14. GENESIS—CHAPTER III

Apostle speaks of the Christian Church as a Man*—“one new man”†—“a perfect man;”

is to say, he speaks of the Church as being

—one new Adam—a perfect Adam, the noun or Adam being collective; in which sense the

Christian Church might be called an Adamic ch.

r Lord, moreover, is called the second Adam,‡ the Church is said to be His body;§ thus, “for body’s sake, which is the Church,”||—“the ch which is His body”¶—“He gave some les . . . for the edifying of the body of Christ, e all come unto a perfect man, unto the measure e stature of the fulness of Christ,”**—“we many are one body in Christ, and every one ers one of another,”††—“ye are the body of t and members in particular.”

is human body, or this man, is not the world in al, or the human race in general, or society in

* Ephes. ii. 15.

† Ephes. iv. 13.

r. xv. 47. § Col. i. 24. || Ephes. i. 23. ¶ Ephes. iv. 12.

** Rom. xii. 5. †† Rom. xii. 27.

B general; but that society which is specifically called the Church, because the principle of life, hence of organization and unity, hence of society properly so called, is in the Church. This is the view of the subject taken by the Apostle. The Church, however, was not destined to arrive at a perfect humanity, or Adamic nature, till the last dispensation, when there were to be new heavens and a new earth; and, as a consequence, that Paradisiacal state in which the Church would obey the commandments of God, and again be admitted to the Tree of Life.

We see then what is the meaning of the expression Adamic Church; and accordingly, apart from the language of the Apostle, many have selected the successive ages of the individual man, or of some hypothetical universal man, or colossal man, as the best exemplification of the philosophical principles of history. Florus,* in the proemium to his Roman history, represents the Romans under the form of a human being, in his different stages from infancy to old age:

"If any one therefore," says he, "will contemplate the Roman people as a Man, and will note his entire age throughout, how he had his beginning, how he grew up to adolescence, how he arrived at a certain flower of youth (or maturity), and then afterwards passed on to old age, he will find four different stages and progressions."

Pascal observes† that "the whole succession of men during the course of so many ages from the

* See Adam Clarke on Daniel, chap. ii., Discourse on Nebuchadnezzar's Dream.

† Bishop of St. David's Charge, 1863, p. 41. 2nd Ed.

beginning, ought to be considered as one and the same Man who is always subsisting and continually learning; whence the old age of this universal Man ought not to be sought for in the times near to his birth, but in those which are farthest from it."

The same idea is presented in the article on The Education of the World in the Essays and Reviews; for, after observing that each successive age incorporates into itself the substance of the preceding, the author remarks:—

"This power,* whereby the present ever gathers into itself the results of the past, transforms the human race into a colossal Man, whose life reaches from the Creation to the day of Judgment. The successive generations of men are days in this man's life. The discoveries and inventions which characterize the different epochs of this world's history, are his works. The creeds and doctrines, the opinions and principles of the successive ages, are his thoughts. The state of society at different times are his manners. He grows in knowledge, in self-control, in visible size, just as we do. And his education is in the same way and for the same reason, precisely similar to ours.—All this is no figure, but only a compendious statement of a very comprehensive fact."

On the same principle Lord Bacon observes†—

"Antiquitas sæculi juventus mundi. These (or the present times) are the ancient times when the world is ancient; and not those which we account ancient, ordine retrogrado, by a computation backward from ourselves."

We thus see that the type both of man and the

* Page 3.

† Advancement of Learning, p. 46, Montagu's Ed. See our Appendix.

B 2 human body, is employed both by sacred and secular writers to represent the state of society; but that the sacred writers apply it to represent the Church, and secular writers mankind in general. At this point, however, commences a vast divergence. For if we regard the first state of man after he had been placed in Paradise, as constituting the infancy or the childhood of the world; and subsequent history, as that of the world's developments out of childhood into manhood, it is obvious that there is no place for the commonly received doctrine of the FALL, and hence no basis for the doctrines of Redemption, hereditary evil, regeneration, and so forth; as, indeed, is openly asserted by many who advocate this view of the subject. For in infancy and childhood the moral sense is not developed, there is no genuine knowledge of good and evil, and the information said to be generally suited to that state is that of fabulous legends and fairy tales, which is all that we can expect at so early an age.

That such a view of the subject undermines the teaching of the Church, is perfectly clear; but it is also clear, that if the state of Paradise did really constitute the infancy of the world, from out of which the world has been advancing to childhood, youth, and maturity, it is in vain to protest against the necessary consequence. Where, then, lies the error? for, unquestionably, the world has experienced its infancy. The error lies in this; that the infancy of the human race has been placed in Paradise, instead of out of it: in the garden of Eden, instead of the state of Chaos. The early history of mankind must therefore be carried back to a period of much more remote antiquity than is usually done,—a period when the human mind is confessed to have been a spiritual chaos,—without form, and void, and when darkness was upon the face of the deep. At that time, indeed, the Adamic Church was not; for the human mind had yet to pass from infancy to childhood, from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, that is, to a formation of man into the image and likeness of God. Accordingly, the constitution of a Church out of a state of Chaos, as described in the first chapter of Genesis, might require a much longer succession of ages than the interval between the state of Paradise and the present day.

This view of the subject has acquired a vast importance, as well as probability, from recent researches into the Antiquity of Man:

"The mind,"* says a modern writer, "is lost in astonishment in looking back at such a vast antiquity of human beings. A tribe of men in existence hundreds of thousands of years before any of the received dates of Creation! savages who hunted with their flint-headed arrows, the gigantic elk of Ireland, and the buffalo of Germany, or who fled from the fierce tiger of France, or who trapped the immense clumsy mammoth of northern Europe. Who were they? we ask ourselves in wonder. Was there with man, as with other forms of animal life, a long and gradual progression from the lowest condition to a higher, till at length the world was made ready for a more developed human being, and the Creator placed the first of the present family of man upon earth?

* The Races of the Old World, by Charles Brace, p. 341. See also The Philosophy of Geology, by David Page, F.R.S.E., F.G S., p. 115.

Were those European barbarians of the Drift Period a Primeval race, destroyed before the creation of our own race; and lower and more barbarian than the lowest of the present inhabitants of the world? Or, as seems more probable, were these mysterious beings—the hunters of the mammoth and the aurochs—the earliest progenitors of our own family, the childish fathers of the human race?"

"The subject hardly yet admits of an exact and scientific answer. We can merely here state the probability of a vast antiquity to human beings, and of the existence of the Fossil or PRE-ADAMITIC MAN."

These remarks may suffice to shew the probability of a long and gradual progression from the lowest condition of human nature to a higher, i.e., from a state of Chaos to a state of Paradise, or to the constitution of an Adamic Church, described, as we have already seen, in the first chapter of Genesis. Indeed a modern writer goes so far as to say,*—"It appears, therefore, that Holy Scripture does not forbid, nay, rather that it requires, a belief in the existence of Pre-Adamites of our species, whose posterity was not destroyed with the unbelieving Adamites by the waters of the Deluge."

When therefore we find, as in the Essays and Reviews,† that the modern discovery of the Antiquity of the human race militates against the Divine authority of the early chapters of Genesis, we observe, that this is no discovery of modern Science: for more than a century since, an interpretation of these chap-

* The Genesis of the Earth and of Man. By Reginald Stuart Poole, M.R.S.L., etc., of the British Museum, p. 103.

