3655. The subject in the previous sections of Matthew 24 has been the first and second states of the perversion of the Church. The first state exists when people cease to know any longer what good is or what truth is, and instead argue with one another about these, as a result of which falsities arise, see 3354. And the second state exists when they treat good and truth with contempt and also reject them, and so when belief in the Lord breathes its last, which things take place step by step as charity ceases to exist, see 3487, 3488. Here the third state is now dealt with, which exists when good and truth in the Church are made desolate.

798. 'From fifteen cubits upwards the waters prevailed and covered the mountains' means that no trace of charity remained; and 'fifteen' means things so few as to be scarcely any at all. This becomes clear from the meaning of the number 'five', dealt with in Chapter 6:15. There it was shown that in the style of the Word, that is, in the internal sense, 'five' means those that are few. And since the number fifteen is the sum of five, which means few, and of ten, which means remnants, as has been shown at 6:3, this number has regard to remnants, which with those people were hardly anything at all. For so great were the persuasions of falsity that they did away with everything good. With regard to the remnants residing with man, the false assumptions, as stated already, and still more the persuasions of falsity, were of such a nature with the people before the Flood that they shut in and shut away remnants so completely that they could not be brought out. And if they had been brought out they would have been falsified in an instant. Indeed the life inherent in persuasions is such that it not only rejects everything true and soaks up everything false, but also perverts any truth that goes near it.