Arcana Coelestia #32
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.
Genesis 7
1
And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.
2
Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
3
Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.
4
For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.
5
And Noah did according unto all that the LORD commanded him.
6
And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.
7
And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood.
8
Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth,
9
There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
10
And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth.
11
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
12
And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.
13
In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark;
14
They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort.
15
And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
16
And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
17
And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth.
18
And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters.
19
And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered.
20
Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered.
21
And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
23
And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
24
And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.
