303、人从他所信服，也就是他所承认并相信的一切事物中为自己获得一种生命。他不信服，或不承认并相信的事物对他的心智根本没有任何影响。因此，没有人能亵渎神圣事物，除非他信服它们，从而承认它们，却又否认之。那些不承认的人可能知道，却如同不知道，就像那些知道不存在的东西之人。主降临前后的犹太人就具有这种性质；故在圣言中，经上说他们是“荒废的”，也就是不再有任何信。在这种情况下，向他们透露圣言的内在内容不会造成伤害，因为他们就是那看也不看不见，听也听不见的人，也是那心蒙脂油的人；论到他们，主在以赛亚书中说：
你去告诉这百姓，你们听是要听见，却不明白，看是要看见，却不晓得。要使这百姓心蒙脂油，耳朵发沉，将他们的眼涂抹掉，免得他们眼睛看见，耳朵听见，心里明白，回转过来，便得医治。（以赛亚书6:9-10）
此外，信的秘密不会透露，直到人们处于这种状态，也就是说，被毁到不再相信的地步，这是为了让他们不能亵渎它们，如前所述。这也是主在以赛亚书接下来的几节经文中明确指出的：
我就说，主啊，这要多久呢？祂说，直到城邑荒凉，无人居住，房屋空闲无人，土地极其荒凉，并且耶和华将人迁到远方。（以赛亚书6:11-12）
“人”是指有智慧的人，即承认并相信的人。主降临前后，犹太人的情况就是这样。出于同样的原因，他们现在仍通过他们的欲望，尤其通过他们的贪婪被保持在这种荒凉的状态，以致他们虽听闻主上千次，他们教会的代表在每个细节上都表示主，他们仍旧不承认并相信任何东西。这正是大洪水之前的人被赶出伊甸园并荒凉，直到他们不能再承认任何真理的原因。
New Century Edition
Cooper(2008,2013)
[NCE]303. We build a life through all the things whose truth we persuade ourselves of, that is, the things we acknowledge and believe. What we are not persuaded of — what we do not acknowledge and believe — has no effect on our mind. As a result, we cannot profane holy things unless we are persuaded to the point of acknowledgment and yet deny them.
Those who do not acknowledge are capable of knowing, but it is as if they do not know. They are like people who know things but whose knowledge amounts to nothing. This describes the Jews at the time of the Lord's Coming. Since that is their nature, the Word depicts them as spiritually devastated, or no longer possessing faith.{*1} At that point, there is no harm in opening the inner depths of the Word to them because they then resemble sighted people who do not see, hearing people who do not hear, whose hearts are coarsened. The Lord spoke of them through Isaiah:
Go, and you are to tell this people, "Listen — listen! — but you are not to understand, and see — see! — but you are not to know." Make the heart of this people fat and make their ears heavy and smear over their eyes, to prevent them from seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears and understanding in their heart and turning to be healed. (Isaiah 6:9-10)
[2] Religious mysteries are not opened up to them before they fall into this condition, in which they are devastated or stripped of any continuing ability to believe. The delay until then, as I said, is to make it impossible for them to commit profanation. This too the Lord clearly states in the very next verses in Isaiah:
I said, "How long, Lord?" and he said, "Until the cities are ruined (so that there is not a resident) and the houses (so that there is not a [single] person) and the ground is desolated with ruination; and Jehovah will take humankind away." (Isaiah 6:11-12)
A person or humankind refers to those who are wise, or who acknowledge and believe.
These scenes describe the Jews at the time of the Lord's Coming, as I said; and for the same reasons as then, their cravings (especially their greed) continue to chain them to a condition of desolation.{*2} The emptiness is so complete that even if they hear a thousand times about the Lord, about the objects and practices among them that represent the church, and how these symbolize the Lord in every detail, they still acknowledge and believe none of it.
This, then, is the reason that the people who brought on the Flood were thrown out of the Garden of Eden and suffered devastation, to the point where they were unable to acknowledge anything true.
Footnotes:
{*1} For passages that Swedenborg may be thinking of here, see those quoted in 5376, including the following: Isaiah 24:1-23; 51:17-23; Ezekiel 12:19-20; 26:19-21; 36:3-12; Matthew 24:15-16. In the Gospels Christ frequently stresses the lack of faith of his hearers: see Matthew 6:30; 8:10, 26; 14:31; 16:8; Mark 4:40; Luke 7:9; 8:25; 12:28; 17:6; 18:8. [LHC, RS]
{*2} Swedenborg here is picking up a longstanding, though regrettable, polemic against the greed of Jews. This is possibly a reflection of his upbringing in the Protestant church of his day. The Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483-1546), although at first inclined to be sympathetic to the Jews after his break with the Catholic Church, was disappointed by their response to his evangelizing and ended his career indulging in anti-Semitic vituperations (see, for example, Luther 1543). See also note 4 in 259 and the reader's guide, pages 51-55. [RS]
Potts(1905-1910) 303
303. A man acquires a life by all the things he is persuaded of, that is, which he acknowledges and believes. That of which he is not persuaded, or does not acknowledge and believe, does not affect his mind. And therefore no one can profane holy things unless he has been so persuaded of them that he acknowledges them, and yet denies them. Those who do not acknowledge may know, but are as if they did not know, and are like those who know things that have no existence. Such were the Jews about the time of the Lord's advent, and therefore they are said in the Word to be "vastated" or "laid waste" that is, to have no longer any faith. Under these circumstances it does men no injury to have the interior contents of the Word opened to them, for they are as persons seeing, and yet not seeing; hearing, and yet not hearing; whose hearts are stopped up; of whom the Lord says in Isaiah:
Go and tell this people, Hearing hear ye, but understand not, and seeing see ye, but know not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and smear their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, so that they be healed (Isa. 6:9-10). That the mysteries of faith are not revealed until men are in such a state, that is, are so vastated that they no longer believe (in order, as before said, that they may not be able to profane them), the Lord also plainly declares in the subsequent verses of the same Prophet:
Then said I, Lord, how long? And He said, Even until the cities are desolated, so that there be no inhabitant; and the houses, so that there be no man, and the ground be utterly desolated, and Jehovah have removed man (Isa. 6:12). He is called a "man" who is wise, or who acknowledges and believes. The Jews were thus vastated, as already said, at the time of the Lord's advent; and for the same reason they are still kept in such vastation by their cupidities, and especially by their avarice, that although they hear of the Lord a thousand times, and that the representatives of their church are significative of Him in every particular, yet they acknowledge and believe nothing. This then was the reason why the antediluvians were cast out of the garden of Eden, and vastated even until they were no longer capable of acknowledging any truth.
