156b. ¹ THE CONJUNCTION OF SOULS AND MINDS BY MARRIAGE MEANT BY THE LORD'S SAYING THAT THEY ARE NO LONGER TWO BUT ONE FLESH

An inclination and also a capacity for conjunction as though into one was implanted in man and woman from creation, and man and woman still have this inclination and capacity in them. That this is so appears from the book of creation, and at the same time from what the Lord said. In the book of creation, which we call Genesis, we read:

Jehovah God fashioned the rib, which He had taken from the man, into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And the man said, "This one, this time, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman ('ishshah), because she was taken from man ('ish). For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall be as one flesh." (Genesis 2:22-24)

The Lord also said something similar in Matthew:

Have you not read that He who made them from the beginning...male and female..., said, "For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and cling to his wife, and the two shall be as one flesh"? Therefore they are no longer two, but one flesh. (Matthew 19:4-6)

[2] It is apparent from these verses that woman was created out of man, and that they each have both an inclination and a capacity for reuniting themselves into one. This means into one person, as is also apparent from the book of creation, where the two together are called "man." For we read:

In the day that God created man..., He created them male and female...and called their name Man.... (Genesis 5:1-2)

We find the reading here, "He called their name Adam," but "Adam" and "man" are the same word in the Hebrew. Moreover, both together are called "man" in Genesis 1:27 and 3:22-24. "One flesh" also means "one person," as is apparent from passages in the Word where the term "all flesh" occurs, meaning "every person" (such as in Genesis 6:12-13,17,19; ² Isaiah 40:5-6, 49:26, 66:16,23-24; Jeremiah 25:31, 32:27, 45:5; Ezekiel 20:48, 21:4-5; and elsewhere).

[3] But as for the meaning of the rib of the man which was fashioned into a woman, of the flesh which was closed up in its place, and consequently what is meant by "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh," also what is meant by the father and mother which a man is to leave when he marries, and by his clinging to his wife - this we showed in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), where we explained the two books, Genesis and Exodus, in their spiritual sense. We established there that a rib does not mean a rib, nor flesh flesh, nor a bone bone, nor cling cling, but that they mean spiritual things, to which they correspond and which they therefore symbolize. They mean the spiritual things which mold one person out of two, and this is evident from the fact that it is conjugial love which joins them together, and this love is spiritual.

We have said several times above that a man's love of wisdom is transferred into his wife, and this will be more fully established in the chapters that follow next. We cannot go off and thus digress now from the subject matter before us here, which is the conjunction of two married partners into one flesh by a union of their souls and minds. This union, however, will be made clear according to the following outline:

1. Each sex has implanted in it from creation a capacity and inclination that gives them the ability and the will to be joined together as though into one.

2. Conjugial love joins two souls and thus two minds into one.

3. A wife's will unites itself with her husband's understanding, and the husband's understanding in consequence unites itself with his wife's will.

4. A desire to unite her husband to her is constant and continual in a wife, but inconstant and intermittent in a husband.

5. A wife inspires the union in her husband according to her love, and a husband receives it according to his wisdom.

6. This union takes place gradually from the first days of marriage, and in people who are in a state of truly conjugial love, it becomes deeper and deeper to eternity.

7. A wife's union with her husband's intellectual wisdom takes place inwardly, but with his moral wisdom outwardly.

8. In order that this union may be achieved, a wife is given a perception of her husband's affections, and also the highest prudence in knowing how to moderate them.

9. Wives keep this perception in them hidden and conceal it from their husbands for reasons that are necessary in building conjugial love, friendship and trust, so that they may have bliss in living together and happiness of life.

10. This perception is a wisdom that the wife has. A man is not capable of it, neither is a wife capable of her husband's intellectual wisdom.

11. A wife from her love continually thinks about her husband's disposition towards her, with a view to joining him to her. This is not true of a husband.

12. A wife joins herself to her husband by appeals to his will's desires.

13. A wife is joined to her husband by the atmosphere of her life emanating from her love.

14. A wife is joined to her husband by her assimilation of the powers of his manhood, though this depends on the spiritual love they have for each other.

15. A wife thus receives into herself an image of her husband, and from it perceives, sees and feels his affections.

16. A husband has duties appropriate to him, and a wife duties appropriate to her, and a wife cannot enter into duties appropriate to her husband or a husband into duties appropriate to his wife and perform them properly.

17. These duties also join the two into one, and at the same time make a single household, depending on the assistance they render each other.

18. According as the aforementioned conjunctions are formed, married partners become more and more one person.

19. Partners who are in a state of truly conjugial love feel themselves to be a united person and as though one flesh.

20. Truly conjugial love regarded in itself is a union of souls, a conjunction of minds, an effort to conjunction in breasts, and a consequent effort to conjunction in body.

21. The states produced by this love are innocence, peace, tranquillity, inmost friendship, complete trust, and a mutual desire in mind and heart to do the other every good; also, as a result of all these, bliss, felicity, delight, pleasure, and, owing to an eternal enjoyment of states like this, the happiness of heaven.

