913. Gold symbolizes the goodness of love because metals, like everything else found in the natural world, have a correspondence - gold to the goodness of love, silver to truths of wisdom, copper or bronze to the goodness of charity, and iron to truths of faith. For that reason these metals are found also in the spiritual world, since everything found there has a correspondence, inasmuch as they all correspond to the angels' affections and thoughts, which in themselves are spiritual.

That gold, owing to its correspondence, symbolizes the goodness of love, may be seen from the following passages:

I urge you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be enriched... (Revelation 3:18)

How dim the gold has become! How changed the finest gold! The stones of the sanctuary are scattered at the head of every street. The precious sons of Zion, valuable as pure gold... (Lamentations 4:1-2)

He will... save the souls of the poor... And He will give them some of the gold of Sheba. (Psalms 72:13, 15)

Instead of bronze I will bring gold, instead of iron, silver, instead of wood, bronze, and instead of stones, iron. I will also make your registration peaceful, and your tax gatherers righteous. (Isaiah 60:17)

Behold, you are wise...! No secret has been hidden from you! With your wisdom and your intelligence you have gained for yourself... gold and silver in your treasuries... You were in Eden, the garden...; every precious stone was your covering..., also gold. (Ezekiel 28:3-4, 13)

The multitude of camels shall cover you...; all those from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall proclaim the praises of Jehovah. (Isaiah 60:6, cf. 60:9, Matthew 2:11)

...I will fill this house with glory... The silver is Mine, and the gold is Mine... The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former... (Haggai 2:7-9)

Kings' daughters are among Your precious ones. At Your right hand stands the queen in the finest gold of Ophir... Her clothing is woven with gold. (Psalms 45:9, 13, cf. Ezekiel 16:13)

You have taken vessels for your adornment from My gold and My silver that I had given you, and made for yourself male images... (Ezekiel 16:17)

...you have taken My silver and My gold, and have carried My valuable possessions into your temples. (Joel 3:5)

[2] Since gold symbolized the goodness of love, therefore when Belshazzar with his great men was drinking wine from vessels of gold taken from the temple in Jerusalem, and at the same time was praising gods of gold, silver, bronze and iron, writing appeared on the wall, and that night he was slain (Daniel 5). And so on in many other places.

Since gold symbolized the goodness of love, therefore the Ark that contained the Law was overlaid inside and out with gold (Exodus 25:11). Therefore the mercy seat and the cherubim over the Ark were also of made of pure gold (Exodus 25:17-18).

[3] Since gold symbolized the goodness of love, silver the truth of wisdom, bronze the goodness of the natural love called charity, and iron the truth of faith, therefore people in ancient times called the succeeding periods of time from the most ancient period to the concluding one the golden, silver, bronze and iron ages. A similar symbolism is exhibited by the statue that Nebuchadnezzar saw in a dream, whose head was fine gold, its breast and arms silver, its belly and thighs bronze, its lower legs iron, and its feet part iron and part clay (Daniel 2:32-33). This symbolizes the succeeding states of the church in this world, from most ancient times to the present day. The state of the church today is described in this way:

As you saw iron mixed with miry clay, they will mingle with the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, just as iron does not mix with clay. (Daniel 2:43)

Iron symbolizes the truth of faith, as we have said, yet when there is no truth of faith, but faith without truth, then it is iron mixed with miry clay, the two of which do not bond together. The seed of men with which they will mingle symbolizes the truth in the Word. This is the state of the church today. What it will be hereafter is briefly described in Daniel 2:45, but at more length in chapter 7, verses 13-18, 27.

46. And girded about the breasts with a golden girdle. This symbolizes the emanating and at the same time conjoining Divinity which is Divine good.

The golden girdle has this symbolism because the Lord's breast, and specifically the nipples there, symbolize His Divine love. Therefore the golden girdle which encircled them symbolizes the emanating and at the same time conjoining Divinity, which is the Divine goodness of Divine love. Gold, too, symbolizes goodness (see no. 913 below).

A girdle or sash in the Word symbolizes a common bond which holds everything in order and connection. For example, in Isaiah:

There shall come forth a rod from the stem of Jesse..., and righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and truth the girdle of His loins. (Isaiah 11:1, 5)

The rod coming forth from the stem of Jesse is the Lord.

It may be seen in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), published in London, nos. 9837 and 9944, that the girdle of Aaron's ephod and the belt of his tunic symbolized conjunction.

Since a girdle symbolizes a bond conjoining the goods and truths of the church, therefore when the church with the children of Israel was destroyed, Jeremiah the prophet was commanded to buy himself a sash and put it on his loins, and then hide it in a hole in a rock by the Euphrates. And when, at the end of many days, he recovered it, behold, it was ruined and profitable for nothing. (Jeremiah 13:1-12) This represented that the goodness of the church had then come to nothing, with its truths therefore gone.

A sash has the same symbolic meaning in Isaiah 3:24, in the phrase, "instead of a sash, a rent." And so also elsewhere.

That nipples or paps symbolize Divine love is apparent from passages in the Word where they are mentioned, and from their correspondence with love.