20. (ii) THE ONE GOD IS SUBSTANCE ITSELF AND FORM ITSELF, AND ANGELS AND MEN ARE SUBSTANCES AND FORMS DERIVED FROM HIM; TO THE EXTENT THAT THEY ARE IN HIM AND HE IN THEM, SO FAR ARE THEY IMAGES AND LIKENESSES OF HIM.

Since God is Being, He is also substance, for unless being is substance, it is an imaginary entity, for substance is a subsisting entity. One who is substance must also be form, for substance without form is an imaginary entity. Both can therefore be predicated of God, but on condition that He is the sole, very and prime substance and form. It was proved in THE WISDOM OF THE ANGELS ON THE DIVINE LOVE AND THE DIVINE WISDOM (published at Amsterdam in 1763) that this form is the very form of man, that is, God is very man, and all of his attributes are infinite; and likewise that angels and men are substances and forms created and ordered so as to receive the Divine influences reaching them through heaven. In the Book of Creation they are therefore called images and likenesses of God (Genesis 1:26-27); elsewhere they are called His sons and begotten of Him. It will be proved at length in the course of this book that in so far as a man lives under Divine guidance, that is, allows himself to be led by God, so far does he become, more and more inwardly, an image of God.

[2] If the minds of men did not form the idea that God is prime substance and form, and that His form is the very form of man, they would easily fall into fantastic, ghost-like, ideas about God Himself, the origin of man and the creation of the world. They could not avoid thinking of God as the primeval nature of the universe, and consequently as its expanse, or as it were a void or nothingness. They would think of the origin of man as if it were a fortuitous concourse of atoms to make such a form; of the creation of the world as owing its substances and forms to geometric points and lines, which since they lack attributes are in themselves non-existent. In the case of such people everything relating to the church is like the river Styx or the thick darkness of Tartarus.

575. 'The days of man were to be a hundred and twenty years' means that he ought to have remnants of faith. At verses 3, 4 of the previous chapter it was stated that 'days' and 'years' meant periods of time and states, and that the most ancient people meant states and changes in the states of the Church by the numbers which they compounded variously. The exact nature of their computation of things that had to do with the Church is one of those matters that have been lost. Here in like manner numbers of years occur, whose meaning nobody can possibly know unless he knows what is concealed in each of the numbers 1-12, and so on. It is quite apparent that they embody some arcanum or other, for in saying that they would live a hundred and twenty years this verse contradicts those that go before it. Nor subsequently did they live a mere hundred and twenty years, as is clear from what Chapter 11 says about those who lived after the Flood - that Shem lived 500 years after he beget Arpachshad, Arpachshad 407 years after he beget Shelah, Shelah 403 years as well after he beget Eber, and Eber 430 years after he beget Peleg. Chapter 9:28 says that Noah lived 350 years after the Flood; and other examples could be given. What the number 120 embodies however is clear merely from the numbers to and 12, for 120 is the product of 10 times 12. It means remnants of faith. In the Word the number ten has the same meaning as tenths, representing remnants which are preserved by the Lord within the internal man. And since these are the Lord's alone they are holy. The number twelve means faith, that is, all things belonging to faith in their entirety. So this composite number means remnants of faith.