148. Our identity or independence — which is indeed our own and is therefore tenderly loved by us — was called a rib or chest bone because to the earliest people the chest, with its heart and lungs, symbolized our tender love for others. Since bones are only minimally alive, they symbolized attributes of relatively little value. Flesh, however, symbolized attributes that have a living quality.
The reason for these symbolisms lies deeply hidden but was known to the earliest people. It will, with the Lord's divine mercy, be discussed later. 1
Footnotes:
1. Swedenborg discusses the correspondence of bone in §§5560-5563, and the first part of that passage, §§5560-5561, may have been the kind of treatment he had in mind in promising to talk about the reason for the symbolism. But see also §155 just below. [LHC]
