4175. 'This is how I was: By day the heat consumed me, and the cold by night; and my sleep was banished from my eyes' means temptations. This is clear from the meaning of 'treat' and of 'cold' as that which is the over-abundance of love and that which is the complete lack of it, and so the two extremes - 'day' meaning a state of faith or of truth which is at its height, and 'night' a state when no faith or truth exists at all, 221, 935, 936; and from the meaning of 'sleep banished from the eyes' as constantly or without respite. Because in temptations people undergo experiences such as these, temptations in general are therefore meant by the words used here. The reason 'heat' means an over-abundance of love is that spiritual fire or warmth is love, while spiritual cold on the other hand is the lack of it. In fact man's actual life is nothing other than love, for without love he does not possess any life at all. Indeed, if a person stops to reflect, he can recognize that all vital heat or warmth which is within the body comes from it. But 'cold' does not mean the deprivation of all love, only the deprivation of spiritual and celestial love, a deprivation which is called spiritual death.

[2] When a person is deprived of that love he is fired by love of himself and of the world. This latter love, compared with spiritual and celestial love, is cold, and also becomes cold, not only with a person when living in the body but also when he enters the next life. If love of self and the world is taken away from him when he is living in the body, he grows so cold that he possesses scarcely any life at all, as would likewise be so if he were compelled to think reverently about heavenly and Divine things. In the next life, when such a person is among those who inhabit hell, he is inflamed with the fire or heat of evil passions. But if he draws near to heaven that fire and heat is converted into cold, the intensity of which increases the nearer he gets; and so does the torment to the same extent. This cold is what is meant by 'the gnashing of teeth' which is associated with those in hell, Matthew 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28.

530. As has been stated, the names used in this chapter mean Churches, or what amounts to the same, doctrinal systems, for it is by virtue of its doctrine that a Church exists and takes its name. Thus Noah means the Ancient Church, or the doctrine that remained from the Most Ancient Church. The situation with Churches or doctrines has been stated already, namely that they dwindle away until nothing remains any longer of the goods and truths of faith. And when that point has been reached, the Church is in the Word called vastated. Nevertheless a remnant is always preserved, that is, some people are preserved, no matter how few, with whom the good and truth of faith persist. And unless that good and truth of faith were preserved with those people there would be no conjunction of heaven with the human race.

[2] As regards the remnants that reside with the individual, the fewer they are the less possible it is for the rational concepts and the factual knowledge he possesses to receive light; for the light of good and truth flows in from the remnants, or rather from the Lord by way of the remnants. If there were no remnants residing with a person, he would not be a human being, but someone far inferior to any animal. The fewer the remnants, the less he is a human being, while the more they are, the more he is a human being. Remnants are like a star in the sky; the smaller it is the weaker the light coming from it, but the greater it is, the brighter the light coming from it. The few things that did remain from the Most Ancient Church resided with those who constituted the Church called Noah. Those things were not however the remains of perception but of integrity, and also of doctrine deriving from the things of the Most Ancient Churches that were matters of perception. At that point therefore a new Church was raised up by the Lord. Being entirely different in disposition from the Most Ancient Churches, it is to be referred to as the Ancient Church, ancient from the fact that it existed at the last stage before the Flood and in the first period of time after it. This Church will in the Lord's Divine mercy be dealt with later on.