the
love and consequent conjunction of evil and falsity. (A.E., n. 1007.)

Adulteries are less abhorrent to Christians than to the heathen, and
even to some barbarous nations, for the reason that at present in the
Christian world there is no marriage of good and truth, but a marriage
or evil and falsity. For the religion and doctrine of faith separated
from good works is a religion and doctrine of truth separated from good;
and truth separated from good is not truth, but inwardly regarded is
falsity; and good separated from truth is not good, but inwardly
regarded is evil. Consequently in the Christian religion there is
doctrine of falsity and evil, from which origin a desire and inclination
for adultery from hell flow in; and this is why adulteries are believed
in the Christian world to be allowable, and are practiced without shame.
For, as has been said above, the conjunction of evil and falsity is
spiritual adultery, from which according to correspondence natural
adultery springs. For this reason "adulteries" and "whoredoms" signify
in the Word adulterations of good and falsifications of truth; and for
this reason Babylon is called in the Apocalypse a "harlot," and
Jerusalem is so called in the Word of the Old Testament; and the Jewish
nation was called by the Lord "an adulterous nation," and "from their
father the devil." (A.E., n. 1008.)

He that abstains from adulteries from any other motive than because they
are sins and are against God is still an adulterer; as for instance when
anyone abstains from them from fear of the civil law and its penalties,
from fear of the loss of reputation and thus of honor, from fear of
resulting diseases, from fear of upbraidings at home from his wife and
consequent intranquility of life, from fear of chastisement by the
servants of the injured husband, from poverty, or from avarice; from
infirmity arising from abuse or from age or impotence or disease; in
fact, when one abstains because of any natural or moral law, and does
not at the same time abstain because of the Divine law, he is interiorly
unchaste and an adulterer, since he none the less believes that
adulteries are not sins, and therefore declares them lawful in his
spirit, and thus commits them in spirit, although not in the body;
consequently after death when he becomes a spirit he speaks openly in
favor of them, and commits them without shame.

It has been granted me in the spiritual world to see maidens who
rega