8700, 10659).
{Footnote 2} Dignities and riches are not real blessings,
therefore they are granted both to the wicked and to the good
(n. 8939, 10775, 10776). The real blessing is reception of love
and faith from the Lord, and conjunction thereby, for this is
the source of eternal happiness (n. 1420, 1422, 2846, 3017,
3406, 3504, 3514, 3530, 3565, 3584, 4216, 4981, 8939, 10495).
365. All this makes clear that the rich and the poor alike come into
heaven, the one as easily as the other. The belief that the poor
enter heaven easily and the rich with difficulty comes from not
understanding the Word where the rich and the poor are mentioned. In
the Word those that have an abundance of knowledges of good and
truth, thus who are within the church where the Word is, are meant in
the spiritual sense by the "rich;" while those who lack these
knowledges, and yet desire them, thus who are outside of the church
and where there is no Word, are meant by the "poor." [2] The rich man
clothed in purple and fine linen, and cast into hell, means the
Jewish nation, which is called rich because it had the Word and had
an abundance of knowledges of good and truth therefrom, "garments of
purple" signifying knowledges of good, and "garments of fine linen"
knowledges of truth.
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