1000. Three unclean spirits like frogs, signifies reasonings from mere falsities against Divine truths. This is evident from the signification of "unclean spirits," as being falsities of evil which are from hell; for all who are in the hells are unclean from falsities of evil, for the reason that all unclean things exist from the falsities that are from evil, and all clean things from the truths that are from good. Also from the signification of "three," as being all things and fullness, and as being applied either to truths or to falsities (see n. 435, 506, 532, 658); and because of this "three" signifies wholly and merely, and here, mere falsity. Also from the signification of "frogs," as being reasonings from falsities. Frogs have this signification not only because of their croaking, but also because they live in bogs and fetid pools; and for the same reason they signify infernal falsities. For those who reason from falsities against Divine truths live in hells that appear like bogs and fetid pools; and those who are there, when they are seen in the light of heaven, resemble frogs, some in a larger and some in a smaller form according to their elation of mind arising from more or less keenness of reasoning. They are also more or less unclean according as their reasonings are against more or less interior and important Divine truths. [2] That "frogs" signify reasonings from mere falsities against Divine truths can be seen from the miracle of the frogs in Egypt. For all the miracles there performed signify the plagues or evils with which those are affected after death who fight against spiritual goods and truths and endeavor to destroy them by means of the knowledges [scientifica] of the natural man. For Pharaoh and the Egyptians represented and thus signified natural men; and the sons of Israel, whom they infested and wished to reduce to servitude, represented and thus signified spiritual men. So, too, the Egyptians represented and signified the things of the natural man, and the sons of Israel the things of the spiritual man. The things of the natural man have reference to evils and falsities, and evils have reference to the love, and falsities to its doctrine; while the things of the spiritual man have reference to the goods that belong to the love and to the truths that belong to its doctrine. That "frogs" here signify the reasonings from falsities of the natural man against the truths of the spiritual man is evident from the description of that miracle in Moses:
He caused the river to swarm with frogs, and they went up and came into the house of Pharaoh and into his bed-chamber and upon his bed, and into the house of his servants and of his people, and into the ovens and the kneading troughs. And when they were dead they were gathered into heaps, and the land stank (Exod. 7:27-29; 8:1-14). That "frogs" here signify the reasonings from falsities of the natural man against Divine truths can be seen from the explanation of all this in the Arcana Coelestia (n. 7345-7357, 7379- 7409). [3] Also in David:
He turned their waters into blood, and slew their fish. He caused frogs to creep forth upon their lands, into the chambers of their kings (Ps. 105:29, 30). This is said of the plagues in Egypt. "The waters turned into blood" signify truths falsified; "the fishes slain" signify scientific [scientifica] truths and cognitions [cognitiones] of the natural man, that they perished; "the frogs creeping forth upon their lands" signify reasonings of the natural man from falsities; "chambers of the kings" signify interior truths, which they perverted by reasonings from falsities, "chambers" being interior things, and "kings" truths. "The frogs that came up into the house of Pharaoh, into his bed-chamber, and upon his bed," have a similar signification. All this makes clear what is signified by "three unclean spirits like frogs, which went forth out of the mouth of the dragon, of the beast, and of the false prophet."
(Continuation respecting the Sixth Commandment)
[4] Those who are in true conjugial love, after death, when they become angels, return to their early manhood and to youth, the males, however spent with age, becoming young men, and the wives, however spent with age, becoming young women. Each partner returns to the flower and joys of the age when conjugial love begins to exalt the life with new delights, and to inspire playfulness for the sake of prolification. The man who while he lived in the world had shunned adulteries as sins, and who has been inaugurated by the Lord into conjugial love, comes into this state first exteriorly and afterwards more and more interiorly to eternity. As such continue to grow young more interiorly it follows that true conjugial love continually increases and enters into its charms and satisfactions, which have been provided for it from the creation of the world, and which are the charms and satisfactions of the inmost heaven, arising from the love of the Lord for heaven and the church, and thus from the love of good for truth and truth for good, which loves are the source of every joy in the heavens. Man thus grows young in heaven because he then enters into the marriage of good and truth; and in good there is the conatus to love truth continually, and in truth there is the conatus to love good continually; and then the wife is good in form and the husband is truth in form. From that conatus man puts off all the austerity, sadness, and dryness of old age, and puts on the liveliness, gladness, and freshness of youth, from which the conatus lives and becomes joy. [5] I have been told from heaven that such then have the life of love, which cannot otherwise be described than as the life of joy itself. That the man who lives in true conjugial love in the world comes after death into the heavenly marriage, which is the marriage of good and truth springing from the marriage of the Lord with the church, is clearly evident from this, that from the marriages in the heavens, although the married pair have consociations there like those on the earth, children are not born, but instead of children goods and truths, and thus wisdom, as has been said above. And this is why births, nativities, and generations mean in the Word, in its spiritual sense, spiritual births, nativities, and generations, and sons and daughters mean the truths and goods of the church, and other like things are meant by daughters-in-law, mothers-in-law, and fathers-in-law. This also makes clear that marriages on the earth correspond to marriages in the heavens; and that after death man comes into the correspondence, that is, comes from natural bodily marriage into spiritual heavenly marriage, which is heaven itself and the joy of heaven.
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