25. THE FIRST STATE OF THIS MOST ANCIENT CHURCH, OR ITS RISE AND MORNING, is described in the first chapter of Genesis by these words:

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; male and female created He them (Gen. 1:26-27);

and also by these in the second chapter:

Jehovah God formed man dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a living soul (Gen. 2:7).

That its rise, or morning, is described by his being made, or created, "in the image of God," is because every man, when he is first born, and while an infant, is an "image of God" interiorly; for the faculty of receiving and of applying to himself those things which proceed from God, is implanted in him; and since he is also formed "dust of the earth" exteriorly, and there is thence in him an inclination to lick that dust like the serpent (Gen. 3:14), therefore, if he remains an external or natural man, and does not become at the same time internal, or spiritual, he destroys the "image of God," and puts on the image of the serpent which seduced Adam. But, on the other hand, the man who strives and labours to become an "image of God," subdues the external man in himself, and interiorly in the natural becomes spiritual, thus spiritual-natural; and this is effected by a new creation, that is, regeneration by the Lord. Such a man is an "image of God," because he wills and believes that he lives from God and not from himself: on the contrary, man is an image of the serpent as long as he wills and believes that he lives from himself and not from God. What is man but an "image of God" when he wills and believes that he is in the Lord and the Lord in him (John 6:56; 14:20; 15:4-5, 7; 17:26), and that he can do nothing of himself (John 3:27; 15:5)? What is a man but an "image of God" when, by a new birth, he becomes a "son of God" (John 1:12-13)? Who does not know that the image of the father is in the son? The rise, or morning, of this Church is described by Jehovah God's "breathing into his nostrils the breath of lives," and by his thus "becoming a living soul," because by "lives," in the plural, are meant love and wisdom, which two are essentially God; for, in proportion as a man receives and applies to himself those two essentials of life, which proceed continually from God, and continually flow into the souls of men, in the same proportion he becomes "a living soul"; for "lives" are the same as love and wisdom. Hence it is evident, that the rise and morning of the life of the men of the Most Ancient Church, who taken collectively are represented by Adam, is described by those two shrines of life.

7112. 'You shall no longer give the people straw' means factual knowledge, the basest and most general kind of all. This is clear from the meaning of 'straw' as factual truths, dealt with in 3114, in particular the basest and most general kind of factual knowledge, for since 'straw' is the food of beasts 'straw' means the basest kind of food in the spiritual sense. Factual knowledge is said to be the basest when it is full of the illusions of the senses. It is what the evil misuse to pervert forms of good and truth and so lend support to evils and falsities; for on account of the illusions it contains that knowledge can be twisted round in favour of false suppositions and evil desires. That kind of factual knowledge is also the most general of all, and unless it is filled out with less general and more specific truths it can be of use to evils and falsities. But the more it is filled out with truths, the less it can have that kind of use. Such knowledge is the means by which the upright in the next life are molested by those who, when they were in the world, proclaimed belief in faith alone and yet led a life of evil. But because it is banished by the angels the narrative says at this point that they should no longer give the people straw to make bricks, that is, no longer provide such knowledge for producing fabrications and falsities which are to be introduced. This is the internal sense of these words, which does indeed seem remote from the sense of the letter; but it should be recognized that there is nothing in the natural world that does not correspond to some reality in the spiritual world. The angels present with a person understand in a spiritual way everything understood by the person in a natural way. They do not know what straw is, or what bricks are either. Such things were well known to those angels when they were in the world, but they forgot about them when they entered heaven, because there they moved on to spiritual things. This explains why when a person's ideas of such things in the natural world are perceived by angels they convert them into the corresponding spiritual realities. The fact that 'straw' or 'grass' means the basest kind of factual knowledge, and 'bricks' fabrications and falsities, may be seen from a number of considerations; for herbaceous plants, and also those that produce straw, are nothing else than such knowledge. But seeds, barley-grains, wheat-grains, and the like are interior truths and forms of good; and stones that are not man-made are truths.