Conjugial love among the most ancient people and the ancients who lived in those early ages which bear these names was the highest form of love. It is impossible to learn this from histories, because there are none of their writings preserved, and those which are preserved were written in later ages. Those writers gave these names and described the purity and rectitude of their lives, and how these progressively declined in a sequence like that from gold to iron. The last, the iron age, starting from the time of these writers, can to some extent be appreciated from the historical accounts of certain kings, judges and wise men, called sophi, in Greece and elsewhere. Daniel (2:43) contains a prediction that this age would lack the stability iron possesses, but would become like iron mixed with clay, which will not hold together.

[2] Since the ages named after gold, silver and copper were over by the time of these writers, so that it is impossible for any knowledge of their marriages to exist on earth, it has pleased the Lord to make these known to me in a spiritual way, by taking me to visit the heavens where they live, so that I could learn from their own lips what their marriages were like, when they lived during their own periods. For all who have since creation departed from the natural world are in the spiritual world; and they all keep their previous loves and will so remain for ever. Since these facts deserve to be known and reported, and they prove the holiness of marriages, I should like to publish them, as they were exhibited to my wakeful spirit, and later recalled to memory and written down with the help of an angel. As these are from the spiritual world, like the rest of the experiences at the end of chapters, I have decided to divide them into six accounts, to match the series of ages.

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