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THE GOLDEN AGE 
 
 THE STORY OF 
 
 THE 
 
 MOST ANCIENT CHURCH 
 
 BY 
 CARL THEOPHILUS ODHNER 
 
 THE ACADEMY BOOK ROOM 
 BRYN ATHYN, PA. 
 
 1913 
 
(j-Jf tj Jyipi 4"^ 
 
 'I'T^ 
 
 ^Zl-'^^ 
 
 SW^3tG 
 
^t\W^"^^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 9' 
 
 Chapter I. The Successive Dispensations 13 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar 's Dream. The Analogy of History. The 
 Most Ancient Church. The Ancient Church. The Israel- 
 itish Church. The Christian Church. The Church of the 
 New Jerusalem. 
 
 Chapter II. The Origin of Man 27 
 
 The Theory of Evolution. Swedenborg's Doctrine of the 
 Creation of Man. The Arboreal Birth of Man. The 
 Home of Primeval Man. 
 
 Chapter III. The Preadamites 39 
 
 ^* Heaven" or the Internal with Primeval Man. The 
 ''Earth" or the External with Him. How ''Heaven" 
 first came to the "Earth." 
 
 Chapter IV. The Church of the Golden Age 58 
 
 Adam, the Man of the Ground. The Garden of Eden. 
 The Tree of Life and the Tree of Science. The Eivers 
 of Eden. Open Communication with Heaven. The Word 
 in the Golden Age. Their Perception of God. 
 
 Chapter V. Physiological Characteristics of Prime- 
 val Men 74 
 
 Their Brain. Internal Kespiration. Their Speech, Hear- 
 ing and Countenance. 
 
 Chapter VI. Life in Paradise 85 
 
 The Earthly Paradise. Social Eolations. Priesthood and 
 Eoyalty united. Occupations, Dwellings and Worship. 
 The Name "Jehovah." Marriage in the Golden Age. 
 5 
 
Chaptor Vll. 'V\u: Hfwv.n of the (Ioldkn Aca-. OS 
 
 'Yhc Most Anoirnt Honvon. Swodonbor^ 's Visit to tboir 
 Momu.'vni. 'Vho Ho.'uity ot tboir l.ovo. 
 
 C'hapu^r N'lll. Thk PmiNK of thf (Ioi.pfn Ai^f 107 
 
 Tho Origin of Evil. Tho l^oirinning of tho Pooliuo. Cou- 
 ditions of the "First Fostority." Tho F.-vll. Tho Curse 
 jviui tho Froiniso. Tho Hope o{ tho Agos. 
 
 Chapior IX. Thf Aui: of ruF rAruFVKOUs 12'J 
 
 C:uu :v.\d Abol. Tho Curso upon Cain. Tho Cainitos and 
 tho Sot hit OS. Tho Eomaius of tho Most Anoiout Churcb. 
 Fnocb. 
 
 Chapter X. Thf An tf.pu,fvfvn> 135 
 
 In tho Pays boforo tho Flood, Tho Xophiliui, Autodi- 
 luviau Porsua&ious. Life anions; tho Autediluviaiis. 
 
 Chaptor XT. Xo.\n anp tuf Ffoop 145 
 
 Tho Focinninc: ot a now *.'hin\h. Tho Flood. In Ta.r- 
 tar\)s. Tho Lord's Victory ovor tho doopost llolls. 
 
 Chapter Xll. LFtn:NPS of Ckfation 15S 
 
 Tho .\ssyrian Tablotsi. Borosns iu Chaldoa, Egypt ia.u 
 Cosmogony. Tho Rig Voda. Uosiod and Ovid. The Elder 
 Edda.. Tho Footrino of Confucius, 
 
 Chapter XI 11. Lfufnps of tuf Cofim:n Age 179 
 
 Assyrian K<>cords. Chaldean Story of Oanuos. Crook and 
 Latin Legends. The Xorthoru Sagas. The Zend Avesta 
 
 a.nd Fura.na. 
 
 Chapter XIV. Lfgfnps of tuf F\\.\. anp tuf Fatki- 
 
 AKCUS 194 
 
 Assyro-Cha.ldoan Story of the R<^bollion in Heaven. For- 
 siau and Hindu Traditions. Logonds of Central Asia. 
 An Eobo from Madagiiskar. American Legends. 
 
COXTEXTS. 7 
 
 Ch&i)t(tT XV. Legends Conceenen'g Enoch 201 
 
 Ara?jic Traditions — The Aecount of Berogus. 'Enoch and 
 '^Ilormes TriBmegistus. " 
 
 Cliaptfir XVI. Legends of the Fixxjd 209 
 
 The BaVjylonian "Izdubar" Legends. A grotesque story "^ 
 
 from Egypt. The Greek and Latin Legends of Denkalion, 
 Scandinavian, Welsh aod Lithuanian Legends. Persian, 
 Hindu and Chinese Stories. American Traditions. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS AND DIAGRAMS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Fall ^ 
 
 Noah in his ark V Frontispiece 
 
 The Asherah, or Sacred Tree ) 
 
 A Chart of the Ages 19 
 
 The Involution and Evolution of the Word 25 
 
 Swedenborg's Doctrine of Forms and Degrees 31 
 
 The Assyrian Fish-god 182 
 
 Chnemu modelling man 184 
 
 The Fall 194 
 
 Mexican representation of Eve, Cain and Abel, and the serpent. .182 
 
 EEFERENCES TO WORKS BY SWEDENBORG. 
 
 A. C. — The Arcana Celestia. 
 Adv. — The Adversaria. 
 A. E. — The Apocalypse Explained, 
 A. R. — The Apocalypse Revealed. 
 
 C. L. — CoNJUGiAL Love. 
 
 Cor. — CoRONis or Appendix to the True Christian Religion. 
 
 D. L. W. — The Divine Love and Wisdom. 
 
 Doc. — Documents concerning Swedenbobg. By R. L. Tafel. 
 D. P. — The Divine Providence. 
 H. H. — ^Heaven and Hell. 
 
 N. J. — The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Doctrine. 
 S. D. — The Spiritual Diary. 
 S. D. Min. — The Smaller Diary. 
 T. C. R. — The True Christian Religion. 
 W. L. G. — The Worship and Love of God. 
 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE modern science of Archeology is one of the most 
 evident results of that Last Great Judgment which 
 took place in the spiritual world in the year 1757. 
 The Lord in His glorified human appeared in the clouds 
 of heaven when the internal sense of the Word wa^ re- 
 vealed through Emanuel Swedenborg. The divinely ra- 
 tional truths of the new revelation set free the "souls under 
 the altar" from the bonds of ancient dogma and deception, 
 and as by a mighty east wind cast dowTi the imaginary 
 heavens which had been built up by Catholic and Protes- 
 tant ecclesiasticism. A new and genuine heaven was now 
 formed, through which the heavens of the Lord's Ancient 
 Churches could freely flow down to bless mankind with the 
 treasures of the Ages of Silver and Gold. To their influ- 
 ence chiefly is due the new interest in hoary antiquity which 
 stirs the modern world. 
 
 On the earth the first effects of the Last Judgment were 
 seen and heard in the crash of ruined despotisms. The 
 downfall of the Jesuit dominion was the first event herald- 
 ing the era of spiritual freedom. The American Revolu- 
 tion next established upon the earth the first home of com- 
 plete religious liberty. The French Revolution, soon fol- 
 lowing, shook Roman Babylon to its foundations and under 
 the cTgis of the Corsican spread far and wide the cry for 
 Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. 
 
 Incidental to Napoleon's triumphant progress was the 
 French occupation of Egypt in the year 1799,— the most 
 important result of which was the discovery at Rosetta of a 
 stone which proved to be the key that had been wanting for 
 ages to unlock the rusty portals of ancient Egypt. The 
 science of Egyptology arose like a Phoenix from ruined 
 temples and buried tombs and at once struck a tremendous 
 
10 THE GOLDEN AGE, 
 
 blow at the literal interpretation of Scripture by demon- 
 strating the impossibility of the time-honored chronology 
 which had limited the history of the human race to six 
 thousand years. 
 
 Some forty years later the world was again startled by 
 the resurrection of ancient Nineveh from the mounds of 
 Kuyunjik, and the science of Assyriology suddenly took 
 its place beside that of Egyptology. The results to Re- 
 ligion were even more important than the discoveries in 
 Egypt, for now, from Nineveh and Babylon, from Nippur, 
 and Ur of the Chaldeans, there came to light a mass of 
 documents very closely related to the Biblical accounts of 
 Creation, Paradise, the Fall and the Flood, — stories so 
 ancient that a new school of Biblical Criticism claimed for 
 them an antiquity greater than that of the Bible itself. 
 
 Further and further back reached the chronological 
 claims of Babylonia and Chaldea, — to six, seven, even ten 
 thousand years before our era. Ancient Egypt was found 
 to be but a child of Chaldea, with Ethiopia, Libya and 
 Phoenicia as branches of the same stock. The civilization 
 of China and of the whole Mongolian race was traced back 
 to the banks of the Euphrates. The brotherhood of all na- 
 tions was established in many surprising ways, for the 
 study of Sanscrit lore proved the common origin of Latin 
 and Teuton, Celt and Slav, with branches of dusky brethren 
 in Afghanistan and India. Thus the materials of Arche- 
 ology accumulated in bewildering abundance, and towards 
 the end of the nineteenth century still another forgotten 
 civilization was unearthed in Syria and Asia Minor, — the 
 empire of the ancient Hittites, whose secrets still continue 
 to baffle the learned world. And synchronously with all 
 these discoveries the geologists dug up from the strata of 
 the earth the new science of Paleontology, with its paleo- 
 lithic and neolithic men claiming for the human race an 
 antiquity of untold ages. 
 
 But with all this enormous wealth of new knowledges 
 and sciences the modem world must still confess its dis- 
 appointment in the continued absence of — Light! Paleon- 
 tology has tried in vain to trace the descent of man to an 
 
INTEODUCTION. H 
 
 "anthropoid" ape, but no "missing link" has ever been 
 found, and as to the origin of man the learned world is as 
 much in the dark as ever. Egyptology and Assyriology 
 disclosed the essentially and intensely religious nature of 
 the ancient civilizations on the Nile, the Tigris and the 
 Euphrates, but as to the meaning of these religions the pro- 
 fessors admit themselves at a loss. The more they study, 
 the more multiple, complex and confusing appear the end- 
 less lists of divinities, with ever changing names, and with 
 sjonbols and attributes closely interwoven and yet distinct. 
 Archeologists and students of Comparative Mythology are 
 in despair at the apparent impossibility of constructing in- 
 telligible systems out of this rope of scientific sand. 
 
 To that simple Faith which was considered the bulwark 
 of human happiness, modern science has brought no in- 
 crease of light. It has only served to tear Christianity 
 from the ancient moorings of Divine Revelation, and has 
 set the churches drifting helplessly on an ocean of doubt 
 and confusion. The "good old book" which in past ages 
 was looked to for the explanation of all mysteries of faith 
 and science, was rejected as a stupendous compilation of 
 successive forgeries, and there is no longer any certainty 
 as to the common source of tradition and legend, myth and 
 religion. That there was such a common source every 
 rational student admits, but where it is to be found, or 
 how it is to be understood, the learned world knows not. 
 
 And yet the Light that is wanting to co-ordinate and 
 explain the facts of Archeology and kindred sciences, was 
 revealed even before the era of modern discoveries was 
 ushered in. At the middle of the eighteenth century there 
 was published at London a work in eight quarto volumes, 
 entitled Arcana Ccelestia, qu^ in Scriptura Sacra seu 
 Verbo Domini sunt, detecta, "The Heavenly Mysteries 
 which are in the Sacred Scripture or the Word of the Lord, 
 disclosed." The author of this work, one of the foremost 
 scientific men of his age, frankly stated that he had written, 
 not from human light and learning, but from immediate 
 Divine inspiration. This confession at once brought upon 
 Emanuel Swedenborg the incredulity, contempt and ridi- 
 
12 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 eule of the learned and the religious worlds, and in this 
 attitude they have persisted until the present day, steadily 
 refusing even to open the book in which they could, if they 
 would, find the solution to all the problems that now be- 
 wilder them. 
 
 For in the first volume of this work there are unearthed 
 whole ffions of human history, the very existence of which 
 has been forgotten by historians since the days of Herod- 
 otus, a dim recollection remaining only in the fabulous 
 classic legends of Golden and Silver Ages to which no mod- 
 em scientist pays serious attention. But in the Arcana 
 CcELESTiA the historic existence of these traditional ages is 
 demonstrated with scientific precision and consistency by 
 means of a new or, rather, re-discovered science, — the 
 Science of Correspondences, — ^which in ancient times was 
 the ''science of sciences." And this Divine Archeology, 
 reaching back to the ver\^ birth of mankind, was not dug 
 up out of ruins and dust heaps, nor yet out of the strata 
 of the earth, but out of a mine of infinite wealth, — the Word 
 of God in the Sacred Scriptures. 
 
 Within the literal sense of these Scriptures there are 
 depths beneath depths of interior meanings and hidden 
 senses, referring by a series of discrete degrees first to the 
 general religious history of mankind, then more universally 
 to the religious life of every individual man, and, inmostly 
 in every single word, to the Divine life of our Lord and 
 Savior. 
 
 In the present volume we deal only with that interior 
 sense which lies nearest to the surface of the letter, — the 
 Internal Historical Sense of the Word as contained in the 
 opening chapters of Genesis and as now disclosed in the 
 Writings of the New Church, revealing the history of the 
 Lord's Most Ancient Church among the men of this earth, 
 the Church of Adam, the Church of the Golden Age. We 
 can present here only an outline of this history ; for fuller 
 details the reader must go to the Divine Revelation itself, 
 which every discovery of modem science serves to con- 
 firm, and with which all the traditions and myths of an- 
 tiquity falls into harmonious and illustrative lines. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 THE SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. 
 
 As every society of men forms one larger man, so the 
 whole of mankind in its most universal aspect is a "Maxi- 
 mus Homo, ' ' one Grand Man, possessing all the forms and 
 functions of an individual man. And the spiritual his- 
 tory of this Grand Man, from first creation to the present 
 day, has been similar to the life-story of every single man, 
 for the Church of God among men has passed through the 
 ages of infancy, youth, manhood and old age, and when 
 at last it seemed to die, it rose again into a new, spiritual 
 and everlasting life. 
 
 As every general thing consists of parts similar to itself, 
 so each of the successive ages of the Lord's one and uni- 
 versal Church has in itself been a Church or general Dis- 
 pensation. In the past there have been four of these gen- 
 eral Churches, corresponding to the four atmospheres of 
 the universe, the four quarters of the world, the four peri- 
 ods of the day, the four seasons of the year, the four ages 
 of a human life. For the Church of the Lord first arose 
 in the East, in the golden dawn of innocence and love of 
 God ; this was the morning, the spring-time, the infancy of 
 the race, when men lived and breathed in the very atmos- 
 phere of Heaven. But they fell from their pristine glory, 
 and another Age succeeded, spiritual indeed, but not ce- 
 lestial. The Church had moved from the East to the South, 
 from the love of God to the love of the neighbor. The 
 atmosphere now prevailing was a magnetic aura of mutual 
 love, and the sunlight of spiritual wisdom still shone upon 
 men in the noon-time, summer and early youth of the race. 
 But this Church also perished, and mankind moved from 
 the South to the region of the setting sun. Love, charity 
 and wisdom were lost among the gathering clouds of falsity 
 
 13 
 
14 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 and evil. Men became purely natural, but there still lin- 
 gered about them an Ether of Faith, though this Faith 
 was mostly blind obedience to precepts, the spirit of which 
 had been lost in the mist of earthly loves. The Sun of 
 Righteousness then arose, with healing in His wings, but 
 men comprehended Him not because their deeds were e^dl. 
 A few simple folk beheld the Light, as through a glass 
 darkly, and what they saw they proclaimed rejoicing, and 
 thus they passed on the knowledge of the Lord in His hu- 
 man to a new Church, which for a short time shone brightly 
 as a new and glorious Star in the dark firmament. But 
 the Christian Church moved on from the West to the North. 
 The Star, by the magic formulas of man-made creeds, soon 
 lost its lustre, then disappeared. An obscure knowledge 
 of the Lord remained with some, producing a still breath- 
 able Air, but the light of the Word sank beneath the hori- 
 zon of the Dark Ages, and a night of universal ignorance, 
 a winter of cold indifference to the life of charity, spread 
 its shroud upon the dying Church. Death followed, and 
 the Last Judgment after death, but then immediately the 
 God of Mercy appeared in the clouds of heaven to raise His 
 Church into a new and everlasting life. This new Light 
 first appeared in the frozen North, but it will lead the 
 Church Eastward forever. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar ^s Dream . 
 
 The foregoing life-story of Mankind is described in won- 
 derful epitome in the dream of the great king of Babylon, 
 recorded by Daniel. 
 
 ^'Thou, king, didst see, and heJiold a great image. 
 This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood 
 before thee; and its aspect was terrible. 
 
 "The head of this image was of fine gold, his breast 
 and arms were of silver, his belly and his thighs were 
 of bra^s. 
 
 "His legs were of iro7i, his feet part of iron and part 
 of clay. 
 
 "Whilst thou wast seeing, a Stone was cut out, which 
 
TEE SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. 15 
 
 w<is not cut hy hands, and it smote the image upon its 
 feet of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. 
 
 ''Then were broken to pieces at the same time the 
 iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold; and 
 they became as the chaff from the threshing floors of 
 summer, so that the wind carried them away and no 
 place was found for them. And the Stone which smote 
 the image became a great mountain and filled the whole 
 earth. ' ' ( Daniel 2:31-35.) 
 
 The Golden Head of this Image of the Ages represents 
 the first or Most Ancient Church upon this earth, a 
 Church which in the letter of the Word is called by the col- 
 lective name of ''Adam," In the traditions of antiquity 
 it is known as the ' ' Golden Age, ' ' because Gold corresponds 
 to the love of God, the supreme of human loves, which 
 reigned universally in that celestial age. The Breast and 
 Arms of Silver represent the second general Church, which 
 is called the Ancient Church, — in the Word signified by 
 "Noah" and his sons. This dispensation is known as the 
 "Silver Age," because Silver corresponds to the spiritual 
 love of the neighbor, a noble love, second only to the love 
 of God. The breast and the arms are the embracing abode 
 and instruments of this love. 
 
 The Belly and Thighs of Brass signify the third dis- 
 pensation, called the Israelitish Church, which is also 
 known as the "Brazen Age," because Brass corresponds to 
 natural good and especially the good of blind obedience to 
 the letter of the Law, which was the only genuine good 
 among the descendants of Israel. As the belly is the re- 
 ceptacle of all food for the body, and as the superior body 
 rests upon the thighs, so all celestial and spiritual goods are 
 collected in natural good and rest upon it. 
 
 The Legs of Iron, and the Feet of Iron mingled with 
 Clay, stand for the fourth general church, called the Chris- 
 tian Church, the "Iron Age." Iron corresponds to the 
 solid facts of natural truth, the basis of all interior truths 
 and goods, and the legs and feet correspond to the same. 
 To the Christian Church were given the natural truths of 
 
16 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 the literal sense of the Word, and the most fundamental 
 of these truths was the knowledge that the Creator of the 
 universe had been bom a Man on the earth. But the miry- 
 Clay, of which men make imitation stone, signifies the false 
 nations of human conceit; and the Feet of Iron mingled 
 with Clay represent the latter days of the Christian Church, 
 when the truths of the Word w^ere profaned by man-made 
 dogmas. 
 
 The Stone which was not cut by hands, and which smote 
 the image upon its feet of iron and clay and became a great 
 Mountain filling the whole earth, signifies the Heavenly 
 Doctrine of the New Jerusalem. Springing from the In- 
 finite Wisdom of the Lord in His Divine Human, this Doc- 
 trine was not fashioned by the hand of man, but is in it- 
 self the Rock of Ages which the builders had rejected. 
 This Doctrine came at the consummation of the Ages and 
 produced a Last Judgment upon the Churches of the past. 
 It will in time be proclaimed throughout the earth and 
 upon it will be established the fifth and cro^Tiing Church, 
 THE Church of the New Jerusalem, which will never pass 
 away. To this Church will be given all the genuine truths 
 and goods of all the former Churches. It will rule 
 ("feed") the nations with a sceptre of Iron by means of 
 true Science and Philosophy. The Brass of natural good 
 will be restored by means of genuine ethics based upon love 
 truly conjugial. The Silver of spiritual charity and the 
 Gold of celestial love will make glorious the streets of the 
 New Jerusalem, and in the midst of the heavenly city men 
 will again eat of the Tree of Life. 
 
 The Analogy of History. 
 
 Throughout the four Churches of the past there has been 
 a notable repetition of analogous states and events, which 
 are summarized as follows in the Coronis, the appendix to 
 the True Christian Religion: 
 
 I. In each Church there have been four successive states 
 or periods, in the Word called morning, day, evening and 
 night. (Cor. 5.) 
 
THE SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. ij 
 
 II. In each Church there have followed four changes of 
 state, of which the first has been the appearance of the Lord 
 Jehovih and Redemption, and then its morning or rise- the 
 second has been its Instruction, and then its day or progres- 
 sion; the tJurd has been its Decline, and then its evening or 
 vastation; the fourth has been its End, and then its night or 
 consummation. (CoR. 6.) 
 
