4246. I spoke further with them, saying that at the time they had fully understood the sense of the passages I read, while I understood almost nothing, so that their understanding of their inward meaning of the things written had increased in proportion as mine decreased - a fact at which one may well wonder. The case is similar to that of little children when they read the Word, or other pious people when they read the Word: there are but few things that a person on earth understands, but there are many that the angels understand, and in fact all and the very least things in the inward, and in the inner sense. Thus they see those things which had never come into the mental scope of man, since man abides in the literal meaning, which is obscurity in comparison, and has almost no meaning.
4246. Conversing with them still farther, [I observed] that they perceived the sense of what I read, when I perceived almost nothing of it, so that their perception of the interior sense of what was written increased in proportion as mine decreased - a fact at which one may well wonder. The case is similar with children when they read the Word, as also with other pious people when they read. The things are few which man perceives, but they are many which are perceived by the angels, and they are all and singular in the interior and more interior sense; thus they perceive things which have never come into the idea of man, since man is in the literal sense, which is comparatively obscure, and scarcely any sense at all;
4246. Loquutus cum iis porro, quod ii tunc perceperint sensum eorum quae legi plene, cum ego fere nihil, sic ut creverit eorum perceptio quoad sensum eorum interiorem, quae in scriptis, sicut decrevit apud me, quod multum mirari quis potest: se habet similiter ac apud infantes cum legunt Verbum, aut pios alios, cum legunt Verbum; sunt pauca quae percipit homo, sed sunt multa quae percipiunt angeli, et quidem omnia et singula in sensu interiori et interno; ita percipiunt illa, quae nusquam in ideam hominis venerunt, cum homo est in sensu literali, qui est obscuritas respective, et fere nullus sensus: