[3] In all these passages, "luminaries" signify love and faith. It was because "luminaries" represented and signified love and faith toward the Lord that it was ordained in the Jewish Church that a perpetual luminary should be kept burning from evening till morning, for every ordinance in that church was representative of the Lord. Of this luminary it is written:—
Command the sons of Israel that they take oil for the luminary, to cause the lamp to ascend continually: in the tabernacle of the congregation without the veil, which is before the testimony, shall Aaron and his sons order it from evening even until morning, before Jehovah (Exod. xxvii. 20, 21).
That these things signify love and faith, which the Lord kindles and causes to give light in the internal man, and through the internal man in the external, will of the Lord's Divine mercy be shown in its proper place.
32. Love and faith are first called "great luminaries," and afterwards love is called a "greater luminary," and faith a "lesser luminary;" and it is said of love that it shall "rule by day," and of faith that it shall "rule by night." As these are arcana which are hidden, especially in this end of days, it is permitted of the Lord's Divine mercy to explain them. The reason why these arcana are more especially concealed in this end of days is that now is the consummation of the age, when there is scarcely any love, and consequently scarcely any faith, as the Lord Himself foretold in the Evangelists in these words:—
The sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken (Matt. xxiv. 29).
By the "sun" is here meant love, which is darkened; by the "moon" faith, which does not give light; and by the "stars," the knowledges of faith, which fall from heaven, and which are the "virtues and powers of the heavens." [2] The Most Ancient Church acknowledged no other faith than love itself. The celestial angels also do not know what faith is except that which is of love. The universal heaven is a heaven of love, for there is no other life in the heavens than the life of love. From this is derived all heavenly happiness, which is so great that nothing of it admits of description, nor can ever be conceived by any human idea. Those who are under the influence of love,
