131. Genesis 2:18-25

18. And Jehovah God said, It is not good that the man ¹ should be alone. I will make for him a help suitable for him.

19. And Jehovah God formed out of the ground every beast of the field, and every bird of the air, ² and He brought it to the man to see what he would call it; and whatever the man called it, the living creature, ³ that was its name.

20. And the man gave names to every beast, and to the birds of the air, ² and to every wild animal of the field; but for man there was not found a help suitable for him.

21. And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he fell asleep; and He took one of his ribs, and He closed up the flesh in its place.

22. And Jehovah God built the rib which He took from the man into a woman, and brought her to the man.

23. And the man said, By this change, it is bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh; for this she will be called Wife, because she was taken out of man (vir).

24. Therefore a man (vir) will leave his father and his mother and will cling to his wife, and they will be one flesh.

25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and they were not ashamed.

CONTENTS

The subject is the descendants of the Most Ancient Church, who set their heart on the proprium.

Poznámky pod čarou:

5125. 'And will restore you to your position' means that the impressions received through the senses subject to the understanding part were restored to order, to occupy the lowest position. This is clear from the representation of 'the cupbearer', regarding whom these words are said, as the powers of the senses subject to the understanding part, dealt with in 5077, 5082, and therefore the impressions received through the senses in the external natural (for it is not the actual powers of the senses that are restored to order but the impressions which have come through the senses into the person's false notions); and from the meaning of 'restoring to a position' as restoring to order. And because sensory impressions, that is, images which have come in from the world by way of the external sensory organs, occupy the lowest position, where they minister to or serve more interior things, those impressions too are meant. In the case of regenerate persons sensory impressions do occupy the lowest position, but in the case of those who are not regenerate they occupy the first, see 5077, 5081, 5084, 5089, 5094.

[2] A person can easily tell, if he pays the matter any attention, whether sensory impressions occupy the first or else the last and lowest position in him. If he says yes to everything his senses urge or desire and plays down all that his understanding tells him, then sensory impressions occupy the first position. When this is the case that person is carried along by natural desires and is ruled completely by his senses. The condition of a person like this is little different from that of animals, which are not endowed with reason; for animals are carried along by nothing else than their senses. Indeed that person's condition is worse than theirs if he misuses his power of understanding or reason to lend support to evils and falsities which the senses urge and tend towards. But if he does not say yes to these, but from within himself recognizes that they can mislead him into false beliefs and incite desires for evil in him, and he strives to discipline them - thereby bringing them into a position of subservience, that is, making them subject to the understanding part and the will part which belong to the interior man - sensory impressions are in that case restored to order, to occupy the last and lowest position. When sensory impressions occupy that position, happiness and bliss radiate from the interior man into the delights of the senses and make these delights a thousand times better than they were before. Having no understanding of this, one who is ruled by his senses has no belief in it either; and feeling no other delight than that of the senses, and so imagining that no higher kind of delight exists, he regards the happiness and bliss that can be inwardly present in the delights of the senses as worthless. For what a person has no knowledge of is not thought by him to have any real existence.