4955. What these words hold within them in the internal sense will be evident from what is presented below. But first of all one needs to know that by these works listed one after another the essential ingredients of charity in their own ordered sequence are meant. This cannot be seen by anyone if he is unacquainted with the internal sense of the Word, that is, unless he knows what is really meant by giving food to the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, taking in a stranger, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and coming to those in prison. Anyone who restricts himself to the sense of the letter when thinking about these actions assumes that good works in the outward form these take are meant by them and that nothing deeper lies concealed within them, when in fact each action that is described contains some deeper reality, which is of a Divine nature because it has its origin in the Lord. But at the present day no understanding of any deeper reality exists because at the present day nothing is taught about charity. For after people separated charity from faith, teachings to do with charity perished, and in place of these, teachings to do with faith were accepted and invented, that is, teachings which provide no information at all about what is meant by charity or by the neighbour.
[2] Teachings that existed among the Ancients specified all the genera and species of charity. They also taught who the neighbour was towards whom charity should be exercised, and how one person was the neighbour in a different degree and different respect from another, and consequently how charity was to be exercised in different ways according to the individual needs of the neighbour. The Ancients also made classifications of the neighbour and gave names to each of these. Some people they called the poor, the needy, the wretched, and the afflicted; some they called the blind, the lame, the maimed, as well as orphans and widows; and others they called the hungry, the thirsty, strangers, the naked, the sick, the bound, and so on. From these classifications they knew what they ought to do for one person and what for another. But, as stated, such teachings have perished, and with them any understanding of the Word too. They have perished so completely that no one at the present day knows anything else than this, that when the poor, widows, and orphans are mentioned in the Word none but those who are literally called such are meant. The same applies whenever mention is made of the hungry, the thirsty, strangers, the naked, the sick, and those in prison. But the truth of the matter is that these names are used to describe charity - what it is like in its essence and what the exercise of charity ought to be like in a charitable life.
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