215、人的自我完全是邪恶和虚假，这一点通过以下事实向我清楚显明：凡灵人从自己在任何时候所说的话，都如此邪恶和虚假，以至于我在意识到他们从自己说话的那一刻，就知道那话是假的，即便当说话时，他们如此确信自己的话是真理，甚至到了毫不怀疑的地步。从自己说话的世人也一样。同样，每当有人开始对构成属灵和属天生命的事物，或构成信的事物进行推理时，我能觉察到他们的怀疑，甚至否认，因为对信进行推理就相当于怀疑和否认。他们因出于自己，也就是出于自我推理，故陷入纯粹的虚假，因而陷入黑暗的深渊，也就是虚假的深渊。在这种时候，最微小的异议都会压倒一千个真理，正如瞳孔上的一粒尘埃会障蔽整个宇宙及其万有。关于这种人，主在以赛亚书上说：
祸哉，那些在自己眼中有智慧，在自己面前有聪明的人。（以赛亚书5:21）
又：
你的智慧你的知识把你引入歧途，并且你心里说，惟有我，除我以外再没有别人。因此，邪恶要临到你，你却不知道它的来源，祸患要落在你身上，你却不能把它除去，毁灭必忽然临到你身上，你却不知道。（以赛亚书47:10-11）
耶利米书：
各人都因知识变得愚蠢；各铸匠都因他的雕像羞愧。因为他所铸的像本是虚假，它们里面并无气息。（耶利米书51:17）
“雕像”表示虚假，“铸像”表示邪恶，两者都属于人的自我。
New Century Edition
Cooper(2008,2013)
[NCE]215. The fact that our selfhood is nothing but evil and falsity has become clear to me from experience with spirits. Everything they have said to me on their own authority has been so consistently evil and false that I have only had to know they were speaking on their own in order to realize immediately that what they were saying was false. Yet the spirits themselves were so sure of the truth of their assertions that they never doubted them. People on earth who resemble them do the same.
Similarly there have been people who take to debating what constitutes spiritual and heavenly life, or faith, and they always succumb to doubt and even denial, as I have been allowed to see. To cavil about faith is to doubt and deny. Because such people reason from themselves or from a self-centered point of view, they stumble into undiluted falsity and so into an abyss of darkness — that is, of falsity. While they are in this abyss, the slightest objection overpowers a thousand truths, like a speck of dirt sitting on the pupil of the eye that prevents a viewer from seeing the universe and everything in it.
Of these people the Lord says in Isaiah:
Doom to those who are wise in their own eyes and discerning in their own sight! (Isaiah 5:21)
In the same author:
Your wisdom and your knowledge turned you away, and you said in your heart, "I am, and there is no one else besides me." But evil whose origin you do not know will come upon you; and a catastrophe that you will not be able to atone for will fall upon you; and a devastation that you do not know will come upon you speedily. (Isaiah 47:10-11)
In Jeremiah:
All people have been made stupid by their knowledge, all metalsmiths have been put to shame by their carved images, because their cast images are a lie and have no breath in them. (Jeremiah 51:17)
Carved images stand for the falsity we adopt as our own, and cast images, for the evil we adopt as our own.
Potts(1905-1910) 215
215. That man's Own is nothing but evil and falsity has been made evident to me from the fact that whatever spirits have at any time said from themselves has been so evil and false that whenever it was made known to me that they spoke from themselves I at once knew that it was false, even though while speaking they were themselves so thoroughly persuaded of the truth of what they said as to have no doubt about it. The case is the same with men who speak from themselves. And in the same way, whenever any persons have begun to reason concerning the things of spiritual and celestial life, or those of faith, I could perceive that they doubted, and even denied, for to reason concerning faith is to doubt and deny. And as it is all from self or their Own, they sink into mere falsities, consequently into an abyss of thick darkness, that is, of falsities, and when they are in this abyss the smallest objection prevails over a thousand truths, just as a minute particle of dust in contact with the pupil of the eye shuts out the universe and everything it contains. Of such persons the Lord says in Isaiah:
Woe unto those who are wise in their own eyes, and intelligent before their own faces (Isa. 5:21). And again:
Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath turned thee away, and thou hast said in thine heart, I, and none else besides me; and evil shall come upon thee, thou shalt not know from whence it riseth, and mischief shall fall upon thee, which thou shalt not be able to expiate, and vastation shall come upon thee suddenly, of which thou art not aware (Isa. 47:10-11). In Jeremiah:
Every man is made stupid by knowledge [scientia], every founder is confounded by the graven image, for his molten image is falsehood, neither is there breath in them (Jer. 51:17). A "graven image" is the falsity, and a "molten image" the evil, of man's Own.
