Selection from Conjugial Love ~ Emanuel Swedenborg
Memorable Relation
I was led across a plain to a hill; and lo, at the foot of the hill an avenue of palm trees stretching all the way to the summit. We entered it and ascended; and on the top or crown of the hill was seen a grove, the trees of which, growing on an elevated piece of ground, formed a kind of theatre. Within this theatre was a level space paved with small stones of various colors, around which, arranged in the form of a square, were chairs of state on which sat the lovers of wisdom. In the center of the theatre was a table whereon lay a paper sealed with a seal.
The men who were sitting on the chairs invited us to seats still vacant; but I answered them, "I have been led hither by two angels to see and hear, not to sit down." The two angels then went to the table in the center of the level area, and in the presence of those who were seated they broke the seal of the paper and read the arcana of wisdom inscribed thereon which they were now to discuss and unfold. They had been written and let down upon the table by angels of the third heaven. There were three arcana:
- • FIRST, What is the image of God and what the likeness of God into which man was created?
- • SECOND, Why is man not born into the science of any love, when yet beasts and birds, the noble as well as the ignoble, are born into the sciences of all their loves?
- • THIRD, What is signified by the tree of life, what by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and what by the eating of them?
Those who were sitting on the chairs then began to discuss and unfold the arcana proposed to them. They spoke in order, first those who sat at the north, then those at the west, after them those at the south, and finally those at the east. They took up the first subject of discussion, namely, WHAT IS THE IMAGE OF GOD AND WHAT THE LIKENESS OF GOD INTO WHICH MAN WAS CREATED? To begin with, the following from the Book of Genesis was then read out in the presence of all:
God said, Let us make man in OUR IMAGE, after OUR LIKENESS. And God created man in HIS OWN IMAGE, in the IMAGE OF GOD created he him. Gen. 1:26, 27.
In the day that God created man, in the LIKENESS OF GOD made he him. 5:1.Those who sat at the north spoke first, saying, "The image of God and the likeness of God are the two lives breathed into man by God, being the life of his will and the life of his understanding; for we read that Jehovah God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of lives; and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Into his nostrils means into the perception that within him was the will of good and the understanding of truth and thus the breath of lives; and because life was breathed into him by God, the image and likeness of God signify the integrity that was in him from wisdom and love, and from righteousness and judgment."
Those who sat at the west favored these views, but they added the following, "This state of integrity breathed into Adam by God is being continually breathed into every man after him; but it is in man as a receptacle, and man is an image and likeness of God according as he is a receptacle."
The third in order, being those who sat at the south, then said: "The image of God and the likeness of God are two distinct things, but in man they are united from creation; and we see, as from interior light, that the image of God may be destroyed by man but not the likeness of God. This is seen as through a lattice, from the fact that Adam retained the likeness of God after he had lost the image of God; for after the curse it is said:
Behold the man is as one of us, knowing good and evil. Gen. 3:22.and later he is called the likeness of God and is not called the image of God (Gen. 5:1). But let us leave it to our associates who sit at the east, and thus are in superior light, to say what the image of God properly is, and what the likeness of God."
Then, after a period of silence, those sitting at the east rose from their seats and looked up to the Lord. Resuming their seats, they then said: "An image of God is a receptacle of God; and because God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, the image of God in man is the receptacle in him of love and wisdom from God. But the likeness of God is the perfect likeness and full appearance as though the love and wisdom were in the man and so were his own; for man feels no other than that he loves from himself and is wise from himself, or that it is from himself that he wills good and understands truth, when yet it is not in the least from himself but from God. God alone loves from Himself and is wise from Himself because God is Love itself and Wisdom itself. The likeness or appearance that love and wisdom or good and truth are in man as his own, makes man a man and able to be conjoined to God and so to live to eternity. Hence it follows that man is man from the fact that he can will good and understand truth altogether as if from himself, and yet can know and believe that it is from God; for, according as man knows and believes this, God puts His image in him; not so if he believed that it is from himself and not from God."
