5749. In a word, the heavens which were collected from the Christian world after the Advent of the Lord, successively declined, as is customary on earth. At first, those in them procured heaven in themselves and worshipped the Lord, and thus also had heaven without themselves; thus, it was in its proper order. But, successively, the heaven in them began to be overshadowed and at length to be dispersed; and then they wanted to have the heaven which they knew, outside themselves; and they called this heaven, and then there was no longer any internal. It was also permitted them to have heaven outside themselves; and this consisted in amazing magnificence which was indescribable, in palaces, in colonnades, in galleries, in embellishments, in paradises, also in dignities and the like; and also in grandeur from multitudes of servants; thus, in dignity alone, and in external self-worship for the sake of these things. At length, when they were not able to have such things from the Lord, because they regarded themselves and not the Lord, from Whom those things were, they provided them for themselves, through phantasies and arts unknown in the world - which are innumerable. Thus they went on incessantly; not that those who were of the first resurrection were such, but those who [came] afterwards for as these came into heaven, the Lord, of Divine Providence, removed the former ones, or secreted them there, so that they should not be seen; wherefore, when they placed all things in nothing else than external splendors and pleasures, then, at last, this judgment came which has been spoken of.