AC 1701 - The Lord Knew; AC 1702 - The Interior Person

AC 1701

The interior man perceives
what is going on in the external man
just as if one were to tell it.
The Lord, who had a perception of all things
that were taking place,
knew very clearly the quality and the source
of all that took place in connection with Himself,
as for example if anything of evil
were taking possession of the affections of His external man,
or anything of falsity of its thoughts,
He could not but know what it was, and from where;
and also what evil spirits were exciting the evil and the falsity;
and how they were exciting them, besides other things;
for such things, and others beyond number,
are not concealed from the angels,
and scarcely from men who have celestial perception,
still less from the Lord.


AC 1702 [2-3]

What the interior man is, scarcely anyone knows,
and it must therefore be briefly stated.
The interior man is intermediate
between the internal and the external man.
By the interior man
the internal man communicates with the external;
without this medium, no communication at all is possible.
The celestial is distinct from the natural,
and still more from the corporeal,
and unless there is a medium
by which there is communication,
the celestial cannot operate at all into the natural,
and still less into the corporeal.
It is the interior man which is called the rational man;
and this man, because it is intermediate,
communicates with the internal man,
where there is good itself and truth itself;
and it also communicates with the exterior man,
where there are evil and falsity.
By means of the communication with the internal man,
a man can think of celestial and spiritual things,
or can look upward, which beasts cannot do.
By means of the communication with the exterior man,
a man can think of worldly and corporeal things,
or can look downward;
in this differing little from the beasts,
which have in like manner an idea of earthly things.
In a word, the interior or middle man
is the rational man himself,
who is spiritual or celestial when he looks upward,
but animal when he looks downward. 

It is well known that a man can know
that he speaks in one way while thinking in another,
and that he does one thing while willing another;
and that there exist simulation and deceit;
also that there is reason, or the rational;
and that this is something interior,
because it can dissent;
and also that with one who is to be regenerated
there is something interior which combats
with that which is exterior.
This that is interior,
and that thinks and wills differently from the exterior,
and that combats,
is the interior man.
In this interior man there is conscience with the spiritual man,
and perception with the celestial.
This interior man,
conjoined with the Divine internal man
that was in the Lord,
is what is here called "Abram the Hebrew."