† Essay 3. Study of the Evidences of Christianity, p. 129.

ers was founded upon the very fact of the Antiquity of man, and the very language of the book of Genesis itself; and the writer remarked—

"It is* believed by many persons, that Adam and Eve, mentioned in the book of Genesis, do not mean the first of the human race that were created on the earth; and in support of this opinion, they produce arguments from chronological computations found among some people and nations, which favour the existence of men prior to Adam; and also from what Cain, Adam's first-born, said to Jehovah, Gen. iv. 14—18; whence they conclude that the earth was inhabited before the time of Adam. In addition to this, I have abundantly demonstrated . . . . that Adam and his wife mean the most ancient Church that existed on our earth, and . . . . that the garden of Eden means the wisdom of the men of that Church," etc.

Upon this principle we find the philosophical, the scientific, and the biblical accounts concerning the infancy and antiquity of man all harmonize with each other; and indeed with historical traditions; as, for instance, with those furnished by Hesiod, concerning the gold, silver, brass, and iron ages, upon which we need not here enlarge; though it will be desirable to see whether any further light is thrown upon this part of the subject by Scripture.

Now there will be seen to be a remarkable parallelism between the metallic ages of the world as described by Hesiod, and those of the Church as described in Daniel; for in Daniel we have a repre-

* Swedenborg's True Christian Religion, art. 466. See our Appendix.

sentation of the "universal" or "colossal man," composed of gold, silver, brass, iron and clay; but the succession is one not of amelioration but of deterioration. There is in fact, in the history of the Church or "the colossal" or "universal man," a transition from gold down to an incoherent mixture of iron and clay. But if the age of Paradise was that of the childhood of the world, the order ought to be inverted; and the head of the image should be of iron and clay, representing the sensuous, earthly, and incoherent knowledges of that period. Then would follow not a fall into a lower condition (for a lower there could not be), but a rise into a higher, represented by brass; then a rise into a still higher, represented by silver, and finally we should reach the age of gold. We might thus dispense with the doctrine of the FALL altogether, and with all the doctrines of Christianity founded upon it: for now we must regard the Fall as only the first effort to rise, and consequently must turn the foundation of Christianity, and the doctrines which are built upon it, upside down.

Accordingly, there is a strong tendency in the present day to effect this purpose:

"Man's previous state," (says a Select Preacher* from the University pulpit, referring to the state in Paradise,) "happier though it may have been in a sense, was clearly a lower state than his present condition. In it he had dominion over the lower creatures, had language, social comforts, power of improvement; for he was set to till the ground; but there he stopped. Not till he had found his way to the knowledge of

* Rev. G. W. Kitchin, M.A., Junior Proctor.

good and evil, did he become 'as one of us;' and even in spite of the Fall win a place in a higher rank, with higher hopes, and a desire to take of that other fruit, and so to live for ever."

Again:

"The age of iron" (says another modern writer) "was never consciously felt except in connection with an anticipated golden one, and the deeply deplored 'Fall' was only the first mental symptom of the effort to rise."*

We must beware, then, how we regard the human body, or man, or Adam, as representing only the kingdoms of this world, as we find so generally the case; for, as we have seen, the Apostle certainly did not apply them to the kingdoms of this world but to the Church; it is, therefore, in its application to the Church that we proceed to consider the dream of Nebuchadnezzar.

"Thou,† O king, sawest, and behold A GREAT IMAGE, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee, and the form thereof was terrible. This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron, part of clay."

This great image, as we have stated, is the "colossal" or "universal man," representing the Church. Let us now see what has been said upon this subject.

In general, when the golden age has been identified with that of Paradise, it has been identified also with that of the Church; for it would have been absurd to speak of it as representing merely the political condition of our first parents; and consistency re-

* Mackay's Tübingen School, p. 61.

† Daniel ii. 31.

B 3 quires, that the same application to the Church should be extended throughout the whole succession of metallic ages.

"The most ancient people," says Swedenborg,* "compared the principles of goodness and truth in man, to metals; the inmost or celestial goodness relating to love to the Lord, to gold; the truths thence derived, to silver; inferior or natural goods, to brass; and inferior truths, to iron. Nor did they only use such comparisons, but they also called the things signified, by the names of the metals whereby they were signified. Hence periods of time also were likened to the same metals, and were called the golden, the silver, the brazen, and the iron ages. The Golden age was the time of the Most Ancient Church, which was a celestial man. The Silver age was the time of the Ancient Church, which was a spiritual man. The age of Brass was the time of the succeeding Church; which was followed by the age of Iron. The like is signified by the statue which Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream, whose head was of fine gold, his breast and arms of silver, his belly and thighs of brass, his legs of iron. That the periods of the Church were so to succeed or did so succeed, appears in the same chapter in the same prophet. That silver in the internal sense of the Word wherever it occurs, signifies truth and in an opposite sense the false, appears from the following passages: 'For brass I will bring gold, for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stone iron, and I will make thy officers peace, and thine exactors righteousness;' where it is evident what

* Arcana Celestia, 1551; also 10,355.

is signified by every metal. The subject there treated of is the coming of the Lord, and His celestial kingdom and church. Gold for brass, denotes celestial good instead of natural good: silver for iron, denotes spiritual truth instead of natural truth: brass for wood, denotes natural good instead of corporeal good: iron for stones, denotes natural truth instead of sensual truth."*

From these remarks we may see not only the order of declension but the nature of it, viz., from gold to silver, from the will to the intellect, or from goodness to truth; from silver to brass, or from the knowledge of spiritual truth to natural good; from brass to iron and clay, or from natural good to an incoherent mixture of natural truth and sensuous truth; the whole "colossal" or "universal man" being finally to be broken in pieces by the stone cut out of the mountain. Now we need not suppose the transition from one metal to another, as of gold to silver, to be sudden or abrupt; for the gold may become dim, and the most fine gold changed; and the silver may become dross; and the fine brass tarnished, and the iron become mixed with impurities, gradually. We have already seen some of the phases of declension through which the golden age passed; as first, when the Church was in the highest state of purity in Paradise; secondly, when it no longer wished to be alone, or separated internally, as were the Jews externally, from surrounding nations; and when consequently the unity of its being represented by Adam, or homo, became separated into two principles, the

* See our Appendix.

external masculine reason or vir, and the feminine affection or mulier; and yet these two principles became conjoined in harmony with each other, and the Church abode still in innocence, actual guilt being as yet unknown.

We now proceed to shew how even this state of unity began to decline; and how the two harmonizing principles, the man and the woman, began to resolve themselves into three, the man, the woman, and the serpent. In order, however, to explain this third phase of the Adamic Church, we must first have recourse to the psychology of Scripture.

According to this psychology, man himself is distinguished into two components, the outward man and the inward man, or the external man and the internal man. Thus the Apostle says,—"Though* our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day"—"Being† strengthened with might—in the inner man,"—"I‡ delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members," viz., in the outward man. Elsewhere the Apostle calls the inner man the spiritual man, the outward man the natural man; hence he observes, "the§ natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned;" i.e., they can be examined and understood only by spiritual illumination. Πνεῦμα is here the inward man, or the rational mind enlightened by the Spirit of God; ψυχή the outward man unen-

* 2 Cor. iv. 16.

† Ephes. iii. 16.

‡ Rom. vii. 22.

§ 1 Cor. ii. 14.

lightened by the Spirit of God. Now as the outward and inward man are thus distinguished from each other, so is the way of access to each. The way to the outward man is outward, that is, from the outward world, through the outward senses, to the rational faculty. In this case the rational mind is built up on the foundation of the senses; on what the eye hath seen, and the ear hath heard, and the heart of man hath conceived; and the knowledge thus obtained, which in the world passes for wisdom, may be called the wisdom of this world, as being derived from the things of time and space, hence from what is commonly called Nature.

