Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 5946

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5946. 'For your young children and your wives' means for those who as yet have no knowledge - no knowledge of the more internal teachings of the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'young children' as those who do not as yet have any knowledge of those things; and from the meaning of 'wives' as affections for truth. For when 'men' means truths, as 'the sons of Jacob' do here, 'their wives' means affections for truth; and conversely, when 'men' means forms of good, 'their wives' means truths, though in the latter case the men are called 'husbands', 3236, 4510, 4823. Affections for truth, meant by 'wives' here, have no knowledge of the interior teachings of the Church except through the truths, which are their 'men'. Without truths affections are like the will without the understanding. To see and have knowledge of anything the will must use the understanding, where its sight or eye exists.


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