337. Inner Meaning

THE subject here is the deterioration of the earliest church, or the falsification of religious teachings. Heresies and sects are described under the names of Cain and his descendants. In connection with this, we need to understand that we can have no idea how the religion was falsified or what that church's heresies and sects were like unless we are thoroughly acquainted with the nature of the true church. With such acquaintance we can recognize how things stood.

The earliest church has already been discussed quite amply. I showed that it was in the form of a heavenly person [§§162:1, 200] and that its adherents did not acknowledge any other faith than one of love for the Lord and for other people [§§32:2, 202, 281]. Through that love they received faith from the Lord, or in other words, a perception of all that belongs to faith [§§104, 125]. They did not even want to use the word faith for fear it would be separated from love, as shown earlier (§§200-203).

[2] That is what a person of heavenly character is like, and David, in speaking of the Lord as monarch and of a heavenly person as royal offspring, uses the following images to represent that nature:

Give your judgments to the monarch, and your justice to the royal offspring. The mountains will bring peace to the people, as will the hills, in justice. Generation after generation will fear you in the lasting of the sun and before the face of the moon. In their days the upright individual will flourish, as will great peace, until there is no moon. (Psalms 72:1, 3, 5, 7)

The sun symbolizes love and the moon faith. The mountains and hills symbolize the earliest church. Generation after generation symbolizes the religions that came after the Flood. It says until there is no moon because faith will be love. See also what is said in Isaiah 30:26.

[3] This shows the nature of the earliest church and of its religious thought. Modern times, in which faith comes first, are completely different; but through faith the Lord endows us with charity, and then charity takes highest importance. It follows that religious teachings were falsified in earliest times when people declared their faith and in the process separated faith from love. Those who falsified the religion in this way, dividing faith from love (that is, championing faith alone), were at that time called Cain. To do as they did was scandalous to the earliest people.