On the other hand, the way to the rational faculty of the spiritual man is altogether distinct, and indeed opposite to the other; for instead of leading from without to within, it leads from within to without; hence, according to the Apostle, the light which the inner man receives comes not from the outer man, or the outer world, but from the inner man who receives it from the Spirit of God; and therefore the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him, says the Apostle, "God hath revealed to us by his Spirit." In this case, when the rational faculty of the outward man reasons concerning spiritual things, it reasons from the intuitions of the inner or spiritual man, which intuitions are so many first principles. On the other hand, when the merely natural man reasons concerning spiritual things, there being no inner or spiritual man, he has no such intuitions; hence he has nothing to direct him to any conclusions, and the whole argument of the spiritual man seems to him the baseless fabric of a vision, or as ever taking for granted things which require to be proved.

Now we have shewn, on a former occasion, how the intuitions of the inner man were created; how the outward man was afterwards brought into harmony with the inward, and how consequently the very outward man became a living soul, living and breathing from the inward. This life was the angelic life of man in Paradise, in consequence of which he had intercourse with angels, was endowed with angelic wisdom, and from this wisdom had an insight into the secrets of Nature. This order of thought corresponded to what is now called synthetic, in which we proceed from ends to causes, from causes to effects, from first principles to conclusions. On the contrary, the natural man proceeds, in natural science, by the analytical method, from effects to causes, from particular instances, by induction from observation and experiment, to general principles.

Apply this method of observation and experiment to the Adamic Church, and we must conclude that so far from that Church being endowed with the most exalted wisdom, it must have been in possession only of the fairy tales of childhood. Thus—

"To* the earliest ancestors of the human race the world must have been an almost unintelligible riddle. In the dark abyss of time man began, unaided and undisciplined, to make those guesses at truth which he has continued to make ever since. The first explanation of Nature was inevitably incorrect and fictitious. Systematic observation requires

* Westminster Review; January, 1864. p. 50.

"THE SERPENT—MORE SUBTLE."

time: to institute comparison or experiment argues a degree of mental enlargement which did not exist in the infancy of the race; and without observation, experiment, and comparison no true science can possibly be constructed. In the absence of real knowledge, a sham knowledge sprang up. Mankind, like children, began life with fairy tales."

If now it be admitted, that there is no other possible access to the rational faculty than through the medium of the senses, or to the πνεῦμα than through the medium of the ψυχή; and if we date the infancy of mankind from Paradise instead of Chaos, it seems impossible to come to any other conclusion. All this, however, arises from assigning a wrong date to the infancy of mankind; and from ignoring altogether the higher way leading to the intellectual faculties, the way leading not from without to within, but from within to without, or from heaven to earth.

It is, accordingly, with this higher way of acquiring wisdom that we are at present concerned. We have consequently to treat of an order of thought, which, however it may have existed in Paradise, does not exist now; and we have further to shew, how the Fall consisted in a descent from this order of thought into that which now prevails; which we are enabled to shew with the aid of the psychology taught by the Apostle. In the present age, the way of acquiring wisdom which existed in Paradise, would be thought miraculous; but it was not so then. There is a nature proper to the spiritual world, and there is a nature proper to the material world; but there are also laws proper to both, and as such there are supernatural laws as well as natural laws; but the laws supernatural are so called only in the sense of the supernatural being above the natural, the heavenly nature above the earthly. Not that the two are independent of each other, but connected with each other by mutual correspondence. It is in consequence of this correspondence that we are enabled to use, as symbols, the objects of the natural world to represent the things of the spiritual world.

Now, in treating of the Adamic Church we observe, that the narrative in Genesis furnishes the history of its inner life: hence the history of the inner workings both of the will and intellect, which Jehovah God alone could reveal; and therefore it may be called the Divine history of the inner life of the Church, such as He only who is the life of the Church, could reveal. If then the Tree of lives represents, as we have seen, this inmost life of the Church; the exclusion from this Tree, and consequently from the inner life it represented, involves the order of descent from the inner life to the outward, from the inner perceptions of Divine wisdom to the outward fallacies of the senses; consequently, from spiritual life to spiritual death. The case would have been otherwise, if, as some have assumed, the state of the Adamic Church was not one of angelic wisdom but of childish ignorance; for then we should have to contemplate Paradise as a garden of the senses, and the Fall itself as the first upward movement of the human mind. To those who take this view of the subject, our present observations cannot but appear as mystical. This we cannot help. The childishness which has been attributed to the Adamic Church, we regard as not of that age, but of this; as not of the Sacred narrative, but of its modern interpreters. Either the Adamic Church had an inward and celestial life, or it had not. If it had not, what becomes of the Fall? If it had, we are only aiming to describe what it was, how it was lost, and how it is to be regained: thus, how the Church lived, how it died, and how it was to be raised up again.

With these introductory remarks we proceed to the exposition of the Third Chapter of Genesis.

1. "And the serpent was more subtle than any wild beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

When it was said, "They were both naked and were not ashamed," the word which is there translated naked, is the same with that which is here translated subtle. In a bad sense it signifies to be subtle and cunning: in a good sense it signifies to be prudent, sagacious, or discerning. When it signifies to be naked in a bad sense, it implies guilt; in a good sense, innocence. Thus the same word signifies guilt and innocence, what is good and what is evil, consequently opposites; and the subtlety lies in passing from one to the other without its being perceived; thus from the nakedness of innocency to the nakedness of guilt, from wisdom to cunning, from faith to unbelief, from good to evil.

So likewise the serpent itself has opposite meanings; for it may be taken in a good sense, and in a bad sense: it may signify the Redeemer, or it may signify the devil: it may signify wisdom, as when it is said, Be ye wise as serpents; or it may signify magic and sorcery. Nay, the very term wisdom itself is sometimes used to signify deception or cunning, as when Pharaoh said, "Let* us deal wisely with the Israelites," meaning craftily and cunningly; and when it is said, that† "God taketh the wise in their own craftiness;" "my‡ people are wise to do evil;" "the wisdom§ of this world is foolishness with God;" "thy wisdom|| and thy knowledge it hath perverted thee:" "the children¶ of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.

When, according to the psychology of the Apostle, the external mind was subordinate to the internal, the Church was in the perception and discernment of real truths both internally and externally; but when the external mind had gained the ascendancy over the internal, the perception of real truths was lost, and in its place there succeeded the perception of only apparent truths, by which, nevertheless, as we have seen, the innocence of man was for a time preserved. But apparent good and truth partake of the nature of fallacies; and fallacies are the media which lead to opposites; for in this case evil is not seen as evil but as apparently good, and the false is not seen as false, but as apparently true. Fallacies therefore, as such, are themselves opposites under the appearance of not being opposites. The subtlety lies in their appearance, and their appearance results from our judging according to the senses; whence our Lord says, "Judge not according to appearances, but judge righteous judgment."

As, then, in the case of fallacies, opposites are not

* Exodus i. 10. † Job v. 13. ‡ Jer. iv. 22. § 1 Cor. iii. 19.

|| Isaiah xlvii. 10. ¶ Luke xvi. 8.

seen to be opposites; so likewise any transition from one opposite to the other is equally unperceived. Apparently there is no transition; nevertheless such a transition must have existence; and in the case of good and evil is effected by intermediates; just as in the case of reasoning, we pass from the premises by intermediate propositions to the conclusion.

