Arcana Coelestia volume 7 - Swedenborg Foundation

ARCANA COELESTIA 3972world, and enables man to think, infer, and reflect. That spirituallight can do this is because this light is the wisdom itself thatproceeds from the Lord, and this is presented as light before thesight of the angels in heaven. From this light appear all and each ofthe things that are below, or that are in man from natural light; butnot the converse, unless the man has been regenerated, in whichcase the things of heaven, that is, of good and truth, byenlightenment from spiritual light appear in the natural as in arepresentative mirror. From this it is evident that the Lord, who islight itself, sees all things and each that are in the thought and willof man, nay, that are in universal nature, and that nothing whateveris hidden from him.[3] From all this it is now evident how the case herein is, namely,that from the natural light in which these truths are, it is notbelieved that all things appear from spiritual light, as is signified bytheir “not knowing that Joseph heard them.” Joseph’s knowing hisbrethren, and their not knowing him (verse 8 above), involves asimilar meaning; for thereby is signified that these truths of thechurch appeared to the celestial of the spiritual from its light, andthat truth from the Divine did not appear in natural light not yetillumined by heavenly light (see n. 5427–5428).5478. For there was an interpreter between them. That this signifiesthat then spiritual things are apprehended quite differently isevident from the signification of there being “an interpreterbetween them” as being that the spiritual things are apprehendeddifferently; for an interpreter translates the language of one into thelanguage of another, and thus sets forth the meaning of the one tothe apprehension of the other. Hence it is that by there being “aninterpreter between them” is signified that then spiritual things areapprehended quite differently by those who are in the truths of thechurch not yet conjoined by means of good with the internal man.That the truths of the church are apprehended by those who are ingood (that is those with whom these truths are conjoined withgood) quite differently from what they are by those who are not ingood, seems indeed like a paradox, but still it is the truth. Fortruths are spiritually apprehended by those who are in good,