Elliott(1983-1999) 303
303. Man makes a life for himself out of all his convictions, that is, out of what he acknowledges and believes. The things of which he is not convinced, that is, which he does not acknowledge and believe, have no influence at all on his mind. Consequently nobody is capable of profaning holy things except him who has been convinced of them and so acknowledges them and yet denies them. People who not acknowledge are capable of knowing, but they are in the same position as those who do not know. They are like people who know things which are nothing at all. Of such a nature were the Jews around the time of the Lord's Coming. And when people are such they are in the Word called 'vastated', that is, faith no longer exists. That being so, no harm is done if the inner contents of the Word are disclosed to them, for they are in that case like the people who seeing do not see, and like the people who hearing do not hear and who have a heart made fat, to whom the Lord referred through Isaiah,
Go and say to this people, Hearing hear, but do not understand; and seeing see, but do not comprehend. Make the heart of this people fat and their ears heavy, and plaster over their eyes, lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and their heart understands, and they turn again to be healed. Isa 6:9, 10.
[2] Furthermore mysteries of faith are not disclosed until people reach this point, that is to say, have been so vastated that they no longer believe, the purpose of the vastation being, as has been stated, to make them incapable of profaning. This too the Lord states plainly in Isaiah in the verses immediately following those quoted above, I said, How long, O Lord? And He said, Until cities are made so desolate that they have no inhabitant, and houses have no man; and the land will be made utterly desolate, and Jehovah will remove man far away. Isa 6:11, 12.
'Man' refers to the person who is wise, that is, who acknowledges and believes. Such was the condition of the Jews, as has been stated, around the time of the Lord's Coming. And they are for the same reason still kept by means of their desires, in particular by their avarice, in such a state of vastation that if they heard a thousand times over about the Lord and heard that in every detail the representatives of the Church with them mean the Lord, they would still acknowledge and believe nothing. This then was the reason why the people before the Flood were expelled from the garden of Eden and were vastated, even to the point of their being incapable of acknowledging anything that was true.
Latin(1748-1756) 303
303. Homo sibi vitam acquirit per omnia quae sibi persuadet, hoc est, quae agnoscit et credit; quae non sibi persuadet, seu quae non agnoscit et credit, hoc mentem ejus nihil afficit; quare profanare nemo potest sancta nisi persuasus sit ut agnoscat, et usque {x}neget; qui non agnoscunt, scire possunt, sed sunt tanquam non sciunt, ac sunt sicut qui sciunt res quae nihil sunt; tales fuerunt Judaei circa Adventum Domini; et cum tales sunt, dicuntur in Verbo 'vastati' seu quod fides amplius nulla; tunc nec nocet quod interiora Verbi iis aperiantur, nam tunc sunt sicut videntes qui non vident, et tanquam audientes qui non audiunt, et qui habent cor incrassatum, de quibus Dominus per Esaiam, Abi et dicas populo huic, Audite audiendo, sed non intelligatis, et videte videndo, et non cognoscatis; impingua cor populi hujus, et aures ejus aggrava, ac oculos ejus obline, ne forte videat oculis suis, et auribus suis audiat, et cor ejus intelligat, convertaturque, ut sanetur sibi, vi 9, 10;et quod non prius mysteria fidei aperiantur quam cum tales sint, nempe vastati ut non amplius credant, ex causa, ut dictum, ne profanare possent, etiam Dominus apud Esaiam manifeste dicit in mox sequentibus, Dixi, Quousque Domine? et dixit, Usque dum desolantur urbes, ut nullus habitator, et domus, ut nullus homo, et humus desoletur desolatione, et removebit Jehovah hominem, ibid. vers. 11, 12;
'homo' dicitur qui sapit, seu agnoscit et credit. Tales erant Judaei, ut dictam, circa Adventum Domini, et ob eandem causam etiam adhuc in tali vastatione tenentur per cupiditates, imprimis per avaritiam, ut tametsi millies audiant de Domino, et de repraesentativis Ecclesiae apud eos, quod significent in singulis Dominum, usque nihil agnoscant et credant. Haec nunc causa fuit quod antediluviani dejecti de horto Edenis et vastati, usque dum nihil agnoscere potuissent quod verum.