204. Since the representative rites of the church, which were correspondences, began in the course of time to be turned into idolatrous practices, and also into magical rites, the Lord's Divine providence ensured that the science should be gradually lost, and among the Israelite and Jewish people totally wiped out. This people's worship consisted purely of correspondences, and was therefore representative of heavenly things; but still they were unaware what each detail meant. For they were purely natural people, so that they neither wished nor were able to have any knowledge of spiritual and celestial things. Consequently they could not know anything about correspondences, since these are the use of natural objects to represent spiritual and celestial things.