star which went before them signified cognition from heaven; gold signified celestial good; frankincense, spiritual good; and myrrh, natural good; from which three is all worship. But still there was no knowledge whatever of correspondences among the Israelitish and Jewish people, although all things of their worship, and all the statutes and judgments given them by Moses, and all things in the Word, were pure correspondences. The reason was that at heart they were idolaters, and therefore of such a character that they were not even willing to know that anything of their worship signified what is celestial and spiritual, for they believed that all those things were holy in themselves; if therefore things celestial and spiritual had been laid open to them, they would not only have rejected but even profaned them; for this reason heaven was so closed to them that they scarcely knew that there was an eternal life. That this was so is evident from the fact that they did not acknowledge the Lord, although the whole Sacred Scripture prophesied of Him and foretold His advent. They rejected Him for the sole reason that He taught them of a heavenly and not of an earthly kingdom; for they wanted a Messiah who should exalt them above all the nations in the world, and not any Messiah who should have care for their eternal salvation. (T. C. R. n. 204, 205.)
Why the Spiritual Sense of the Word was not revealed before.
The knowledge of correspondences through which the spiritual sense of the Word is given was not disclosed after that time, because the Christians in the primitive church were so exceedingly simple that it could not have been disclosed to them; for if it had been disclosed it would have been of no use to them, nor would they have understood it. After their times darkness arose upon the whole Christian world; first, through the heresies of many that were spread abroad, and immediately afterwards through the counsels and decrees of the Council of Nice concerning three Divine Persons from eternity, and concerning the Person of Christ, that He was the Son of Mary and not the Son of Jehovah God. Thence came forth the present belief in justification, in which they approach three Gods in their order; on which belief each and all things of the present church depend, as the members of the body upon its head. And as they applied all things in the Word to confirm this erroneous belief, the spiritual sense could not be disclosed; for if it had been disclosed they would have applied that sense also to the same purpose, and thereby would have profaned the very holiness of the Word, and so would have entirely closed heaven against themselves, and removed the Lord from the church.