 III. After its consummation or end, the Lord Jehovih 
 appears and performs a Judgment upon the men of the 
 former Church, and separates the good from the evil, elevat- 
 ing the good to Himself in Heaven, and removing the evil 
 from Himself into Hell. (CoE. 10.) 
 
 f J^'.^**""" *.^'',*''' ^""^ '^'^"^'^ establishes a new Heaven 
 from the good elevated to Himself, and a new Hell from 
 
 unl'"^ .ww'^,.*''"" ^'"'''^^' ^"'i He induces order 
 upon both that they may stand under His auspices and 
 obedience to eternity. (Cor. 14.) 
 
 .J' ^"i °* *'' ''''^ ^^^''•"^ ^^^ Lord Jehovah derives 
 and produces a new Church upon the earth, which takes 
 plaee by means of a Revelation of Truths out of His 
 
 ?C0R la)""* """ ^''"^' '""^ ""^ '^''''' '' Inspiration 
 
 wiln J^t^J''™^ '^°*' "" ^ '^^°'^' ^^ called Redemption, 
 
 Tnunf/ "° f ? '"" ^"^ '^'''^' ''^^^^^ without it he 
 cannot be regenerated. (Cor. 21.) 
 
 in J.° *^''' ^""^''''^ ^^''■' "^ ^''''^°^ ^^ '^''y ad*^ tJie foUow- 
 
 thpTe^V, J°h ""* .^^"'■"''' ^""'^ ^'^^"^^ ^t« consummation, 
 tho^e wt V ^^^P""-^^ Reformation, as a protection to 
 those who could still be saved, and as a preparation for the 
 new (^nurcn to come. 
 
 of Thl^fn^""* oT ^.^T^ ^""^ '^ "^'^ «"'°'>g tJ^« remnant 
 of the former Church, but in its fulness it was established 
 among Gentiles who had not been contaminated with the 
 evils and falses of the perverted Church. 
 
 Bearing in mind this Analogy of History, we may now 
 briefly review the successive states of the four Churches. 
 
18 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The Most Ancient Church. 
 
 1) The rise or morning of the Lord's Most Ancient 
 Church is described in the Word by the creation of heaven 
 and earth. The first men created, — the Preadamites, — had 
 "heaven" implanted in their internal man, but their 
 ''earth," or external man, was "empty and void." As 
 to all external things they were like infants, — corporeal, 
 sensual, and ignorant, — and their internal man could take 
 possession of their external only by successive degrees of 
 education and up-building, represented by the six days of 
 Creation, until finally the state of Adam, or the celestial 
 man, was reached. 
 
 2) The noon-day glory of the Golden Age is described by 
 the seventh day and by Adam and his wife in the Garden 
 of Eden. The tree of life in the midst of the garden was 
 their power of Perception, by means of which Jehovah God 
 revealed to the celestial men all things of love and faith. 
 Will and understanding were at that time one faculty, and 
 the Word of God was written, not in a book, but upon the 
 hearts of men. The Church on earth was in open com- 
 munication with Heaven ; the love of God, and from it con- 
 jugial and fraternal love, reigned supreme, resulting in a 
 state of innocence, wisdom, peace and joy, such as have 
 never been known since those happy days. The tree of 
 the knowledge of good and evil also grew in the garden, 
 for the celestial man was in complete freedom of choice 
 between internal life and external life, but refused to choose 
 the latter. 
 
 3) Thus ages passed in prehistoric bliss, until a time 
 came when some individuals deliberately listened to the 
 voice of the serpent, — ^the fallacious appearances of the 
 senses, — in preference to the voice of Jehovah. The idea 
 of self-direction by means of worldly knowledge arose and 
 took hold of a later generation, and thus men fell from their 
 celestial state. The Garden of Eden was closed and a state 
 of evening, decline and vastation set in upon the Church. 
 
 4) As each succeeding generation grew worse by the ac- 
 cumulation of hereditary evil, they gradually sank into a 
 
TEE SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. 
 
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20 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 state of profanation by mingling celestial goods and truths 
 with sensual lusts and persuasions. Before complete night 
 overwhelmed them there was a brief period of Reform, 
 when a generation known as ''Enoch" undertook the work 
 of collecting and writing down the traditions and doctrines 
 of the Golden Age. The book, thus written, was soon hidden 
 away from the destructive fury of the antediluvian race, 
 which rushed headlong into such monstrous evils that they 
 were finally destroyed as by a universal flood. Through 
 their wicked life their channels of internal respiration were 
 choked up, and as they did not possess the power of ex- 
 ternal breathing, thej^ perished in the night of the Judg- 
 ment. 
 
 The Ancient Church. 
 
 1) The rise and morning of the second Church is repre- 
 sented by the salvation of Noah and his family in the ark. 
 Noah, w^hose name means ' ' rest, ' ' was a generation of ante- 
 diluvians who still possessed some remains of unperverted 
 good and truth, and with whom the channels of external 
 respiration w^ere opened. 
 
 2) This Church of the Silver Age existed at first among 
 a few in the land of Canaan, but was afterwards estab- 
 lished among many nations in Asia and Africa, represented 
 by the sons and descendants of Noah. The light of the 
 Ancient Word was, in fact, extended throughout the earth, 
 for the mjrthological systems of all gentile races are derived 
 from this common origin. The men of this Church did not 
 possess the celestial perception enjoyed by the Golden Age, 
 but instead thereof a spiritual conscience of truth was given 
 to them, by means of which they were able to subdue the 
 evil inclinations of their native will. Hence charity and 
 wisdom reigned among them, and some still enjoyed open 
 communication with the angels of Heaven. Religion, phil- 
 osophy and science dwelt peacefully together, and the sci- 
 ence which they most especially cultivated was the science 
 of the correspondence of all natural things with their spirit- 
 ual prototypes. 
 
 3) In the course of ages men began to abuse these gifts 
 
TEE SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. 21 
 
 by applying them to the service of worldly and selfish loves. 
 "It came to pass, as they journeyed from the East" that 
 they desired to build a tower of bricks in Babel. The 
 Church was invaded by the love of ruling over the souls 
 of men by means of man-made doctrines. For this pur- 
 pose the priesthood entered into communication with evil 
 spirits and began to pervert the science of correspondences 
 by magical practices. Religion became esoteric, and the 
 truths of the Ancient Word were withheld from the com- 
 mon people. Correspondences were gradually forgotten, 
 and men began to worship as gods the images which had 
 been raised as symbolic representations of the various es- 
 sentials and attributes of the One God. Thus polytheism 
 and idolatry arose everywhere in the Ancient Church; the 
 former charity was lost in the strife of contending heresies 
 and sects; men no longer ''understood one another's 
 speech" in the declining day of the Silver Age. 
 
 4) Lest the final judgment should be unduly hastened, 
 a temporary Reformation was instituted in Syria by Eber, 
 who established among his descendants the Second Ancient 
 or Hebrew Church. The forgotten books of the Ancient 
 Word were restored and with them the worship of Jeho- 
 vah, and the practice of animal sacrifices was introduced 
 in order to keep the frenzied nations from sacrificing hu- 
 man beings. This reform, however, lasted but a few gen- 
 erations; the Ancient Word was finally lost, and the light 
 of the Ancient Church was gradually extinguished in one 
 nation after another. 
 
 The Israelitish Church. 
 
 1) No genuine spiritual Church could now be raised up, 
 for universal idolatry reigned throughout the earth. In 
 order to establish at least the semblance of a true Church, 
 Jehovah therefore revealed Himself to Abraham who chose 
 Him as the patron god for himself and his family. After 
 the release of the Israelites from their captivity in Egypt 
 the Church was formally established among them through 
 the revelation given to Moses, and the beginning of this 
 
22 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 new Hebrew Word was a portion of the Ancient Word in 
 Genesis. The Israelitish dispensation was a Church which 
 in the most minute things of its ritual represented a true 
 spiritual Church, but it was not in itself a genuine Church, 
 for the Israelites knew not the meaning of their represen- 
 tative worship and cared nothing for spiritual or celestial 
 things. It was a purely histrionic church, and the only 
 good which kept the people together as a church and na- 
 tion was the good of obedience, — blind, unquestioning obedi- 
 ence to the letter of the Law. As long as they obeyed, 
 it was well with them ; as soon as they doubted or disobeyed, 
 disaster overtook them. For the conjunction of Heaven 
 with the earth now depended upon mere forms, and if these 
 forms had been perverted mankind would have perished. 
 
 2) The noon-day and summer of the Israelitish Church 
 began with the conquest of Canaan, extended through the 
 reign of the judges, the high-priests, and the first three 
 kings, culminating in the victories of David and the glory 
 of Solomon, when the first great Temple was raised in 
 Jerusalem, and the worship of Jehovah was fully estab- 
 lished. 
 
 3) The decline of the Church set in with the division of 
 the nation into two hostile kingdoms, representing the 
 strife which always arises between faith and charity, be- 
 twen the spiritual and the celestial, when both have been 
 perverted and separated from one another. Israel, or the 
 spiritual kingdom, was finally carried away by Assyria, or 
 false reasoning proceeding from the love of the world ; and 
 Judah, or the celestial kingdom, was carried away by Baby- 
 lon, the love of dominion. 
 
 4) The vastation of the Jewish Church is represented by 
 the seventy years of captivity in Babylon. A temporary 
 Keform took place after the return of the Jews to Jerusa- 
 lem under Ezra and Nehemiah. The Law and the Proph- 
 ets were brought forth from their hiding places, and the 
 Jews became very strict and orthodox indeed, but the spirit 
 of prophecy had died. The people had become a generation 
 of vipers and hypocrites, who rushed from one enormity 
 to another, the terrible story finally culminating in the 
 
TEE SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. 23 
 
 crucifixion of Innocence Itself. A few years later tlie 
 Judgment fell upon the insane nation by the siege and de- 
 struction of Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews. 
 
 The Christian Church. 
 
 1 ) The rise and morning of the fourth Church took place 
 in the days when the Lord in His Human preached His 
 Gospel of Love to the few simple folk who alone were 
 willing to believe Him. He came not at first to the Gen- 
 tiles, but to the lost sheep of the children of Israel. After 
 the Ascension of the Lord, the remnant was quickly col- 
 lected, but was soon compelled to leave forever the doomed 
 Church of the Jews. The Gospel now passed over to the 
 Gentiles, and before the age of the apostles closed it had 
 been preached in every part of the Roman Empire. 
 
 2) In the midst of relentless persecutions Christianity 
 grew like a young giant, and the blood of the martyrs was 
 the seed of the Church. Nor was the growth merely ex- 
 ternal, for the Gospel of Love produced a new charity and 
 a new life among those who received it, and Christian The- 
 ology for a time gave promise of increasing light. This 
 halcyon state of primitive Christianity lasted about two 
 hundred years. 
 
 3) From the beginning the Christian Church had been 
 infested with heresies of various kinds, and as the Church 
 grew the heresies increased in number and virulence to the 
 detriment of the primitive charity and the purity of doc- 
 trine. The sufferings of the martyrs created sympathy and 
 caused multitudes to enter the Church through persuasion 
 rather than rational conviction. When the persecutions 
 ceased and Christianity was established at the imperial 
 court, the Church became the highway to political influence 
 and power, and the ancient Roman love of dominion took 
 universal possession of the Church. Councils were as- 
 sembled to force dogmas upon the conscience of men. At 
 the first of these general meetings, held at Nicsea in the year 
 325, the Godhead was divided into three persons, and at the 
 seventh and last ecumenical council, again held at Nicaea, 
 
24 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 in the year 787, the worship of images was formally sanc- 
 tioned. Thus tritheism and idolatry were established 
 throughout the Christian Church, and the Dark Ages fol- 
 lowed, with the rule of the Scarlet Woman enthroned in 
 the city of the seven hills. 
 
 4) In the middle of the night a cock-crow was heard in 
 Germany, and a Reformation took place in preparation for 
 the final Judgment. The Word of God was liberated 
 from the prison house of the Roman Catholic Church, but 
 as a whole the Reformation miscarried. All the false dog- 
 mas of the Councils remained in full force, and to them 
 was added the doctrine of instantaneous salvation by faith 
 alone without charity and good works. Thus the sun of 
 charity was darkened and the moon of faith no longer 
 gave its light. All spiritual life now died in the Christian 
 Church, and finally, in the year 1757, the Last Judgment 
 fell upon it in the spiritual world. The imaginary heavens 
 of Christian hypocrites were thrown down into hell by the 
 Revelation of the Lord in the spiritual sense of His Word. 
 The simple good spirits who for ages had been held captive 
 under the altar were now released and formed into a New 
 Heaven from which, in time, a New Church could be pro- 
 duced upon the earth. The Old Christian Church still re- 
 mains in this world as an external institution, but its dog- 
 mas are crumbling and its power broken forever. 
 
 The Church of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 The declining life-story of the Church having been com- 
 pleted, an everlasting ascent has now commenced. A new 
 and unending Church has dawned, the Age to which all the 
 past Ages have looked forward as the fulfillment of 
 prophecy. 
 
 The conception of this New Church was effected by means 
 of the Second Advent of the Lord in the power and glory 
 of His opened Word. The Heavenly Doctrine of the New 
 Jerusalem was revealed in the inspired Writings of the 
 servant of the Lord, Emanuel Swedenborg, but its Ad- 
 vent was perceived at first only by a few faithful shepherds 
 
TRE SUCCESSIVE DISPENSATIONS. 
 
 25 
 
 The Involution and Evolution 
 
 OF 
 
 THE Word. 
 
 
 ?.^ 
 
 ■^'^'J^u,utl6^'i^'*■•^' 
 
26 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 watching over their flocks in the night. A few wise men 
 also came to worship the newborn Light in the Word. 
 Gradually a few disciples were gathered, but as soon as the 
 presence of the New Church was perceived in the world of 
 spirits, the crew of the Dragon began its assaults. Per- 
 secutions from without soon gave place to more insidious at- 
 tacks from within the ranks of the New Church itself. All 
 the heresies and all the evil forces from the dead churches 
 of the past will unite in the endeavor to devour the woman 
 with the Man child, but their assaults will be vain, for the 
 Lord has come in the power of His glorified Human and 
 will remain with His New Church for ever. Human or- 
 ganizations in the New Church may have their rise and de- 
 cline, but the New Church itself will never pass away, for 
 the Divine Truth of the Word has been revealed in a form 
 so rational and self-evidencing that it can never be extin- 
 guished among men who have eyes to see and ears to hear 
 and hearts to be kindled by the fire of Divine Love. 
 
 This New Church will at first, and perhaps for ages, 
 remain among a few in the Christian world, but as these 
 few remain faithful to the Light, and pass it on to their 
 posterity, the Church will gradually increase among many, 
 who in each successive generation will come into clearer 
 and purer light and life. And in time this Light will come 
 also to those who now are gentiles, and among them it will 
 be established in a fulness and glory of which we as yet 
 can have no conception. It will then become on earth what 
 it is in Heaven. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 THE ORIGIN OF MAN. 
 
 Time was when to doubt the scientific accuracy of the 
 time-honored ecclesiastical theory of the creation of the 
 world and of the origin of man, meant temporal persecu- 
 tion accompanied with the threat of eternal damnation. 
 From this spiritual slavery, which had lasted a thousand 
 years, mankind was set free, once and forever, by the Last 
 Great Judgment. 
 
 Human science then with a mighty bound cast off the 
 shackles by which it had been fettered since the beginning 
 of the Dark Ages, but at the same time it also cast away 
 faith in everything that could not be established by the evi- 
 dence of the senses. The ancient Hebrew Book, which so 
 long had been made to serve as the prison house of human 
 reason, now came to be looked upon with distrust, then with 
 anger and hatred. Its literal inspiration and Divine au- 
 thority were rejected in the light of the astounding dis- 
 coveries of Geology, Anthropology, Comparative Anatomy, 
 Biology, and all the other new sciences. The biblical story 
 of creation in six days by a Divine fiat was scoffed at as an 
 ancient Semitic myth now fit only for the nursery. The 
 universe, it was found, was not ruled by any teleological 
 wisdom of Divine Love, but by self-established Natural 
 Laws, and as the chief of these the Law of Evolution was 
 enthroned in the place of a personal God. 
 
 The Theory of Evolution. 
 
 Organic life, as well as inorganic substance and form, 
 was recognized as subject to perpetual change, variation, 
 progress and development. The idea of any discrete and 
 impassable degrees between the species and genera and 
 
 27 
 
28 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 kingdoms of nature was rejected in view of the ever multi- 
 plying discoveries of approximations of organic forms. All 
 definite boundaries were broken down, and plants and ani- 
 mals became one in the unbroken chain of self-created and 
 self-evolving biological phenomena. 
 
 Man, the final and crowning link of this chain of evolu- 
 tion, was hailed as the most highly developed genus of ani- 
 mal life. Far from having been created in a state of hu- 
 man perfection, far from having degenerated by a subse- 
 quent general ''fall," mankind throughout its history had 
 experienced nothing but a continuous and triumphant 
 march of progress and ascent. "When first appearing in 
 the ' ' infallible ' ' Record of the Eocks, man had been a sav- 
 age of the lowest type, removed but a step from his im- 
 mediate ancestor, the "anthropoid ape" or ''Lemurian 
 man," whose remains, unfortunately, have not yet been 
 found, though his reconstructed image may be seen in 
 papier-mache in the university museums. Upward, ever 
 upward, by natural and sexual selection and the survival 
 of the fittest, from protoplasmic cell, through slime and 
 mud, through all the vegetable forms and the stages of 
 fishes, reptiles, birds and beasts, through Stone Age, Bronze 
 Age and Iron Age, the changeful amoeba continued its un- 
 broken progress. Not quite unbroken, however ! The evolu- 
 tion was checked for a time by certain unfortunate mistakes. 
 Somewhere in its progress the man-animal was seized with 
 a desire for everlasting life and therefore invented the no- 
 tion of existence after death; next he created the idea of 
 an infinite God, and finally some unscrupulous God-wor- 
 shipper manufactured an alleged Divine Revelation. 
 
 These things, for some thousands of years, retarded the 
 natural evolution of the species, but have now at last been 
 removed by science, and mankind is once more free to re- 
 turn to its soul-less, God-less and Word-less animalism. 
 Sometime in the future, perhaps only after countless asons, 
 there will evolve from the present liomo a glorious being as 
 far superior to the present man as the latter is to his tail- 
 less simian ancestor, — unless universal race-suicide or the 
 extinction of solar heat intervenes. 
 
TEE ORIGIN OF MAN. 29 
 
 Modem evolution, after all, is not very far removed 
 from its mother, the old orthodoxy. Like the latter it 
 begins its story of creation from — nothing. "Of the 
 causes which have led to the origination of living matter," 
 says Huxley, its high priest, "it may be said that we 
 know absolutely nothing." And with equal frankness 
 the evolutionists admit that as to the future of the human 
 race they know nothing. If they know nothing of the 
 beginning and nothing of the end, we may well ques- 
 tion the infallibility of their knowledge of the intermediate 
 steps. 
 
 It must be freely admitted, however, that the great school 
 of Evolutionists, in their enthusiasm for the only work- 
 ing hypothesis ever offered to them, has brought to light 
 not only an immense mass of valuable facts, but also many 
 apparent general truths, which on the surface at least bear 
 a resemblance to the verities revealed to the New Church. 
 The Newchurchman recognizes that the term Evolution is 
 synonymous with Development, and that the theory of the 
 evolution of species and of the animal descent of man is 
 based on actual and universal appearances which can be 
 explained only by the Doctrine of Series and Degrees. 
 Swedenborg, a hundred years before Darwin, taught that 
 primeval man appeared like an animal and lived like an 
 animal, but ivas not an animal any more than a creeping 
 infant of to-day is actually a beast. Nor does the New- 
 churchman quarrel with the theory of an original Stone 
 Age, for stone was undoubtedly the most common material 
 for human implements in the days before Tubal-Cain be- 
 came the "instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." 
 (Gen. 4:22). The man of the Golden Age was a Paleo- 
 lithic man, like his ancestor, the Preadamite, but the use 
 of stone implements by no means proves him either an ani- 
 mal or a ferocious savage. 
 
 As far as cranial measurements may be trusted to estab- 
 lish intellectual capacity, the most archaic skulls yet found 
 exhibit the paleolithic man as a gentleman of remarkable 
 intelligence, as far superior to the ape as the average mod- 
 ern European or American, while his drawings on rock or 
 
 i^ 
 
30 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 ivory prove him an artist of no mean ability.* Whether 
 the men of the Old Stone Age were the true primeval men 
 or not, the record of the rocks by no means establishes the 
 theory of his animal descent. This theory, moreover, is 
 based on so many negations, assumptions, uncertainties 
 and missing links, that it is now beginning to be doubted 
 by the foremost men of science. The evolutionists com- 
 mitted a fatal error when admitting only the mute evi- 
 dence of dead rocks and bones, while refusing to admit 
 not only the witness of Divine Revelation but also 
 the testimony of man himself in his own behalf, — the 
 testimony of language, history, and universal human tradi- 
 tion. 
 
 From its own memory, indeed, humanity cannot pos- 
 sibly know anything as to its creation and earliest infancy, 
 for, as with the individual so with the race, the memory of 
 beginnings is lost in the oblivion of unconsciousness. But 
 as the individual remembers that which he was told by his 
 parents, so the race, as a whole, in every corner of the earth 
 retains more or less obscurely the memory of that original 
 instruction which was once given by the First Parent, the 
 Maker who alone is able to reveal the manner of His work. 
 This Divine instruction is still extant, containing in its 
 bosom not only infinite spiritual verities as to the in- 
 terior creation of man, — that is, his regeneration, but also a 
 wealth of natural truths in regard to the creation and ear- 
 liest history of mankind, truths for ages forgotten and un- 
 suspected until revealed anew by the Lord in His Second 
 Coming. 
 