Having said this, a zeal from the love of truth came over them, and from this they spoke as follows: "How can man receive anything of love and wisdom and retain and reproduce it, unless he feel it as his own? And how can there be conjunction with God through love and wisdom unless there be given man some reciprocal of conjunction? Without a reciprocal, there can be no conjunction; and the reciprocal of conjunction is this: Man loves God, and is wise in the things which are of God, as if from himself, and yet believes that it is from God. Moreover, how can man live to eternity unless he is conjoined with the eternal God? Consequently, how can man be man without this likeness of God within him?"
On hearing these words, all expressed their approval. They then said: "Let the conclusion from this discussion be as follows:
- Man is a receptacle of God, and a receptacle of God is an image of God; and as God is Love itself and Wisdom itself, it is of these that man is a receptacle; and the receptacle becomes an image of God according as it receives. Man is a likeness of God from the fact that he feels in himself that the things which are from God are in him as his own; but from this likeness he is an image of God only so far as he acknowledges that the love and wisdom or the good and truth in him are not his own and thus are not from himself, but are solely in God and thus from God."
They then confirmed the statement that beasts, noble and ignoble, such as animals of the earth, birds of the air, reptiles, fishes, grubs which are called insects, are born into all the sciences of their life's loves, thus into all that pertain to nourishment, into all that pertain to habitation, into all that pertain to love of the sex and procreation, and into all that pertain to the rearing of their young. This they confirmed by the marvels which they recalled to memory from what they had seen, heard, and read in the natural world—so they called our world in which they had formerly lived—where the beasts are not representative but real.
The truth of the proposition being thus established, they then directed their minds to investigate and discover the ends and causes whereby they might unfold and disclose this arcanum. They all said that such things must needs come from Divine Wisdom, to the end that man may be man and beast beast; thus that man's imperfection at birth becomes his perfection, and the beast's perfection at birth is its imperfection.
Then first, those on the NORTH began to express their mind. They said: "Man is born without knowledges that he may be able to receive knowledges. Were he born into knowledges, he could receive none but those into which he was born, and then he could not himself appropriate any." This they illustrated by the following comparison: "A man just born is like ground wherein no seeds have been planted but which yet can receive all kinds of seed and bring them forth and make them fruitful; but a beast is like ground already sown, and which, being filled with grasses and herbs, will not receive other seeds than those which have been sown; and if it did, it would choke them. Hence it is that man's growth to maturity extends through many years, and during these years he can be cultivated like ground and can bring forth, as it were, grains and flowers and trees of every kind; while a beast's growth extends through but few years, and during these years no other knowledge can be cultivated than that which was connate."
Those at the WEST spoke next. They said: "Man is not born with knowledge like a beast, but is born an ability and an inclination—an ability to learn and an inclination to love. And he is born an ability, not merely to learn but also to understand and be wise. He is also born a most perfect inclination to love, not only things which are of self and the world, but also those which are of God and of heaven. Consequently, from his parents man is born an organ which at first lives in the external senses alone and in none that are internal; and this, that he may successively become a man, first natural, then rational, and finally spiritual. This he would not become were he born into knowledges and loves like the beasts; for connate knowledges and affections limit that progress, but connate ability and inclination limit nothing. Therefore man can be perfected in science, intelligence, and wisdom to eternity."
Those on the SOUTH then took up the subject and expressed their opinion, saying: "Man cannot possibly acquire any knowledge from himself but must acquire it from others; and being unable to acquire any knowledge from himself, he is also unable to acquire any love, for where there is no knowledge, there is no love. Knowledge and love are inseparable companions and can no more be separated than can will and understanding or affection and thought, yea, no more than essence and form. Therefore, as man acquires knowledge from others, love adjoins itself thereto as its companion. The universal love which adjoins itself is the love of knowing, of understanding, and of being wise. This love, man alone has, and no beast; and it flows in from God.
We agree with our companions on the west, that man is not born into any love and thence not into any knowledge, but that he is born only into an inclination to love and thence into an ability to receive knowledge, not from himself but from others, that is, through others. It is said through others because neither have they received any knowledge from themselves but from God. We agree also with our companions on the north, that when first born, man is like ground wherein no seeds have been planted but in which may be planted all kinds of seed, noble as well as ignoble. To this we add, that beasts are born into natural loves and thence into the sciences corresponding thereto. Yet, from these sciences, they do not learn anything, do not think, understand and become wise, but by their means they are carried along by their loves, almost like blind men led through the streets by dogs. As to understanding, they are blind, or rather are like somnambulists who, with their understanding asleep, do what they do from blind science."
