2356. CONCERNING THE LITERAL SENSE OF THE WORD. Whenever I read in the Word of the Lord, certain spirits were solicitous about the words [verbis], or words [vocibus]; to whom it was given to say that the names there, as those of cities, countries, men, can never pass into heaven to the angels, because they are finite corporeal, and material, so that they are ignorant what these names mean neither can the other words [voces reliquioe] [reach them], nor can the literal sense or that of the letter, because it also is corporeal, mundane, and material, but that the interior and more interior sense may. The sense of the letter only comes to the nearest spirits, therefore, if [no sense of the Word] comes into heaven to the angels there cannot be any life in the sense of the Word of the Lord. That angels do not understand the sense of the letter of the Word may hence also be manifest, in that their speech is ineffable because of such things as belong to interior and more interior things, hence to the essence of things which is life. - 1748, June 18.