 In the letter of the Word we learn briefly that ' ' God cre- 
 ated man in His own image; in the image of God created 
 He him; male and female created He them." And we 
 learn further that "Jehovah God formed man, dust of the 
 ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, 
 and man became a living soul." 
 
 * On this subject see the papers of D. Gath Whitley in the Prince- 
 ton Theological Eeview, October, 1906, and in the Records of the 
 Past, 1909, pp. 39, 83. 
 
TEE OBIGIN OF MAN. 
 
 31 
 
 Swedenborg's Doctrine of the Creation of Man. 
 
 On the basis of this Divine instruction it was given to 
 Swedenborg to develop a doctrine of creation, the central 
 idea of which is that of the "breath" of God, i. e., the cre- 
 ation of the universe and of the earth and of all life upon 
 it hy means of the atmospheres proceeding from Him as the 
 Sun of the spiritual world. While we cannot enter here 
 upon a study of the Doctrine of Creation * as a whole, we 
 note the following general principles in regard to the cre- 
 ation of man. 
 
 A Diagram Illustrating Swedenborg 's Doctrine of Forms and 
 
 Degrees. 
 
 Forms. 
 
 Divine . . . 
 Spiritual . 
 Celestial . 
 Vortical . 
 Spiral. . . 
 Circular. . 
 Angular . 
 
 Human degrees. 
 
 God Man 
 
 Human Soul 
 
 Intellectual Mind 
 
 Animus 
 
 External Sensories . . . , 
 Body and blood-vessels. 
 Bones , 
 
 Elem&nts. 
 
 First Natural Point 
 
 First Aura 
 
 Second Aura . . 
 
 Ether 
 
 Air 
 
 Water 
 
 Minerals 
 
 Motions. 
 
 Pure Conatus. 
 Animatory. 
 
 Axillary or cen- 
 tral. 
 
 CJndulatory. 
 
 Local and trem- 
 ulatory. 
 
 I. The human soul was created by means of a mem- 
 branous precipitation in and out of the buUular substance 
 of the universal atmosphere of the spiritual world. Im- 
 mediately proceeding from the Infinite God-Man, this su- 
 preme aura in its least elements conveys His finite image 
 and likeness. This alone is what makes our soul human 
 and immortal and differentiates it from the souls of ani- 
 
 * For a summary of this Doctrine see the Outlines of Sweden- 
 borg 's Cosmology, by Lillian G. Beekman, Bryn Athyn, Pa., 1907. 
 
32 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 mals and plants, all of which have their inmost origin in 
 lower atmospheres. 
 
 II. This inmost vessel of human life was further en- 
 closed in a series of coverings formed in and out of the 
 three successive atmospheres of the natural world, — the 
 solar aura, the ether, and the air, — providing the lower 
 planes upon which the intermediate degrees of the human 
 mind could be built up by subsequent life and education in 
 the world. Thus a complete human seed was produced, 
 containing within itself, in potency, the whole human form 
 with all its successive degrees and faculties, lacking now 
 only the ultimate degree of forms. 
 
 III. This ultimate degree is the angular form, the form 
 of rest and inertia, which could be provided only by the 
 salts and chemicals of the mineral kingdom, the "dust of 
 the ground." By the infilling or insertion of such angular 
 particles into the interstices of the spherical forms which 
 constituted the spiritual and atmospheric structure of the 
 first human seed, these higher forms reached final material- 
 ization, fixation and ultimate permanence. 
 
 IV. These necessary angular forms, held in solution in 
 the waters of the earth, were not as yet sufficiently ac- 
 commodated for their infilling service to the human seed, or 
 to the animal kingdom as a whole. A medium was needed 
 whereby these salts and chemicals could be properly re- 
 fined, sublimated and combined for this supreme service, 
 and this medium was the universal vegetable kingdom in 
 whose laboratory, as is known, the substances of the mineral 
 kingdom are prepared for the use of animals and men. 
 
 V. This infilling mother-service of the vegetable king- 
 dom to the first animal and human seeds could be per- 
 formed only ivithin individual plants acting as matrices or 
 wombs, in which oviform matter, specially prepared, could 
 receive and conceive the animated seeds begotten of the 
 atmospheres. Between the vegetable and the animal king- 
 dom there is a complete correspondence not only in general 
 but in particular, and thus in the beginning each species 
 of plant served as the matrix and nurse of a corresponding 
 animal seed. 
 
TME OEIGIN OF MAN. 33 
 
 For the formation of the supreme of animal bodies, which 
 was to contain the soul of immortal man, there was created 
 a most perfect vegetable matrix, a veritable Tree of Life. 
 
 The Arboreal Birth of Man. 
 
 Such, in brief, we understand to be the doctrine of the 
 creation of man as found in Swedenborg's philosophical 
 works, and this doctrine is supported by many statements 
 in his later theological Writings. A poetic yet profoundly 
 scientific description of the creation of organic forms is 
 presented in his work on The Worship and Love op God, 
 the last in the series of his scientific and philosophical 
 treatises. It is a summary of his whole system of Cos- 
 mology, Physiology and Psychology, and he states con- 
 cerning it that he was told in the spiritual world that "it 
 was a Divine book." (Doc. II, p. 209.) 
 
 According to this sublime prose-poem, organic life be- 
 gan upon the earth with the creation of vegetable seeds in 
 the virgin soil. From these seeds all the subjects of the 
 vegetable kingdom sprang forth, first grasses and herbs, 
 then shrubs, and finally trees. All these plants now began 
 to swell with oviform substances which, in turn, became 
 pregnant with animal seeds created within them, and each 
 order of plants gave birth to a corresponding order of ani- 
 mals. From the grasses and herbs came forth the insect 
 world ; from the shrubs came the birds of the air, and from 
 the trees came the beasts of the earth. The story continues : 
 
 ' ' But there was still wanting that son of the earth, or that 
 mind under a human form, from which the paradise of the 
 earth might look into the paradise of heaven, and from this 
 look again into that of the earth, and thus from a kind of 
 interior sight could embrace and measure both together, 
 ... a being who from a genuine fountain of gladness and 
 love could venerate and adore above everything the Be- 
 stower and Creator." (W. L. G. 30.) 
 
 In the midst of the most temperate region of the orb 
 there was a most beautiful grove, a paradise within a para- 
 dise, "in the midst of which, again, there was a fruit tree 
 3 
 
34 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 which bore a small ^gg, the most precious of all, in which, 
 as a jewel, nature concealed herself with all her powers 
 and stores, to become the initiament of a most consummate 
 body. This fruit tree hence was called the Tree of Life." 
 (n. 32.) 
 
 ''Into this little egg, then, the Supreme Mind infused 
 a super-celestial fonn or soul, which Avas life capable of 
 containing w^hat is infinite. All things of nature now joy- 
 ously conspired to the birth of this soul into the world. The 
 Tree of Life unfolded its branch into a soft and easy womb ; 
 the neighboring trees contributed their sap for its nutrition, 
 and extended their young shoots as arms to support the bur- 
 den of the leaf-clad mother. All things being ready, the 
 parturient branch gently deposited its burden on the couch 
 underneath, and the Firstborn broke through the bonds of 
 his enclosure." . . . 
 
 ''It was midnight, and the constellations, as in applause, 
 glittered \\\t\i increased brightness upon the first-begotten 
 infant, the hope of the whole human race, reposing with his 
 breast and face upwards, and his tender hands lifted to 
 Heaven, moving also his little lips, venerating his Divine 
 parent with the purest thanksgiving that the workmanship 
 of the world was now completed in himself. ' ' (n. 39. ) 
 
 Our first mother was created in a similar manner from a 
 tree in a neighboring grove. 
 
 The story of creation, related above, may seem on the 
 surface like a playful allegory, not to be taken as literal 
 scientific truth, but the closer it is studied in the light of 
 universal principles, the more it appeals to our reason, as 
 in harmony both with Divine Revelation and with the facts 
 of science. Swedenborg does not present his theory of the 
 creation of man from a tree as a dogma for the New Church, 
 but as an inevitable conclusion of his whole cosmological 
 system. In the opening pages of his Adversaria, — written 
 immediately after the Worship and Love of God, — he 
 speaks of the latter as follows: 
 
 " In my treatise on the Worship and Love of God, Part 
 I., I treated of the origin of the earth, the paradise, and the 
 nativity of Adam, but according to the leading of the under- 
 
THE OBIGIN OF MAN. 35 
 
 standing and the thread of reason. But since the human 
 intelligence, unless inspired by God, is by no means to be 
 trusted, therefore it is necessary for the sake of verity to 
 compare those things, which were presented in the above 
 mentioned little treatise, with the things revealed in the 
 Sacred Code. ..." 
 
 "When, now, I have sedulously compared these things, I 
 have been astonished at the agreement, ' ' but he adds some- 
 what cautiously: "Whether man was formed immediately 
 out of the earth, and thus did not run through his ages from 
 infancy to youth; or whether he was formed mediately 
 from an egg, etc., is left to the faith of the reader. But 
 since 'one day' signifies an entire space of time, or a cycle 
 of many years, he could also have been born from an egg, 
 and the egg not immediately from the soil of the earth, but 
 mediately by means of the fibres of some vegetable subject 
 or tree, by which the essences which were to pass over into 
 blood, could have been rectified. If so, he would neverthe- 
 less have been formed out of the dust of the earth, for what- 
 ever runs through the roots or fibres of vegetables, is from 
 the earth." (nos. 9, 10, 15.) 
 
 The idea of the creation of man by means of a tree may 
 seem novel as a philosophical proposition, but was by no 
 means foreign to the conceptions of ancient nations. 
 
 "The traditions of trees that brought forth human 
 beings, and of trees that were in themselves partly human, 
 are current among most of the Aryan and Semitic races, 
 and are also to be found among the Sioux Indians," ob- 
 serves Richard Folkard in his great work on Plant Lore, 
 Legends and Lyrics, p. 117, and he gives the following in- 
 stances of such traditions: 
 
 "In one cosmogony — that of the Iranians — the first hu- 
 man pair are represented as having grown up as a single 
 tree, the fingers or twigs of each one being folded over the 
 other's ears, till the time came when, ripe for separation, 
 they became two sentient beings, and were infused by 
 Ormuzd with distinct human souls" (p. 1). 
 
 "The Greeks appear to have cherished a tradition that 
 the first race of men sprang from a cosmogonic Ash. This 
 
36 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 cloud Ash became personified in their myth as a daughter 
 of Oceanos, named Melia, who married the river-god, 
 Inachos [Noah], and gave birth to Phoroneus, in whom the 
 Peloponnesian legend recognized the fire-bringer and the 
 first man. According to Hesyclicus, however, Phoroneus 
 was not the only mortal to whom the Mother Ash gave 
 birth, for he tells us distinctly that the race of men was 
 'the fruit of the Ash.' Hesiod also repeats the same fable 
 in a somewhat different guise, when he relates how Jove 
 created the third or brazen race of men out of Ash trees. 
 . . . But besides the Ash, the Greeks would seem to have 
 regarded the Oak as a tree from which the human race had 
 sprung, and to have called Oak trees the first mothers. 
 This belief was shared by the Romans. Thus Virgil speaks : 
 ' ' Of nymphs and fawns, and savage men, who took 
 Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak ? ' ' 
 
 ''Juvenal, also, in his sixth satire, alluding to the begin- 
 ning of the world, speaks of the human race as formed of 
 clay or bom of the opening Oak, which thus becomes the 
 mystical mother-tree of mankind, and, like a mother, sus- 
 tained her offspring with food she herself created" (pp. 
 6, 7). 
 
 The following is the old Northern story of "Ask and 
 Embla, ' ' the Ash and the Elm trees, as told in the Eddas : 
 
 "One day, as the sons of Bor, [Odhin, Vili and Ve], 
 were walking along the seashore, they found two stems of 
 wood, and out of these they shaped a man and a woman. 
 Odhin infused into them life and spirit ; Vili endowed them 
 with reason and the power of motion, and Ve gave them 
 speech and features, hearing and vision. The man they 
 called Ask, and the woman, Embla. From these two de- 
 scended the whole human race, whose assigned dwelling was 
 within Midgard." (Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 
 406.) 
 
 The Home of Primeval Man. 
 
 Whether one couple only, or many simultaneously, were 
 first created, cannot be ascertained, nor whether autoch- 
 thons appeared in the various parts of the earth, or in 
 
TRE ORIGIN OF MAN. 37 
 
 one region only. As to the original home of man, the claims 
 of modern science are divided between Western Europe; 
 — the hunting ground of the so-called paleolithic or pre- 
 glacial man, — and an imaginary '^Lemuria," a supposed 
 sunken continent somewhere in the Indian Ocean, where 
 the ape first lost its tail and prehensible feet, and devel- 
 oped human teeth and a sense of humor. 
 
 Dismissing as unproved these learned phantasies, we turn 
 our attention to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean 
 as the long established home of the most ancient civiliza- 
 tions. The Old Stone Age people of Western Europe never 
 developed any history, but Syria, Chaldea and Egypt, be- 
 fore historic times, had gained a civilization to which prime- 
 Tal man could have reached only after millenniums of steady 
 growth. Here also w^e find remains of an original Stone 
 Age, but far more ancient than that of the European 
 paleolithic man, whose domesticated animals, moreover, are 
 all of an unmistakably oriental origin. It is a most signifi- 
 cant fact that all those inseparable companions of man, — 
 the sheep, the cow, the horse, the dog and the hen, — have 
 their architypes in Western Asia, as do also all the domestic 
 grains and vegetables with the sole exception of some mod- 
 em American species, such as the potato and the maize. 
 
 Everything points to the fact that the paleolithic men 
 were more or less ignorant gentiles, living in the outskirts 
 of the contemporary civilizations. The archaic type of 
 their geological surroundings does not prove their superior 
 antiquity, for the strata were not formed simultaneously 
 aU over the earth. The geological formations, and the flora 
 and fauna, of Australia and New Zealand of to-day are of 
 the type which North America exhibited perhaps a hun- 
 dred thousand years ago. All geologists agree that Eng- 
 land and Prance arose out of the sea at a period when the 
 Lebanon mountains were hoary with age. Why, then, in- 
 sist upon the paleolithic Englishman and Frenchman as 
 the true type of primeval man ^ 
 
 Climatic conditions also point to the Nile-Euphrates 
 region, and especially the land of Canaan, as the one best 
 fitted for human life in its first infantile state, — a sub- 
 
38 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 tropical climate which would afford a steady and moderate 
 heat with an abundance of vegetable food. Instead of 
 being, like paleolithic man, surrounded by the terrors of 
 encroaching glaciers and ferocious monsters such as the 
 cave-bear, the cave-hyena, the flying dragon, the sword- 
 toothed tiger, etc., the primitive man in Larger Canaan 
 lived in a veritable Paradise, where all things were "very 
 good," as God had made them. For "evil uses were not 
 created by the Lord, but arose together with hell," (D. L. 
 W. 336), — ^thus after man had fallen from his original ce- 
 lestial state. Whatever be the antiquity of the Saurian 
 monsters unearthed in various parts of the world, it is a 
 significant fact that not the slightest trace of them has been 
 found in that region which Divine Revelation and human 
 tradition unanimously describe as the original home of man. 
 It is in lands of comparatively recent formation, and in 
 them alone, that we find the remains of the gigantic mon- 
 sters which geologists claim as antedating man. They may, 
 indeed, have preceded man in those lands, but this fact, — 
 if a fact it be, — does not prove that they preceded man in 
 Canaan.* 
 
 Purely geological speculations as to the antiquity of man 
 are too uncertain to be of any value. Some claim that 
 man first appeared some forty millions of years ago ; others 
 are satisfied with forty thousand years. Not the slightest 
 trace of human remains has been found below the strata 
 of the Tertiary period, but it is not known when those strata 
 were formed in the various parts of the earth. The ques- 
 tion is as impossible of solution as it is unimportant to the 
 student of humanity, for history and philosophy are inter- 
 ested in the living conditions, and especially the spiritual 
 conditions, of man, rather than in the mere number of 
 his years. 
 
 * For an excellent summary of the long discussion on the question 
 ■whether evil animals preceded man, see the paper on ' ' ' Evolution ' or 
 'Separate Creations,' " by George E, Holman in The New Church 
 Quarterly, London, July, 1911. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 THE PREADAMITES. 
 
 ''The world has hitherto believed that the creation of 
 heaven and earth, in the first chapter of Genesis, means 
 literally the creation of the universe, and that Adam means 
 the first man of this earth; nor conld the world have be- 
 lieved othenvise, in view of the fact that the spiritual and 
 internal sense of the Word has not been disclosed until 
 now." (CoRONis 23.) 
 
 By ''the world" in this statement is meant the Jewish 
 Church and the Christian, immersed as they have been al- 
 most from the beginning in the shadows of the letter, but 
 to this dead literalism there have been a few notable ex- 
 ceptions among both Jewish and Christian writers. 
 
 The first one to venture upon an allegorical interpreta- 
 tion of the story of creation in Genesis was Philo Jud^us 
 who lived in Alexandria in the time of the Lord. Com- 
 bining a Jewish knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures with 
 the idealistic doctrines of Plato and a notion of correspond- 
 ences derived from Egyptian sources, he came very near 
 to the discovery of a spiritual sense in the Old Testament. 
 
 Paradise to him meant nothing but spiritual perfection, 
 (De Mundi Opif., § 54). The trees that grew in it are the 
 thoughts of the spiritual man. The fruits that they bore 
 are life and knowledge and immortality. The four rivers 
 flowing from one source are the four virtues of prudence, 
 temperance, courage and justice, each derived from the 
 same source of goodness, which goeth forth from Eden, the 
 wisdom of God with man. The tree of life signifies Re- 
 ligion, which alone bestows immortal life to the human soul. 
 (De Alleg. I.) Eden, which means "delight," is a symbol 
 of the soul when it sees that which is right, exults in vir- 
 tue, and prefers the supreme delight — the worship of the 
 
 39 
 
40 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 One and Only Wise — to the myriads of men 's grosser pleas- 
 ures. 
 
 The allegorical interpretations of Philo were revived 
 among the Christian Fathers of Alexandria, especially by 
 Clement and Origen, but this kindling light was soon ex- 
 tinguished in the darkness brought on by the controversies 
 of the ecumenical councils. Henceforth Adam and Eve 
 were regarded as literally the first human pair created, 
 nor was there any doubt of this until the year 1655, when 
 Isaac Le Peyrere, a French Protestant writer, published 
 a work in Paris entitled Pre^adamit^, in which, from 
 Scripture and history, he labored to prove the existence 
 of human beings previous to the time of Adam. This was 
 the first time the term " Preadamites " was used, and the 
 idea stirred up a lively controversy in France, Belgium, 
 Holland and England. The book was confiscated by the 
 Catholic authorities and the author was imprisoned and 
 forced to recant his "heresy," but the idea survived and 
 was defended by a number of writers. It is to these latter 
 that Swedenborg refers in the following statement in the 
 True Christian Keligion: 
 
 "It is believed by many that by Adam and Eve in the 
 first book of Moses are not meant the men first created, and 
 in proof they have brought forward arguments respecting 
 the Preadamites, drawn from the computations and chro- 
 nologies of certain Gentile nations, and from the words of 
 Cain, the first-born of Adam, to Jehovah; 'A fugitive and 
 a wanderer I shall be on the earth, so that whosoever find- 
 eth me shall slay me. ' Therefore Jehovah set a sign upon 
 Cain, lest any one finding him should slay him. (Gen. 4 ; 
 14, 15.) Afterwards Cain went forth from the presence 
 of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, and builded a 
 city. (Gen. 4: 16, 17.) Consequently it is maintained that 
 the earth was inhabited before the time of Adam. But by 
 Adam and his wife is meant the Most Ancient Church on 
 this earth." (T. C. R. 466.) 
 
 The idea of "Preadamites," therefore, did not originate 
 with Swedenborg, but the idea of Adam being the collective 
 name of a Most Ancient Church, an entire dispensation or 
 
THE PBEADAMITES. 41 
 
 spiritual civilization, and that the whole creative story con- 
 tains internally the account of the establishment of this 
 Church through the individual and racial regeneration of 
 the first men, — this was an entirely new conception which 
 was for the first time revealed in the opening chapter of 
 the Arcana Ccelestia. 
 
 "Heaven" or the Internal with Primeval Man. 
 
 " 'In the beginning God created heaven and earth.' The 
 most ancient time is called ' the beginning. ' By the proph- 
 ets in various places it is called 'the days of antiquity' and 
 also 'the days of eternity.' The 'beginning' also involves 
 the first time when man is regenerated, for he is then bom 
 anew and receives life; hence regeneration itself is called 
 the new creation of man. . . . 'Heaven' signifies the in- 
 ternal man, and 'earth' the external man before regener- 
 ation." (A. C. 16.) 
 
 Man is literally a creature of heaven and earth, for his 
 soul or internal man is actually formed out of the very sub- 
 stance of heaven, even as his body or external man is 
 formed out of the materials of the earth. The substance of 
 heaven is that universal spiritual aura or atmosphere which 
 first proceeds from the Sun of Life; its constituent ele- 
 mentaries are of a bullular form, — inconceivably minute 
 shells made up of second finites passive, containing within 
 a small volume of first finites in a state of most intense 
 activity. Their animatory or pulsating motion is that of 
 good itself proceeding from the ardor of Divine Love, but 
 tempered by the enclosing shells whose form is that of truth 
 itself, because of absolute order, harmony and elasticity. 
 By this atmosphere of good and truth in corpuscular form 
 the heat and light of the spiritual Sun are accommodated 
 to the reception of angels and spirits; in this aura of ab- 
 solute elasticity spiritual beings can live and breathe and 
 move ; and out of its imperishable substance the human soul 
 is created and endowed with immortality. Hence it is that 
 "heaven" with man, — that is, his soul or internal man, — is 
 a form of order itself. 
 
