The Bible

 

Genesis 1:22

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22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #12

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12. The sixth state is when he utters truths and performs good deeds from faith and consequently from love. What he brings forth at this point are called a living creature and a beast. And because at this point he starts to act from faith and also simultaneously from love, he becomes a spiritual man, who is called an image. The spiritual life of that man finds its delight in, and is sustained by, the things which are associated with cognitions of faith and with charitable acts, which are called his food; and his natural life finds its delight in, and is sustained by, those which belong to the body and the senses. The latter give rise to conflict until love rules and he becomes a celestial man.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.

Commentary

 

Father, son, mother, and daughter

  

In Luke 12:51, 53: By father against son, and by son against the father, is understood evil against truth, and truth against evil; and by mother against daughter, and by the daughter against the mother, is understood the lust of falsity against the affection of truth, and vice versa. (Apocalypse Explained 504[31])

(References: Apocalypse Explained 504)