1. The Sacred Scripture, or Word, Is Divine Truth Itself

Everyone says that the Word comes from God, is Divinely inspired, and so is holy. But even so, no one has known before this wherein the Divinity in it lies. For in its letter the Word appears as though written in the ordinary way, in a foreign style, neither as sublime or nor as lucid as writings of the present age seem to be.

As a result, a person who worships nature as God, or in preference to God, and so thinks prompted by self and his own self-interest, and not prompted by heaven in response to the Lord, may easily fall into error regarding the Word, and into scorning it, and when reading it, saying to himself, “What is this? What is that? Is this Divine? Can God, whose wisdom is infinite, speak so? Where is the holiness in it, and what makes it holy, other than some teaching of religion and so conviction?”

24. A knowledge of correspondences, which makes the Word’s spiritual sense accessible, was not disclosed after those times because Christians in the primitive church were so very simple that it could not be disclosed to them; for if it had been disclosed, it would have been of no use to them, nor would they have understood it.

After that early period darkness arose over the entire Christian world owing to the rule of the papacy, and people under that dominion who confirmed themselves in its falsities were neither able nor willing to apprehend anything spiritual, and so neither anything of the correspondence of natural things in the Word with spiritual ones. For if they had been, they would have been forced to acknowledge that Peter does not mean Peter, but the Lord as a rock. They would also have been forced to acknowledge that the Word is Divine even to its inmost contents, and that a papal edict is of no account in comparison.

After the Reformation, however, because people began to make a distinction between faith and charity, and to worship God under the guise of three persons, thus three gods, whom they thought of as one, then the truths of heaven were hidden from them; and if they had been disclosed, the people would have falsified them and applied them to support faith alone, and not one of them to support charity and love. Thus they would also have closed heaven to themselves.

20. 4. The spiritual sense of the Word has been previously unknown. Every single thing found in nature corresponds to something spiritual. So, too, every single thing found in the human body. This is something we showed in the book Heaven and Hell 87-115. But what correspondence is has been previously unknown, even though in very ancient times it was quite well known. For people who lived then, the study of correspondences was the supreme study, and so universal that all their manuscripts and books were written in terms of correspondences.

[2] The book of Job, which is an ancient book, is full of correspondences.

Egyptian hieroglyphics, and also the fables of antiquity, were full of them too.

The ancient churches were all representative of things pertaining to heaven. Their rites and likewise their statutes, in accord with which their worship was instituted, consisted of nothing but correspondences.

So, too, everything connected with the church among the descendants of Jacob. Their whole burnt offerings and other sacrifices in their every particular were correspondent forms. Likewise the Tabernacle, with everything in it. And their feasts as well, such as the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Feast of Firstfruits.

So also the priesthood of Aaron and the Levites, including the holy vestments of Aaron and his sons. And all the statutes and judgments as well which had to do with their worship and life.

[3] And because Divine emanations in the world manifest themselves in correspondent forms, therefore the Word was written solely in terms of correspondences. Because the Lord spoke in accordance with His Divinity, He consequently spoke in terms of correspondences. For whatever emanates from the Divine, descends into such expressions in nature as correspond to their Divine origins, and these expressions then conceal within them the Divine contents called celestial and spiritual.