42 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 It is the universal teaching of the Heavenly Doctrine 
 that ''man was created a form of Divine Order, because he 
 was created the image and likeness of God; and because 
 God is Order itself, therefore man was created the image 
 and likeness of order." (T. C. R. 65.) And we are 
 further taught that "God created man from order, in or- 
 der, and into order." (T. C. R. 71.) 
 
 In him, as the crowning work of creation, was concen- 
 trated the order of the entire universe, — in his soul or in- 
 ternal man the order of the heavens, and in his body or 
 external man the order of the whole natural world. 
 
 ''When man was created, all things of Divine Order 
 were brought together in him, so that he became Divine Or- 
 der in form, and consequently a heaven in miniature." 
 (H. H. 30.) 
 
 "In man the internal man was formed after the image 
 of heaven, and the external man after the order of the 
 world, and this is why man, by the ancients, was called a 
 microcosm or little world." (H. H. 30 Refs.) 
 
 "I have been told by the angels that man was created 
 according to the form of the three heavens; and that in 
 this way the image of heaven has been impressed upon him, 
 so that man is a little heaven [milx,ro-oiiranos'\ in the least 
 form ; and that this is the source of his correspondence with 
 the heavens." (A. C. 4041.) 
 
 As to his body and physical faculties, also, he was cre- 
 ated in and into all that natural order which is still pre- 
 served among the lower forms of life which do not possess 
 the power of perverting the order of their creation. 
 
 "If man were T\athout hereditary evil he would be bom 
 into the Divine order itself, namely, into love towards the 
 Lord and into love towards the neighbor ; thus there would 
 be implanted in him all and single things which are of 
 faith; even as animals, which are bom into their order, 
 are bom into the affections which are natural to them, and 
 then there are in them all the things which are of their 
 life. But when man turned against order, then the case 
 was other^^ise, indeed." (S. D. Min. 4635.) 
 
 ' ' If man were imbued with no hereditary evil, the rational 
 
TEE FBEADAMITES. 43 
 
 would then be bom immediately from the marriage of the 
 celestial things of the internal man with his spiritual things, 
 and the faculty of knowing would be bom through the 
 rational, so that on coming into the world a man would at 
 once have in himself all the faculty of reason and of know- 
 ing, for this would be in accordance with the order of in- 
 flux, as may be inferred from the fact that all animals what- 
 soever are bom into all the faculty of knowing what is 
 necessary and helpful in securing food, safety, habitation, 
 and procreation, because their nature is in accordance with 
 order. Why, then, is man not born into it, except for the 
 reason that order has been destroyed in him, for he alone is 
 bom into no knowledge?" (A. C. 1902.) 
 
 "If man were in the order into which he was created, 
 i. e., in love towards the neighbor and in love towards the 
 Lord, he, above all animals, would be bom not only into 
 scientifics, but also into all spiritual tmths and celestial 
 goods, and thus into all wisdom and intelligence ; for he is 
 able to think of the Lord and to be conjoined with Him 
 through love, and thus to be elevated to what is Divine and 
 eternal, which is not possible to bmte animals; thus man 
 would then be directed by no other than the general in- 
 flux from the Lord through the spiritual world." (A. C. 
 6323.) 
 
 It is to be noted in these statements that they do not 
 teach that primeval man was created in the full possession 
 of all natural scientifics and spiritual knowledges, but that 
 he was created with the full and unobstructed faculty or 
 ability to receive them as soon as presented to his external 
 senses. An animal, with its instinctive faculty of discrimi- 
 nation, cannot be said to 'knoiv a poisonous herb until it 
 meets it in the field. Then, from the sphere of particles 
 surrounding the herb, an animal "instinctively" knows that 
 such an herb is contrary to its affections and thus harmful, 
 while a human being of to-day would not know this until 
 after painful experiences. All his senses and perceptions 
 have become blunted and perverted through hereditary and 
 acquired evil. When born, a man knows not even the way 
 to the mother's breast; and his later instincts, until cor- 
 
44 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 rected from without, are all directed to the doing of mis- 
 chief to himself and others, and he is naturally averse to 
 unselfishness, obedience and every form of order. 
 
 Not so primeval man, the unperverted image and like- 
 ness of God. Although when first awakening to conscious- 
 ness of life, he was empty and void of actual knowledges, 
 there was with him not only a natural instinct or faculty of 
 discriminating between what would be good or evil for his 
 body, but also a corresponding spiritual instinct as to what 
 would be good or evil for his soul. To everything good 
 and true there was an instantaneous "Yea, yea," while to 
 anything evil and false there was as swift and unerring a 
 ''Nay, nay." 
 
 Thus both as to soul and as to body, primeval man was 
 the epitome of heaven and earth, and the medium by which 
 both could be united with their One Source. Within his 
 soul he possessed all the virtues of heaven, and within his 
 body all the powers of the natural universe. 
 
 "Man was so created that the Divine things of the Lord 
 may descend through him down to the ultimates of nature, 
 and from the ultimates of nature may ascend to Him; so 
 that man might be a medium that unites the Divine with 
 the world of nature, and the world of nature with the 
 Divine; and that thus the very ultimate of nature might 
 live from the Divine through man as the uniting medium; 
 which would be the case if man had lived according to 
 Divine order." (A. C. 3702^) 
 
 "That man was so created is evident from the fact that 
 as to his body he is a little world, for all the arcana of the 
 world of nature are stored within him; for every hidden 
 property there is in the ether and its modifications is stored 
 within the eye; and every property in the air is stored 
 within the ear ; and whatever invisible thing fioats and acts 
 in the air is in the organ of smell where it is perceived ; and 
 whatever invisible thing there is in waters and other fluids 
 is in the organ of taste ; and the very changes of state are 
 in the sense of touch everywhere in the body; besides that 
 things still more hidden would be perceived in his interior 
 organs, if his life were in accordance with order. ... In 
 
THE PBEADAMITES. 45 
 
 such a state were the most ancient people, who were celestial 
 men." (A. C. 3702^) 
 
 Such, then, was the state of "heaven" with them, the 
 state of the internal, or soul, with man at his first creation, 
 and such also was the state of his ' ' earth ' ' or external man, 
 which was formed from, out of, and in correspondence with 
 the internal man. 
 
 It is to be noted that the word "heaven" in Hebrew, 
 {shamayim), is a dual form, meaning, literally, "the two 
 heavens, ' ' and this because of the two faculties of will and 
 understanding, created in the image and likeness of the 
 Divine Love mid the Divine Wisdom. 
 
 With the first man, however, as with his Divine maker 
 and architype, these two faculties were one. While dis- 
 tinct and distinguishable, as substance and form, they were 
 not separate, as after the fall, but one as to every endeavor 
 and activity. 
 
 ' ' Man was so created that the will and the understanding 
 should constitute one mind." (A. C. 2231.) 
 
 "From the beginning man was so created that his will 
 and understanding should make a one, so that he should 
 not think one thing and will another, nor will one thing 
 and think another. Such is the state with the celestial, and 
 such it was in the celestial Church which was called 'Man' 
 or 'Adam.' " (A. C. 2930.) 
 
 As substance is the only real thing, and form is only 
 the outward determination and appearance of substance, 
 so the will — or the affection of good, — was with primitive 
 man the ruler of the understanding, while the latter was 
 only the formal outward expression of the will. This will 
 was filled with nothing but love, — the love of God and of 
 the neighbor, — and this love ruled over the whole mind, 
 with nothing to oppose or obstruct it. Created from God 
 out of heaven (ccelum), it was a purely celestial, i. e., 
 heavenly mind. 
 
 "The celestial are those who are in the affection of good 
 from good ; but the spiritual are those who are in the affec- 
 tion of good from truth. In the heginning all were ce- 
 lestiaV (A. C. 2088.) 
 
46 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The ''Eaeth" or the External, with Primeval ]VIan. 
 
 "And the earth was empty and void, and thick darkness 
 was upon the faces of the abyss." 
 
 As ''heaven" was the internal man or soul of the first 
 begotten of the human race, so "the earth" was his ex- 
 ternal man, his body and rudimentary mind. As with 
 ever^^ man when first born, so with the Preadamites this 
 rudimentary mind was in the beginning ' ' empty and void, ' ' 
 — empty of good and void of truth, — before instruction had 
 begun to inform the understanding, and before experience 
 of the Divine Love had awakened the affections of the 
 dormant will. It was a period of unconsciousness and 
 oblivion, the shadows of night covering an abyss of ignor- 
 ance, before the breaking of the first gray dawn of spiritual 
 life. (A. C. 17, 18.) This "abyss" (tehom) was the 
 Tiamat of the ancient Chaldeans, the Chaos of the Greeks, 
 the Ginungagap of the Northmen. In the external man, 
 by itself, there is nothing of good and of truth, except from 
 the internal man. Regeneration consists in bringing down 
 "heaven" to the "earth" with man. 
 
 ' ' The reformation of the men of the Most Ancient 
 Church is meant by the creation of heaven and earth. That 
 before this there was not any Church, because men were 
 without good and truth, is signified by 'the earth being 
 empty and void;' and that before they had been in 
 dense ignorance, and also in falses, is signified by there 
 being 'darkness upon the faces of the abyss.' " (A. E. 
 294^) 
 
 These "falses," with primeval man, were not falsities 
 of evil, for, as yet, there was no evil, but the first fallacious 
 conclusions of half-awakened senses, drawn from appear- 
 ances, such, for instance, as the revolution of the sun around 
 the earth. Bom of the earth, the external sense-life of the 
 Preadamite by nature inclined to the earth, even as his 
 internal man, bom of heaven, inclined to its own celestial 
 home. Thus the Creator had established a balance and a 
 freedom, in the midst of which the rational mind — all along 
 the line of its gradual development — was to exercise its 
 
TEE PBEADAMITES. 47 
 
 royal prerogative of an absolute and unlimited power of 
 choice in spiritual things. 
 
 * ' The rise and morning of the Most Ancient Church is de- 
 scribed by man being made or created in the image of God, 
 because every man, when first bom, and while an infant, 
 is interiorly an image of God, for the faculty of receiving 
 and applying to himself those things which proceed from 
 God is implanted in him; and since exteriorly he is also 
 formed dust from the earth, and hence there is in him 
 an inclination to lick that dust, like the serpent, (Gen. 
 3: 14), therefore if he remains an external or natural man, 
 and does not become, at the same time, an internal or 
 spiritual man, he destroys the image of God, and puts on 
 the image of the serpent which seduced Adam." (Coronis 
 25.) 
 
 In the exercise of their God-given power of choice it was 
 possible for each one of these Preadamites to self-determine 
 the extent of his spiritual development. Each one was 
 free to choose and remain in a lower good, or to pass on 
 to the highest celestial good. In the beginning all were 
 equally infantile, ignorant, simple ; and some of them, while 
 of their own choice remaining in this state, were taken to 
 the spiritual world, to form there the most external parts 
 of the future Maximus Homo, — that collective ''Grand 
 Man," which is composed of the entire human race of the 
 past, now living and working as One Man in the higher 
 world. Swedenborg thus describes his encounter with the 
 spirit of one of these primitive men, (or of one who was in 
 a very similar state) : 
 
 "It was shown to me of what quality were the Preadam- 
 ites, who were regenerated by the Lord, and called Adam. 
 
 ''A certain [spirit] spoke with me with a speech such as 
 was not swiftly distinct as is ordinary speech, but in words 
 in which there was but little of life ; thus it could be heard 
 what kind of life there was with him. I also heard him 
 speaking when I w^oke up in the night: he was placed to 
 guard me, and said that the evil ones wished to carry me 
 off ; I have heard that such a one is a guard, and that he 
 is not evil, but that he had small residue of life : thus that 
 
48 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 he was an external man, but that still he had internal things 
 in his externals, though there was but little of the internals. 
 Thus he was not such an external man as those of our 
 own day, in whom externals are separated from internals; 
 but with him there were internal things present, though 
 but little. This was now manifested to me, and thence I 
 could know, — and, indeed, from his speech, — that there 
 was but little of interior life. It was insinuated or said 
 that the Preadamites were such, thus that they were not 
 evil. It was also insinuated and perceived that they then 
 had relation to the hair of the genital members. Whether 
 this one was a Preadamite cannot be known, because the 
 Preadamites lived so many ages ago, and at this day there 
 are very many such; otherwise there would not be cor- 
 respondences referring to that [genital] hair." (S. D. 
 3389 ; their swift inauguration to a more internal life by 
 means of a kind of trituration in the other world, is de- 
 scribed in nos. 3390-3399.) 
 
 The "Grand Man," or the whole of Heaven as one col- 
 lective Man, is organized into provinces and societies cor- 
 responding to all the various organs and organic functions 
 of the individual man. It appears that the Preadamites, — 
 i. e., those of them who died while in this first and external 
 state of spiritual development, — collectively perform a 
 function corresponding to use of the hair which covers and 
 protects the organs of reproduction. While most external, 
 this is a noble and celestial use, — the guarding of that upon 
 which depends not only conjugial love itself, but the propa- 
 gation and hope of the entire race. To the first-born gen- 
 eration the Divine Generator gave no other command and 
 no other use than this: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill 
 the earth." 
 
 From the very beginning He who made man male and 
 female, had implanted into the two sexes the universal mag- 
 netic attraction toward one another, (C. L. 46), for from 
 the beginning He had created for each masculine half of 
 the human being a corresponding feminine partner, from 
 eternity pre-ordained for him, and to all eternity remaining 
 with him as, indeed, his ' ' better half. ' ' Whether in the be- 
 
TEE PEEADAMITES. 49 
 
 ginning there was ' ' monogenesis " or ' ' polygenesis, " {i. e., 
 the creation of one pair or many couples) ; whether, ac- 
 cording to Plato's idea of the first ''androgynous" man, 
 the two were created in each other's arms, or, according 
 to Swedenborg, borne by separate trees in the Garden of 
 Eden, — still there must have been an instantaneous mutual 
 recognition by the conjugial pairs, and the conjugial and 
 propagative impulse was the first truly human affection 
 awakened. Conjugial love, which became the crowning 
 glory of the Lord's Most Ancient Church, was at the same 
 time the most fundamental and ultimate of all human loves, 
 and the guardianship of this love was given as an eternal 
 use to the first-born infants of the human race. 
 
 Infants they were, indeed, though from the first prob- 
 ably of full-grown stature, able to move about and to se- 
 lect the necessities of life, which an abounding nature every- 
 where held out to them. At first, indeed, they crept upon 
 the ground on all fours, like every infant, but with the 
 continual endeavor to raise the head and the stature from 
 the ground towards heaven: 
 
 "If man were bom into the love [into which he was cre- 
 ated] , he would not be bom into a thick darkness of ignor- 
 ance, as now every man is bom, but into a certain light of 
 knowledge and thence intelligence into which also he would 
 quickly come. At first, indeed, he would creep like a 
 quadruped, but with an inherent endeavor to raise himself 
 upon his feet ; for however much like a quadruped still he 
 would not turn his face downward to the earth, but for- 
 ward to heaven, and so he would raise himself so as also 
 to be able to look upward." (D. P. 275.) 
 
 While in this lowly estate they were scarcely to be dis- 
 tinguished from the beasts of the earth, and we are, indeed, 
 told that at first they ' ' lived as wild animals. ' ' : 
 
 ''In the preceding chapters [Gen. 1, 2, 3:1-19] it has 
 been treated of the most ancient people, that they were 
 regenerated; first, those who lived as wild animals [qui sicut 
 ferce vixerunt], and who at length became spiritual men; 
 then those who became celestial men, who constituted the 
 Most Ancient Church." (A. C. 286.) 
 
50 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 However much lilie animals, they were not animals, any 
 more than the creeping infant of to-day is actually an ani- 
 mal, for unlike any animal there is with him the continual 
 endeavor to raise himself upon his feet, and to look up- 
 ward from the ground to heaven and to an eternity of 
 progress and development. (T. C. R. 417.) They lived 
 ''sicut feroe,'' indeed, but the word "fera'' includes all 
 *' living things" and is not confined to "ferocious 
 beasts. ' ' 
 
 The recollection of their original beast-like state was 
 deeply impressed upon the early race-memory, and in the 
 subsequent development of celestial innocence and humility 
 it became so vivid that they actually referred to themselves 
 as nothing but animals in comparison with the One Divine 
 Man. 
 
 "The most ancient people knew, — and, when they were 
 in a state of self-humiliation, also acknowledged — that they 
 were nothing but beasts and wdld animals, and that they 
 were men solely by virtue of that which they had from the 
 Lord, and therefore they not only likened to beasts and 
 birds, but also termed beasts and birds, whatever belonged 
 to themselves." (A. C. 715.) 
 
 This humble acknowledgment was gained especially by 
 a comparison of themselves with that radiant Being who 
 in primeval times revealed Himself to them as the Divine 
 ^Man, — the only truly Human Being who is the Infinite 
 Architype of finite man. 
 
 "To those of the Most Ancient Church, with whom the 
 Lord spoke mouth to mouth, the Lord appeared as a Man; 
 on this account they called no one 'Man,' except Him and 
 the things which were of Him; neither did they call them- 
 selves 'men,' but only those things in themselves — such as 
 every good of love and every truth of faith — which they 
 perceived they had from the Lord. These things they said 
 were 'of a man,' because they were of the Lord." (A. C. 
 49.) 
 
 As these Divinely Human things of the Lord were re- 
 ceived by the race on earth, the idea of manhood was ex- 
 tended so as to include in a derivative sense those who had 
 
TEE PBEADAMITES. 51 
 
 become spiritually as well as naturally the image and like- 
 ness of God. 
 
 "That by 'Man' is meant the man of the Most Ancient 
 Church, or the celestial man, was shown above; and, in- 
 deed, that the Lord alone is Man, and that from Him every 
 celestial man is man, because His likeness ; hence every one 
 who was of the Church, no matter who he was, was called 
 'man'; and at last this name was applied to every one who, 
 as to the body, appeared as a man, in order to distinguish 
 him from beasts." (A. C. 288.) 
 
 Though "empty and void" of actual good and truth, the 
 creeping animal-like Preadamite was in no sense evil, either 
 by heredity or by actual sin, but he was like a fruitful field, 
 bare as yet of vegetation, but filled with noble seeds sown 
 by the Divine husband-man. 
 
 "If man were bom into the love into which he was 
 created, he would not be in any evil, nay, he would not even 
 know what evil is, for he who has not been in evil, and 
 hence is not in evil, cannot know what evil is; and if he 
 were told that this or that is evil, he would not believe that 
 such thing were possible. Such was the state of innocence 
 in which were Adam and Eve, his wife; the nakedness 
 for which they did not blush, signified that state. The 
 knowing of evil after the fall is what is meant by the eat- 
 ing of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." (D. P. 
 275.) 
 
 Neither in the letter of the Word nor in its internal 
 sense do we find any intimation that primitive man was 
 created in a state of external perfection of culture. Even 
 in the Garden of Eden there were, at first, no arts and 
 sciences, no garments, dwellings, trade or literature ; in fact, 
 scarcely anything answering to the modern ideas of "civil- 
 ization." The absence of these things, however, does not 
 imply a state of savagery or ferocious barbarism, such as 
 modem science is inclined to ascribe to "paleolithic" man 
 It will not do to draw conclusions as to his conditions from 
 the state of modem savages, for, according to all ethno- 
 logical researches, the modern savage has proved to be — 
 not a primitive man in a state of arrested development — 
 
52 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 but a degenerate descendant of an original higher type.* 
 It is curious that the evolutionists, who always point to the 
 history of the individual as the epitome of the race, should 
 persist in ascribing savagery to our racial Infancy. "When- 
 ever do we find in a new-bom babe — a savage? a cunning 
 and murderous cannibal? Why not admit, instead, that 
 primitive man was an innocent child instead of a ferocious 
 half-beast? Paleolithic man may, indeed, have been a 
 hunter, a killer and flesh-eater, but, as has been shown be- 
 fore, paleolithic man was by no means the original primeval 
 man. 
 
 According to the letter of the Word the killing of ani- 
 mals, even for sacrificial worship, did not begin until after 
 the fall of mankind. With abundance of the fruits of the 
 earth all about, the infant race did not "slay and eat;" 
 there was no need of it, and the tender inclinations derived 
 from the Father of Mercy were utterly opposed to the 
 destruction of life. That the Preadamite was not a 
 flesheater, Swedenborg teaches in the Arcana Ccelestia n. 
 1002: 
 
 ' ' The eating of the flesh of animals, regarded in itself, is 
 something profane, for in the most ancient times they never 
 ate the flesh of any beast or bird, but only seeds, especially 
 bread made from wheat, also the fruits of trees, vegetables, 
 milk and its various products, such as butter. 
 
 ' ' To kill animals and eat their flesh was to them a wicked- 
 ness, and like wild beasts. They took from them only serv- 
 ice and use, as is evident from Genesis 1 : 29, 30. But in 
 process of time, when men began to be as fierce as wild 
 beasts and even fiercer, they then, for the first time, began 
 to kill animals and eat their flesh; and because man's na- 
 ture was such, it was permitted him to do this, and is still 
 permitted to this day; and so far as he does it from con- 
 science, so far it is lawful for him, since his conscience is 
 formed of all that he supposes to be true and thus lawful. 
 
 * The Australian aborigines, for instance, had their origin in the cul- 
 tured races of the Dravidians of Southern India, as has been proved 
 by Horatio Hall in his Language a Test of Mental Capacity. 
 ("Transactions of the Eoyal Society of Canada. Vol. IX., 1891.) 
 
