Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3575mankind has receded from the erudition of the ancients, which ledto wisdom. The gentiles received those knowledges from theancient church, the external worship of which consisted inrepresentatives and significatives, and the internal in those thingswhich were represented and signified. These were the knowledgeswhich, in the genuine sense, are signified by “Egypt.”4967. An Egyptian man. That this signifies natural truth isevident from the signification of a “man” as being truth (see n.3134); and from the signification of “Egypt” as being memoryknowledgein general, treated of just above (n. 4964, 4966); andbecause “Egypt” is memory-knowledge, it is also the natural; for allthe memory-knowledge in man is natural, because it is in hisnatural man, even the memory-knowledge concerning spiritual andcelestial things. The reason of this is that man sees theseknowledges in the natural, and from it; and those which he doesnot see from the natural, he does not apprehend. But the regenerateman, who is called spiritual, and the unregenerate man, who ismerely natural, see these knowledges in different ways; with theformer the knowledges are enlightened by the light of heaven, butwith the latter not so, but by the light which flows in throughspirits who are in falsity and evil; which light is indeed from thelight of heaven, but becomes in them opaque, like the light ofevening or of night; for such spirits, and hence such men, see asowls—clearly at night, and obscurely in the daytime, that is, theysee falsities clearly and truths obscurely; and hence see clearly thethings of the world, and obscurely, if at all, the things of heaven.From these considerations it is evident that genuine memoryknowledgeis natural truth; for all genuine memory-knowledge,such as is signified by “Egypt” in a good sense, is natural truth.4968. Of the hand of the Ishmaelites. That this signifies fromsimple good is evident from the representation of the Ishmaelites asbeing those who are in simple good (see n. 3263, 4747), heretherefore the natural truth which is from simple good. In chapter37, verse 36, it is so said that the Midianites sold Joseph into Egyptunto Potiphar, Pharaoh’s chamberlain, prince of the guards; buthere it is said that Potiphar, Pharaoh’s chamberlain, prince of the