8232. There was not left of them even one. That this signifies all and each, is evident without explication. In this verse the subject treated of is the immersion or casting into hell of those who have been in falsities from evil. But what immersion and casting into hell are, is known to few, it being supposed that it is a casting down into a certain place where is the devil with his crew, who torment those who are there. But such is not the case with this matter. Casting into hell is nothing else than a crowding by mere falsities which are from evil, in which evil they had been when in the world. When they have been crowded there by these falsities, they are in hell, and the evils and falsities in which they then are, torment them. But the torment does not arise from their grieving at the evil which they have done, but from their not being able to do evil, which is the delight of their life; for when they do evil to others in hell, they are punished and tormented by those to whom they do it. They chiefly do evil to one another from the cupidity of exercising command, and of subjugating others with this end in view, which is done (if others do not suffer themselves to be subjugated) by a thousand methods of punishments and torments. But the lordships there, which they continually aspire to, take turns, those who had punished and tormented others being subsequently punished and tormented by these others; and this until at last this kind of ardor abates from the fear of the penalty. From all this it can now be seen whence comes hell, and what hell is. The fire of hell is nothing else than concupiscence originating in the love of self, which inflames and torments (n. 6314, 7324, 7575).

6314. As it is with light, so also it is with the heat which is man’s vital heat. This vital heat does not in the slightest degree derive its origin from the heat which is from the sun of this world; but from spiritual heat, which is love, and which proceeds from the Lord: the angels have this heat. Hence so far as man is in love, so far he is in vital heat. The body, however, is in the heat of the world, and so is the interior sensuous; but the vital heat flows into this heat and vivifies it. The purities and the grossnesses of this heat are circumstanced in the same way as are the lights. It is this heat which is meant by the holy fires in the Word, and therefore by these fires are there signified heavenly loves. But in the opposite sense it is this heat which is meant by the fires of hell, and therefore by these fires in the Word are signified infernal loves and their cupidities.