4465. To circumcise for you every male. That this signifies an external representative only, and that so they would be pure to them, is evident from the signification of “circumcising every male,” as being an external representative, a sign that they were of the church, here that they were of their religiosity (see n. 4462). That so they would be pure in their eyes, follows, because the posterity of Jacob made purity and holiness to consist in external things and not in internal things.

2727. CONCERNING MARRIAGES, HOW THEY ARE REGARDED IN THE HEAVENS; AND CONCERNING ADULTERIES.

What genuine conjugial love is, and whence its origin, few at this day know, for the reason that few are in it. Almost all believe that it is inborn, and so flows from a kind of natural instinct, as they say, and this the more, because something of marriage exists also among animals; whereas the difference between conjugial love among human beings and what is of marriage among animals is such as is that between the state of a human being and the state of a brute animal.