The Bible

 

Genesis 2

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1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.

2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.

3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.

5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden: and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.

11 The name of the first is Pison, which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;

12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx-stone.

13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same that compasseth the whole land of Cush.

14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: which floweth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden, to dress it, and to keep it.

16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest of it thou shalt surely die.

18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a help meet for him.

19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was its name.

20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowls of the air, and to every beast of the field: but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.

21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.

22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, he made woman, and brought her to the man.

23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man.

24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Conjugial Love #112

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112. A final and ninth time the angel took up a piece of paper, and he read from it the following opinion:

"We fellow countrymen in our committee applied our judgment to the two aspects of the subject proposed - to the origin of conjugial love, and to the origin of its vigor or potency.

"When we debated the finer points regarding the origin of conjugial love, in order to avoid obscurities in our arguments we drew distinctions between a spiritual, a natural, and a carnal love between the sexes. By a spiritual love between the sexes we mean truly conjugial love, because it is spiritual. By a natural love between the sexes we mean polygamous love, because it is natural. And by a merely carnal love between the sexes we mean licentious love, because it is merely carnal.

"When we looked with our powers of judgment into truly conjugial love, we saw clearly that this love is possible only between one male and one female, and that it is from creation heavenly, most interior, and the soul and parent of all good loves, having been inspired into the first parents and capable of being inspired into Christians. It is also so conjunctive that by it two minds can become one mind, and two persons like one person, which is what is meant by their becoming one flesh.

"That this love was inspired from creation is apparent from these words in the book of creation:

And a man shall leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. (Genesis 2:24)

"That it can be inspired into Christians is apparent from these verses:

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

"The subject is the origin of conjugial love.

"As for the origin of the vigor or potency of truly conjugial love, moreover, we theorize that it comes from a similarity and unanimity of minds. For when two minds are joined in marriage, their thoughts then spiritually kiss each other, and they inspire in the body their vigor or potency."

This statement was signed below with the letters Sw.

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.