Arcana Coelestia or Heavenly Mysteries Contained in the Sacred Scriptures or Word of the Lord Part Three Paperback - 2004

2135. THE nature and quality of the internal sense of the Word, and how it is perceived by the angels whilst it is read by man, may more especially appear from this chapter: from the historical sense of the letter nothing else is understood, than that Jehovah appeared to Abraham under the form of three men; and that Sarah, Abraham, and his lad prepared meat for them, viz. cakes of fine flour, a young ox, and also butter and milk; which things, although they are historical truths, and were really fulfilled, yet are not perceived so by the angels, who altogether abstractedly from the letter, have a perception of the things represented and signified, according to the explication given in the contents, n. 2136 to 2141; thus, instead of the historical relation, they perceive the state of the Lord's perception in the humanity, and communication at the time with the Divinity, before the perfect union of His Divine Essence with the human, and of the human with the Divine; which state is also that, concerning which the Lord thus speaks, "No one hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath made Him manifest," John i. 18; and by the different kinds of meat here spoken of, the angels are led to the perception of nothing but the different kinds of celestial and spiritual good, concerning which see the explication: and further, in regards to what is said of the son whom Sarah should bear at the stated time of another year, they perceive only this, that the Lord's human rational [part of principle] should become Divine: lastly, in respect to what Abraham spake with Jehovah concerning the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, they have a perception of nothing else but of the Lord's intercession for mankind; and by the numbers fifty, forty-five, forty, thirty, twenty, and ten, they are led to a perception of the Lord's intercession for those, with whom truths should be adjoined to goodnesses, and who should attain good by temptations and