478. The reason he is called Adam is that the Hebrew word Adam means man. But the fact that Adam was never used as a proper name, only Man, is quite clear from the consideration that both here and earlier he is spoken of in the plural and not in the singular, and that the term refers to both man and woman. The two together are called Man. Anyone may see from these words that both are included, for it is said, 'He called their name Man on the day in which they were created', and similarly in 1:26, 28, 'Let Us make man in Our image, and they will have dominion over the fish of the sea. This shows also that the subject is not about someone who, when created, was the first human being of all, but about the Most Ancient Church.

841. 'Noah', as previously, means the member of the Ancient Church, and 'every wild animal and every beast that was with him in the ark' means all things that resided with him. This becomes clear from what has been stated already concerning Noah and concerning the meaning of 'wild animal' and 'beast'. In the Word 'wild animal' takes on a two-fold sense; it stands for things with a person that are alive and for things that are dead. The reason why it stands for those that are alive is that this expression in Hebrew means a living thing. But because the most ancient people in their humility acknowledged that they themselves were but wild animals, things with a person that are dead were therefore meant as well by the same expression. Here 'wild animal' means both what is alive and what is dead in their entirety, as is usually the case with someone after temptation. Things that are alive and those that are dead - that is, those that are the Lord's and those that are the person's own - seem so intermingled that at that time the person scarcely knows what truth and good are. At that time however the Lord is re-arranging and restoring all things to order, as becomes clear from what follows. For the fact that 'wild animal' means things that are alive with man, see the previous chapter, 7:14, and also verses 17, 19 of the present chapter. And from what has been shown several times already about wild animals and beasts, for example in 45, 46, 142, 143, 246, it is clear that it also means the things with a person that are dead.