§365 the rich & the poor 209
g. Garments mean things that are true, and therefore insights: 1033 [ 1073 ], 2576 , 5319 , 5954 , 9212 ,
9216 , 9952 , 10536. Purple means heavenly good: 9467. Linen means truth of a heavenly origin:
5319 , 9469 , 9744.
h. A camel in the Word means our cognitive and informational level in general: 3048 , 3071 , 3143 ,
3145. What embroidery, embroidering, and therefore needles are: 9688. To start from outward
facts in order to gain access to truths of faith is contrary to the divine design: 10236. People who
do this become insane in matters of heaven and the church: 128 , 129 , 130 , 232 , 233 , 6047 ; and in
the other life, when they think about spiritual things, they become virtually drunk: 1072. More
about their nature: 196. Examples to illustrate the fact that spiritual things cannot be grasped if
they are approached on this basis: 233 , 2094 , 2196 , 2203 , 2209. It is all right to go from spiritual
truth into the knowledge appropriate to our natural level, but not the other way around, because
there is an infl ow of the spiritual into the natural but not an infl ow of the natural into the spiri-
tual: 3219 , 5119 , 5259 , 5427 , 5428 , 5478 , 6322 , 9110 , 9111 [ 10199 ]. We need fi rst to acknowledge the
truths of the Word and the church, and then it is all right to take our secular learning into
account; but not the other way around: 6047.
therefore amply supplied with understandings of what is good and true,
they are called “rich.” The garments of purple actually mean understand-
ings of what is good, and the fi ne linen means understandings of what is
true.g The poor person who was lying in the gateway and who longed to
feast on the crumbs that were falling from the rich person’s table, who
was carried up into heaven by angels, means the non-Jews who did not
have understandings of what is good and true but who still longed for
them (Luke 16 : 19 , 31 ).
The rich who were invited to the great feast but who excused them-
selves also mean the Jewish nation, and the poor who were brought in to
replace them mean the non-Jews who were outside the church (Luke
12 : 16 – 24 [ 14 : 16 – 24 ]).
[ 3 ] We need also to explain who are meant by the rich of whom the
Lord said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than
for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19 : 24 ). “The
rich person” here means the rich in both senses, natural and spiritual.
Rich people in the natural sense are people who have abundant wealth
and set their hearts on it, while in a spiritual sense they are people who are
amply supplied with insights and knowledge (for these are spiritual
wealth) and who want to use them to get themselves into heavenly and
ecclesiastical circles by their own intellect. Since this is contrary to the
divine design, it says that it is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a
needle. On this level of meaning, a camel means our cognitive and infor-
mational level in general, and the eye of a needle means spiritual truth.h
Nowadays people do not know that this is the meaning of the camel
and the eye of a needle because there has not yet been any access to the