103. And hast not failed, signifies so far as they could. This is evident from the signification of "not failing," in reference to those who are eager for the knowledges of truth and good, as being so far as they could; for in what now follows, a life according to these knowledges is treated of. Those who are in a life according to these go forward and do not fail; but those who are as yet in knowledges alone, go forward as far as they can, but do not yet have the light of life, from which is vigor.

561. The deeper levels of the thoughts and affections of people who love themselves above all are turned toward themselves and the world - and are turned away, therefore, from the Lord and heaven. This is why such people fall prey to all kinds of evil and why the divine nature cannot flow in. It is because the moment it does flow in, it is submerged in thoughts about self and polluted, and is saturated with evils that arise from their self-centeredness. This is why they all look away from the Lord in the other life, toward the gloom that occupies the site of our world's sun there and is directly across from heaven's sun, which is the Lord (see 123 above). Darkness means evil, and our world's sun means self-love. ¹

Notes de bas de page:

441. The fact that this was not the point at which people first started to call on the name of Jehovah is quite clear from what appears in preceding sections about the Most Ancient Church, which excelled all other Churches in its adoration and worship of the Lord, and also from Abel' s bringing a gift from the firstborn of the flock. At the present point therefore nothing else is meant by 'calling on the name of Jehovah' than the worship of a new Church, after the previous Church had been annihilated by those who are called Cain and later on Lamech.