TRE PBEADAMITES. 53 
 
 No one, therefore, is at this day condemned because of eat- 
 ing flesh. ' ' 
 
 In concluding this account of the external conditions of 
 primitive man, we take pleasure in quoting the following 
 noble words of the Duke of Argyll : ' ' There is no necessary 
 connection between a state of mere childhood, in respect to 
 knoAvledge, and a state of 'utter barbarism, — words which, 
 if they have any definite meaning at all, imply the lowest 
 moral as well as the lowest intellectual condition. Con- 
 sequently, no proof — if proof there be — that primeval man 
 was ignorant of the industrial arts, can afford the smallest 
 presumption that he was also ignorant of duty or ignorant 
 of God." (Primeval Man, pp. 132, 133.) 
 
 HoviT ' ' Heaven ' ' first came to the ' ' Earth. ' ' 
 
 Having described the state both of "heaven," or the in- 
 ternal man, and of the ' ' earth, ' ' or the external man, as in 
 the beginning created by God with the first-bom race, we 
 may now proceed to describe briefly how heaven and earth 
 became one with them, and the Church of the Golden Age 
 established among men. 
 
 The purpose of God in creating mankind was to estab- 
 lish in this world an earthly heaven, as a seminary and 
 training school for a life of eternal bliss in the heaven of 
 the higher world. In the beautiful words of the ancient 
 Chaldean legend: ^'Iii order to save them, He created man- 
 kind, the Merciful One with whom is the calling into life." 
 And salvation could not be given even to these innocent 
 first-bom infants, except by the process of regeneration, 
 for, like all their descendants, they were born natural, and 
 within this natural man a new man, a spiritual and celestial 
 man, must be bom again for eternal life. This spiritual 
 creation or regeneration is what is described in the internal 
 sense of the creation story in Genesis. 
 
 In six days God made heaven and earth, and — ''six days 
 thou shalt labor and do all thy work. ' ' The number six in 
 this connection signifies spiritual labor, the combat with 
 evil and falsity in the trials and temptations which must 
 
54 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 precede the Sabbath of eternal peace. With the Preadam- 
 ites this week of labor was not a combat against actual evil 
 and falsity — for these did not yet exist — but a combat 
 against the native tendency of the natural man to gravi- 
 tate downwards, to live in the senses alone, to seek the low- 
 est good instead of the highest. To overcome this ten- 
 dency Divine instruction was necessary, and also various 
 vicissitudes, both natural and spiritual, resulting in a vasta- 
 tion of merely natural delights. These, with them, took 
 the place of the temptations experienced by the later race 
 of fallen men. Their regeneration, indeed, was an evolu- 
 tion rather than a revolution, — an unobstructed leading 
 forth of the soul to reign over its yielding natural king- 
 dom; and not, as with us, a desperate struggle with a re- 
 bellious kingdom in every comer possessed by the devil and 
 his crew. Nevertheless, with them as with us, regeneration 
 was a gradual process, represented by the six successive 
 days of creation. 
 
 Their first awakening from the night of thick darkness 
 hovering upon the faces of the abyss, is described in the 
 words: "And the Spirit of God moved upon the faces of 
 the waters. And God said, Let there he Light: and there 
 was Light/' 
 
 "By the Spirit of God is meant the Divine Mercy of the 
 Lord, of which it is said that it 'moves', as the hen upon her 
 eggs, and here upon those things which the Lord stores 
 up with man, and which in the Word are often termed 
 ' remains ' ; these are knowledges of truth and of good, which 
 never come to the light of day until external things have 
 been vastated. These knowledges are here called the 'faces 
 of the waters.' " (A. C. 19.) 
 
 The tender Mercy of the Lord for His finite images on 
 the earth cannot be described in human language, but a 
 faint suggestion is conveyed in the idea of mother-love 
 hidden in the Hebrew word merachafeth, "moving," a gen- 
 tle, almost imperceptible but continuous motion, like that 
 of the hen brooding upon her eggs, — the life-awakening 
 motion of the mother's w^omb. In the Hebrew the word for 
 "mercy" (rechem) is the same with the one for "womb." 
 
TEE PBEADAMITES. 55 
 
 When the first man was created no earthly mother re- 
 ceived him in her arms ; no earthly father stood by to pro- 
 tect and lead; no heaven of angels surrounded him with 
 the silent but mighty services which all new-bom infants 
 ever afterwards have enjoyed. How, then, could they ex- 
 ist, how were they led and cared for? To this question 
 Swedenborg gives the following answer: 
 
 "That the Lord from the first creation of man has led the 
 human race. 
 
 ' ' There occurred this delicate doubt : how the first man, 
 and those who were first bom, could have existed before 
 the greatest body [of Heaven] Avas formed? I brought a 
 confirmed answer in a spiritual idea which persuaded, that 
 the first man and those who were first bom, were led by no 
 one but the Lord alone ; for the Lord is the all in all things, 
 nor is there any effort from the individuals in heaven and 
 in the spiritual world except from the Lord, and this as 
 well before man was born as after he was born, for man, 
 as to all his degrees, existed similarly before his nativity 
 as after it. Without the Lord nothing could have been 
 created, nor exist created, wherefore also He alone sus- 
 tains the human race, as He did of old. Now He does this 
 by means of angels and spirits, but then He did it immedi- 
 ately, without angels and spirits. For His human race was 
 from the beginning, and for it He has every care." (S. D. 
 2591.) 
 
 In the sphere of His essential Divine Human, the Human 
 from eternity from which is everything human in heaven 
 and on earth, the Lord led His first-bom race immediately 
 from Himself, appeared to them as the Divine Man with- 
 out the intermediation of angels or spirits, and, indeed, 
 ''spoke with them face to face." (A. C. 49.) How this 
 was done, by what veilings the Divine Light was accommo- 
 dated to their tender eyes, we know not ; we only know that 
 it took place, and that there was no other way possible. 
 When afterwards an angelic heaven was formed from the 
 spirits of departed men. He used their ministry in His 
 revelations because they needed this service and not be- 
 cause it was impossible for the Almighty to reveal Himself. 
 
56 TRE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 This first revelation of Himself, who from eternity was 
 the Light of the world, was in the supreme sense the Light 
 that dawned on the first day of creation. And from the 
 instruction then given there dawned at the same time upon 
 the Preadamite a first recognition of his own ignorance and 
 weakness, a realization that he of himself was nothing, but 
 the Lord everything. Then, and then only, could he be- 
 gin his week's "labor" of regeneration, each successive 
 "day" or state beginning in the obscuiity of an "evening" 
 and ending in the more glorious "morning" of a newer 
 and higher da5^ 
 
 The first step in this new birth was a "dividing of the 
 light from the darkness," an ability to discriminate be- 
 tween genuine truths and mere appearances. Gradually 
 the first fruits of a spiritual life began to show themselves 
 upon the earth of his external life, — first the tender herbs 
 of budding spiritual thought, then nobler and more fruit- 
 ful shrubs and trees of growing ideas and perceptions, and 
 thus in time there were formed in his mind the two great 
 ' ' luminaries ' ' of charity and faith, for from a natural man, 
 he had now become a spiritual man. But still the "labor" 
 continued, for the celestial sabbath-day had not yet been 
 reached. The preceding state had been largely one of in- 
 tellectual reformation; now began the regeneration of the 
 will through the awakening of living affections, — first, the 
 affections of knowing, (the fishes of the sea), then the 
 affections of truth, (the birds of the air), and, finally, the 
 affections of good, (the warm-blooded beasts of the earth). 
 
 Thus, "in the course of time, by means of instruction, 
 experience, inspiration, and revelation, there was given 
 them to know all the things which were of faith, to which at 
 once there was an inward assent, so that they had a percep- 
 tion of these things because they agreed with their affec- 
 tions." (S. D. MiN. 4636.) 
 
 In this manner, from the purely corporeal and sensual 
 state in which they had been created as to their external 
 man, they became natural-rational men, able to receive and 
 obey the loving mandates of their Teacher. From this 
 level of obedience they rose to the state of the spiritual 
 
THE PBEADAMITES. 57 
 
 man who obeys not only because he has been commanded 
 by a beloved Master, but because he himself is profoundly 
 convinced of the beauty and truth of the teaching. And, 
 finally, from this state of spiritual conviction they attained 
 the perfection of the celestial man,— the only man that is 
 truly human, — who not only loves the truth of the Lord's 
 words, but immediately perceives and loves the good thereof, 
 the supreme good which is eternal salvation. And thus the 
 Preadamite became an Adam, the image and likeness of 
 God in the human rational mind which he had built up for 
 himself, as of himself, in freedom according to reason, by 
 submitting himself to the re-generating Hand which willed 
 to bring "heaven" down to the ''earth." 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 THE CHURCH OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Adam, the Man of the Ground. 
 
 '^And the heavens and the earth were finished and all the 
 host of them. . . . And Jehovah God made a mist to ascend 
 from the earth, and watered all the faces of the ground. 
 And Jehovah God formed man, dust from the ground, and 
 breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives, and inan be- 
 came a living soul.'' (Gen. 2:1-7.) 
 
 Gently as the dew of the dawn in sprin^ime, the tran- 
 quillity of peace descended upon the regenerated man of 
 the Golden Age after the labors of temptation had ended 
 in the rest of the Sabbath. His external man, formerly 
 represented by the general term ''earth/' had now become 
 a cultivated and fruitful "ground," the very ground-work 
 of the new celestial man, who from it, was called Adam. 
 
 Even as in the Latin tongue the generic term for ''man," 
 homo, is derived directly from humus, "ground," so the 
 Hebrew word adam, "man," is derived from adamah, 
 "ground," — ^more literally, "reddish soil," for as a verb 
 the word adam signifies " to be red " or " ruddy. ' ' The red 
 color, as is known by universal perception, is the color of 
 love, the color of natural as well as heavenly fire; it is the 
 highest and most active of all colors, the color of life itself. 
 
 The name Adam, therefore, presents the idea of a man 
 of the highest and most active love — the love of God, — a 
 love filling his entire being from the inmost soul to the 
 outermost body or ground. This love is that breath of 
 eternal life, which Jehovah God breathed into the "nos- 
 trils," i. e., the spiritual perception, of this His most per- 
 fect creature ; and because this highest human love renders 
 him who receives it a perfect image and likeness of the 
 Only True ]\Ian, therefore the celestial man of the Golden 
 
 58 
 
THE CHUBCH OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 59 
 
 Age became known in the race-memory by the highest, 
 noblest, most simple of all human names, — Adam, — Man. 
 
 The Garden of Eden. 
 
 ^'And Jehovah God planted a garden from the east in 
 Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed/' 
 (Gen. 2:8.) A "garden" signifies the Church as to in- 
 telligence and wisdom, in which the herbs represent natural 
 knowledges, the shrubs spiritual thoughts, and the trees 
 celestial perceptions. The name Eden in the Hebrew 
 means "delight" and "loveliness," (comp. the Greek 
 hedone, "sweetness"), and in the internal sense it signifies 
 celestial love. The "east" represents the Lord. The 
 "garden of Eden from the east," therefore, means the in- 
 telligence of the celestial man, which inflows from the Lord 
 by means of love. (A. C. 98.) 
 
 The state of intelligence and wisdom, of love and inno- 
 cence, in this celestial Church, may be illustrated by the 
 following general teachings: 
 
 "The man of the celestial Church was regenerated as to 
 the will, by being imbued from infancy with the good of 
 charity ; and when he had attained to a perception of this, 
 he was led into the perception of love to the Lord, whereby 
 all the truths of faith appeared to him in the intellect as 
 in a mirror. The understanding and the will made in him 
 a mind altogether one, for by the things in the understand- 
 ing it was perceived what was in the will. Herein con- 
 sisted the integrity of that first ' man ' by whom the celestial 
 church is signified." (A. C. 5113.) 
 
 "On this account the most ancient times were more ac- 
 ceptable to the Lord than the ages that followed. Inno- 
 cence then reigned, and with innocence, wisdom. Every 
 one then did what is good from good, and what is just from 
 justice. To do what is good and just with a view to self- 
 honor and gain was a thing unknown. They did not then 
 speak anything but the truth; and this not so much from 
 truth as from good; that is, not from the understanding 
 separate, but from the will conjoined with it. . . . And be- 
 
60 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 cause it never then entered any one's mind to attack the 
 inheritance of another, and thereby to get wealth and 
 dominion for himself, therefore the love of self and the love 
 of the world were at that time far away, and every one re- 
 joiced at heart at his own good, and no less at the good of 
 the neighbor." (A. C. 8118.) 
 
 "The more interiorly celestial of the angels do not al- 
 low 'faith' to be mentioned, nor anything whatever that 
 has a merely spiritual origin; and if it is spoken of by 
 others, then instead of faith they have a perception of love. 
 . . . Still less can they endure listening to any reasonings 
 about faith, and least of all to any mere scientifics con- 
 cerning it. For by means of love they have a perception 
 of what is good and true from the Lord; from this per- 
 ception they know instantly whether a thing be so or not; 
 wherefore when anything is said about faith, they answer 
 simply that it is so, or that it is not so, because they per- 
 ceive from the Lord how it is. This is what is meant by 
 the Lord's words in ^latthew: 'Let your communication be, 
 Yea, yea, Xay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these com- 
 eth of evil.' '' (A. C. 202.) 
 
 The Tree of Lite and the Tree of Sciexce. 
 
 "And Jehovah God made to grow out of the ground 
 every tree desirable to heliold, and good for food; the tree 
 of lives, also, in the midst of the garden, and the tree of 
 the science of good and evil." (Gen. 2:9.) 
 
 "A 'tree' signifies perception; a 'tree desirable to behold' 
 signifies the perception of truth; a 'tree good for food,' the 
 perception of good; the 'tree of lives,' love and faith thence 
 derived ; the ' tree of the science of good and evil, ' faith de- 
 rived from what is of the senses, or of science." (A. C. 
 102.) 
 
 The reason a tree corresponds to perception is that the 
 whole vegetable kingdom answers to the intellectual mind, 
 just as the whole animal kingdom answers to the will with 
 its living affections. The highest subjects of the vegetable 
 kingdom are trees, which perform the greatest uses and 
 
TEE CHUECE OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 61 
 
 afford the widest views, even as in the intellectual mind 
 perceptions are the inmost and most far-seeing insights. 
 
 "At this day it is unknown what perception is." (A. C. 
 104.) Literally perception means a "catching through," 
 (per-capere) , a quick taking of the real meaning by pene- 
 trating the veil of appearances. Regarded in itself it is 
 the flash of light first seen in the inmost of the mind when 
 the fire of love descends from the will into the understand- 
 ing. With animals this inmost sensation is called instinct ; 
 with human beings, as now constituted, it is called intu- 
 ition, which is possessed in a greater degree by women, who 
 are forms of affection, than with men, who are forms of 
 thought. But neither men nor women at this day possess 
 spiritual perception, for with both of them the will is per- 
 verted and therefore intuitively catches only at falsities 
 w^hich may excuse and confirm the evils of selfish and 
 worldly loves. Through the long and painful course of in- 
 struction, adversity, and temptation, we may, indeed, at- 
 tain a degree of conscience, by which we may discriminate 
 between good and evil, but few if any at this day possess 
 so pure a love as to render the light of this love a perfectly 
 safe guide in all things of the spiritual life. But celestial 
 love and consequent perception will be restored, little by 
 little, in the New Jerusalem, for in that celestial city the tree 
 of life will once more yield its fruits. 
 
 In the midst of the Garden, as its inmost and most 
 precious possession, there was a noble tree, the Tree of 
 Life, in which all the men of the Golden Age were the 
 branches. This Tree, like all the other trees, was a per- 
 ception, the supreme and inmost realization of the pres- 
 ence of Jehovah God in their midst,— a perception which 
 with them was an actual sensation of the Infinite Love and 
 Mercy. This perception was their very life and hence was 
 truly called their Tree of Life, — the mainspring that vivi- 
 fied all their loves and thoughts and endowed them even 
 while on this earth with all the blessedness of eternal life. 
 What this perception meant to them can be but faintly real- 
 ized by us who at the best have only a rational conviction 
 of the presence and guidance of the Lord, while, with them 
 
62 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 it was a continual living experience of the visible Father 
 who securely holds the hand of the child. 
 
 But at the boundary of the Garden there was another 
 tree, the tree of the science of good and evil, which had 
 been planted there by God Himself. This, too, was a per- 
 ception, the sensation of the actual appearance that man 
 in all things lives as it were from himself and thinks, speaks 
 and acts as of liimself, for without this appearance man 
 would deem himself a slave or an automaton. The men 
 of the Golden Age realized this appearance as much as do 
 we who ''trust in God but keep the powder dry," but far 
 more than we they realized that this appearance is hut an 
 appearance. Placed in the equilibrium between these two 
 trees or perceptions, the celestial men enjoyed a perfect 
 freedom of choice, the freedom without which life is not 
 human life, but in this their freedom they joyously chose 
 the Tree of Life. It is to be noted that they realized the 
 presence of the tree of science, but had not yet been forbid- 
 den to eat thereof. The forbidding came later when their 
 descendants, sated with the fruits of heaven, first began to 
 incline towards the fruits of the world. 
 
 Much is involved in the story of the two trees, as may 
 be seen from the following teachings of the Heavenly Doc- 
 trine : 
 
 ''To eat from the Tree of Life is to understand and be 
 wise from the Lord; and to eat from the tree of science 
 is to understand and be wise from one's owti self." (C. 
 L. 353.) 
 
 "The Tree of Life signifies a man who lives from God, 
 or God living in the man; and as love and wisdom, or 
 charity and faith, or good and truth, make the life of God 
 in man, these are signified by the Tree of Life, and hence 
 the eternal life of the man. . . . But the tree of science 
 signifies the man who believes that he lives from himself 
 and not from God; thus that love and wisdom, or charity 
 and faith, or good and truth, are in man from himself and 
 not of God ; and he believes this because he thinks and wills, 
 and speaks and acts, in all likeness and appearance as from 
 himself." (Ibid.) 
 
TEE CHUBCH OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 63 
 
 ' ' The Tree of Life signifies the will of good, and the tree 
 of science signifies the understanding of truth. The man 
 of the Most Ancient Church was forbidden to eat of the 
 latter, because the regenerated man ought no longer to be 
 led by means of the understanding of truth, but by means 
 of the will of good ; otherwise that which is 7iew of his life 
 perishes." (A. C. 8891.) 
 
 ' ' It is allowable to acquire knowledges of all that is true 
 and good by means of every perception from the Lord, but 
 not from self and the world, that is to say, by searching into 
 the mysteries of faith by means of sensual and scientific 
 things, for thereby that which is celestial dies." (A. C. 
 126.) 
 
 ' ' The men of the Most Ancient Church were by no means 
 forbidden to acquire the knowledges of good and evil from 
 heaven and from the world. But they were forbidden 
 to view these knowledges by the posterior way, {a poste- 
 riori), which is done when conclusions are drawn from them 
 respecting heavenly things." (A. E. 739.) 
 
 "The Tree of Life means the Lord as to His Divine 
 Providence, and the tree of science means man as to his own 
 prudence." (D. P. 241.) 
 
 In short, the two trees represent the internal and the 
 external, both of which are necessary to every perfect state. 
 It is of order to view everything first from within, and then 
 from without. It is of disorder to view anything from 
 without, and then speculate concerning the things within. 
 It is of order to accept the fact that of ourselves we know 
 nothing, but that the only source of spiritual knowledge is 
 the Lord in His Revelation as the only true Teacher. And 
 it is of order to confirm His teaching by our own experi- 
 ences and observations. But it is of disorder, and leading 
 only to ignorance, stupidity and death, to deny the pos- 
 sibility of Divine instruction, and to accept as our only 
 guides our own sensations, experiences, and would-be '* rea- 
 son ' ' and ' ' science. ' ' For the whole history of our race bears 
 witness to this lesson of universal application: ''Thought 
 from the eye closes the understanding, but thought from 
 the understanding opens the eye." (D. L. W. 46.) 
 
64 TBE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The Rivers of Eden. 
 
 "And a river went out of Eden, to water the garden, and 
 from thence it was parted, and was inio four heads/' (Gen. 
 2 : 10.) ''A 'river out of Eden' signifies wisdom from love, 
 for 'Eden' is love; 'to water the garden' is to bestow in- 
 telligence; to be 'thence parted into four heads' is a de- 
 scription of intelligence by means of the four rivers." (A. 
 C. 107.) 
 
 The rivers of the garden of Eden describe the general 
 state of the Most Ancient Church as to leading principles or 
 doctrines, flowing from their faculty of Perception ; that is, 
 their knowledges of good and truth, their rational under- 
 standing, their spiritual intelligence, and their celestial wis- 
 dom, all proceeding from their love of the Lord as streams 
 from their fountain. For "be it known that there is no 
 wisdom which is not from love, thus from the Lord; nor 
 any intelligence except from faith, thus also from the Lord ; 
 and that there is no good except from love, thus from the 
 Lord ; and no truth except from faith, thus from the Lord. ' ' 
 (A. C. 112.) 
 
 "The most ancient people, w^hen comparing man to a 
 'garden,' also compared wisdom, and the things relating 
 to wisdom, to 'rivers,' nor did they merely compare them, 
 but actually so called them, for such was their manner of 
 speaking." (A. C. 108.) 
 
