As related here, this is the historical and natural course of the two events occurring in the second chapter, although not presented in very great detail. Various other things happened here and there that need not be related because of their insignificance, since they would, first, cause a quite unnecessary lengthening of the work and, second, add neither greater value nor deeper understanding to the importance of the matter. All that remains is to set out very briefly the spiritual meaning of the second event. This second chapter is then to be regarded as concluded insofar as it presents to the reader and listener only two principal events, complete in themselves.
The spiritual meaning of the first event in Cana in Galilee has already been given. Consequently, we have only to set out the spiritual meaning of the second event, which is as follows:
The temple represents the human being in his natural, worldly sphere. But in the temple, as in the human being, there is a Holy of Holies. Therefore the exterior of the temple too should be kept sanctified and pure, so that the innermost part, as the Holy of Holies of both the temple and the human being, is not desecrated.
The Holy of Holies in the temple is indeed covered by a thick curtain, and only the high priest alone may enter it at certain times. But the curtain and the access so rarely permitted protect the Holy of Holies from desecration. For if someone sins with his body, he defiles not only his body but also his soul, and through it his spirit, which represents, and truly is, the innermost part and the Holy of Holies in every human being. In the human being this Holy of Holies is placed deep behind a thick curtain, just as the corresponding place is in the temple. Only love for God alone, which is a most true high priest of God in every human being, is permitted to penetrate this Holy of Holies and lift the curtain without punishment. But if this sole high priest within the human being himself becomes impure by attaching himself to impure worldly things and making common cause with them, how can the Holy of Holies remain undefiled when an impure high priest visits it?
If, then, everything in the temple, as in the human being, has become impure, it can no longer be cleansed by the human being himself. For if the broom is full of dung and filth, how can it be fit to clean a room? Then, unfortunately, I Myself must set My hand to the work and cleanse the temple by force, through all kinds of painful things, such as illnesses of every kind and other apparent misfortunes, so that the temple may become clean.
The ‘sellers’ and ‘buyers’ are the lower, impure passions in the human being. The livestock offered for sale represents the lowest level of animal sensuality and, at the same time, the great stupidity and blindness of the soul produced by it. Its love is like that of an ox, which lacks even the sensual love of procreation and sex, and is animated only by the very crudest, polyp-like love of devouring; and its understanding is like the well-known capacity for understanding of sheep.
What, then, do the money changers and their money dealings signify? They signify and represent everything in the human being that arises from his self-love, which has already become wholly animal. For the animal loves only itself, and one wolf devours another when it is hungry. These money changers, or such animal self-love, must therefore also be driven out of the human being with all painful force, and everything that animates this love must be overturned and scattered!
But why not completely destroyed? Because even such love must not be deprived of freedom. For the noble seed, or grain of wheat, will thrive best in a field well fertilized with animal dung and yield a rich harvest. But if all the manure were taken from the field in order, as it were, to make it entirely clean of all filth, the noble grain of wheat would thrive only poorly and certainly yield a very meager harvest.
The dung initially brought onto the field in heaps must be spread and scattered; then it will serve the field. But if it were left together in large heaps, it would smother everything where it lay and be of no use to the other parts of the field.
Here, then, lies the corresponding reason in the Gospel account of the cleansing of the temple why I merely scattered the money changers’ money and did not destroy it completely, although that too would have been very easy for Me.
But what do the dealers in doves inside the temple represent, who must also go outside and withdraw to their old appointed places?
By this is meant outward virtue, consisting of all kinds of ceremony, propriety, politeness, courtesy and the like in a purely worldly respect. Yet human blindness seeks to elevate it into an inner value of life and to root the true life of the human being in it.
The dove is a creature of the air. Since it was often used in the East to carry letters, especially in matters of love, and accordingly already signified tender and graceful conversation as a hieroglyph among the ancient Egyptians, it served as a sign of such conversation in the temple. It was also a customary sacrificial animal with a corresponding symbolic meaning, which young married couples generally offered in the temple at the birth of their first child, as a sign that they had now become free of such outward messages, courtesies and ceremonial embellishments and had entered into true, inward, life-giving love.
Now, according to the order of all things, the outermost belongs in the outermost. The bark must never be in the pith of the tree, since it is in itself something wholly dead; rather, everything belonging to the bark must also lie in the bark. But the bark is of great use to the tree when it is present in its proper place and in the right measure. If someone wished to push the bark into the pith of the tree, first taking the pith away from the tree, the tree would immediately have to wither and die!
And so, as a sign that people should not make all outward virtues a matter of inner life, thereby turning the noble human being into a mere conversation doll (house of trade), I likewise remove these dealers in doves from the temple and direct them to their proper place, only somewhat more courteously. In the wider sense they represent all outward things, and in the narrower sense all the masters of these outward things who strive to elevate their wares into wares of inner life.
This, then, is the spiritual meaning of the cleansing of the temple presented here. From the correct and unchanging correspondence between the human being and the temple, one can also recognize that no human being can ever act and speak in this way, but only God alone as eternal wisdom, which sees and knows everything.
But why does the Lord not yet remain in the temple after such a cleansing?
Because He alone knows how a human being’s interior must be constituted for Him to take up a permanent dwelling within him. At the same time, after such a cleansing the human being must not be deprived of freedom, since otherwise he would become a doll.
The Lord therefore must not yet entrust Himself to the inner human being who has been forcibly swept clean, for He alone knows what is needed for the complete restoration of the inner human being. Thus the sweeper leaves the temple again and flows, as if by chance, from outside into the human being’s interior. He does not yield to the human being’s demands that He should remain with him and within him and support him in his indolence. Rather, the human being must awaken again to fully acting on his own and only through this become a perfect human being, as will also be presented more closely in the next chapter.