22. These blessings are not at all possible except in a marriage of one man with one wife.

Explanation of these statements now follows.

V:

134. The people on the north side were then the first to begin to present their opinion. And they said that man is by birth without knowledge of any kind in order that he may be capable of acquiring all types of knowledge. If he were to come into various kinds of knowledge by birth, however, he would not be capable of acquiring any beyond those into which he came by birth, and in that case, neither would he be capable of making any personally his own.

They illustrated this by the following comparison. "When a person is first born," they said, "he is like ground in which no seeds have been planted, but which is yet capable of accepting all kinds of seeds and germinating them and bringing them to fruit. An animal, on the other hand, is like ground already sown and filled with grasses and plants, which does not accept any other seeds than the ones it has. If others should be sown, it would suffocate them.

"That is why it takes a number of years for a human being to grow to maturity, years in which he can be like ground undergoing cultivation, and sprouting, so to speak, all kinds of grain, flowers and trees. An animal develops in only a few years, however, during which time it can be cultivated only into producing what it was born with."

[2] The people on the west side spoke next, and they said that man is not born with knowledge, as animals are, but is born with a capacity and inclination - a capacity for learning and an inclination to love. Moreover, they said, he is born with a capacity not only for learning, but also for understanding and becoming wise. So, too, he is born with a most perfect inclination, not only to love things having to do with self and the world, but also things having to do with God and heaven.

Consequently, they said, a person by birth and heredity is an organism which lives only on the level of the external senses, and not at first on the level of any higher sense, in order that he may develop by stages into a human being, becoming first natural, then rational, and finally spiritual. This would not happen if he came by birth into various kinds of knowledge and loves as animals do. "For inborn patterns of knowledge and affection limit that progression," they said, "whereas an inborn capacity and inclination do not. A person can therefore be perfected in knowledge, understanding and wisdom to eternity."

[3] The people on the south side took up the discussion and added their voice, saying that it is impossible for a person to acquire any knowledge on his own, but he must get it from others, since no knowledge is inborn in him.

"Moreover, because he cannot acquire any knowledge on his own," they said, "neither can he acquire any love, since there is no love where there is no knowledge. Knowledge and love are inseparable companions, and they cannot be divided any more than will and understanding or affection and thought - indeed, any more than essence and form. As a person acquires knowledge from others, therefore, so love attaches itself as its companion. The universal love that attaches itself is a love of learning, understanding, and becoming wise. Only man has this love and no animal, and it flows in from God.

[4] "We agree with our companions on the west that man does not come by birth into any love and so neither into any knowledge, but that he comes by birth solely into an inclination to love and so into a capacity for acquiring knowledge, not on his own but from others, or rather, through others. We say, through others, because they, too, did not acquire any knowledge on their own but from God.

"We agree also with our companions to the north that when a person is first born, he is like ground in which no seeds have been planted, but in which all kinds of seeds can be planted, both good and bad. To this we add that animals come by birth into natural loves and therefore into forms of knowledge corresponding to those loves, and yet they do not learn anything from their kinds of knowledge or develop thought, intelligence and wisdom on the basis of them. Instead they are carried along in them by their loves, almost like blind men being led through the streets by dogs. For in terms of their understanding, they are blind. Or better still, they are like sleepwalkers, who do what they do out of blind knowledge while the understanding sleeps."

[5] Lastly the people on the east side spoke, saying, "We concur with what our brothers have said. A person of himself knows nothing but must learn from others and through others, in order that he may know and acknowledge that all his knowledge, understanding and wisdom are from God.

"Only in this way," they said, "can a person be conceived, born and brought forth by the Lord so as to become an image and likeness of Him. For a person becomes an image of the Lord by his acknowledging and believing that he has acquired and continues to acquire every good of love and charity and every truth of wisdom and faith from the Lord, and not the least bit from himself. And he becomes a likeness of the Lord by his feeling these things in himself as though they originated with him. He has this feeling because he does not come by birth into various kinds of knowledge, but acquires them, and what he acquires appears to him as though it originated with him.

"A person is also given to feel this way by the Lord, in order that he may be a human being and not an animal, because his willing, thinking, loving, learning, understanding and becoming wise seemingly on his own is what leads him to acquire various kinds of knowledge, to develop them into intelligence, and by applying them turn them into wisdom. In this way the Lord joins the person to Himself, and the person joins himself to the Lord. This would not have been possible if the Lord had not provided that man be born in a state of total ignorance."

[6] After these remarks, the people were all ready to reach a conclusion from the matters discussed, and they formed the following statement:

"Man does not come by birth into any knowledge," they said, "in order that he may come into every kind of knowledge and so progress into a state of intelligence and through this into wisdom. So, too, he does not come by birth into any love, in order that by applying various kinds of knowledge with intelligence he may come into every kind of love, and through love for the neighbor come into love towards the Lord; and this to the end that he may be thus conjoined with the Lord and by that conjunction become human and live to eternity."