“Eden” by itself stands for love, in most cases the love that comes from the Lord and our love for the Lord, which is the highest human love of all. Of course, “Eden” is closely identified with “garden,” which means intelligence and the intellect. The “Garden of Eden,” then, means the state of love and wisdom with people who are in a pure state of love to the Lord. The Garden of Eden is referred to throughout Scripture, but is described in detail in Genesis 2:8-17. Those verses, understood on a spiritual level, show the nature of what the Writings call the Most Ancient Church, in which people of pre-historic times were elevated to a state of love to the Lord and communion with heaven, a degree of innocence and love that we cannot truly imagine in the modern world.

746. 'Everything that creeps over the ground' means the sensory part and every associated delight. This too has been stated and shown already. The most ancient people compared and likened man's sensory powers and his delights that go with these to reptiles and creeping things, and also called them such, for they are the most exterior things of all. They creep so to speak over the surface of man and must not be allowed to climb any higher.