"The intermediates which conjoin opposites,"* says Swedenborg, "are the fallacies of the external senses; and also those things which are said in the Word according to appearance." For fallacies may be made the means of conveying truths to the apprehension, or they may be made the means of conveying falsities. They convey truths when the fallacies are the result of truth descending into the mind, and being accommodated to the state in which the mind is; as in the case of children, and the ignorant and simple but well-disposed. On the other hand, they convey falsities when they do not proceed from truths descending into the mind and accommodated to the appearances in which the mind is; but when they come from without, and are regarded as genuine truths apprehended by the rational faculty, and hence as convertible into first principles upon which doctrine may be founded. There is not a single religious truth which cannot be falsified, and the falsification confirmed by fallacies; the nature of the fallacies arising from the nature of the sensuous state in which a man is, the quality of which is represented by the corresponding kind of serpent: thus we read of the red dragon, of water serpents, land serpents, fiery

* Arcana Celestia, art. 7344.—See our Appendix.

flying serpents, and so forth. The very same fallacies, therefore, may be innocent or sinful, according to the source from which they proceed: they may be the vehicle of religious and devotional feelings; or they may be profane, blasphemous, and diabolical.

Let us illustrate the case by examples.

The Bible says that God repents: in another place, that he is not a man that he should repent. The former is the apparent or sensuous truth, the latter the real or rational truth; and yet the apparent truth is only the real truth accommodated to the sensuous state of the mind; because the rational mind is in the inverse order of the senses. The Bible says that God is angry; this is the sensuous truth: also, that He is love itself and unchangeable; this is the rational truth; but this truth, in order to be accommodated to the sensuous mind, must be expressed in the inverse order. The Bible says that God punishes the wicked and casts them into Hell: this is the apparent truth: the rational or genuine truth is that man punishes himself and casts himself into Hell: but this truth cannot be accommodated to the external mind without assuming the inverted order in which the external mind is. The Bible says that God is pacified and reconciled to us; this is the sensuous truth: but it also says that it is we who are reconciled to God; this is the rational truth, which is accommodated to the inverse order of the sensuous mind by itself being inverted. The Bible says that God rested from his works; this is the sensuous truth: and again, that He is never weary and fainteth not; this is the rational truth. Now, the merely sensuous mind can never accommodate itself to the rational; because by creation it is in the inverse order of the rational; for the organ of sight cannot but see the sun as setting, while the truly rational mind cannot but contemplate it as stationary. And yet the philosopher may speak of the setting of the sun; and the rational divine of God repenting, and being angry, and being reconciled, and resting from all his works; only in so doing he must remember, that he is but accommodating the truths of the rational mind, thus of manhood, to the apprehensions of the sensuous mind, thus of childhood. If otherwise, he reasons from the senses to the intellect. There is no greater mistake in theology than to confound these two, and to put forth sensuous truths as rational truths; apparent truths as real truths, and then to regard them as the foundation of a system of teaching. In this way the whole system of Christianity might be falsified, and every doctrine of Scripture misrepresented. Indeed, this is no other than interpretation by the Serpent; in consequence of which Christianity is converted into a mere accumulation of fallacies, hence of incoherencies and inconsistencies.

To say that God tempted Abraham, and then to say that God tempts no man, are not incommensurable propositions in any other view than that reason and the senses are incommensurable; and in this case it is not the rational mind that regards them as incommensurable, but the sensuous; for the sensuous cannot of itself adapt itself to the rational, though the rational may to the sensuous. Hence the anthropomorphisms in Scripture are only adaptations of rational truths to the external mind. Even, however, the highest forms of truth presented to the Adamic Church in Paradise, were anthropomorphic; for neither men nor angels can ever conceive the absolutely Divine. It is only through some human form that God makes known his divine thoughts to man: it is only with these human expressions of truth that man is concerned. But in the person of our Lord the human is now divine, and the divine is human. In him we cannot contemplate the human as non-divine, or the divine as non-human. He is himself the Divine human: He is no incarnate antinomy; in Him the Divine and human are not incommensurable: otherwise, the person of our Lord would be the very centre of contradictories; and every truth in his Divine mind would be contradicted in his human.

We may, then, be thankful that God has been pleased to accommodate his truths to the human mind by sensuous anthropomorphisms as long as the mind is sensuous; but when it becomes rational, these external forms of truth are resolved into rational anthropomorphisms, and are thus accommodated to the rational mind: for in the person of Christ the Divine itself is anthropomorphic. Antinomies therefore do not arise from any contradiction between the Divine and human; but between the internal and external of the human mind, in consequence of their being presented in different planes.

We say then with a modern writer:*—

"Now in truth there is no real opposition between these contrasted statements. To call them contradictions is a

* Bampion Lectures by Dr. Hannah, p. 95.

mere ignoratio elenchi: they cannot contravene each other, because their movement lies in different planes."

But are these different planes unconnected with each other? No: the lower subsists from the higher, the external from the internal; and when thus rationally viewed, the external bears its testimony to the internal. For if we view a figure through what we know to be an inverting medium, we know that the position of the figure, thus seen, is inverted; and this being the case, the inverting medium bears its testimony to the real position of the figure. But if we knew not that the medium possessed this inverting power, into what errors might we not fall in arguing from the visible position as the real one? If then in any narrative it were to be affirmed in one place, that the figure was upright, and in another place that it was inverted, we have here a corresponding antinomy in physical science. Each is true in its own way, but not in the same way: the upright position is the real truth, the inverted position the apparent; but the apparent must be made to conform to the real, not vice versa.

In regard to the relation between the Infinite and the finite, it cannot give rise to any antinomies, because we have no expressions for the Infinite. No creature can conceive what is Infinite, consequently can give no statement of Infinite truth in contrast with finite conceptions of it. It is phenomenal truth, not Divine essential truth, that is revealed to us. Hence even the Tree of lives represented only phenomenal truth, in so far as it represented the truth as perceived by man. But it was truth as it appeared to the celestial mind, which was in the likeness and image of the Divine mind, or of Love, Wisdom, and Power. When this is the order of the human mind, then also the trinity in man is in genuine correspondence with the Trinity in God. In this inmost region of the affections and thoughts there are no antinomies, no apparent contradictions; for these exist in a different and lower plane of the mind, and are all true in their order, but only in the manner we have explained.

To proceed with the interpretation.

As the man (vir) represents the internal reason, so now the woman represents the ψυχή, or the affections of the will, which ought to be in subordination to internal truth, or to the man vir or the masculine reason. When they are not in subordination, the affections are set upon things without, such as those which are presented by the senses, which in this case perform the office of the Serpent or the tempter. Whence the love of the woman becomes perverted, and, being alienated from the husband, is changed into vanity, pride, conceit, or in general self-love, of which therefore in this case she becomes the representative, as in the case of Babylon in the Apocalypse. This self-love is the soul of self-intelligence, and of all its reasonings as founded upon fallacies. This is the real ground of the subtle influence of the serpent; for if the affections of the external mind were not alienated from the internal, the influence of the Serpent would cease. But of this, more in the sequel.

The Woman then may represent opposites, according to the opposite states in which she may be. She may represent the true Church, or she may represent the false Church; just as in like manner the Serpent may represent opposites; as when in one part of Scripture it represents the Devil, in another, the Redeemer. Moreover the Tree of knowledge of good and evil is itself the Tree of the knowledge of opposites: but this tree now occupies the midst of the garden.

In the Paradisiacal state it was the Tree of Lives which was in the midst of the Garden: the midst or centre of the Garden was then celestial love; from this love proceeded wisdom; from wisdom, intelligence or understanding guiding the reason; from intelligence, science or knowledge; so that celestial love was the centre, and knowledge the circumference. The order is now inverted: the Tree of knowledge now occupies the midst, or the central love (the perverted Eden), and the Tree of life the circumference. This inversion of order represents an inversion of the order of thought: and as the order of thought is now inverted, so is the nature of love inverted and changed into self-love.

