6595. 'And they embalmed him' means preservation still. This is clear from the meaning of 'embalming' as preservation from the corruption of evil, dealt with in 6503, 6504. Since the subject here is the end of the Church, let what is meant by preservation still be stated. When the Church comes to an end, which happens when its internal ceases to exist with a person, 6587, 6592, the external still remains. Yet that external is such that it still has an internal within it. This internal however does not exist at this time with that person because he does not have it in mind; and if he did think about it, he would not feel any affection for it. But it exists with the angels who are present with the person. And because the member of the Church which has undergone vastation has nothing of the internal in mind and feels no affection for it, and for the most part is unaware of its existence, the person cannot do the internal any harm. For a person can do harm to something when he has come to know, and especially once he has come to believe it, but not to what he either has no knowledge of or does not believe to exist. In this way the internal of the Church is preserved from contamination by any evil, and in the same way the inner realities of the Church were preserved among the descendants of Jacob. For they were so concerned with outer forms without their inner meaning that they did not even want to know about anything internal. Therefore the inner realities of the Church were not revealed to them.

Inner realities were not disclosed to the descendants of Jacob, lest they should do harm to them by profaning them, see 3398, 3480.

People who have no belief in the inner realities of the Church, and especially those who do not know about them, are unable to profane them, 593, 1008, 1059, 2051, 3398, 3401, 3898, 4289, 4601.

The more internal things of the Church are not revealed until the Church has undergone vastation, because once it has undergone it there is no longer any belief in them, and so they cannot be profaned, 3398, 3399.

These are the things that are meant by preservation.

2051. That 'he must be circumcised' ¹ means that they, namely those inside the Church meant by him 'born in the house' and him 'bought with silver', must completely remove from themselves self-love and love of the world is clear from the representation of 'circumcision' as purification from self-love and love of the world, dealt with above in 2039. Here the requirement for them to be circumcised is repeated in the command 'he must be circumcised ¹ ' which expresses the necessity for them to be purified completely from those loves. And because it means those who are inside the Church no reference is made here to sons who are foreigners, for the latter, as shown above in 2049, mean those outside the Church.

[2] From this repetition of what has been stated in the previous verse concerning those 'born in the house' and those 'bought with silver', anyone may see that there is a Divine arcanum that is not evident from the sense of the letter. The arcanum is that purification from those foul loves is absolutely vital inside the Church, for the reason also that people inside the Church are capable of rendering sacred things unclean, something that those outside the Church, that is, gentiles, cannot do. For this reason those inside the Church stand in greater danger of condemnation. What is more, those inside the Church are capable of formulating and adopting false assumptions that are contrary to truths of faith themselves, whereas those outside the Church cannot do so because they have no knowledge of those truths. Thus those inside the Church are capable of profaning sacred truths, but not those outside. For more on these matters, see Volume One, in 1059, 1327, 1328.

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