Elliott(1983-1999) 215
215. The proprium is nothing but evil and falsity. This has been made clear to me from the fact that anything spirits at any time have spoken from themselves has been evil and false, and so much so that the moment I was made to realize that it originated in themselves I knew it was false, even though, when they spoke, they were so sure of its being the truth that they were in no doubt about it. The same is true of the person who speaks from himself. Similarly whenever people have started to reason about the things which constituted spiritual and celestial life or about those which comprised faith, I have been allowed to perceive that they doubted, indeed denied, those things; for reasoning about faith amounts to doubting and denying. And because they reason from themselves, that is, from the proprium, they plunge into utter falsities, and therefore into abysmal thick darkness, that is, thick darkness of falsities. At such times the tiniest quibble weighs more heavily than a thousand truths, just as a speck of dust deposited on the pupil of the eye prevents it from seeing the universe and everything it contains. The Lord speaks of these people in Isaiah as follows,
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and in their own sight are intelligent! Isa 5:21
And in the same prophet,
Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, I am, and there is no one else besides me. And evil will come upon you, whose origin you do not know, and disaster will befall you, which you will not be able to expiate, and vastation will come upon you suddenly of which you know not. Isa 47:10, 11.In Jeremiah,
Every man has been made stupid by knowledge; every metal-caster is put to shame by his statue, for the idol he moulds is a lie, and there is no spirit in those things. Jer 51:17.
'Statue' stands for the falsity which belongs to the proprium, and 'idol' for the evil which belongs to it.
Latin(1748-1756) 215
215. Quod proprium non sit nisi malum et falsum, exinde etiam mihi constare potuit quod quicquid usquam spiritus locuti sint ex se, fuerit malum et falsum, usque adeo ut cum modo nosse daretur quod ex se, scirem ilico quod falsum; tametsi in tam forti persuasione essent, cum loquerentur, quod verum, ut nihil dubitarent: similis iis est homo qui talis. Similiter, quicumque ratiocinari coeperunt de illis quae sunt vitae spiritualis et caelestis aut quae sunt fidei, percipere datum quod dubitarent, immo negarent; nam ratiocinari de fide est dubitare et negare: et quia ex semet seu ex proprio, sunt merae falsitates, in quas cadunt, proinde in abyssum caliginum, hoc est, falsitatum; in qua abysso cum sunt, tunc munus scrupulus praevalet mille veritatibus, qui est sicut pulvisculus qui adpositus pupillae oculi facit ut universum et quicquid in universo est, non videat. De iis ita Dominus apud Esaiam, Vae sapientibus in oculis suis, et coram faciebus suis intelligentibus, v 21:et apud eundem, Sapientia tua, et scientia tua, ea avertit te, et dixisti in corde tuo, Ego, et nullus praeter me amplius; et veniet super te malum, cujus ignoras exortum, et cadet super te {1} aerumna, quam non poteris expiare, et veniet super te repente vastatio, quam non scis, xlvii 10, 11:
apud Jeremiam, Stupidus factus omnis homo a scientia, pudefactus omnis conflator a sculptili; nam mendacium fusile ejus, nec spiritus in eis, li 17;
'sculptile' pro falso quod proprii; 'fusile' pro malo quod proprii. @ 1 Sch. calamitas.$