"If a man," says Swedenborg,* "wishes to be wise with a wisdom derived from the world, things sensual and scientific are his Garden; self-love and the love of the world are his Eden: his East is the west or himself: his river Euphrates is all his scientific principle which is accursed; the other river Hiddekel toward Assyria, is wild infatuated reasoning productive of falsities: the third river Gihon, compassing the land of Cush, is formed of the principles of evil and the false thence derived, which are the

* Arcana Celestia, art. 130.

C knowledges of his faith: the fourth Pison, is wisdom originating in those principles, which, in the Word, are called magic: wherefore Egypt, which signifies science, after it became addicted to magic, signifies such a person; the true ground of which signification is frequently noted in the Word, as consisting in a desire to grow wise with a wisdom originating in self."

We thus see how the Tree of knowledge in the midst of the Garden is an inversion of the Tree of lives; and that to eat of the fruit of the Tree of knowledge so situated, is to partake of an inverted life. The command of God, therefore, not to eat of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil, is founded upon the very nature of the Tree itself; and the temptation of the woman by the Serpent to eat of that Tree, shews the predominance of the senses over the affections signified by the woman; while the woman giving to the man, shews the predominance of the external affections over the internal reason signified by the man. Hence Augustine observes:—

"In every one of us even now, when any one falls into sin, nothing else is done than was transacted in those three, the Serpent, the Woman, and the Man. For first of all is made the suggestion, whether through the medium of thought or the senses of the body, such as seeing, hearing, tasting, or smelling. When the suggestion is made, then if desire be not excited to sin, the cunning of the Serpent will be excluded from entrance: but if the desire be excited, then will the Woman as it were be persuaded. Sometimes, however, a manly reason both bridles and restrains the desire even when excited. Whenever this happens, then we do not fall into sin, but, after wrestling with the evil, are crowned with vicry. If, on the other hand, reason gives its consent, and determines to do that which lust has excited, then is man excelled from all blessedness of life as from Paradise. For in this case sin is imputed, even though the deed be not performed; hence, in yielding consent, the conscience is held guilty."

Now Dr. Conyers Middleton* was no mystic, and set upon these interpretations of Augustine his observations are as follow:—

"'Tis necessary, then, for the satisfaction of our reason and the quieting our scruples, to desert the outward letter and search for the hidden allegorical sense of the story: where shall not take the trouble of collecting all the fancies and whimsical solutions of the Rabbins and the Fathers; but consent myself with proposing one which appears to me the most probable and rational of them all; viz., that by Adam he are to understand reason or the mind of man; by Eve, the flesh or outward senses; by the Serpent, lust or pleasure: in which allegory we see clearly explained the true senses of man's fall and degeneracy: that as soon as his mind, through the weakness and treachery of his senses, became captivated and seduced by the allurements of lust and pleasure, he was driven by God out of Paradise; that is, lost and defeated the happiness and prosperity which he had enjoyed by his innocence. All this is intelligible and rational; agreeable not only to the common notions and traditions of history, but to the constant and established method of God's providence, who has wisely constituted misery, sorrow, and the debasement of our nature, to be the natural and necessary effect of vice and sin.

"This interpretation is embraced by several of the ancients, particularly St. Austin, who tells us that the same thing is treated over again in every one of us, as oft as we fall into sin,

* See his works, vol. iii., Letter to Dr. Waterland, p. 22.

c 2 that was represented by the Serpent, the Woman, and the Man: for there is, 'says he,' a suggestion or insinuation, either by a thought or the senses of the body: by which, if our inclination is not prevailed with to sin, then is the subtlety of the Serpent baffled and banished; but if it is prevailed with, then we yield as it were to the persuasions of the Woman: and when our reason has consented to execute what our lust had moved, then is Man effectually driven out, and expelled from all possession of happiness, as from a Paradise. Now, whatever opinion this Father might on other occasions declare, as he was not always very consistent with himself, yet at the time of writing the book whence this passage is taken, he was persuaded that in the history of the Creation and Fall of Man, we could not avoid absurdities and blasphemy toward God, without giving up the literal meaning and trusting wholly to an allegorical exposition of it."

This interpretation varies but little* from the one we have already given; and is founded upon the necessity of an allegorical interpretation, of which Cajetan was equally an advocate; for, after observing that the language of the Serpent was not vocal, but the language of internal suggestion, he observes:—

"And the same kind of language is to be understood by the whole of the dialogue between the Serpent and the woman. For these metaphorical senses are not only reasonable and in accordance with the sacred Scripture, but of not a little utility to a profession of the Christian faith, especially as regards the wise of this world. For when they perceive that these things are not such as the literal sense imports, and that we do not understand and believe these things according to the letter, they do not start back from the story

* Augustine seems to place the Serpent in an order before the Woman: if this be the case, it is a mistake.

29.

concerning the rib of Adam and the Serpent, as being fables; but revere them as mysteries, and the more easily embrace the things which are of faith."

This interpretation is moreover in accordance with the meaning of the Apostle when he said,* "For I have espoused you unto one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ."

In these words, we have the same thing acted over again in the Christian Church, which is presented to us in the Book of Genesis. For, first of all, we have the Christian Church as being Adamic, in the sense already explained: then the Serpent as a false apostle transformed into an angel of light, and presenting the false as the true: then the fear of the Apostle, that through subtlety the Corinthians should be led to receive the false as the true, and so become another Church in consequence of receiving another Gospel. To receive this Gospel, would have been to eat of the Tree of knowledge of good and evil. Moreover, as the Apostle distinguishes man into spirit, soul, and body, so the masculine reason corresponds to the spirit; the woman to the soul; and the serpent to the senses of the body.

As the Serpent represents the senses, so it represents also all that is sensuous, and hence also sensuous reasoning, which is exceedingly subtle. "The reason† why a Serpent denotes reasoning from the

* 2 Cor. xi. 2.

† Arcana Celestia, art. 6398.

sensuous principle is, because the interiors of man are represented in heaven by animals of various kinds, and hence in the Word are signified by the same. The sensual things of man were represented by serpents; because sensual things are the lowest appertaining to man, and are respectively as earthly things, and as it were creeping; as also may be manifest from the forms through which sensual things flow.

"There* is nothing presented to view in the ultimates of Nature, or on this terrestrial globe, of which there does not exist some type in the heavens; such as grasses, flowers, trees, the fruits of Paradise and of the earth in general; as also animated beings, such as fishes, birds, quadrupeds. Even the very affections and inclinations of the mind, and numerous other things are represented in the heavens by animals of different kinds; such as thoughts, by birds of various forms; the intellect or intelligence, by horses; subtlety and craftiness, by serpents. Such representations are familiar to spirits and angels, so that there is nothing which may not be exhibited, even to the life, by similar forms. Adam, who was an inhabitant of heaven, or a spirit in a human form endowed with a human body, so that he might at the same time be an inhabitant of earth, had as yet learned no other kind of interior thought and speech than such as was representative; and therefore it is said that the serpent, which was the most subtle of all animals, spoke to him; or, according to the letter, that he addressed the woman, or, according to Schmidus, that he said to the woman."

* From a Posthumous work of Swedenborg.

"And he said unto the woman, Yea hath God said,

Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"

We have seen what is meant by the serpent, and partly what is meant by the woman; we shall now further consider what is meant by the woman and the man.

It has been shewn that by man (vir) is represented the masculine reason, or the rational mind; and the function of the rational mind is to understand truth.

