1165. In the Word 'Mizraim' or Egypt means knowledge, that is, various facts, by which people wish to probe into the arcana of faith and so confirm the false assumptions acquired in that way. 'Mizraim' also means simply knowledge, and so knowledge that is useful. This is clear not only from the places just quoted but also from very many others which would fill up page after page if they were all included. See Isaiah 19:1-end; Isaiah 30:1-3; 31:1-3; Jeremiah 2:18, 36; Jeremiah 42:14-end; Jeremiah 46:1-end; Ezekiel 16:26; 23:3; Ezekiel 29:1-end; Ezekiel 30:1-end; Hosea 7:11; 9:3, 6; 11:1, 5, 11; Micah 7:12 [NCBS: 7:15]; Zechariah 10:10-11; Psalms 80:8 and following verses.

1123. I have spoken to the third generation of the Most Ancient Church who said that at the time they lived in the world they awaited the coming of the Lord to save the whole human race, and that 'the seed of the woman would trample on the head of the serpent' was a common saying among them in those times. They said that at that time their greatest delight in life was in producing offspring, and thus that their greatest pleasures lay in loving their married partner for the sake of offspring. They called those pleasures most delightful, and the delights most pleasurable, adding that the perception of these delights and pleasures came from an influx from heaven because the Lord was going to be born.