32. Love and faith are first called 'the great lights', then love is called 'the greater light' and faith 'the lesser light'. In reference to love it is said that it will have dominion over the day, and in reference to faith that it will have dominion over the night. Because these are arcana and have become hidden, especially at this end of an epoch, in the Lord's Divine mercy let the whole subject be opened up. The reason they have become hidden, especially at this present end of an epoch, is that now is the close of the age, when love is almost non-existent, and consequently faith too, just as the Lord Himself foretold in the Gospels with these words,

The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Matthew 24:29.

Here 'the sun' is used to mean love, which is 'darkened', 'the moon' faith which does not give its light, 'the stars' cognitions of faith which fall from heaven, and which are the various 'powers of the heavens'. The Most Ancient Church acknowledged no other faith than love itself; celestial angels as well do not know what faith is except faith which stems from love. Love pervades the whole of heaven, for in the heavens no other life is found except the life that belongs to love. This is the source of all happiness in heaven, a happiness so great that no aspect of it can be described or in any way captured in human concepts. People in whom this love is present love the Lord wholeheartedly. Yet they realize, say, and perceive that all love, thus all life, which belongs exclusively to love, and so all happiness, come from the Lord and nowhere else, and that they derive not one trace of love, life, and happiness from themselves. The Lord's being the source of all love was again represented by the greater light, that is, the sun, at the Transfiguration, for His face shone like the sun, and His garments became white as the light, Matthew 17:2. What is inmost is meant by His face, and what emanates from the inmost by His garments. Thus His Divinity is meant by the sun or love, and His Humanity by the light or wisdom coming from love.

5150. 'And Joseph answered and said' means revelation resulting from perception received by the celestial within the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'answering and saying' as revelation resulting from perception, dealt with above in 5121; and from the representation of 'Joseph' as the celestial within the natural, dealt with in 5086, 5087, 5106. The reason 'Joseph' here means the celestial within the natural is that the natural is the subject. With regard to the celestial and the spiritual, the celestial itself and the spiritual itself which flow into heaven from the Lord's Divine reside principally in the interior rational, for the forms there are more perfect ones and apt receivers. Even so, the celestial and the spiritual also flow from the Lord's Divine into the exterior rational, and into the natural too, doing so both indirectly and directly. They flow indirectly by way of the interior rational, and directly from the Lord's Divine itself. What flows in directly is that which brings order, and what flows in indirectly is that to which order is brought. This is what happens in the exterior rational, as also in the natural. From this one may recognize what the celestial within the natural is.

[2] The celestial has its origin in Divine Good and the spiritual in Divine Truth - both having their origin in the Lord. When they exist in the rational they are called the celestial and spiritual within the rational, and when they exist in the natural they are called the celestial and spiritual within the natural. The rational and natural are used to mean the person himself insofar as he has been formed to receive the celestial and spiritual; but the rational is used to mean his internal and the natural his external. By reason of what flows into him, and depending on his reception of it, a person is called a celestial man or else a spiritual man - a celestial man if the Lord's Divine Good is received in the will part of his mind, a spiritual man if it is received in the understanding part.