Therefore, whether we say truth or the rational faculty which understands truth, each is masculine or active, and as such is represented by the man

(vir). In this case the genuine love or affection of the woman towards the man, is the love or affection of the woman toward truth, by which she is willing to be governed, thus to be passive.

Hence this love or affection of truth is the essentially feminine principle, or woman; and when these two principles, the knowledge of truth and the love of truth, are conjoined in one individual being, who, as Adam, is simultaneously male and female, then is man (homo) or Adam, as Augustine says,

"conjugal in himself." Hence, when Christ is regarded as the Word, or Divine Truth, or the Eternal Logos or Reason, the relation in which the

Church is represented as standing toward Him, is that of woman or the Bride, who is in the love or affection of Divine Truth or the Word; so that the two are represented as about to be united or married;

whence it is said that "the marriage of the Lamb is come, and the bride hath made herself ready."

Now the very Church itself, as the woman, is formed out of the body of Christ; for we are members, says the Apostle, of His body, of His flesh, and of his bones; and we have seen that as bone is a part of the body in which there is comparatively little life, so flesh is taken to signify that in which a higher or even the highest degree of life resides; whence in Scripture "the fleshly tables of the heart" is an expression signifying a heart softened or subdued by divine love.

The relation, then, of the woman to the man, is the same with the relation of the Church to Christ; for as the Church is said to be a member of his very bones, thus to be as it were formed out of them; so the woman in Genesis, is formed out of the bone of the man, i.e., out of truth in its ultimated or lowest forms, such as it is when apprehended by the external reason of the natural mind, or when it exists as a matter of memory or external science. Out of this external truth the woman had been formed, and from this had progressed to higher degrees of life represented by flesh; so that the man and the woman together, or the truth which is of thought, and the affection which is of will, had become one in regard to spiritual life, represented by "one flesh;"—"they shall be one flesh."

It is the disruption of this unity, that we are about to consider; and thus the transition of the woman from a good signification to a bad one.

When man was in his orderly state, the affection represented by the woman was an affection for truth; but for truth as it was in the masculine principle or reason, derived from Jehovah God or from an à priori source, as in the case of inspiration, or as represented

"THE SERPENT SAID—GOD SAID."

by the Tree of lives in the midst of the garden. When man declined into a disorderly state, wisdom was sought not from an à priori, but from an à posteriori source: in other words, not from within but from without; not from an internal source, but from an external; and this external source was substituted for the internal, and regarded as the very central source, the very midst of the garden, from which all perceptions of true knowledge were to be derived. Hence the affection of the woman was not for wisdom, but for science; not for internal truth, but for external truth; not for spiritual truth, but for natural truth; not for wisdom derived from heaven, but for knowledge derived from Nature. And so completely has this principle been verified in the present day, that men of science have sought for the wisdom of the Adamic Church in the cultivation of the natural sciences; and because they cannot find it, conclude that Paradise represented a state as rudimentary and ignorant as that of children!—all which arises from the false hypothesis, that there is only one way of access to the rational faculty, and that the à posteriori; and yet that there is another, might even be shewn from the instincts of animals,—the bird, the beaver, the bee, the ant, who know the sciences by an à priori way without observation, experiment, or comparison. But of this we shall treat further as we proceed.

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said." "The Serpent said—the woman said—God said."—What is meant by "God said?" We have already seen that by "the serpent said," is sigc 3 nified the internal suggestion of the serpent; and in like manner when we read that "God said," by saying in this case, is signified internal suggestion. Augustine has discoursed somewhat largely upon the subject; and on the passage, "God said it is not good that man should be alone," observes:*—

"Let us now see how we are here to understand the expression 'God said.' . . . Did God say these things in so many words and syllables uttered in time? Or is it an expression of the reason which was eminently in the Word of God, ordaining that the woman should be so made, and which reason the Scripture had always implied whenever it said, God said let this or that be, when all things were originally created? Or did God say this in the mind of the man himself, after the manner in which he speaks to some of his servants, in his servants themselves: of which kind of servants was he who said in the Psalm, 'I will hear what the Lord God shall speak in me?' Or was any revelation upon this subject made to the man himself, in the man himself by some Angel, in the manner of external voices, although Scripture is silent as to whether it was heard in dreams, or in an ecstasy; for revelations were made in this manner? Or did the revelation take place in some other way, such as occurred to the prophets, where it is written, 'And the Angel who spake in me, said unto me?' Or was it through the medium of some created substance that the voice was uttered, as when it was said from the cloud, 'This is my beloved Son?' Which of all these methods was adopted in the present case, we are not able clearly to comprehend. But let us most certainly maintain, that God did really say these things; and that if He said them with an audible voice, in the likeness of a bodily form, and under the conditions of time, He did so not in his own Person, but through the medium of some

* De Genesi ad literam, lib. ix.

"GOD SAID."

creature subordinated to his power, as we have already shewn in our preceding Book."

In this passage St. Augustine was unable to determine which of these methods of communication was employed by the Almighty in speaking to Adam; but, when the Serpent speaks, he says in his Treatise De Genesi contra Manichæos, that it was in the way of internal suggestion. Thus he observes:—

"Neither ought we to wonder how the Serpent could speak to the Woman, when the Woman was in Paradise and the Serpent was not; for even the woman was not in Paradise, so much in respect to place, as in respect to a state of blessedness; or, even though there were a place called Paradise in which Adam and the woman dwelt as to the body, ought we to understand the approach of the devil to have been made in a corporeal manner? Certainly not, but rather after a spiritual manner, as when the Apostle says —'according to the Prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.' Did then the Prince of the power of the air appear to them visibly; or approach by corporeal spaces to those in whom he works? Assuredly not; but whatever he is able to do, he in wonderful ways suggests through the medium of the thoughts; which suggestions they resist who can truly say with the Apostle,—'For we are not ignorant of his devices.' How did he approach to Judas when persuading him to betray the Lord? Was it by proximity of space, or was he visible to the bodily eyes? Nay, but rather as it is said, he entered into his heart. But if a man wishes to keep the garden of Paradise, he repels him. For God placed man in Paradise that he might dress and keep it; for so it is said of the Church in the Song of Songs.—'A Garden enclosed, a fountain sealed,' into which there is no admission for the

Author of perverse persuasions. Still, however, it is he who deceives, but by means of the woman. For our reason cannot be induced to consent to sin, except when delight is excited in that part of the mind which ought to obey reason as the ruling husband."

Thus it was in the way of internal suggestion that, as Augustine says, the Serpent spake to the woman; and according to Swedenborg, it was in the same way that God spake to Adam; but there is this difference in the source of the suggestions; suggestions proceeding from God, flow from within to without; suggestions proceeding from the Serpent flow from without to within. The order of suggestion in one case is contrary to the order of suggestion in the other: the order of thought, and thus the quality of the thoughts, in both cases run counter the one to the other: the one negatives the other. Hence the origin of affirmative and negative states of mind; of certainty, doubt, and denial; doubt being the intermediate between the extremes.

Deus affirmat: mulier dubitat: serpens negat. That is, Deus affirmat when God speaks to the internal mind by an internal way; thus producing internal intuitions which are the axiomatic principles, the yea, yea, and the nay, nay, of the internal or celestial mind; whence arise assurance and certainty. On the other hand, the Mulier, the external mind divided from the internal—dubitat. As long as it was under the control of the masculine reason and of its intuitions from within, there was no room for scepticism; but when it became separated from these intuitions, it had to seek light from another source,—from without instead of within: from the serpent instead of the husband. Thus the narrative in Genesis lays open the origin of all Scepticism and Infidelity.