 As water is the universal correspondent of truth, so a 
 river, being an inflowing collection of waters, corresponds 
 in the highest sense to the Word of the Lord which flows 
 forth from His mouth. And as the Word is nothing but 
 doctrine or Divine teaching, so rivers correspond to lead- 
 ing principles of doctrine, flowing from the Word. These, 
 when received by man, produce knowledge, intelligence, 
 and wisdom, and therefore a river signifies "truths in 
 abundance, which are of service to the rational man, thus 
 of service to the understanding for doctrine and life." 
 (A. H. 683.) 
 
 The river which went out of Eden is the same "pure 
 river of the water of life, clear as crystal" that flows 
 
TEE CHUBCH OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 65 
 
 through the midst of Paradise Regained, th'^ New Jerusa- 
 lem, with the Tree of Life on either side of the river; for 
 there is but One such river, the Word of God, translucent 
 from the spiritual and celestial senses within. In the 
 Most Ancient Church, indeed, this Word of God was not 
 written in a book, but it was written by the finger of the 
 Creator upon the entire universe, and the meaning and les- 
 sons of this Word were also written upon the hearts of the 
 celestial men. This Word has been opened again by the 
 Lord to His New Church in the Heavenly Doctrine, which 
 is the infinite stream of Divine Wisdom from the Divine 
 Love. 
 
 In a literal sense the ''four heads" or rivers of the gar- 
 den of Eden actually describe the boundaries of the land 
 of Canaan in its widest extent, for it was here that the 
 Most Ancient Church flourished. (A. C. 567, 4454.) 
 
 "The name of the first is Pishon; this is it which com- 
 passeth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; and 
 the gold of that land is good; there is hdellium and the 
 onyx stone." (Gen. 2: 11, 12.) 
 
 The river Pishon has not been identified with any river 
 now existing, but the land of Havilah undoubtedly refers 
 to a district of northern Arabia, to the southeast of the land 
 of Canaan. As this land was ''compassed" by the Pishon, 
 we may be permitted to suggest that this river is the same 
 as the Jordan in its primeval state, before the Dead Sea 
 had opened its chasm to prevent the Jordan waters from 
 flowing through their ancient channel into the Red Sea. 
 
 Be this as it may, in the internal sense of the Word the 
 river Pishon signifies "the intelligence of the faith which 
 is from love, ' ' for such intelligence is the first derivation of 
 "wisdom from love." The land of Havilah signifies the 
 intellectual mind itself, stored with gold, bdellium and 
 onyx stone, that is, with genuine good and truth. (A. C. 
 110.) 
 
 The river Gihon, "compassing the whole land of Cush," 
 
 signifies the cognition or spiritual knowledge of all things 
 
 belonging to good and truth; and the land of Cush, or 
 
 Ethiopia, everywhere in the Word signifies the mind stored 
 
 5 
 
66 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 with such cognitions. (A. C. 116.) This river, undoubt- 
 edly, is identical with the Nile, which runs through Ethiopia 
 as well as Egypt. (See A. C. 5196.) 
 
 HiDDEKEL, "which gocth eastward towards Asshur," is 
 clearly identical with the Tigris,* and signifies "the clear- 
 sightedness of reason, while Asshur, or Assyria, signifies the 
 rational mind itself. (A. C. 118.) 
 
 Phrath, the fourth river, is the same as the Euphrates, 
 and signifies the " scientifics' ' or natural knowledges which 
 have their home in the external memory and constitute the 
 last or most ultimate degree and boundary of the intel- 
 lectual mind. (A. C. 120, 9341.) 
 
 The four rivers, therefore, present an outline map of the 
 region where the Church of the Golden Age was once estab- 
 lished, and they describe at the same time a psychological 
 chart of the men of that Church, in all their mental de- 
 grees and faculties. In this garden of Eden Jehovah God 
 placed man "to till it and take care of it," (Gen. 2:15), 
 by which is signified that the celestial man was permitted, 
 from internal perception and wisdom, to enjoy and culti- 
 vate all the exterior faculties and degrees of the mind, — 
 intelligence, reason, cognition and science, — but not to re- 
 gard these as belonging to himself, because they are of the 
 Lord. (A. C. 122.) 
 
 Open Communion with Heaven. 
 
 Not only did the men of the Most Ancient Church pos- 
 sess the unique faculty of Perception, by which they in- 
 tuitively recognized the nature of all things good and true 
 as soon as presented to them, but they also enjoyed the 
 privilege of open communion with the angels of heaven. 
 
 "Man was so created that, while living on earth among 
 men, he might at the same time also live in heaven among 
 the angels, and while living in heaven among angels, at the 
 same time also live on earth among men ; so that heaven and 
 
 * Assyrian IdiJclat, (an arrow) ; Arabic Diglat, Persian Tegel and 
 Teger, Greek Tigris. 
 
THE CEUBCH OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 57 
 
 earth might be together and act as one, and that men might 
 know what is going on in heaven, and the angels know 
 what is going on in the world; and so that when men de- 
 parted from this life they passed from the Lord's king- 
 dom on earth into the Lord's kingdom in the "heavens, not 
 as into another kingdom, but as into the same as that in 
 which they had been when living in the body." (A. C 
 1880.) 
 
 ''Man was so created by the Lord as to be able while 
 living in the body to speak with spirits and angels, as in 
 fact was done in the most ancient times ; for, being a spirit 
 clothed with a body, he is one with them. But because in 
 the course of time men so immersed themselves in corporeal 
 and worldly things as to care almost nothing for aught be- 
 sides, the way was closed." (A. C. 69.) 
 
 ' ' Such were the ancient times, and therefore angels could 
 then have intercourse with men, and lead their minds home 
 to heaven in a state almost separated from bodily things, 
 and conduct them about [in heaven], and show them the 
 magnificent and blessed things there, and likewise communi- 
 cate to them their own happiness and delights." (A. C. 
 8118.) 
 
 This open communion with the spiritual world was at 
 that time a perfectly safe and orderly means of instruc- 
 tion in things Divine, for there were then no other inhabi- 
 tants of the spiritual world but the angels of heaven. But 
 'after the fall had taken place, after the human will had be- 
 come corrupted and hell had come into existence, inter- 
 course with spirits was no longer safe. For ever since that 
 time the spirit of the earth-dweller is no longer in heaven 
 amongst the angels, nor indeed in hell amongst the devils, 
 but is kept unconsciously in the world of spirits inter- 
 mediate between heaven and hell. Heaven cannot ap- 
 proach him immediately on account of the evil in his will, 
 and hell cannot approach him immediately on account of 
 the truth in his understanding. But in the intermediate 
 world he is in a perfectly balanced state of freedom, sur- 
 rounded by a mixed company of good and evil spirits who 
 have not yet entered their final abodes, and who are as un- 
 
68 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 conscious of their superior influence upon us, as we are un- 
 conscious of our own inferior influence upon them. 
 
 If any one on earth, for unlawful purposes and hj 
 magical means, dares to lift the veil that separates the two 
 worlds, the spirits become conscious of the individual with 
 whom they are present, and the evil spirits immediately 
 take advantage of their superior influence. Their malicious 
 hatred and cunning arts are greater than any man can 
 cope with, and they know no greater joy than to take pos- 
 session of his freedom and reason, in order to destroy him, 
 body and soul. They love especially to insinuate them- 
 selves into the man 's evil affections, flattering his pride and 
 conceits, — above all his religious conceits, — suggesting, for 
 instance, that he is a celestial man and that they are angels 
 of heaven. "When once they have the unfortunate man in 
 their clutches, he can never get rid of them, (except by the 
 most severe repentance), but they haunt him day and night, 
 argue away all his truths, destroy his faith in the Lord 
 and his love for his wife, and strive by might and main to 
 make him as insane, physically, as they are spiritually. 
 
 Such are a few of the dangers that lurk in the path of 
 him who at this day ventures to cultivate open intercourse 
 with spirits. But it is not only fraught with supereminent 
 perils, but it is also utterly useless for any good purposes. 
 For evil spirits can instruct us only in falsities; and good 
 spirits, if asked for instruction respecting the other life, 
 answer with Abraham: "If they hear not Moses and the 
 Prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose 
 from the dead." (Luke 16:31.) 
 
 In the New Church, above all churches, there is no need 
 of instruction in anything from any spirits or even angels, 
 for to this Church there has been given a Divine Revela- 
 tion in which the Lord Himself instructs us openly con- 
 cerning all the things contained in Moses and the Prophets 
 and speaks to us plainly of His Kingdom in the other world, 
 in greater fulness than any spirit or angel could ever know 
 or tell. "What better Instructor could be wanted or found ? 
 
 We have dwelt at some length on this subject, because 
 Swedenborg's statements concerning communion with an- 
 
TEE CHUBCE OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 59 
 
 gels in the Most Ancient Church have frequently been used 
 as arguments in favor of Spiritism. Lest Swedenborg's 
 attitude towards the Pythonism of the present day be mis- 
 understood, we quote the following teachings: 
 
 ''To speak with spirits at this day is rarely given, since 
 it is dangerous, for then spirits know that they are with 
 man, which otherwise they do not know; and evil spirits 
 are such that they cherish a deadly hatred against man, and 
 desire nothing more than to destroy him soul and body " 
 (H. H. 249.) 
 
 ''By intercourse with spirits men are brought into such 
 a condition as to their souls that they are speedily in dan- 
 ger of their life, wherefore I would dissuade all from 
 cherishing any desires to speak with them." (Doc II p 
 232.) 
 
 "To speak with a spirit mouth to mouth is most dan- 
 gerous because the spirit enters into the affection of the 
 man's prop rial love, which does not agree with the affection 
 of heavenly love." (Doc. 11. p. 387.) 
 
 "Man does not know the quality of his own affection, 
 whether it is good or evil, and with what other affection it 
 is conjoined. And if he is in the pride of his own intelli- 
 gence, the spirit favors every thought which is thence." 
 (A. E. 1182.) 
 
 With these warnings in mind, we may now^ return to the 
 heavenly communications of the men of the Golden Age. 
 
 The Word in the Golden Age. 
 
 "The men of the Most Ancient Church had the knowl- 
 edges of true faith by means of revelations, for they con- 
 versed with the Lord and with angels, and were also in- 
 structed by visions and dreams which were most delightful 
 and paradisal to them. They had from the Lord continual 
 perception, so that when they reflected on what was treas- 
 ured up in the memory, they instantly perceived whether 
 it was true and good, insomuch that when anything false 
 presented itself, they not only avoided it, but even regarded 
 it with horror." (A. C. 125.) 
 
70 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 ''Revelations were made to the man of the Most Ancient 
 Church by means of which he was from his infancy initiated 
 into a perception of goods and truths, but as those revela- 
 tions were inseminated into his voluntary part, he without 
 new instruction perceived innumerable things, so that 
 from one general [principle or perception], he knew from 
 the Lord the particulars and the singulars which now men 
 must learn and thus know, and then after all they can know 
 scarcely a thousandth part of them." (A. C. 895.) 
 
 "After they had acquired a general knowledge, these 
 general leading principles, as we may call them, were con- 
 firmed by things innumerable, by means of perceptions; 
 and these innumerable things were the particulars or in- 
 dividual things of the general principles to which they had 
 reference. Thus were the general leading principles cor- 
 roborated day by day ; whatever was not in agreement with 
 these they perceived to be not so, and whatever was in 
 agreement they perceived to be so." (A. C. 597.) 
 
 ' ' The men of the ]\Iost Ancient Church had the most de- 
 lightful dreams and likewise visions, and what these signi- 
 fied was at the same time insinuated into their minds. 
 Hence also they had paradisal representations. Thus the 
 objects of the external senses, such as the things of the 
 earth and of the world, were to them as nothing, nor did 
 they perceive anything of delight in them, but only in the 
 things which they signified and represented; wherefore, 
 when they beheld earthly objects they did not think at all 
 about them, but only about those things which they sig- 
 nified and represented, which to them were most delight- 
 ful, being such things as exist in heaven, by virtue whereof 
 they beheld the Lord Himself." (A. C. 1122, 2179.) 
 
 ''The men of the Most Ancient Church were indeed 
 aware of the external objects relating to their bodies in 
 the world, but did not care for them, perceiving in all the 
 objects of sense something Divine and celestial. Thus, for 
 instance, when looking upon any high mountain, they were 
 not impressed with any idea of it as a mountain, but with 
 a sense of its height, and from this they had a perception of 
 heaven and of the Lord. ... It was similar in other in- 
 
TEE CEUBCH OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 71 
 
 stances; thus when they recognized the presence of morn- 
 ing, they had no idea of it as the beginning of day, but as 
 the heavenly morning, the day-dawn in the mind; hence 
 the Lord was called the Morning, the East, and the Day- 
 spring. Whatever they saw with their eyes gave rise to 
 some celestial idea, and thus with them all things, both in 
 general and in particular, were redolent with life." (A. C. 
 920.) 
 
 Such, then, were the perceptions of the Golden Age, — the 
 trees in the Garden of Eden, desirable of aspect and good 
 for food, — and these perceptions, taken as a whole, con- 
 stituted the Word of God with them. 
 
 The Word of the Lord has indeed existed with men at 
 all times, for without it there could be no communication 
 between the Creator and His human creatures, but this 
 Word has been given in a different form to each succeed- 
 ing age. The Word of the IMost Ancient Church was the 
 very essential Word itself, the sum substance of Divine 
 Truth itself perceived within and instantly received not 
 only by the rational understanding but by the affections 
 of the life's love; hence those men may be called living 
 forms of the Divine Word. The Divine Truth was in- 
 scribed upon their very hearts, and hence there w^as no need 
 of any Word existing in a written form. (A. C. 1121, 
 2896; A. E. 617c.) 
 
 The Word with them consisted of ''general principles of 
 celestial and eternal verities, — principles such as these: 
 that the Lord rules the universe; that all good and truth 
 are from Him; that all life is from Him; that man's 
 proprium is nothing but evil and in itself dead; besides 
 many other truths of a like nature. In all this they re- 
 ceived a perception from the Lord representing innumer- 
 able things tending to confirm them and to harmonize with 
 them. Love, with them, was the chief thing of faith, and 
 by means of love it was given them of the Lord to per- 
 ceive whatever had relation to faith, and in consequence 
 faith with them was love." (A. C. 597.) 
 
 "The very essential of the Word was to them the Lord." 
 (A. C. 3432.) 
 
72 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Their Perception of God. 
 
 As has been stated before, mankind in its primitive state 
 had no other idea of God than that of a Divine Man, for 
 from the beginning He had revealed Himself in no other 
 form than as the Divine Prototype of those who were cre- 
 ated in His finite image and likeness. At first, — before as 
 yet there was a heaven of angels, — He revealed Himself in 
 and through the sphere of His own proceeding Divine, 
 which, being the sphere of the Divine Man, was in itself 
 a Divinely Human sphere. As the Divine Man, therefore, 
 He revealed Himself to the first-born men and as such spoke 
 to them face to face. (A. C. 49.) And afterwards, when 
 a heaven of angels began to be formed, His Divine sphere 
 filled this heaven, and, passing through heaven as through 
 a collective greatest Man, continually brought back to the 
 men on earth the perception and image of the Divine Man. 
 And besides this general perception, they enjoyed also an 
 actual individualized and objective vision of Him as a Man, 
 for whenever a Divine revelation was to be communicated 
 to His children on the earth. He filled some one angel with 
 His presence, — for the time being putting to sleep the con- 
 sciousness of that angel whose human form He had bor- 
 rowed, — and thus spoke through the mouth of this angel 
 who was then transfused with Divine radiance. Thus it 
 was that the men of the Most Ancient Church worshipped 
 as the Divine Man the Infinite Existere in which is the In- 
 finite Esse. (A. C. 3061, 4687.) 
 
 And this perception and vision of God as Man as to His 
 Divine Celestial and His Divine Spiritual, — that is as to 
 His Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, — would have been 
 sufiicient to all eternity for all purposes of human progress 
 and salvation, if mankind had remained in its pristine 
 perfection; for we are distinctly instructed that ''if the 
 Most Ancient Church had remained in its integrity, the 
 Lord would have had no need to he horn a man." (A. C. 
 2661.) For to those who are spiritual and celestial a spirit- 
 ual and celestial revelation is sufficient, but when mankind 
 by the great downfall had lost its heavenly birthright and 
 
THE CHURCH OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 73 
 
 became natural, sensual, and corporeal, the Divine Father 
 in His mercy descended even unto their own lowest plane 
 and veiled His Divine Soul in a natural, sensual and cor- 
 poreal human assumed from a virgin. This human nature 
 He infilled with the Divine on every plane ; so that at tliis 
 day there is no man so deeply sunk in gross sensualism but 
 that the Divine mercy is there with him in his depth, speak- 
 ing to him in a human language that even he can under- 
 stand, and thus, if willing, can be saved for heaven. 
 
 By coming into the world, therefore. He took unto Him- 
 self a more complete power than that which He exercised 
 among the children of His unfallen race, and on this ac- 
 count the Suq. of Righteousness now shines as "the light 
 of seven days," because it now^ reflects His own natural 
 image. And now that He has come again in that Human 
 which He glorified, — now that He has revealed Himself 
 as Divine Rational Truth adapted to every plane of human 
 comprehension, — He has thereby established a Church 
 which is to be the Crown of all the Churches that have ex- 
 isted since the beginning of the world. For to no other 
 Church but the New Church, the Church of the New Jeru- 
 salem, has He revealed His own Human, His own Divine- 
 Rational Human. 
 
 And by virtue of this Revelation, now given in the Heav- 
 enly Doctrine of the New Jerusalem, the New Church of 
 the future will become even more perfect * than the Church 
 of the Golden Age, for, — speaking of the Race-man as a 
 whole, — their innocence was an innocence of childhood, an 
 innocence of blissful ignorance which should never have 
 been disturbed. But since it was disturbed, the Lord in 
 His infinite Mercy and Wisdom has turned even this most 
 lamentable evil into the highest good. For, with the 
 whole bitter lesson of human history as a background, and 
 with the voice of the visible Lord guiding us forward, the 
 men of His New Church can in time enter into a new and 
 more internal celestial state, an innocence of wisdom, an age 
 of gold "well refined." 
 
 * See T. C. K. 787 and Invitation to the New Church, n. 52. 
 
CHAPTER y. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF 
 PRIMEVAL MAN. 
 
 The Brain of the Celestial Man. 
 
 The people of the Golden Age differed from the men of 
 subsequent ages not only as to the internal and spiritual 
 qualities described above, but also as to a number of physi- 
 ological characteristics, corresponding to their distinctive 
 psychological qualities. This difference as to bodily con- 
 ditions depended chiefly upon the singular operation of 
 the primeval human brain. 
 
 The subjects which we now approach do not easily fall 
 within the comprehension of modern man, owing to his 
 gross ignorance of the interior faculties of the soul as well 
 as of the body. In order to gain even a remote conception 
 of these things, it is necessary to introduce here some gen- 
 eral teachings of the psychology and physiology revealed 
 in the Writings of the New Church. 
 
 I. As to the two Ijrains, and their relation to the ivill and 
 the und erst abiding. 
 
 ''As all the things of the mind relate to the will a^nd the 
 understanding, therefore there are two. brains in the head, 
 which are as distinct from each other as are the will and 
 the understanding; the cerebellum is especially for the 
 will, and the cerebrum for the understanding." (D. L. W. 
 384.) 
 
 "Beneath the forehead is the cerebrum, and beneath the 
 occiput is the cerebellum; the latter is dedicated to love 
 and its goods; the former to wisdom and its understand- 
 ing." (C. L. 444.) 
 
 "All good is received behind, and truth in front, for the 
 cerebellum is formed to receive the good which is of the 
 will, and the cerebrum is formed to receive the truth which 
 is of the understanding." (A. E. 316.) 
 
 74 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHABACTEEISTIC8. 75 
 
 II. As to the Voluntanj and the Involuntary functions. 
 It is to be observed tbat the cerebellum is the organ of 
 the Divine Will rather than of our own self-will, for 'Hhe 
 Divine influx into the will is into the occiput, because into 
 the cerebellum; and thence it goes towards the front 
 parts in the cerebrum where is the understanding." 
 (A. E. 61.) 
 
 The cerebellum, therefore, is a sanctuary reserved by the 
 Creator for His own undisturbed operation in man,— an 
 organ over which the self-will of man has no control,— and 
 on this account the whole life-function which depends upon 
 the cerebellum is called the involuntary function. 
 
 But the cerebrum, which receives all the sensory nerves 
 and all the sense-impressions, is the seat of the conscious 
 mind or spirit. It is here that the life, inflowing from the 
 cerebellum, first becomes conscious of its own individualized 
 existence in the man. The general will of the cerebellum 
 here becomes a particular will which feels its freedom of 
 life and power of self -direction, and hence that whole life- 
 function which resides in and depends upon the cerebrum 
 is called the voluntary function. 
 
 ' ' Sense in general, or general sense, is distinguished into 
 voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary sense is proper to 
 the cerebrum, but involuntary sense is proper to the cere- 
 bellum. In human beings these two kinds of general sense 
 are conjoined but yet distinct. The fibres which flow forth 
 from the cerebrum present the voluntary sense in general, 
 and the fibres which flow from the cerebellum present the 
 involuntary sense in general. The fibres of this double 
 origin conjoin themselves together in the two appendices 
 which are called the medulla oblongata and the medulla 
 spinalis, and through these pass into the body and shape 
 its members, viscera, and organs. The parts which encom- 
 pass the body, such as the muscles and the skin, and also 
 the organs of the senses, for the most part receive fibres from 
 the cerebrum ; and hence man has sense and motion in ac- 
 cordance with his will. But the parts within this compass, 
 which are called the viscera of the body, receive fibres from 
 the cerebellum, and consequently man has no sensation of 
 
76 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 these parts, nor are they under the control of his will.'* 
 (A. C. 4325.) 
 
