DP 230, 231 - Profanation

DP 230

Profanation of the sacred is meant
in the second commandment of the Decalogue
by the declaration,
"You shall not profane the name of your God."
And that His name is not to be profaned
is meant in the Lord's Prayer by the phrase,
"Hallowed be Your name."

, , , in the Word God is symbolically meant by
the name of God,
with every Divine attribute residing in Him
and emanating from Him.
Moreover, because the Word is the Divinity emanating,
it is the name of God.
And because all Divine matters
that are called the spiritual concerns of the church
come from the Word,
they too are the name of God.

DP 231 (portions)

Since by profanation of the sacred
we mean profanation by people who from the Word
are acquainted with truths of faith and goods of charity
and who also in some measure acknowledge them,
and do not mean
people who are not acquainted with these,
or people who, out of impiety, utterly reject them . . ..

THE FIRST KIND OF PROFANATION
is committed by people who make jokes 
from or about the Word,
or from or about the Divine things of the church.
Some do this out of a deplorable habit,
taking names and phrases from the Word
and mixing them into remarks
hardly becoming and sometimes filthy.
This cannot help but be
coupled with some contempt for the Word.
And yet the Word in each and every one of its particulars
is Divine and sacred.
For every single word there
conceals within it something Divine,
and through it has a communication with heaven.

But this kind of profanation is lighter or more serious
in the measure of the jokers' acknowledgment
of the sanctity of the Word
and the unbecoming nature of the remark
into which they introduce it.

THE SECOND KIND OF PROFANATION
is committed by people
who understand and acknowledge Divine truths
and yet live contrary to them.

THE THIRD KIND OF PROFANATION
is committed by people
who employ the literal sense of the Word
to defend evil loves and false premises.
The reason is that a defense of falsity is a denial of truth,
and a defense of evil is a rejection of good,
and the Word at its core
is nothing but Divine truth and Divine good.

THE FOURTH KIND OF PROFANATION
is committed by people
who utter pious and reverent sentiments with the mouth,
and moreover feign in tone and gesture
the affections of a love for them,
and yet at heart do not believe or love them.
Most of these people are hypocrites and pharisees,
who after death
have every truth and good taken from them,
and who are then dispatched into outer darkness.

. . . Instances of hypocrisy, however,
may be lighter or more serious,
depending on one's persuasions against God
and one's contentions outwardly for God.

THE FIFTH KIND OF PROFANATION
is committed by people
who attribute Divine powers to themselves.
. . . in the Word, and by Babylon
there is meant a profanation of good,
and by Chaldea a profanation of truth,
both of which are found in people
who attribute Divine powers to themselves.

THE SIXTH KIND OF PROFANATION
is committed by people
who acknowledge the Word
and yet deny the Lord's Divinity.
In the world these people are called Socinians,
and some Arians.
The fate of both is to call on the Father and not the Lord,
and to continually pray to the Father --
some, indeed, for the sake of the Son . . ..

THE SEVENTH KIND OF PROFANATION
is committed by people
who first acknowledge Divine truths
and live according to them,
and afterward turn away and deny them.
This is the worst kind of profanation,
because people who do this
mix sacred things with profane ones,
until the two cannot be separated.
And yet they must be separated
for people to be either in heaven or in hell.
So, because this is impossible in their case,
everything human
pertaining to the intellect and to the will
is eradicated,
and they become, as we said before,
no longer human.