4496. 'When they were in pain' means evil desires. This is clear from the meaning of 'the pain' that follows circumcision as evil desire. The reason why such desire is meant by that pain following circumcision is that 'circumcision' means purification from self-love and love of the world, 2039, 2044, 2049, 2632, 3412, 3413, 4462, and every desire of the flesh stems from those loves. This is why 'pain' means such desire. Indeed when a person is being purified from those loves, as happens when he is being regenerated, he suffers pain and distress. It is the desires which are being removed that feel the pain and distress. When some arcanum is represented by means of a religious ceremony every part of the ceremony through to the completion of it embodies some facet of that arcanum. For example, the daggers or knives used in circumcision did so, as did their being made of flint, 2093 (end), 2046 (end), 2799; the blood that flowed at that time did so, and the method employed, and thus the state also. The same is also evident from the procedures followed in cleansings, inaugurations, and consecrations, and all other ceremonies. Here 'the pain' that followed circumcision means the desire on the part of Hamor, Shechem, and the men of his city for the external things in which alone Jacob's descendants had any interest, dealt with above in 4493.

408. Once the Church has been so vastated that faith exists no longer a fresh start is made, that is, new light begins to shine, which in the Word is called 'the morning'. The reason new light or the morning does not shine before the Church has been vastated is that the things constituting faith and charity have been mingled with things that are unholy, and as long as they are mingled no light or charity can possibly be introduced, for tares are ruining all the good seed. But once faith is no more, it is no longer possible for faith to be profaned, since people do not believe what is said. People who do not acknowledge and believe something but merely know it are, as stated already, incapable of profaning it. A similar situation exists at the present time in the case of Jews who, because they live among Christians, cannot help knowing that the Lord is acknowledged by Christians to be the Messiah whom they, the Jews, have been waiting for and are awaiting still. Yet they are incapable of profaning because they do not acknowledge and believe these matters. Nor, in a similar way, can Moslems and gentiles who have heard about the Lord do so. This was the reason why the Lord did not come into the world until the Jewish Church had ceased to acknowledge and believe anything.