102. That the Word among ancient peoples was written solely in terms of correspondences, but has since been lost, is something reported to me by angels in heaven. And I have been told that this Word is still preserved among them and used by the ancient peoples in that heaven who had that Word when they lived in the world.

Those ancient peoples, among whom that Word is still used in heaven, came partly from the land of Canaan and the lands surrounding it — Syria, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Sidon, Tyre, and Nineveh — and the inhabitants of all those kingdoms practiced a representational worship and so possessed a knowledge of correspondences. The wisdom of that time flowed from that knowledge, and because of it they had an inner perception and communication with the heavens.

Those who had a more interior knowledge of the correspondences of that Word were called wise and intelligent, but later diviners and magi.

[2] However, because that Word was full of correspondences which only remotely symbolized celestial and spiritual things, and many people consequently began to falsify it, therefore in the course of time, of the Lord’s Divine providence it vanished and finally was lost. And another Word, written in terms of correspondences not so remote, was given, and this through prophets among the children of Israel.

Still, this latter Word retained many names of places in the land of Canaan and in Asia round about, which had the same symbolic meanings as in the Ancient Word.

It was for this reason that Abram was commanded to go to that land, and that his posterity descended from Jacob was led into it.

7133. 'Saying, Finish your work, your stint for the day' means that they should serve falsities so called in every state. This is clear from the meaning of 'finishing your work' as serving falsities (for fabrications and falsities which are introduced are meant by 'making bricks', see 7113, and since these are the work which they were to finish, an insistence that they should serve them is meant; the expression 'falsities so called' is used because falsities are considered by the evil who utter them to be not falsities but truths); and from the meaning of 'stint for the day' as in every state - 'day' meaning state, see 23, 487, 488, 493, 893, 2788, 3462, 3785, 4850.