ve of God nor the love of a married partner grounded in any spiritual
principle; and these loves together form a man (_homo_) and from sensual
make him celestial." As I said this, there appeared through the gate as
it were lightning: and on my asking what it meant, he said, "Such
lightning is a sign to us that there will come the ancient one from the
east, who teaches us concerning God, that He is one, the alone
omnipotent, who is the first and the last; he also admonishes us not to
worship idols, but only to look at them as images representative of the
virtues proceeding from the one God, which also together form his
worship. This ancient one is our angel, whom we revere and obey. He
comes to us, and raises us, when we are falling into obscure worship of
God from mere fancies respecting images." On hearing this, we left the
house and went out of the city; and in the way, from what we had seen in
the heavens, we drew some conclusions respecting the circuit and the
progression of conjugial love; of the circuit that it had passed from
the east to the south, from the south to the west, and from the west to
the north; and of the progression, that it had decreased according to
its circulation, namely, that in the east it was celestial, in the south
spiritual, in the west natural, and in the north sensual; and also that
it had decreased in a similar degree with the love and the worship of
God: from which considerations we further concluded, that this love in
the first age was like gold, in the second like silver, in the third
like brass, and in the fourth like iron, and that at length it ceased.
On this occasion the angel, my guide and companion, said, "Nevertheless
I entertain a hope that this love will be revived by the God of heaven,
who is the Lord, because it is capable of being so revived."

79. THE FIFTH MEMORABLE RELATION, The angel that had been my guide and
companion to the ancients who had lived in the four ages, the golden,
the silver, the copper, and the iron, again presented himself to me, and
said, "Are you desirous of seeing the age which succeeded those ancient
ones, and to know what its quality formerly was, and still is? Follow
me, and you shall see. They are those concerning whom Daniel thus
prophesied: '_A kingdom shall arise after those four in which iron shall
be mixed with miry clay: they shall mingle themselves together by the
seed of man: but they shall not cohere one with the other, as iron is
not mi