Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 4893

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4893. 'There has been no harlot there' means that it was not something false. This is clear from the meaning of 'a harlot' or a prostitute as something false, as above in 4890. What train of thought runs through the expressions, of which until now only explanations of their individual meanings has been given, may be to a certain extent evident from what has been stated above in 4865, 4868, 4874. They are, what is more, the kind of matters that are unintelligible unless one knows what the joining together of internal truth and the external of the Jewish Church is like - both on the side of the internal truth represented by 'Tamar' and that of the external represented by 'Judah'. Because these are matters about which nothing at all is known, any further explanation of them would enter the unlit parts of the mind, and so where no ideas exist to understand them; for the understanding, which is the power of sight the internal man possesses, has its own lit and unlit parts. The unlit are the parts where things enter that do not conform in any way at all with anything of which the mind already has some conception. Nevertheless each specific meaning in the train of thought so far, together with countless matters which man cannot even begin to comprehend, enter with clarity the lit parts of angels' understandings. From this one may see what angelic intelligence is like and how much greater it is compared with that of men.


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