Lexicon Entry: Antediluvians
Back to: Lexicon Index | Lexicon Home
The antediluvians (including the Nephilim, Anakim, and Rephaim) were the last generation of the Most Ancient Church before the judgment of that church known as the Flood. Because the antediluvians were descendants of the Most Ancient Church, they had celestial seed planted within them, and their will and understanding were united (AC 7686, AC 927, AC 310). It is perilous when celestial people begin to fall away from good and truth, because both parts of the mind (that is, the will and the understanding) become ruined. The mind becomes so perverted that restoration in the other life is scarcely possible (AC 310).
The antediluvians came from a celestial seed, but they had also received through their heredity evil desires belonging to the will, and these desires ruled over them (AC 640). Because of this they perverted the truths of faith and forced them to agree with and support their evil desires (AC 557, AC 794). They persuaded themselves that they were greater than all others, even to the point of thinking themselves to be like gods (AC 580, AC 562). Because of this persuasion, they made light of everything holy and true (AC 580). This persuasion then became like a glue that caught all the goods and truths that might otherwise have become remnants, and prevented the remnants they already had from being used (AC 563). Once their remnants were destroyed they were no longer human, for they could no longer be protected by angels and became totally possessed by evil spirits (AC 660). Then, because their internal respiration varied according to their internal state, their internal respiration ceased, and they were suffocated by an inundation of evils and falsities not unlike a flood (AC 805, AC 4333).
See also:
Evil Desires, The Fall, Flood,
Hereditary Evil, Last Judgments,
Noah, Persuasions,
Posterities, Remnants,
Respiration, Seeds,
Will and Understanding
Passages relating to Antediluvians and the
Ancient Churches:
AC 290; AC 303; AC 310; AC 312; AC 515; AC
556; AC 557; AC 560; AC 561; AC 562; AC
563; AC 567; AC 570; AC 571; AC 572; AC
579; AC 580; AC 581; AC 582; AC 583; AC
594; AC 602; AC 607; AC 623; AC 635; AC
640; AC 660; AC 661; AC 705; AC 730; AC
731; AC 736; AC 794; AC 798; AC 803; AC
805; AC 808; AC 857; AC 927; AC 1034; AC
1035; AC 1120; AC 1265; AC 1266; AC 1267;
AC 1268; AC 1269; AC 1270; AC 1271; AC
1272; AC 1512; AC 1673; AC 1679; AC 2124;
AC 2468; AC 2909; AC 3399; AC 4333; AC
4423; AC 4454; AC 6588; AC 7686; AE 163;
AE 543; AE 544; AE 697; LJ 46; LJP 27; SE
3377; SE 3493; SE 3583; SE 4076; SE 4096;
SE 4174; SE 4183; SE 4371; SE 4454
Help with References and Abbreviations