Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 6:38 — 5.7MB)
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
Arcana Coelestia 6497.Genesis: CH 50 7-11. And Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt, 8. And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s house: only their babes, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. 9. And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen; and the army was exceeding great. 10. And they came to the threshing-floor Atad, which is in the passage of the Jordan, and they wailed there a very great and grievous wailing; and he made a mourning for his father seven days. 11. And the inhabitant of the land, the Canaanite, saw the mourning in the threshing-floor Atad, and they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians; wherefore they called the name of it Abel-mizraim, which is in the passage of the Jordan.
They aren’t left but ordered in relation to the rest
6532. They left in the land of Goshen. That this signifies that these were in the inmost of the memory-knowledges of the church, is evident from the signification of the “land of Goshen,” as being the middle or inmost in the natural, where are the memory-knowledges of the church (see n. 5910, 6028, 6031, 6068). That the goods of innocence and charity, interior and exterior (n. 6529-6531), were in that inmost, is signified by their “leaving the little ones, the flocks, and the herds, in the land of Goshen;” for wherever things are left, there they are; thus by “they left” in the internal sense is not here signified leaving, but being there, namely, in the inmost of the memory-knowledges of the church, which is “the land of Goshen.”
The interior making an image of itself in what is more exterior
Heaven and Hell 558. [a] Furthermore, so far as anyone is in heavenly love, which is loving uses and goods and being moved by delight of heart when doing them for the sake of the Church, country, human society, and a fellow-citizen, he is so far led by the Lord, because that love is the love in which the Lord is, and which is from Him. But so far as anyone is in the love of self, which is performing uses and goods for the sake of himself; so far he is led by himself; and so far as anyone is led by himself he is not led by the Lord. And from this it also follows that so far as anyone loves himself he removes himself from the Divine, thus also from heaven. To be led by one’s self is to be led by one’s proprium; and man’s proprium is nothing but evil; for man’s inherited evil is loving self more than God, and the world more than heaven. 1 Whenever man looks to himself in the good that he does, he is let into his proprium, that is, into his inherited evils; for he then looks from goods to himself and not 2 from himself to goods, and therefore he presents an image of himself in his goods, and not an image of the Divine.
Conjugial Love 193 … woman was created out of man by the transcription of his proprial wisdom, which is wisdom from natural truth; and that the love of this wisdom was transferred from man into woman that it might become conjugial love; also that this was done, to the end that in the man there may be, not self love but love of his wife, and she from her innate disposition cannot do otherwise than convert the self love with the man into his love to her. Moreover, I have heard that this is effected by the wife’s love, neither the man nor the wife being conscious of it. Hence it is that no man can ever truly love his partner conjugially if he is in the pride of self- intelligence from love of self.
[3] When this arcanum of the creation of woman out of man is understood, it can be seen that in marriage woman is likewise created, as it were, that is, is formed from man; and that this is effected by the wife, or rather through the wife, by the Lord, it being the Lord who infuses into women the inclination so to act; for the wife receives the man’s image into herself by appropriating to herself his affections (see above, no. 183); also by conjoining the man’s internal will to her own will, of which hereafter; and, moreover, by appropriating to herself the propagations of his soul, of which likewise hereafter. From this it is evident, that in accordance with the description in the Book of Creation interiorly understood, a woman is formed into a wife by means of such things as she takes from her husband and from his breast and inscribes on herself.
CL 183. The angels replied: “Without use, love and wisdom are merely abstract ideas of thought, and after some tarrying in the mind, these pass away like the wind; but in use, the two are brought together and become a one which is called real. Love, being the activity of life, cannot rest unless it is doing something; nor can wisdom exist and subsist except when doing something from love and with it; and doing is use. Therefore we define use as the doing of good from love by means of wisdom. Use is good itself.
[4] Since these three, love, wisdom, and use, flow into the souls of men, it can be evident whence comes the saying that that all good is from God; for every deed done from love by means of wisdom is called good, and use is also a deed. What is love without wisdom but something fatuous? and, without use, what is love together with wisdom but a state of the mind? But with use, love and wisdom not only make the man, they are the man. Indeed, and this perhaps will astonish you, they propagate man; for in man’s seed is his soul in perfect human form, covered over with substances from the purest things of nature, from which, in the mother’s womb, is formed a body. This use is the supreme and ultimate use of Divine Love by means of Divine Wisdom.”
[5] Finally the angels said: “The conclusion then must be that in its origin all fructification, all propagation, and all prolification is from the influx of love, wisdom, and use from the Lord—from immediate influx from the Lord into the souls of men, from mediate influx into the souls of animals, and from influx yet more mediate into the inmost parts of plants; and all are effected in ultimates from firsts. That fructifications, propagations, and prolifications are continuations of creation is evident; for creation can come from no other source than Divine Love by means of Divine wisdom in Divine Use. Therefore, all things in the universe are procreated and formed from use, in use, and for use.”
[6] After this, those sitting on the grassy couches asked the angels, “Whence are the delights of conjugial love, which are innumerable and ineffable?” The angels answered: “They are from the uses of love and wisdom. This can be seen from the fact, that so far as one loves to be wise for the sake of genuine use he is in the vein and potency of conjugial love, and so far as he is in these two he is in its delights. It is use that does this; for when love acts by means of wisdom, 2 the two are in mutual delight, and they sport together like little children, as it were. Then, as they come to adolescence, they join together productively, this being done as though by betrothals, nuptials, marriages, and propagations, and this continually and with variety, to all eternity. This is what takes place between love and wisdom, inwardly present in use.
The grief that is experienced in the shift from a historical faith to a more interior, living faith
6538. Which is in the passage of the Jordan. That this signifies which is a state of initiation into the knowledges of good and truth, is evident from the signification of the “Jordan,” as being initiation into the knowledges of good and truth, thus that which is first of the Lord’s kingdom and church in respect to entrance, and last in respect to exit (see n. 4255); (that the rivers bounding the land of Canaan were representative of the ultimates in the Lord’s kingdom, may be seen above, n. 1585, 4116, 4240); hence by the “passage of Jordan” is signified initiation into the knowledges of good and truth, for the knowledges of good and truth are the first things whereby man is initiated into the things that belong to the church.
6539. And they wailed there a very great and grievous wailing. That this signifies grief, is evident from the signification of a “wailing,” as being grief. The grief here signified is the grief of initiation (see n. 6537); for before the knowledges of good and truth, which are the initiaments, can be planted in good, and thus become the good of the church, there is grief; because another state must be induced on the natural, and the memory-knowledges there must be set in a different order; thus those which the man had previously loved must be destroyed; and therefore he must undergo temptations. Hence comes the grief which is represented by the grievous wailing which they wailed.
Third Round posts are short audio clips taken from Round 3 comments offered in the online Logopraxis Life Group meetings. The aim is to keep the focus on understanding the Text in terms of its application to the inner life along with reinforcing any key LP principles that have been highlighted in the exchanges.
