AE 617 (con't) - Eating and Drinking

AE 617 [18, 19, 25]

The king said to them on his right hand,
I was an hungered and you gave me to eat;
I was thirsty and you gave me to drink.
And to those on the left hand,
I was an hungered and you gave me not to eat;
I was thirsty and you gave me not to drink.
(Matthew 25:34, 35, 41, 42)

By these words also spiritual hunger and thirst
and spiritual eating and drinking are meant;
spiritual hunger and thirst
are the affection and desire for good and truth,
and spiritual eating and drinking
are instruction, reception, and appropriation.
It is said here that the Lord hungered and thirsted,
because from His Divine love
He desires the salvation of all;
and it is said that men gave Him to eat and to drink;
which is done
when from affection they receive and perceive
good and truth from the Lord,
and by means of the life
appropriate them to themselves.
The like may be said of a man who from his heart
loves to instruct man and desires his salvation;
therefore it is charity,
or the spiritual affection of truth,
that is described by these words and those that follow.

From what has been said
it can now be seen what is signified in the spiritual sense
by eating bread and drinking wine in the Holy Supper,
Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22;
where it is also said, that the bread is the Lord's body,
and the wine is His blood.
There "bread" signifies the good of love,
and "wine" truth from that good,
which is the good of faith,
and "flesh and blood," have a similar signification,
also "eating" signifies appropriation and conjunction
with the Lord . . ..

Before the Lord's coming into the world,
to eat fat and drink blood was forbidden,
because the sons of Israel were in externals only,
for they were natural-sensual men,
and not at all in things internal or spiritual,
consequently if they had been permitted
to eat fat and blood,
which signifies the appropriation
of interior goods and truths,
they would have profaned them,
therefore "eating fat and blood" signified profanation.