27. The Word’s Literal Sense Is the Foundation, Containing Vessel and Buttress of Its Spiritual and Celestial Meanings

Every Divine work has in it a first, intermediate, and final element, and the first one progresses through the intermediate one to the final one, and so takes form and endures. Thus the final element is the foundation. Moreover, the first element is present in the intermediate one, and present through the intermediate one in the final one. Thus the final element is the containing vessel. And because the final element is the containing vessel and foundation, it is also the buttress.

8. Since the Word is inwardly spiritual and celestial, it has therefore been written solely in terms of correspondences, and something written solely in terms of correspondences is written in its outmost sense in the kind of style found in the Prophets and Gospel writers. Even though this style seems to be an ordinary one, still it conceals in it Divine wisdom and all the wisdom of angels.