And first with respect to Scepticism.

Lord Bacon has said, that, "He who begins with believing shall end in doubting, and he who begins with doubting shall end in believing." This is either true or untrue according to the quality of the doubt or belief. To doubt the truth of error is in itself a good: to doubt the truth of truth is in itself an evil. There are, however, circumstances since the Fall, under which to doubt the truth even of truth itself, is not always an evil. It was a maxim of the Fathers, that we must begin with believing, if we would understand: Crede, si vis intelligere. Upon this point, the observations of Swedenborg enable us to reconcile both Lord Bacon and St. Augustine with each other.

"There* are some persons who are in doubt before they deny; and there are others who are in doubt before they affirm. They who are in doubt before they deny, are those who incline to a life of evil; but they who are in doubt before they affirm, are those who incline to a life of goodness; to which life, when they suffer themselves to be bended by the Lord, they then affirm the truths of things spiritual and celestial in proportion as they think about them."

They who are in doubt before they affirm, are interiorly in the affirmative principle, and exteriorly in the negative; they who are in doubt before they

* Arcana Celestia, art. 2568.

deny, are interiorly in the negative principle and exteriorly in the affirmative. The doubt arises from not seeing which to choose, or, as is commonly said, not seeing our way. The judgment is held in a state of equilibrium, or preponderates sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other. Sometimes a negative principle prevails, and in this case the affections are in harmony with error, and disharmony with truth. The error is desired as a means to the end in view. Sometimes the affirmative principle prevails; that is to say, an affection of truth, or a love of the truth that so it should be. This is a state arising from the latent good of the will, which is also the latent verifying faculty. In this case the predisposing affections are in harmony with truth, and in disharmony with error. These affections are the basis of all spiritual perception or discernment, and are the distinctive characteristic of the spiritual man. It is in relation to these that truth is determined to be truth, that is to say, truth is determined to be truth by good; and, therefore, whether in moral or spiritual things, obedience is the basis of perception. "If any man will do the will of my Father which is in heaven, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." The exterior becomes thus the basis of the interior, the natural the basis of the spiritual; filial obedience to parental authority, the basis of rational obedience to Divine law. In either case, the opponent principle is self-love or self-intelligence. Now the natural selfhood of man is created, formed, and completed out of the things relating to external Nature, or those of time and sense: and in this case all the reasoning in regard to spiritual things which is founded upon these, is founded upon fallacies, and is therefore essentially negative in regard to Divine Truth.

From what has been said, it may be seen that the affirmative principle is that perception of truth which arises from the intellect being inspired with good affections, whereby even the natural mind is vivified and becomes a living soul; the sceptical principle is the external reason inspired with external affections, and therefore subordinated to those affections. The negative principle is the love of self and of the world, or of the things of time and sense, which is the serpent, according to whose subtle fallacies, as we shall see, selfhood is the genuine source of all moral action, or of all duty to God and the neighbor.

Let us apply these remarks to the interpretation of the written Word.

The Word of God written, is pre-eminently, as the Word, internal or spiritual truth; pre-eminently that which "God hath said." It is to this day questionable whether this internal sense exists: thus, whether God has thus spoken—"Yea, hath God said?" The early Christian Church (Adam) affirmed it: and even at the present day one part of the Church, the man (internal reason) affirms it. Another part of the Church—the reason externalized by the woman—doubts it. Another part of the Church, the serpent—the Criticism derived from sensuous fallacies, denies it. The early Church, or Adam, affirms that God hath said; in confirmation of which it appeals to the earliest interpreters. Thus Bishop Marsh:—

"The earliest interpreters* of the Scripture were the Jews, who, because it is divinely inspired, considered the interpretation of it as subject to different rules from those which are applicable to other books. They considered, therefore, the words of Scripture as implying more than was conveyed by their literal sense; whence they perpetually sought for remote and mystical meanings."†

So Archdeacon Lyall:‡—

"A moment's thought will shew, that the doctrine of a concealed sense was a necessary conclusion in their minds: it was scarcely possible for them to have regarded it as the inspired Word of God, without at the same time attributing to it a meaning beyond what was conveyed by the literal interpretation."

Here we see the origin of their Cabbala; the fundamental principle of which was, that all things upon earth were copies of the things in heaven. But not only are their interpretations declared to be fanciful, but the very principle upon which they are founded, is by one part of the Church denied, although by another part of the Church it is affirmed. From this denial on one side, and affirmation on the other, arises in the Church doubt; as in case of the individual mind, which sometimes affirms and sometimes denies; not knowing whether to affirm or deny; thus regarding the whole as questionable; the modern Church having no distinctive teaching upon the subject, and no power of discrimination between the

* Criticism and Interpretation of the Bible. Lecture xi.

† It is evident in this case, that the internal sense of Scripture was regarded as arising out of its Divine inspiration.

‡ Propædia Prophetica, p. 270.

fanciful and the real, the certain and the questionable, the analogical relation and the metaphorical figure; in fine, between what God hath said and what God hath not said.*

Now the interpretation of what God hath said, involves the principles both of inspiration and intuition.†

First in regard to inspiration considered as a state of the mind.

The probability has been conceded that inspiration,‡ if analyzed psychologically, is a form of the reason; but that, if viewed theologically, it is an elevated state of this faculty brought about by the miraculous and direct operation of God's Spirit; so that in this view it differs in kind, and not merely in degree, from human genius. In the state of Paradise, inspiration, both psychologically and theologically, was indeed a form of the reason, elevated but not miraculously; and so it resembled what we commonly call genius, but the genius was celestial.—"The first people," says Swedenborg,§ "who constituted the

* Bishop Marsh observes in his Third Lecture on the Interpretation of the Bible—"Because an inspired Apostle has declared that his wisdom was derived from the suggestions of the Holy Spirit, let us not imagine that our wisdom will be dignified by the same supernatural aid. Because an inspired Apostle has declared that his wisdom was not the wisdom of man, but the power of God, let us not imagine that the same divine illumination, the same intellectual light, in which St. Paul composed his Epistles, will be infused into a modern expounder of them."—Has then the Christian no divine illumination at all? or if he has, and it does not set aside human learning (for illumination supposes something to be illuminated), why should human learning set aside divine illumination?

† Farrar's Bampton Lectures. Note, p. 476. ‡ Ibid., pp. 40, 470.

§ Arcana Celestia, art. 310. See our Appendix.

Most Ancient Church, were of a† celestial genius, consequently had celestial seeds implanted in them: hence their descendants had seed in them from a celestial origin; seed from a celestial origin is of such a nature that love rules the whole mind, and makes it one; for the human mind consists of two parts, will and understanding: by virtue of love or good those people perceived the things relating to faith or truth, and thus their mind was single or one." In this case, the affirmative principle of truth was in what is called by some the voluntary, by some the emotional part of the mind. This love was an affection for the truth that so it should be; it was the latent heat generating the light whence arose intuition. Had this not been the case, the typical character of Creation would have been of no use; for there would have been no faculties to perceive and comprehend it. The very typical meanings of Creation, therefore, in the garden of Eden presupposed certain corresponding faculties of the human mind capable of perceiving them.

"If we are taught," says Bishop Horne,* "that Heaven resembles the garden of Eden, it seems fair and reasonable to conclude that the garden of Eden resembled Heaven, and was from the beginning intended to do so; that like the Temple under the Law, and the Church under the Gospel, it was for its happy possessors a place chosen for the residence of God; a place designed to represent and furnish them with

* A celestial genius was that character of mind in which the affections were predominant; but these affections exalted the intellect, and produced genius in the sense of superior talent, as will be seen in the sequel.

