579. Remarks to be made below [§§660, 661:2] about the pre-Flood people under discussion here will show, with the Lord's divine mercy, that they had few if any remaining traces [of goodness and truth]. Because these traces could not be preserved in them, a prediction appears here concerning a new church called Noah that would have a remnant. This remnant too, with the Lord's divine mercy, will be described below [§§635, 737, 1050].

661. The meaning of to destroy all flesh (all that has the breath of life in it) under the heavens as the fact that all the descendants of the earliest church destroyed themselves can be seen from what was just said. It can also be seen from earlier sections [§§560, 562-563] describing how the mentality that the same people inherited cumulatively from their forebears made them more disposed than others to soak up monstrous convictions of this type. The main reason was that they immersed the religious teachings they possessed in the torrent of their desires and so took on this disposition.

Circumstances are different for those who have never learned what the true faith teaches but live in complete ignorance. They cannot do as that church did; they have no way of profaning holy things and so blocking off access to the remnant within themselves. As a result, they do not drive the Lord's angels away.

[2] The remnant within us, as already stated [§561], includes every lesson in innocence, in charity, in mercy, and in religious truth that we have received from the Lord since childhood. Each and every trace of those lessons is stored away. Without them, innocence, charity, and mercy would be wholly absent from our thinking and our actions. In that case, nothing good or true would be present, and we would be worse than savage beasts. The outcome would be the same if a remnant of these qualities did stay with us but unclean desires and dreadful, misconceived persuasions blocked its outlet, preventing it from operating. That is what happened with the people predating the Flood who exterminated themselves. They are the ones meant by all flesh (all that has the breath of life in it) under the heavens.

[3] Flesh symbolizes all people in general, and body-centered people in particular, as shown already [§574]. The breath of life symbolizes all life in general, but strictly speaking, it is the life in those who have been reborn. Here, then, it symbolizes the final generation of the earliest church. Although no living faith survived in them, they still had acquired from their ancestors a germ of that faith — which they smothered. It is here called the breath of life; in Genesis 7:22, it is referred to in the phrase, "in whose nostrils was the breath of living spirit."

Flesh under the heavens symbolizes what is limited to our bodily plane, whereas the heavens are the truth that we understand and the good that we will. Once our bodily concerns are disconnected from truth in the intellect and good in the will, we can no longer remain alive. What sustains us is the bond we have with heaven, that is, with the Lord through heaven.