Arcana Coelestia (Potts) n. 1955

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1955. For she said, Have I also here seen after Him who seeth me? That this signifies influx into the life of the exterior man without the rational as a medium, is evident from the signification of "seeing after Him that seeth." "To see after Him that seeth" is to see from what is interior, or higher, for in the internal sense that which is within or above is expressed in the sense of the letter by "after," when that which is within or above appears in that which is without or below. It is Hagar who speaks here; and by Hagar, as before shown, is signified the life of memory-knowledges, which belongs to the exterior man. As the first rational originated from this life, the Lord saw the reason for its so doing, and He saw it from His interior man in His exterior man, and did so without the rational as a medium. That the words before us involve arcana, everyone can see from the single consideration that no one can know what it is to "see after Him that seeth me," except from an internal sense, in which also there must be such things as cannot be explained to the apprehension, except by means of ideas like those of angels, which do not fall into words, but only into the sense of the words; and this quite apart from the material ideas out of which come the ideas of the sense of the words. Concerning the things before us, which appear so obscure to man, the angels have ideas so clear and distinct, and enriched with so many representations, that were only a small part of them described, they would fill a volume.


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