The Thief Does Not Come Except to Steal and to Kill and to Destroy

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

'Theft' means an alienation caused by evil that happens in the place which such evil takes possession of; for it expels everything good and true and fills up that place with evils and falsities.

'Theft' also means its laying claim to what belongs to others; for it takes to itself everything good and true in that place and makes such its own as well as attaching it to evils and falsities.

But to enable anyone to know what is meant by 'theft' in the spiritual sense, a statement must be made about what happens to evils and falsities when they enter in and take possession of a place, and also when they lay claim to everything good and true there.

From infancy to childhood, and sometimes on into early youth, a person is absorbing forms of goodness and truth received from parents and teachers, for during those years he learns about those forms of goodness and truth and believes them with simplicity - his state of innocence enabling this to happen. It inserts those forms of goodness and truth into his memory; yet it lodges them only on the edge of it since the innocence of infancy and childhood is not an internal innocence which has an influence on the rational, only an external one which has an influence solely on the exterior natural.

When however the person grows older, when he starts to think for himself and not, as previously, simply in the way his parents or teachers do, he brings back to mind and so to speak chews over what he has learned and believed before, and then he either endorses it, has doubts about it, or refuses to accept it. If he endorses it, this is an indication that he is governed by good, but if he refuses to accept it, that is an indication that he is governed by evil. If however he has doubts about what he has learned and believed before, it is an indication that he will move subsequently either into an affirmative attitude of mind or else into a negative one.

The truths that a person learns and believes in his earliest years when he is a young child but which later on he either endorses, has doubts about, or refuses to accept, are in particular these:

There is God, and He is one

He created everything

He rewards those who do what is good and punishes those who do things that are bad

There is life after death, when the bad go to hell and the good go to heaven, and so there is a hell and a heaven

The life after death lasts for ever

People ought to pray every day and to do so in a humble way

They ought to keep the Sabbath day holy

Honour parents

Not commit adultery

Not kill

Not steal

and many other truths like these.

Such truths are learned and absorbed by a person from earliest childhood; but if, when he starts to think for himself and to lead his own life, he endorses them, adding to them further truths of a more interior kind, and leads a life in conformity with them, all is well with him.

But if he starts to disobey them, refusing at length to accept them, then even though outwardly he leads a life in conformity with them, because the law and society expect him to do so, he is governed by evil.

This evil is what is meant by 'theft', to the extent that thief-like it usurps the position held previously by good.  With many people it is thief-like to the extent that it takes away the forms of goodness and truth previously there and uses them to lend support to evils and falsities. So far as is possible with these people the Lord removes the forms of goodness and truth absorbed in early childhood from where these are to a more internal position, where - within the interior natural - He stores them away for future use. These forms of goodness and truth that are stored away within the interior natural are meant in the Word by 'the remnant'.  But if evil steals the forms of goodness and truth there and uses them to lend support to evils and falsities, especially if it does so by the use of deceit, it destroys those remnants; for in this case it mingles evil with good, and falsity with truth, to such an extent that one cannot be separated from the other; and then a person is done for.

The fact that 'theft' means the kinds of things mentioned above may be seen from the mere use of that word to refer to what constitutes a person's spiritual life:-

For the only riches in that life are cognitions of good and truth, and the only possessions and inheritances are the different forms of happiness in life which are gained from forms of good and from truths deriving from these.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 5135

The Cupidity of Gain and the Avaricious

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

Ye are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father ye will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44)

[T]he cupidity of gain and avarice has within it the desire not only to possess the whole world, but also to plunder and even to kill everyone for the sake of gain; indeed one impelled by such cupidity would commit murder for but little were not the laws a hindrance. Moreover, such a man in his possession of gold and silver regards himself as the greatest in power, however in external appearance he may seem otherwise, which shows that there is in avarice not only the love of the world, but also the love of self, and indeed the filthiest love of self. For elevation of mind, or pride, in those who are sordidly avaricious, is not so conspicuous outwardly, because it is sometimes unconcerned about wealth for the sake of display; nor is it that kind of the love of self which is usually conjoined with pleasures; for such have little concern about the body, and its food and clothing. But it is a love entirely earthly, having no other end than money, in the possession of which it believes itself, not actually but potentially, above all others. It is evident from this that in avarice there is the lowest and vilest love of self, for which reason in the other life the avaricious appear to themselves to be among swine, and they above all others are against all good whatever. Consequently they are in such thick darkness that they are utterly unable to see what is good and what is true; they do not at all apprehend that there is any internal belonging to man which lives after death, and at heart they laugh at those who say so.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 4751)

The Evil of the Love of Self Defined

Selection from Arcana Cœlestia ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

The evil of the love of self is not, as is generally thought, that external elation which is called pride; but it is hatred against the neighbor, and thence a burning desire for revenge, and delight in cruelty. These are the interiors of the love of self. Its exteriors are contempt for others in comparison with self, and an aversion to those who are in spiritual good, and this sometimes with manifest elation or pride, and sometimes without it; for one who holds the neighbor in such hatred, interiorly loves no one but himself and those whom he regards as making one with himself; thus he loves them in himself, and himself in them, for the sole end of self.

(from Arcana Cœlestia 4750:5)