Apocalypse Explained (Whitehead) n. 1202

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1202. And he hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand signifies the deliverance of those that are in Divine truths from the Lord by the casting out of the Babylonians. This is evident from the signification of "avenging at her hand," as being to deliver from those who are meant by "Babylon" as a "harlot," also from the signification of "the blood of servants," as being violence done to those who are in truths from the Lord, "blood" being violence done, and "servants" those who are in truths from the Lord. Why such are called "servants" may be seen above (n. 6, 409).

(Continuation)

[2] The difference between men and beasts is like that between wakefulness and dreaming, or between light and shade. Man is both spiritual and natural, while a beast is not spiritual but natural. Man has a will and an understanding, and his will is a receptacle of the heat of heaven, which is love, and his understanding is a receptacle of the light of heaven, which is wisdom. But a beast does not possess a will and an understanding, but in place of a will it has affection, and in place of an understanding it has knowledge. [3] With man the will and the understanding are capable of acting as one or not acting as one; for a man can think from his understanding what does not belong to his will, for he can think what he does not will, and conversely. But with a beast affection and knowledge make one and cannot be separated; for a beast knows what belongs to its affection and is affected by what belongs to its knowledge. And because with a beast these two faculties, called knowledge and affection, cannot be separated, a beast could not destroy the order of its life. Hence it is born into all the knowledge belonging to its affection. With man it is otherwise. His two faculties for life, which are called the understanding and the will, can be separated, as has been said, therefore he has the ability to destroy the order of his life by thinking contrary to his will and willing contrary to his understanding, and in this way he has destroyed it. For this reason man is born into mere ignorance, that he may be led out of it into order through knowledges by means of his understanding. [4] The order into which man was created is to love God above all things and the neighbor as himself; and the state into which man has come since he destroyed that order is loving himself above all things and the world as himself. Since man has a spiritual mind, which is above his natural mind, and his spiritual mind is able to contemplate such things as pertain to heaven and the church, as well as such things as pertain to the state in respect to morals and laws, and all these have reference to truths and goods, which are called spiritual, moral, and civil, with the natural things pertaining to knowledges, and also have reference to their opposites, which are falsities and evils, for this reason man is able both to think analytically and draw conclusions and also to receive influx through heaven from the Lord, and become intelligent and wise. This no beast is capable of. What a beast knows is not from any understanding, but is from the knowledge that belongs to its affection, which is its soul. Knowledge belonging to affection must be in everything spiritual, because the spiritual that proceeds from the Lord as a sun is light united to heat, or wisdom united to love, and knowledge is of wisdom, and affection is of love, in the degree that is called natural. [5] Because man has both a spiritual mind and a natural mind, and his spiritual mind is above his natural mind, and the spiritual mind is such as to be able to contemplate and love truths and goods in every degree, either conjointly with the natural mind or abstracted from it, it follows that the interiors of man belonging to each mind are capable of being raised up by the Lord to the Lord and of being conjoined to Him; and this is why every man lives eternally. This is not so with beasts. A beast does not possess any spiritual mind, it has only a natural mind; and therefore its interiors, which belong solely to knowledge and affection, cannot be raised up by the Lord and conjoined to Him, and for this reason a beast does not live after death. [6] A beast indeed is led by a sort of spiritual influx falling into its soul; but since its spiritual is incapable of being elevated it can only be determined downwards, and can look only to such things as belong to its affection, which have reference solely to what pertains to nourishment, habitation, and propagation; and it can know these only from the knowledge pertaining to its affection by means of light, odor, and taste. Because man is able by virtue of his spiritual mind to think rationally, he is also able to speak, for to speak belongs to thought from the understanding, which is able to see truths in spiritual light. But a beast, which has no thought from understanding, but only knowledge from affection, is only able to utter sounds, and to vary the sound of its affection according to its appetites.


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