73. VIII. THAT THIS LOVE WAS THE LOVE OF LOVES WITH THE ANCIENTS WHO LIVED IN THE GOLDEN, SILVER, AND COPPER AGES. That conjugial love was the love of loves with the most ancient and ancient peoples who lived in the primitive ages which are so named, cannot be learned from history because their writings are not extant, and the writings that are extant are by writers posterior to those ages, it being by these writers that the ages were named and the purity and integrity of their life described, and also its gradual descent as from gold to iron. The last or iron age, however, which commenced from the time of these writers, can in some measure be gathered from the history of certain kings and judges and of those wise men who in Greece and elsewhere were called sophi. That this age did not hold firm as does iron when by itself, but became like iron mixed with clay, which do not stick together, is foretold by Daniel II. 43. [2] Now since the Ages named from gold, silver, and copper had passed away before the days of [the above-mentioned] writings, and since knowledge concerning their marriages is thus not possible on earth, it has pleased the Lord to reveal these marriages to me in a spiritual way, by leading me to the heavens where are the dwellings of the men [of those ages], that there, from their own lips, I might learn concerning the nature of marriages with them when they were living in their Ages. For all who have passed away from the natural world since the creation, are in the spiritual world; and as to their loves they are all like themselves [as they had been in the world] and remain so to eternity. Since these particulars merit being known and related, and since they confirm the sacredness of marriages, I wish to make them public as they were shown me while I was awake in the spirit, and were recalled to my memory by an angel and so described. And since they are relations from the spiritual world, like the others which follow the chapters, I have thought to distribute them into six Memorable Relations, following the progress of the Ages.