 ''Hence it is that the motion of the heart, which is in- 
 voluntary, is altogether taken away from the [conscious] 
 will; it is the same with the action of the cerebellum; and 
 the motions of the heart and the forces [nerves] of the cere- 
 bellum rule the voluntary things, lest these should rush 
 beyond bounds and extinguish the life of the body before 
 the proper time; on this account the beginnings [inmost 
 fibres], which act from each, — viz., from both the voluntary 
 and the involuntary things, in the whole body go conjoined 
 together." (A. C. 9683; S. D. 5781; S. D. Mm. 4714.) 
 
 The being which we call our conscious self is therefore 
 securely held by our Creator and Preserver within the 
 hollow of His two hands. The one hand, above our con- 
 sciousness, rules from within through our inmost soul, 
 which is forever safe from our own interference. The 
 other hand, below our consciousness and equally invisible 
 to us, holds us from without and rules our outermost cor- 
 poreal plane. Between these two Divine hands rests that 
 self-conscious being which is built up through our life in 
 the world, — the man of memory, of imagination, and of 
 reason, possessing a conscious will and understanding on 
 each of these three planes. The upper hand of God rules 
 through the cerebrum, inflowing by means of Divine Truth 
 into our understanding, and by it governing our self-will. 
 The nether hand of God rules through the cerebellum, in- 
 flowing by means of His love, affection, and good, and 
 thereby governing our self-will, for the latter, since the 
 great fall of mankind, is nothing but a corrupt mass of 
 evil and destructive tendencies. 
 
 Nearly everything in our corporeal plane is governed 
 by the involuntary functions of the cerebellum, and very 
 little, — the mere surface of things, — is under the govern- 
 ment of our own volition in the cerebrum. 
 
 Under normal conditions we are absolutely unconscious 
 of anything that is going on in the interior departments of 
 the whole complex system of our body. Everj^thing in the 
 whole wonderful machinery is proceeding in perfect order 
 
PKY BIOLOGICAL CEABACTEBISTICS. 77 
 
 and silence, removed from our own observation, reflection 
 or ken. Every fibre, artery and vein is performing its ap- 
 pointed task; each organ, intestine, gland and cell is busy 
 in its own use, without asking our leave or calling our at- 
 tention to its work, when everything is working in order. 
 
 There is one region, however, or one kingdom of our 
 corporeal system, over which the cerebellum or our own 
 volition is given a little brief authority, — the region of 
 the lungs and the muscular and membranous system di- 
 rected by them. We can by our own will govern the oper- 
 ation of the lungs, for a little while. We can take a full 
 breath or hold our breath, for a little while, and we can 
 compel the exterior muscles to perform certain extraordi- 
 nary tasks, for a little while. We can force nature, (the 
 cerebellum), into the service of art, and we can also very 
 seriously interfere with nature, but the latter after a little 
 while takes out its rights when the self -life is put to sleep. 
 
 And, then, in the night-time, there begins the sweeping 
 and the cleaning, the mending of the broken toys and the 
 rent garments, the restoring of all that has been used up or 
 wasted. All this work is the use of the cerebellum, the 
 "mother nature" which never sleeps, and whose Avork, like 
 woman's, never ends. For "the voluntary things with man 
 continually withdraw from order, but the involuntary things 
 continually bring back to order," (A. C. 9683), and it is 
 in the night-time that man is governed by the spontaneous 
 or natural rule of the cerebellum. (S. D. 4518.) And the 
 sole reason for this is that the Lord can then without our 
 own interference fold us in the arms of His Divine Love 
 and Mercy. "When man sleeps the Lord guards him most 
 of all, for love sleeps not." (A. C. 959, 1983.) 
 
 Now, in regard to the cerebral constitution of the most 
 ancients, it differed in no respect from our own, except in 
 this most important internal respect that with them the 
 two brains were conjoined as to spiritual operations, as is 
 the case even now with the inhabitants of the planet Mars : 
 
 "I have been instructed that the spirits of the planet 
 Mars, [where the race is very similar to the most ancient 
 people of our earth], have relation to something which is 
 
78 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 interior in man, and indeed intermediate between the in- 
 tellectual part and the voluntary part, thus to thought from 
 affection, and they who are the best of them, have relation 
 to the affection of the thought. This is the reason why 
 their face makes a one with their thought, and why they 
 cannot dissemble before any one." (A. C. 7480.) 
 
 "And because they have such a relation in the Maximus 
 Homo, that middle portion of the brain which is between 
 the cerebrum and the cerebellum, corresponds to them. For 
 with those in whom the cerebrum and the cerebellum have 
 been conjoined in respect to spii^itual operations the face 
 acts as one with the thought, so that from the face the very 
 aft'ection of the thought shines forth; and from the affec- 
 tion, with some signs also going forth from the eyes, the 
 general of the thought shines forth." (A. C. 7481.) 
 
 And the reason why the two brains in the man of the 
 Most Ancient Church were thus conjoined as to spiritual 
 operations, was that their understanding was one with their 
 will, or their voluntary life was one with their involuntary, 
 and both acted as one with the Divine Will of the Lord, 
 in the perfect repose and self-surrender of the Sabbath 
 state. 
 
 From this internal condition, so different from the one 
 now prevailing, there flowed forth a number of distinctive 
 externals of bodily life that were unique to the celestial 
 man. 
 
 Internal Respiration. 
 
 Chief of these physiological characteristics was their 
 peculiar manner of breathing, which is thus described by 
 Swedenborg : 
 
 "The men of the Most Ancient Church perceived states 
 of love and of faith by states of respiration, which were 
 gradually changed in their posterity. Of this respiration 
 nothing can be said as yet, because at this day such things 
 are altogether unknown, but the most ancient people were 
 well acquainted with it, and so are those who are in the 
 other life, but no longer any one on this earth." (A. C. 
 97.) 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHABACTEBISTICS. 79 
 
 **What is as yet unknown in the world, and is perhaps 
 difficult to believe, is that the men of the Most Ancient 
 Church had an internal respiration, and no external respira- 
 tion except a tacit one. ... As these most ancient people 
 had a respiration such as is possessed by the angels, who 
 breathe in a similar manner, they were in profound ideas 
 of thought, and were able to have such perception as can- 
 not be described." (A. C. 607, 608, 805.) 
 
 "It was also granted me to perceive the nature of their 
 internal respiration, — that it advanced from the umbilicus 
 toward the heart, and so through the lips without sound." 
 (A. C. 1118.) 
 
 "It has been showTi me to the life how the internal 
 respiration of the most ancient people silently flowed into 
 a kind of external and thus tacit speech, perceived by an- 
 other in his interior man. They said that this respiration^ 
 varied with them, according to the state of their love and 
 faith in the Lord. They gave also as a reason that it could 
 not be otherwise, because they had communication with 
 heaven; for they respired with the angels in whose com- 
 pany they were. Angels have a respiration to which in- ' 
 temal respiration corresponds ; and it likewise varies with 
 them. For when anything befalls them, which is contrary 
 to love and faith in the Lord, their respiration is restrained ; 
 but when they are in the happiness of love and faith, the 
 respiration is free and full. There is something like this, 
 also, with every man, but in accordance with his corporeal 
 and worldly loves and principles. When anything opposes 
 these, there is a restriction of the respiration, and when 
 they are favored, the respiration is free and full. These, 
 however, are variations of external respiration." (A. C. 
 1119.) 
 
 "It has also been shown that the internal respiration of 
 the men of the Most Ancient Church, which was from the 
 umbilicus toward the interior region of the breast, in the 
 course of time, or in their posterity, was changed, and re- 
 ceded more to the region of the back and toward the ab- 
 domen, thus more to the outward and downward ; and that 
 at length, in the last posterity of that Church, which ex- 
 
80 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 isted immediately before the flood, scarcely anything of 
 internal respiration remained; and when at last there re- 
 mained none of it in the breast, they were suffocated of 
 their own accord, but with some an external respiration 
 then began and with it articulate sound or the language of 
 spoken words; thus with the men before the flood the 
 respiration was in accordance with the state of their love 
 and faith ; and at last, when there was no love and no faith, 
 but only persuasion or falsity, internal respiration ceased; 
 and with this the immediate communication with angels 
 and perception also ceased." (A. C. 1120. See also S. D. 
 3322, 3324, 3490.) 
 
 For further study of this profound subject we must re- 
 fer the reader to the Spiritual Diary, nos. 3317, 3320-22, 
 3464, where Swedenborg describes his own remarkable ex- 
 perience of a kind of internal respiration, for which he was 
 especially formed and prepared from birth and earliest in- 
 fancy, and this in order that heaven might be opened to 
 him and that he might enter into the most profound and in- 
 tense thought that has ever been granted to mortal man. 
 
 In regard to the general subject of breathing it should 
 be observed that every man possesses a threefold respira- 
 tion. The first of these is internal and spiritual, — the 
 respiration of the spirit residing in the cerebrum and 
 breathing the atmosphere of the spiritual world. The sec- 
 ond is external and of the world, — the voluntary respira- 
 tion of the conscious spirit in and through the cerebrum 
 and the lungs. And the third is also external, — the quiet, 
 unceasing invoUmiary respiration which is governed by 
 nerves from the cerebellum. 
 
 During our wakeful hours all of these three kinds of 
 respirations are constantly operative, the spiritual respira- 
 tion then making one with the external voluntary breath- 
 ing, and continually supported by the involuntary respira- 
 tion. The voluntary respiration directs the muscles to do 
 all their work as a husbandman directs his laborers, while 
 the involuntary function, like the housewife, has charge 
 of the whole of the internal economy, particularly the heat- 
 ing system and the culinary department. According to the 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHABACTEEISTICS. 81 
 
 needed efforts of the body the cerebrum then rules the lungs 
 in deep, voluminous breaths, especially when we brace our- 
 selves for any extraordinary tasks, or in recovering our- 
 selves from any violent passion. 
 
 Again, when the man of the house returns from his out- 
 side duties and retires into his office or study for deep 
 thought and meditation, — those studies upon which depend 
 the real support and progress of the whole domestic econ- 
 omy, — the cerebellum as a good and faithful housewife im- 
 mediately imposes silence upon the household. The Thinker 
 of the family is not to be disturbed by the creaking of 
 expanding and contracting air-cells and tubes; all noise 
 is hushed, and a tacit external breathing ensues, regulated 
 almost entirely by nerves from the cerebellum. The more 
 profound the thought, the more silent becomes the volun- 
 tary breathing, as silent as the breathing of the spirit it- 
 self in its cerebral chamber; the external voluntary res- 
 piration appears almost to have vanished, until, after a 
 period, the spirit returns to earth and recovers its foot- 
 hold there by a deep, full breath. It is this quiet, volun- 
 tary respiration of the cerebrum mixed with the involun- 
 tary respiration of the cerebellum, that is meant by the 
 ^' tacit external breathing" which the men of the Most An- 
 cient Church did possess together with the internal respira- 
 tion of the spirit. 
 
 When, however, both the spirit and the cerebrum fall 
 asleep, there ensues the purely involuntary respiration, also 
 called the spontaneous or natural breathing, which is un- 
 der the complete and undisturbed charge of the cerebellum. 
 (A. C. 3893.) There is a sacred sphere about the gentle 
 and regular breathing, — at times almost imperceptible, — 
 of the sleeping man, for the angels of the highest heaven 
 then stand on guard lest anyone interfere with the purely 
 Divine work, which is now going on in the body. 
 
 All of us, therefore, possess an internal respiration, a 
 respiration of the spirit, in nowise different from the in- 
 ternal respiration of the Most Ancient Church, except in 
 this important respect that the spirit which breathes in us 
 is a very different spirit from the spirit of the celestial man. 
 6 
 
82 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The spirit which breathed in his brain was an angelic spirit, 
 a spirit which in all things willingly co-operated with the 
 Divine Spirit, a spirit in which will and understanding 
 were one, and both were good and untainted by hereditary 
 and actual evil. But the spirit that breathes in us, since 
 the days of the fall, is a spirit which by birth and acquired 
 nature continually strives contrary to the Spirit of God and 
 His laws of natural order. Even with those of us who 
 have conquered their own self-will and thus have become 
 spiritual men, there remains forever in the subdued pro- 
 prium the taint and tendency of hereditary evil, which, as 
 long as we live in this world, will prevent the full restora- 
 tion of that kind of heavenly breathing, which was the ' ' in- 
 ternal respiration" of the man of the Golden Age. 
 
 Speech, Hearing and Countenance. 
 
 Since all vocal speech is effected by various applications 
 of the external respiration of the lungs, and since the men 
 of the Golden Age possessed no such breathing "except a 
 tacit one, " it is readily seen that their speech also must have 
 been different from our own. It is described in the Writ- 
 ings as "a tacit speech, perceived by another in his in- 
 ternal man." (A. C. 1119.) 
 
 "Thus they spoke not so much by words, — as was done 
 afterwards and at this day, — but by ideas, as the angels 
 do; and these they could express by innumerable changes 
 of the features and the face, especially of the lips. In the 
 lips there are countless series of muscular fibres which at 
 this day are not set free, but being free with the men of 
 that time they could so present, signify, and represent 
 ideas by means of them as to express in a minute's time 
 what at this day would require an hour to say by articulate 
 sounds and words, and they could do this more fully and 
 clearly to the apprehension and understanding of those 
 present than is possible by words or series of words in com- 
 bination." (A. C. 607.) 
 
 "There was shown to me what was the nature of their 
 speech when they lived in this world, — that it was not 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHABACTEBISTICS. 83 
 
 articulate like the vocal speech of our time, but tacit, and 
 was produced not by external but by internal respiration. It 
 was also granted me to perceive the nature of their internal 
 respiration, — that it advanced from the navel toward the 
 heart, and so through the lips, without sound; and that it 
 did not enter into the ear of another and strike upon what 
 is called the drum of the ear by an external way, but by 
 a certain way within the mouth, in fact, by a passage there . 
 which is now called the Eustachian tube. And it was 
 shown me that by such speech they could much more fully 
 express the sentiments of the mind and the ideas of thought 
 than can possibly be done by articulate sounds or vocal 
 words, which likewise are directed by the respiration, but 
 the external. For there is nothing in any word that is not 
 directed by applications of the respiration. But with them 
 this was done much more perfectly, because by the internal 
 respiration; which, from the fact that it is interior, is at 
 once far more perfect and more applicable and conformable 
 to the very ideas of thought. Besides, they also conversed 
 by slight movements of the lips and correspondent changes 
 of the face ; for, being celestial men, whatever they thought 
 shone forth from the face and eyes, which were varied 
 conformably. They could by no means put on an expres- 
 sion of countenance different from that which was in agree- 
 ment with their thoughts. Simulation, and still more de- 
 ceit, was to them a monstrous iniquity." (A. C. 1118.) 
 
 As to the communication of ideas by means of the face 
 and the lips we learn further that "the first speech of all 
 on every earth was by means of the face, and this from 
 two origins in the face, — from the lips and from the eyes. 
 The reason was that the face was formed altogether to 
 effigy those things which a man thinks and wills. Hence 
 the face has been called the ef&gy or index of the mind. 
 A further reason was that in the most ancient or first times 
 there was sincerity, and man did not think, and did not 
 wish to think, anything but what he desired should shine 
 forth from the face. Thus also the affections of the mind 
 and the ideas of thought could be presented to the life and 
 fully. In this way they appeared to the eye also, as in a 
 
84 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 form, and very many together. This speech, therefore, sur- 
 passed the speech of words as much as the sense of sight 
 surpasses that of hearing; that is, as the sight of a land- 
 scape surpasses hearing it described." (A. C. 8249; com- 
 pare A. C. 10587.) 
 
 ''The influx from the cerebellum insinuates itself espe- 
 cially into the face, as is evident from the fact that the 
 disposition is inscribed on the face and the affections ap- 
 pear in it, for the most part without the man's volition, 
 affections such as fear, reverence, shame, etc. These come 
 from the cerebellum by means of its fibres, when there is 
 no dissimulation within." (A. C. 4326.) 
 
 With the men of the Most Ancient Church, in whom the 
 voluntary and the involuntary functions acted as one, "all 
 the involuntary of the cerebellum was manifested in the 
 face, and at that time they knew not how to exhibit any 
 other thing in the countenance than as heaven flowed into 
 the involuntary tendencies and thence into the will. ' ' But 
 after the fall, when the will and the understanding were 
 separated, "the fibres from the cerebellum changed their 
 efflux into the face, and instead thereof fibres from the cere- 
 brum were transferred thither, which now control those 
 which are from the cerebellum, and this from an endeavor 
 to form the expressions of the face according to the behests 
 of man's own will, all of which is from the cerebrum." 
 (A. C. 4326.) 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 LIFE IN PARADISE. 
 
 The Earthly Paeadise. 
 .fV^l^t^'"'^ "* *' ^^"'"^^^ ^^« ^as not only a Garden 
 external th ngs also it was situated in an actual Paradise 
 
 tune filled with bleak and bare mountains, dry water 
 courses and forbidding wildernesses, wa. th;n ^ly "I 
 land flowing with milk and honey"; as Ovid has it 
 flumtna jam lactis, jam flumim nectaris ibant " (Then 
 rivers of milk, then rivers of nectar were flowing) The 
 
 Setor ' " P ''' !•' '' '''^' '"'''' fr°- the hand of tJe 
 Creator, was a Paradise, such as has been eloquently pic- 
 tured by Swedenborg in his Worship and Love of God 
 
 vlentvLTl f , '^ T^'""^ °°*'''°^ ^"* pleasantness and 
 shrub ;nd f^ 1"* fragrances from the branches of every 
 shrub and from the pores of every leaf and fruit, filling the 
 cn-cumambient air with these delightful scents, which were 
 so many sources of fruitfulness exuding from the earth by 
 new ways, vi. by the roots, twigs and leaves of neSom 
 
 dTe ''*Tw. L.'g.Tl)'''* "'''"'''"' '"'''" called Par™ 
 
 so Znlv'r*''i°T '""l"^"^ ^'^^ '^ "^"^ creatures, and 
 so amply furnished and adorned with delightful fruit^ ad 
 vancmg and wandering through its de^ees a^ le wt 
 reached the middle station of !ts sprinror 'the ^fsj 
 temperature, and having now attained its highest defect 
 overflowed with every emolument. The inffnt wMTea^ s 
 be ng weaned droppings of milk flowed plentif u fy S 
 the fertile and lately pregnant branches, and through new 
 veins returned back to the roots of the m;temal SveT 
 Every species of animal was led to the employment suitable 
 
86 TBE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 to his nature, and provided uses and benefits for future 
 time and for posterity. Everything, according to the na- 
 ture with which it was endowed, celebrated the festal days, 
 not only of its own spring, but at the same time also of the 
 universal springtime. 
 
 "The globe was now at its height, nor was anything 
 wanting to any sense, by which it might exalt its life and 
 replenish the soul itself with joys. For the touch there 
 was the sweet warmth of springtime, mixed with the 
 natural moisture of the earth, which by its influence grati- 
 fied every fibre. For the smell there were fragrances ex- 
 haling from every pore of each leaf, with which the air, 
 being full charged, expanded the inmost reticular textures 
 of the lungs. For the taste there were fruits of the most 
 exquisite relish, and clusters hanging dovm to the ground 
 from the leafy vine. For the hearing there was a concert 
 and lovely melody of the many chirping and carolling 
 birds, which echoed so harmoniously through fields and 
 groves that the interior recesses of the brain were put into 
 a tremulous and concordant motion. For the sight there 
 was the whole aspect of the heaven and of the earth, whose 
 greatest objects were so distinctly ornamented by their 
 smallest parts that they easily disposed the animal spirits 
 to pleasure and delight." (W. L. G. 29, 30.) 
 
 Social Relations in Paradise. 
 
 In this earthly heaven the people of the Golden Age lived, 
 as do even now the celestial angels, not in crowded cities 
 or communities, but in the roomy freedom of pastoral life. 
 
 "In the most ancient time mankind lived distinguished 
 into houses, families and nations ; a house consisting of the 
 husband and wife with their children, together with some 
 of the family who served; a family consisting of a greater 
 or lesser number of houses that lived not far apart, and yet 
 not together ; and a nation consisting of a larger or smaller 
 number of families." (A. C. 470,ll59.) 
 
 "The reason why they dwelt thus alone by themselves, 
 distinguished only into houses, families and nations, was 
 
LIFE IN PABADISE. 
 
 87 
 
 that by this means the Church might be preserved entire, 
 so that all the houses and families might be dependent on 
 their parents, and thereby remain in love and true wor- 
 ship. It is to be observed also that each house was of a 
 peculiar genius, distinct from every other; for it is well 
 known that children, and even remote descendants, derive 
 from their parents a particular genius and such marked 
 characteristics that they can be distinguished by the face 
 and by many other peculiarities. Therefore, in order that 
 there might not be a confusion, but an exact distinction, 
 it pleased the Lord that they should dwell in this manner! 
 Thus the Church was a living representative of the king- 
 dom of the Lord; for in the Lord's kingdom there are in- 
 numerable societies, each one distinct from every other, ac- 
 cording to the variations of love and faith." (A. C. 471.) 
 ''In the most ancient times dignities were such only as 
 were accorded by children to parents ; they were dignities 
 of love, full of respect and veneration, not on account of 
 birth from these parents, but because of the instruction and 
 wisdom received from them, which were a second birth, in 
 itself spiritual, because it was the birth of their spirit. 
 This was the only dignity in the most ancient times, for na- 
 tions, families and houses then dwelt apart by themselves, 
 and not under the rule of governments as at this day. It 
 was the father of the family in whom this dignity was 
 vested. By the ancients those times were called the golden 
 ages." (D. P. 215.) 
 
