450. 'Having breastplates fiery, blue (hyacinthus) and sulphurous' signifies their imaginary and visionary arguments derived from infernal love and self-intelligence, and from the resultant lusts. By 'breastplates' are signified the arguments out of which they fight for faith alone (n. 436); by 'fire' is signified heavenly love, and in the opposite sense infernal love (n. 452, 468, 494); by 'blue' is signified intelligence derived from spiritual love, and in the opposite sense intelligence derived from the infernal love that is the self- intelligence treated of below; and by 'sulphur' is signified lusts derived from that love by means of self-intelligence (n. 452). It follows as a result that by 'breastplates fiery, blue and sulphurous' such things are signified. [2] The reason why their arguments in favour of faith alone are so described is because all those who believe themselves to be justified, that is, acquitted from sins by faith alone, never think of repentance, and an impenitent man is in nothing but sins, and all sins are derived and consequently drawn from infernal love, self-intelligence, and the resultant lusts. Besides, those who are in these things not only act from them, but also speak, indeed think and will, and consequently reason and argue from them. These things are their 'man' because they are their life, but it is a devil man and his life, which is infernal life. In actual fact, however, those who live a moral life only for the sake of themselves and the world do not know this. This is because their interiors are such, but their exteriors are similar to the exteriors of those who live a Christian life. Let them know, however, that every one when he dies comes into his own interiors, because he becomes a spirit, this being the internal man; and then the interiors accommodate the exteriors to themselves, and they become alike. For this reason the moral things of their life in the world then become like fishes' scales that are wiped off. The case is quite different with those who maintain that the precepts of moral life, and at the same time civil things also, because they are of love towards the neighbour, are Divine. [3] 'Blue' (hyacinthus) signifies intelligence derived from the affections of spiritual love, because that colour partakes of the redness of fire and the whiteness of light, and by fire is signified love, and by light intelligence. This intelligence is signified by:-
The blue in the coverings and veils of the tabernacle Exod. xxvi 31, 36; xxvii 16.
[The blue] in Aaron's ephod Exod. xxviii 6, 15.
The cloth of blue placed over the ark, the table, the lampstand, and the altar, when they were journeying Num. iv 6, 7, 9, 11, 12.
The thread of blue on the skirts of their garments Num. xv 38, 39;
and by 'blue' (Ezek. xxvii 7, 24). But intelligence derived from the affection of infernal love is signified by the 'blue' in Ezekiel:-
Ohola, or Samaria, committed whoredom, and favoured her neighbouring Assyrian lovers, clothed with blue, horsemen riding upon horses Ezek. xxiii 4-6.
Thus is described the Church that had falsified the truths of the Word by reasonings derived from self-intelligence. And in Jeremiah:-
They are infatuated and grow foolish, the teaching (disciplina) of vanities is firewood: beaten silver is brought out of Tarshish, the work of the smith and of the hands of the founder, blue and purple is their clothing, all are the work of the wise Jer. x 8, 9.
'The work of the smith and of the hands of the founder' and 'all are the work of the wise' there signify that those things are derived from self-intelligence.
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