736. As for Noah, or the member of this new Church, he was such that he believed with simplicity those things which he had come to possess from the Most Ancient Church. These were items of doctrine that had been gathered together and converted into a kind of doctrinal form by those called Enoch. The disposition of the people meant by Noah however was entirely different from those before the Flood who perished, called the Nephilim. For they immersed doctrinal matters concerning faith in their own filthy desires and in this way strove after dreadful persuasions from which they were unwilling to draw back even though they were taught by others and were shown that these were falsities. This dual genius or disposition also exists among people today. The former can be regenerated easily, but the latter with difficulty.

6173. 'And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt' means the truth of the natural existing among known facts. This is clear from the meaning of 'living' as spiritual life, dealt with in 5890; from the representation of 'Jacob' as the truth of the natural, dealt with in 3305, 3509, 3525, 3546, 3599, 3775, 4009, 4234, 4520, 4538; and from the meaning of 'the land of Egypt' as the facts known to the Church, as just above in 6169.