualities of the inhabitants, being splendid and magnificent in the case of people governed by wisdom gained from Divine truths and goods from the Lord through the Word, and being the opposite in the case of those governed by irrational thinking arising from falsities and evils.

This correspondence from creation exists when the spiritual component of the mind descends into the sensory component of the body. Consequently, in the spiritual world everyone knows the character of another when he enters the other's own room.

[4] It can be seen from this that no one's buying their merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls means symbolically that they no longer have these material gains, because they do not have any of the spiritual goods and truths, or any concepts of these, to which these things correspond.

To be shown that gold by correspondence symbolizes goodness, and silver truth, see nos. 211, 726 above. That a precious stone symbolizes spiritual truth, nos. 231, 540, 726. That pearls symbolize concepts of truth and goodness, no. 727.