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Genesis 2:10

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

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Beast

  
"Noah and His Ark" by Charles Willson Peale

In Genesis 1:24, beasts signify the things of man's will or loves. (Arcana Coelestia 44, 46)

In Genesis 9:10, beasts signify all that was living in the man of the Ancient Church, and also what belonged to his new will; likewise the lower things of his understanding and the will therefrom. (Arcana Coelestia 1026-1029)

In Psalm 104:20, beasts signify affections longing to be instructed, or spiritually nourished. (Apocalypse Explained 650[10])

In Luke 10:35, since the beast was a donkey, this signifies to instruct another according to his capability. (Apocalypse Explained 1154)

The beast of the south (Isaiah 30:6) signifies people who are principled in the knowledges of good and of truth, but do not apply them to life and instead to science.

Every beast and creeping thing (Genesis 8:19) signifies the goodnesses of the internal and external man.

"Beasts" represent the affection for doing good things, a true desire to do them from the heart. In the negative sense, "beasts" stand for the lust to do evil.

The beast ascending out of the sea (Revelation 13:1) signifies reasonings from the natural man confirming the separation of faith from life.

(Referenties: Apocalypse Explained 13, 773; Revelation 13:11)


Van Swedenborgs Werken

 

Conjugial Love #192

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192. 7. Marriage even induces different forms on their souls and minds. In the natural world one cannot observe that marriage induces different forms on their souls and minds, because souls and minds are there enveloped in a material body, and the mind is rarely visible through this. In today's world, moreover, more than in ancient times, people also learn from early childhood to assume expressions on their faces which completely conceal the affections of their minds.

For this reason, one cannot see the difference between what the forms of their minds are like before marriage and what they are like afterwards. Nevertheless, it is clearly apparent from souls and minds in the spiritual world that the forms of these after marriage are different from what they had been before; for people are then spirits and angels, who are nothing else than minds and souls in human form, divested of the integuments they had had, which were composed of elements found in waters and earths and of exhalations from these diffused in the air. When these coverings have been cast off, the forms of their minds, and what these forms had been like within their bodies, become visible; and it is clearly seen then that the forms in people who are married are different from the forms in people who are not.

In general, the faces of married partners possess an inner beauty, the husband receiving from his wife the lovely blush of her love, and the wife receiving from her husband the shining splendor of his wisdom. For a married couple there is united in respect to their souls; and one also sees in the two a full expression of what it is to be human. This is the case in heaven, because marriages do not exist elsewhere. Beneath heaven one finds instead only temporary alliances which are formed and broken.

  
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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.