† Sermons, vol. i., p. 68.

"MIDST OF THE GARDEN."

ideas of heavenly things; a place sacred to contemplation and devotion; in one word, it was the primitive Temple and Church, formed and consecrated for the use of man in his state of innocence. There, undisturbed by care and as yet unassailed by temptation, all his faculties perfect, and his appetites in subjection, he walked with God as a man walketh with his friend; and enjoyed communion with heaven; though his abode was upon earth He studied the works of God as they came fresh from the hands of the workmaster; and in the Creation, as in a glass, he was taught to behold the glories of the Creator."

The same divine signification of the objects in Paradise and of the works of Creation in general, is presented in the following remarks:—

"It* is very evident that the earthly Paradise represented the heavenly, or that there was extant in one a type of the other: for there is nothing upon earth to which there is not a something correspondent in heaven; for whatsoever in the effect is created or produced, this descends from heaven; so that there is nothing upon earth which is not typical of that from which it originated. For all uses are celestial: effects are only uses sent forth into the circle of nature. The ends of uses are divine; wherefore all things that are produced are mere images of heaven, just as man or Adam was made an image of God. And, therefore, the representations of heavenly things are made by means of the images of corresponding effects, such as those existing upon earth. Hence it was that the whole of the garden planted in Eden represented the heavenly Paradise, into which Adam

* From a posthumous work of Swedenborg.

is by tradition said to have been translated; that together with the delights of nature and of the world, he might enjoy the delights of heaven. As, therefore, effects in the natural world are symbols of heavenly things, so the Tree of life planted in the midst of the garden signified Wisdom flowing from heaven by a superior way into the mind: and the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, intelligence flowing into the same mind by an inferior way, or from the world and its nature through the senses and the animal soul. For the way leading into the human mind is twofold; namely, one from heaven through the spirit; the other from the world, through the senses and the animal soul. The Tree of wisdom or of life is therefore placed in the midst of the garden; for it is in wisdom that there is true life; whereas the tree of knowledge is planted in the mind by external knowledges."

It is very true that the doctrine that Creation below is a copy of Creation above, was adopted into the Jewish Cabbala; it is true that Bishop Horne, Jones of Nayland, and others, transferred it into their system of theology. But none of these were the inventors or discoverers of that doctrine; they only transferred it from ancient tradition into their theological system; just as Augustine, Origen, Ambrose, and others had done before them; nay, as Dean Trench has done, in the present day, in his Notes on the Parables.*

But if Paradise was a type of heaven, and if the Temple also was a type of heaven, they were each of

* Page 13.

them types upon the same principle; each signifying after its own way things which are in the heavens. The same is the case with the Church which has the written Word of God, the natural truths of which are signs of such as are spiritual, just as the earthly is a type of the heavenly; or the natural could never have been made use of to denote the spiritual, the earthly to denote the heavenly.

"The worldly things* and things of civil judication, such as are the judgments, the statutes, and the laws promulgated by the Lord from Mount Sinai, are Divine and holy by inspiration: but inspiration is not dictation but is influx from the Divine. What flows in from the Divine passes through heaven, and is there celestial and spiritual; but when it comes into the world it becomes worldly, yet so as inwardly to contain in it those principles. From these considerations it is evident, whence and where the Word hath in it its Divine principle, and what is Inspiration."

This is the only account of the origin of the Scriptures adequate to the expression—Word of God. But of what use would be this Divine principle in the Word, if man had no faculty by which to perceive it? Theologically it might be true, that such a Divine principle existed; psychologically it would be untrue, or would be regarded as such. For in order to recognize this Divine principle, there must previously be formed in the mind a perceptive or intuitive faculty.—But what or whence is this faculty? This brings us to the subject of intuition.

* Arcana Calestia, 9094.

"Intuition,"* says Swedenborg, "from a superior principle into an inferior one, or, what is the same thing, from an interior principle into an exterior, is called Influx, because it is effected by influx: as in the case of the interior vision appertaining to man, unless it flowed continually into his external vision or that of the eye, it would be impossible for the latter to take in and discern any object; because it is in the interior vision which, by means of the eye, takes in those things which the eye sees, and not the eye itself, although it appears so. Hence also it may be seen how much that man is involved in the fallacies of the senses, who believes that it is the eye that sees; when the truth is, that it is the sight of his spirit, which is interior sight, that sees by means of the eye. . . . But this is not all: the case is similar with respect to this interior sight, or that of the spirit: this also does not see of itself, but from a vision still more interior, which is that of the rational principle: nay, even this does not see of itself, but there is a sight still more interior, which is that of the internal man. But we must advance further yet; for neither does the internal man see of itself; but it is the Lord, by means of the internal man, who alone sees because He alone lives; and He gives to man the faculty of seeing, and with it the appearance as if it were he himself who saw."

Such is the origin of intuition in its relation to Divine truth, or to what God said to the Adamic Church. It was, then, no other than these Divine truths which had been perceived by this intuition,

* Ibid., 1954.

and thus spoken inwardly to man, that now became to the Church a subject of doubt: and this because the Church had begun to lose its intuitive or perceptive faculty, which now began to be formed in an inverse order, namely, from without to within; in like manner as it was formed before man had reached the Paradisiacal state, and had been inspired with the breath of lives so as to become, even as to his external man, a living soul. Let us consider this intuition in relation to the written Word.

Do we acknowledge any part of the written Word to have any internal or spiritual sense? If so, what is the relation of that sense to its inspiration? Has inspiration nothing to do with it? Shall we say that, even in this case, the Church has never ventured to determine the nature of the Inspiration of the Bible? Never in fact ventured to say that the spiritual sense is the effect, and Divine inspiration the cause; and that the nature of the effect is the same with the nature of the cause; inspiration being the influx of Divine truth, or of the Spirit of Truth into the external letter as apprehended by the mind? Can we not see that our modern discussions concerning the existence of an internal sense of the written Word of God, are simply the revival of the question, Yea, hath God said?—for that which God hath said, is the Word of God.

We affirm, then, that if there is no internal sense given by inspiration, there can be no intuition; for there is nothing upon which the intuitive faculty can exercise itself; nothing even by which to form the intuitive faculty itself. Practically, therefore, inspiration and intuition stand or fall together, in other words, inspiration and spiritual discernment; and if spiritual discernment fails, what is left but the discernment of the natural man, who reasons from things natural to things spiritual? the consequence of which is, he doubts, perverts, or denies them. It is the Serpent, and the Serpent alone, which in this case becomes the interpreter of Scripture, and raises a question in the mind of the woman and thence of the man with respect to every part of it; which first reduces revealed theology to a system of revealed naturalism; then, rejecting this naturalism as absurd, betakes itself to some system of Natural Theology; then, upon the same principle, proceeds to destroy natural Theology, as it had previously destroyed revealed; the result of which is, a complete vastation of all religion, and a revolution in the Church and civil society. Take an illustration. The grand object of the work of D'Holbach was—

"To shew* that there is no God: the first part is occupied by the most rigorous materialism, and is designed to prove that there is no such thing as mind—nothing beyond the material fabric which is maintained by simple and invariable laws; and that the soul is a mode of (material) organism, the mere action of the body under different functions. The freedom of the will and immortality are accordingly denied. The first part having been directed to disprove the existence of mind; the second part is designed against religion. The author attributes the idea which man has formed of a First Cause, to fear generated through suffering; and attempts to shew the insufficiency of the à priori argument in favor of a

* Farrar's Hampton Lectures, page 256.