Lastly spoke those on the EAST. They said: "We assent to what our brothers have said, that man knows nothing from himself but from others and through others, and this to the end that he may learn and acknowledge that all that he knows, understands, and is wise in, is from God; also that in no other way can man be conceived, born, and brought forth by the Lord and become His image and likeness. For he becomes an image of the Lord by acknowledging and believing that he has received and does receive every good of love and charity, and every truth of wisdom and faith from the Lord, and not the least thing thereof from himself; and he becomes a likeness of the Lord by sensating them in himself as if they were from himself. He has this sensation because he is not born into knowledges but receives them, and what he receives appears to him as if it were from himself. Moreover, it is granted man by the Lord so to sensate, in order that he may be a man and not a beast; for it is by the fact that he wills, thinks, loves, knows, understands, and is wise, as if from himself, that man receives knowledges and exalts them into intelligence and by their uses into wisdom. In this way the Lord conjoins man to Himself and man conjoins himself to the Lord. All this would not be possible had it not been provided by the Lord that man should be born in total ignorance."
After this speech, it was the desire of all that some conclusion be formed from the discussion, and the following was formed:
- "Man is born into no knowledge, that he may come into all knowledge and may advance into intelligence and by means of intelligence into wisdom. And he is born into no love, that by applications of knowledges from intelligence, he may come into all love, and by love towards the neighbor, into love to the Lord, and so may be conjoined to the Lord, and by this conjunction become a man and live to eternity."
They then said: "A tree signifies man, and its fruit signifies the good of life. By the tree of life, therefore, is meant man living from God, or God living in man. And because love and wisdom, and charity and faith, or good and truth, make the life of God in man, it is these that are signified by the tree of life, and from them man has life eternal. The like is signified by the tree of life in the Apocalypse of which it will be granted man to eat (Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14).
By the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is signified the man who believes that he lives from himself and not from God; thus that love and wisdom, charity and faith, or good and truth, are his own in man and not God's, believing this because he thinks and wills, and speaks and acts, in all likeness and appearance as if from himself. And because from this belief he persuades himself that God has implanted in him, that is, has infused into him, His own Divine, therefore the serpent said:
God doth know that in the day that ye eat of the fruit of that tree your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. Gen. 3:5By eating of those trees is signified reception and appropriation—by eating of the tree of life, the reception of life eternal, and by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the reception of damnation. Therefore both Adam and his wife were accursed together with the serpent. By the serpent is meant the devil, as to the love of self and the pride of self-intelligence. This love is the possessor of that tree; and men who are in pride from this love are such trees. They, therefore, are in enormous error who believe that Adam was wise and did good from himself, and that this was his state of integrity, when yet Adam was himself accursed on account of that very belief, this being what is signified by his eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, he then fell from the state of integrity in which he had been by virtue of believing that he was wise and did good from God and not at all from himself, this being meant by eating of the tree of life. The Lord alone, when He was in the world, was wise of Himself and did good from Himself, because the Divine itself was in Him and was His from birth. Therefore He became the Redeemer and Savior by His own power."
From this and the preceding discussions, they then formed the following conclusion: "By the tree of life, and by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and by eating from them, is signified that for man life is God in him, and he then has heaven and eternal life; but that death for man is the persuasion and belief that life in man is not God but is himself; whence he has hell and eternal death, which is damnation!"
After this, they looked at the paper left on the table by the angels and saw written at the bottom, "COMBINE YOUR THREE CONCLUSIONS INTO A SINGLE STATEMENT." They then put the three together and saw that they were in one coherent series, and that this series or statement was as follows:
- "Man was created to receive love and wisdom from God, and yet in all likeness as if it were from himself, and this for the sake of reception and conjunction. For this reason he is not born into any love or into any knowledge or even into any power of loving or of being wise from himself. Therefore, if he ascribes all the good of love and all the truth of wisdom to God, he becomes a living man; but if he ascribes them to himself, he becomes a dead man."
(Conjugial Love 132-136)