Page:A Compendium of the Theological Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg.djvu/248

152. They who are in temptations are in such an inundation. By this experience I was also instructed as to what is signified in the Word by the flood; namely, that the last posterity of the most ancient people who were of the Lord's celestial church entirely were inundated by evils and falsities, and so perished. (ib, n. 5725.)

"And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat" (Gen. viii. 4). "The ark rested" signifies regeneration. This may be seen from the consideration that the ark signifies the man of that church [the new church represented by Noah, which succeeded the Most Ancient Church]. All things within the ark signify whatever appertained to that man. When therefore the ark is said to rest, it signifies the regeneration of that man. . ..

"The seventh month" signifies what is holy. This holiness corresponds to what was said of the celestial man (ch. ii. 3), where it is written that the seventh day was sanctified because God rested thereon.

"The seventeenth day" signifies a new [state]. This appears from what was said respecting this number in the preceding chapter (vii. 11), where it signifies a beginning; for every beginning is a new [state].

"The mountains of Ararat" signify light [lumen]. This may appear from the signification of a mountain, which is the good of love and charity; and from the signification of Ararat, which is light, and indeed the light of one who is regenerate. The new light or first light of the regenerate never springs from cognitions of the truths of faith, but from charity. For truths of faith are as the rays of light, and love, or charity, as the flame. The light in one who is being regenerated is not from the truths of faith but from charity; the truths of faith are the rays themselves of light from it. It thus appears that the mountains of Ararat signify such light. This light is the first light after temptation; which because it is the first is obscure, and is called lumen, not lux.

From all this now it may be seen what the words of this verse signify in the internal sense; namely, that the spiritual man is a holy rest, from new intellectual light, which is the light of charity. With such wonderful variety and in so delightful order are these things perceived by the angels, that if a man could only enter into one such conception there would be