 In this Republic of Love ''he ruled who was the father 
 of the nation, and under him the fathers of the families, 
 and under these the fathers of the households. But all 
 these ruled from love, such as that of a father toward his 
 children, who teaches them how they ought to live, bestows 
 benefits upon them, and as far as he is able gives' them of 
 his own. Nor does it ever enter his mind to subject them 
 under himself as subjects or as servants; but he loves that 
 they should obey him as sons obey their father. And as 
 this love grows as it descends, [toward grandchildren, etc.], 
 therefore the father of the nation acts from a more in- 
 terior love than does the immediate father of the children. 
 
88 TRE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Such also is the rule in the heavens, because such is the rule 
 of the Lord, for His rule is from His Divine love toward 
 the whole human race." (A. C. 10814.) 
 
 Priesthood and Royalty United. 
 
 The social organization in the Most Ancient Church was 
 therefore completely patriarchial, such as has ever pre- 
 vailed among pastoral and nomadic peoples, and in this 
 most perfect and most free of all forms of government the 
 priestly and the royal functions are always united in one 
 office and in one person. In the Golden Age there was 
 no separate priesthood and no separate royalty or civil 
 rule, but the father of each family was both priest and 
 king in his own house, and thus the whole Church was truly 
 a "nation of priests and kings," in which autocracy like 
 democracy was altogether unknown, for Theocracy was the 
 only rule they could imagine possible. 
 
 There was at that time but one ruling function, and that 
 was the function of teaching. There was no need of 
 threats and punishments, but the father of the household 
 simply taught the Lord's Truth, which was at once per- 
 ceived and recognized as the expression of the Lord 's merci- 
 ful direction toward greater blessings. Thus "the father 
 of the family taught those who were of his house the pre- 
 cepts of charity, and thence the life of love, in their taber- 
 nacles, as later on in temples." (A. E. 799g^.) 
 
 "In the Ancient Representative Church the priesthood 
 and the royalty were joined together in one person, be- 
 cause the good and truth which proceed from the Lord are 
 united, and these are also joined together in heaven with 
 the angels." (A. C. 6148.) This union of the ruling 
 functions was universal in the most remote antiquity, as 
 is abundantly confirmed by the researches of archeology. 
 "Priest-king" was the regular title of the rulers among 
 the earliest inhabitants of Chaldea, and there is reason to 
 believe that the same form of government prevailed in pre- 
 historic Egypt. The grand-lama of Thibet was until re- 
 cently such a priest-king, as was also for untold ages the 
 
LIFE IN PARADISE. 89 
 
 Emperor of China. In the time of Abraham the custom 
 still survived in some portions of the land of Canaan, as 
 is evident from the case of Melchizedek, (a name which 
 means "king of righteousness"), of whom it is written that 
 "Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and 
 wine ; and he was a priest to God Most High ; and he blessed 
 Abraham." (Gen. 14:18, 19.) 
 
 Occupations, Dwellings, and Worship. 
 
 There is not much of external interest to tell of the ' ' sim- 
 ple life" of these wise children in the infancy of our race. 
 Like the Arabs of today, "they dwelt in tabernacles and 
 tents, and also wandered about with them, for many of 
 them at that time were shepherds." (A. E. 799(1.) "The 
 most ancient people not only journeyed about with their 
 tents, but also dwelt in the tents, and performed their holy 
 worship in them." (A. C. 1102.) "There was with them 
 no other love of riches than that they should possess the 
 necessities of life, which they procured for themselves from 
 flocks and herds, and also from cultivated fields, meadows 
 and gardens, from which they had their food. Among the 
 necessities of their life there were also decorous homes, 
 furnished with all kinds of useful things, and also garments. 
 Parents, children, servants and maids in a household were 
 busy in the care of all these things and in the necessary 
 work." (D. P. 215.) 
 
 It will be vain for archeologists to look for architectural 
 remains from that Golden Age in the land of Canaan, and 
 this for the reason that the people of that age lived ex- 
 clusively in tents and also performed their worship in them. 
 Each home wa^ then a church of God, dedicated to His wor- 
 ship, and on this account the home-tent, in which the wor- 
 ship and the daily life were inseparable, was regarded with 
 the utmost reverence, as the dwelling-place of God with 
 men. In a somewhat later age, as the externals of life be- 
 gan to increase and simplicity decreased, special tents or 
 tabernacles were set aside for the Divine worship, and 
 finally they built houses of worship, constructed not of 
 
90 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 stone but of wood, because the state was still a state of ce- 
 lestial good, to which wood corresponds, and not yet a state 
 of spiritual truth represented by stone. (A. C. 414, 3720.) 
 
 The memory of this primitive tent-worship is still pre- 
 served in the Hebrew tongue where the verb lialal, "to 
 praise, to glorify, ' ' is derived directly from the word aohel, 
 a ''tent;" hence the term "hallelu-jah" means originally 
 to "glorify Jehovah in the home tent.'' Hence also came 
 the Hebrew word for "city," {ayir, Assyrian alu), for the 
 first cities were nothing but collections of tents. 
 
 "The men of the Most Ancient Church were internal 
 men and had no externals of worship, while the men of 
 the Ancient Church were external men and had externals 
 of worship; for the former saw external things through 
 internal things as in the noon-day light of the sun, while 
 the latter saw internal things through external things as 
 in the light of the moon and the stars by night." (A. C. 
 4493.) That is to say, there were not in the worship of 
 the Most Ancient Church any fixed representative rites of 
 worship as in the church that followed, but the external 
 worship was the simple and spontaneous expression of their 
 internal adoration of Jehovah their Cod. There were no 
 rites such as circumcision, washings, or sacrifices, nor as 
 yet any special days set apart for worship, for every day 
 was a Sabbath, a day of adoration, purification, se^Z-sacri- 
 fice and interior communication with heaven and with God. 
 Nevertheless, there w^as also each day an external worship, 
 welling forth from a heart overflowing with love and grati- 
 tude and with a desire to lead the younger and simpler 
 members of the family to more internal perceptions and 
 loves. They had no externals of worship merely represent- 
 ing internal things, but the internal things themselves nat- 
 urally expressed themselves in outward acts, such as the 
 act of prostrating oneself, (not merely kneeling), the act 
 of blessing in the worship, etc. They also loved to con- 
 duct their worship not only in the tents, but also on the 
 top of some mountain, being naturally led thither by their 
 exalted love of God and the desire for nearness to Him. 
 (A. C. 795, 796.) 
 
LIFE IN PARADISE. 91 
 
 ''It was perceived from the most ancient people who 
 were from our earth, that they had thus lived in their time, 
 and that they then knew not what it was to exercise com- 
 mand over others from the love of self, and from the love 
 of the world to heap up wealth beyond what is necessary ; 
 and that they then had inward peace and at the same time 
 outward peace, and from this there was heaven among 
 men. Those tunes were therefore called by the ancient 
 writers the Golden Age, and they were described by say- 
 ing that the people did what was just and right from the 
 law written on their hearts. The state of life of those times 
 is described in the Word by 'dwelling by themselves safely 
 and alone without gates and bars,' (Ezech. 38:11). And 
 as their habitations were tents, therefore in the memory of 
 this, a tent was erected which was for a house of God, and 
 afterwards the feast of tents was instituted, in which they 
 were glad from the heart. And as they who lived in this 
 way were free from the insane love of exercising command 
 for the sake of themselves, and free from the love of gain- 
 ing the world for the sake of the world, therefore Heaven 
 then let itself down to them, and the Lord was seen by many 
 in the human form." (A. C. 10160.) 
 
 The Name "Jehovah." 
 
 Possessing as yet no external voluntary respiration, ' ' ex- 
 cept a tacit one, ' ' their speech likewise was a tacit speech, 
 but still a speech. It was not simply a beautiful pantomime 
 of the delicate muscles of the face and the lips, (now 
 atrophied by disuse), by means of which affections alone 
 could be communicated but not the distinct meanings of 
 exact thought. As has been stated before, they also had a 
 tacit speech, communicated to the hearer by means of the 
 Eustachian tube, and this speech gradually formed itself 
 into an actual language, which was one with the universal 
 language of the spiritual world. 
 
 "The first language of men on our earth was in agree- 
 ment with the angelic language ; and the Hebrew language 
 is in agreement with it in some respects." (H. H. 237.) 
 
92 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 ''In some languages in the world, also, there are such 
 natural words, [i. e., 'onomatopoetic'], and the most ancient 
 language was altogether such as is the language of spirits, 
 which is wholly natural; the interior ideas of a man are 
 also in that language, although the man is not aware of it; 
 and hence it is that after death, when he is among spirits, 
 he speaks that language without instruction." (S. D. 
 4870.) 
 
 The first language, therefore, that was spoken by men on 
 earth, was one with the language of heaven, and the holiest 
 word of that language was the name by which they knew 
 and adored their ]\Iaker, — the name Jehovah. To tell all 
 the heavenly arcana involved in this name would be im- 
 possible, but we may try to present a few general ideas. 
 The root-meaning of this name is the idea of ' ' being, ' ' con- 
 nected with other roots meaning "to live," and "to love." 
 It is, properly, the only name of the Infinite Esse, the 
 Divine Being who revealed Himself to the most ancients in 
 the form of a Man, and who again revealed Himself to Mo- 
 ses under the name of " I am who I am. ' ' Nor does it only 
 mean "I am" in the present tense, but in all tenses and 
 modes. For the "je" in this name is found again in the 
 future tense, {yehi), of the Hebrew verb hay ah or hawah, 
 "to be;" the "ho" in the participle, {hoy eh), and the 
 "wah" in the preterite or past tense, {hawah), though the 
 past and the future are interchangeable in the Hebrew. It 
 literally means, therefore, "He who is, and who was, and 
 who is to come, ' ' for the name Jehovah ' ' means Is, and He 
 who Is, or who is Esse itself, He also Was and Is To Come ; 
 for things past and future are present in Him." (A. R. 
 13.) 
 
 This name, moreover, (the correct pronunciation of which 
 is "Ye-ho-ou-ah," with the accent on the last syllable), 
 does not contain a single consonant, but is made up alto- 
 gether of vowels and a breathing. Now, consonants express 
 truths, while all vowels express affections or loves. Of these 
 vowels I and E express spiritual affections, the affections of 
 truth ; and U express celestial affections, the affections of 
 good; and A is intermediate, expressive of both. The 
 
LIFE IN PABADISE. 93 
 
 breathing H, finally, signifies what is Infinite and Divine, 
 being in itself pure breath or spirit. Thus the first part 
 of the name, (Ye), stands for the life of truth, the Divine 
 Wisdom itself; the second part, (ho), stands for the life of 
 good, the Divine Love itself; and the ending, (ouah), stands 
 for both in Divine Union.* 
 
 This the holiest and most significant of all words was the 
 name by which the men of the Golden Age knew and wor- 
 shipped the Lord, as we are repeatedly told in the Writ- 
 ings, and remarkable indeed is the history of that name. 
 ''When there is not a Church, the name 'God' is used, but 
 when there is a Church, the name 'Jehovah' is used. 
 No one was allowed to mention Jehovah unless he had a 
 knowledge of the true faith, but anyone might mention 
 God." (A. C. 624.) 
 
 How true this is may be seen from the history of the 
 Churches. When the Most Ancient Church flourished in 
 its integrity, the name Jehovah was the most usual, per- 
 haps the only name of the Lord, but as it declined the name 
 grew into disuse, was removed from the memory of those 
 who would have profaned it, and was all but lost. In the 
 Ancient Church, after the flood, the use of the name re- 
 vived, and was the holiest of the nmnerous Divine names 
 which then came into existence, but as this Church finally 
 fell into idolatry the name was again forgotten, and this to 
 such an extent that the Pharaoh of Egypt to whom Moses 
 spoke in the name of "Jehovah, the God of Israel," asked 
 in scorn, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice 
 to let Israel go ? I know not the Jehovah. " ( Ex. 5 : 2. ) 
 
 In Egypt, indeed, the sacred name had vanished almost 
 without a vestige, (owing, no doubt, to the esoteric ten- 
 dencies of the Egyptian priesthood), but with other na- 
 tions the name may still be traced in the Chaldean Ea or 
 Hea, the Assyrian Iva, the Syrian Iao, and the Latin Jove. 
 The true form of the name, however, lingered longest in 
 Syria, and was revived for a brief time in the Second An- 
 
 * For further study of this wonderful name, see our papers in New 
 Church Life, 1888, pp. 129, 151, 165. 
 
94 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 cient Church, instituted by Eber in Mesopotamia. Within 
 a few generations this Church, also, fell into idolatry, and 
 again the name was forgotten; even Abraham knew the 
 Lord only under the name of ' ' God Shaddai, ' ' and to Mo- 
 ses the name Jehovah was entirely new when revealed out 
 of the burning bush. 
 
 The Israelites, indeed, knew the name from the revelation 
 given thi'ough Moses, and in the Divine Providence the true 
 pronunciation of the name was fixed forever by the Maso- 
 rites. But, being from the beginning a wicked and adulter- 
 ous generation, the Jews were not allowed to utter the 
 name. By a misunderstanding of the commandment "thou 
 shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain, ' ' they 
 never dared to speak this name, and instead they read 
 Adonai, "the Lord," wherever Jehovah occurs in the Old 
 Testament. It was on account of the Jews that neither 
 the evangelists nor the apostles would say the name Je- 
 hovah, and therefore they said, instead, 'the Lord.' " (T. 
 C. R. 297.) 
 
 The primitive Christians, after they began to study the 
 Old Testament in the Hebrew, did not share these scruples, 
 and the name Jehovah again became known in the world, 
 but after the Last Judgment, in the present dead Church 
 of Christendom, we may observe the same remarkable phe- 
 nomenon of the ages in the growing dislike of the name, the 
 ' ' learned ' ' world having unanimously condemned it as " un- 
 scientific," adopting instead the form "Jahveh." Thus 
 history repeats itself. But in the Church of the New Jeru- 
 salem the name Jehovah will be preserved, understood, and 
 cherished, as in the days of the Golden Age. 
 
 Marriage in the Golden Age. 
 
 As stated in the chapter on the Preadamites, the first 
 law promulgated by God to man was the law of marriage, 
 for this is the most universal of all the laws that the Cre- 
 ator has impressed upon creation. He Himself is the in- 
 finite union of Divine Love and Divine Wisdom, and from 
 this union there could flow forth nothing but a striving for 
 
LIFE IN PARADISE. 95 
 
 a corresponding conjunction in all finite things of good and 
 truth, of substance and form, of active and passive. With 
 the people of the Most Ancient Church this universal 
 conatus or striving expressed itself, internally, by the spirit- 
 ual and heavenly marriage of will and understanding, of 
 love and faith, of affection and thought, within each man 
 and woman. Externally, and at the same time internally, 
 this conjugial conatus of energy-effort brought to the arms 
 of each wisdom-man his predestined love-woman for an 
 eternal partnership on earth and in Heaven. 
 
 The gold of the wedding ring has been throughout the 
 ages the fitting symbol of the marriage union, for the good 
 of love truly conjugial was the highest good, the love of 
 loves, in the Golden Age. One Lord, one Church united 
 with Him ; one husband, one wife joined with him in every 
 thought, and he with her in every affection, — this was the 
 rule of life in that truly human Church of Adam. Charity, 
 friendship, love of the neighbor, flowed spontaneously from 
 the love of the Lord; and the dearest friend, next to the 
 Divine Friend, and emulating Him, was the conjugial part- 
 ner whom He had given to each one for time and eternity. 
 
 ^' 'Male and female created He them.' (Gen. 2:27.) 
 What is meant by 'male and female' in the internal sense, 
 was well known to the Most Ancient Church, but when the 
 interior sense of the Word was lost among their posterity, 
 this arcanum also perished. Their marriages were their 
 chief sources of happiness and delight, and whatever ad- 
 mitted of the comparison they likened to marriage, in order 
 that in this way they might perceive its felicity. Being in- 
 ternal men they were delighted only with internal things. 
 External things they merely saw with the eyes, but they 
 thought of what was represented." (A. C. 54.) 
 
 ''As every law of truth and right descends from celestial 
 beginnings, or from the order of life of the celestial man, 
 so in a spiritual manner does the law of marriages. It is 
 the celestial, (or heavenly), marriage, from and according 
 to which all marriages on earth must be derived, and this 
 marriage is such that there is one Lord and one heaven, or 
 one Church whose head is the Lord. The law of marriage 
 
96 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 thence derived is that there shall be one husband and one 
 wife, and when this is the case the two represent the ce- 
 lestial marriage, and are an exemplar of the celestial man. 
 This law was not only revealed to the men of the Most 
 Ancient Church, but was also inscribed on their internal 
 man, wherefore at that time a man had but one wife and 
 they constituted one house. But when their posterity 
 ceased to be internal men, and became external, they mar- 
 ried a plurality of wives. Because the men of the Most An- 
 cient Church in their marriages represented the celestial 
 marriage, conjugial love was to them a kind of heaven and 
 a heavenly happiness." (A. C. 162.) 
 
 "The people of the Most Ancient Church above all on 
 this earth lived in genuine conjugial love, because they 
 were celestial, were in truth and good, and were in the 
 Lord's kingdom together with the angels, and in that love 
 they possessed heaven. But their posterity, with whom 
 the Church declined, began to love their children and not 
 their consorts ; and children can be loved by evil persons, but 
 a consort can be loved only by the good." (A. C. 2730.) 
 
 We must not suppose that the people of the Golden Age 
 loved children less than did those of succeeding ages ; they 
 loved them far more tenderly and intensely, because more 
 delighted with innocence than were later generations; but 
 they did not love children because of "their own flesh and 
 blood, ' ' but because they beheld in them so many new angels 
 for the Lord's heavenly kingdom. Nevertheless, the love 
 of the offspring was subordinate to the one supreme love 
 of the conjugial partner, for this love exists primarily for 
 its own sake, inasmuch as the conjugial embrace of two pure 
 souls is in itself the highest of all uses ; in it are hidden 
 eternal salvation, heaven, conjunction with God. 
 
 Thus they lived, primeval man and woman, each happy 
 couple in an everlasting honey-moon, too deeply enamoured 
 with each other to permit any love of a more external na- 
 ture to becloud their supreme love. The thought of evil 
 had not arisen, — fornification, concubinage, adultery, di- 
 vorce, polygamy, things such as these were unknown and 
 undreamed of, but if any such thing should have been 
 
LIFE IN PABADISE. 97 
 
 suggested to the thought, it would have been spurned with 
 the utmost horror and loathing. (A. C. 162; A. E. 988; 
 De Conjugio, p. 32.) 
 
 Living as they did, each family and tribe somewhat re- 
 mote from others, consanguinous marriages were the rule; 
 they contracted marriage ivitliin their houses and families, 
 and this in order that the special kind of love and percep- 
 tion represented by each house and tribe might be preserved 
 intact. (A. C. 483.) The reason why the marriage of 
 close blood relations was forbidden at a later age was on 
 account of hereditary evil, for after the fall each family 
 was the embodiment of some particular kind of evil ten- 
 dency which, by intermarriages, was increased in intensity 
 until finally such a family, in the Divine Providence, be- 
 came extinct, — as witness, for instance, the results of the 
 intermarriages of the Austrian and the Spanish Hapsburgs. 
 But by outside marriages the offspring inherits various 
 evil tendencies, some of which, — such as prodigality on the 
 one hand and avarice on the other, — counter-balance each 
 other, and thus preserve the freedom of the subject. In 
 the Most Ancient Church, however, the offspring inherited 
 not evil but good tendencies, and the accumulation of such 
 good could result only in what was better and better. 
 
 Of this crowning conjugial glory of the Golden Age the 
 men of to-day can form but the faintest conception, but 
 from the Doctrine revealed to the New Church we know 
 that with the people of that Age conjugial love was chastity 
 itself, innocence itself, and wisdom itself ; in their marriage 
 they found peace and tranquility, inmost friendship, con- 
 fidence, blessing, satisfaction and joy, and from the eternal 
 fruition of all these, they had happiness of life. 
 
 Lost for thousands upon thousands of years in the dark 
 ages of sin, this most precious jewel of human life, this love 
 truly conjugial, will be restored, so we are promised, to that 
 new Golden Age which shall not pass away, — the Church of 
 the New Jerusalem. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 THE HEAVEN OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The Most Ancient Heaven. 
 
 Having lived a heavenly life while on earth, the men of 
 the Most Ancient Church, when passing in painless slumber 
 from their earthly existence, simply passed from the Para- 
 dise on earth into the greater glories of the eternal Paradise. 
 
 The heaven which they formed is one and the same with 
 what we know as the celestial heaven, and all that is re- 
 vealed in the Writings concerning the celestial angels ap- 
 plies chiefly to the angels of the Most Ancient Church, for 
 few indeed have come into that heaven since the days of 
 the Golden Age. A new celestial heaven will in time be 
 formed from those of the New Church who shall attain 
 celestial perception, but it will be distinct from the heaven 
 of the Most Ancient Church, which is as it were closed, 
 for the external as well as internal conditions which pre- 
 vailed in that age constitute a chapter that is finished in 
 the history of our race. (N. J. 4.) 
 
 Concerning this heaven of the Golden Age we learn the 
 following things in the new Revelation : 
 
 "They who were of the Most Ancient Church, — which 
 was called Man, or Adam, and were celestial men, — are very 
 high above the head, and dwell together there in the great- 
 est happiness. They said that others rarely come to them, 
 except at times a few, as they expresesd it, 'from the uni- 
 verse'; and that they were on high above the head, not 
 because they were of a lofty spirit, but in order that they 
 might govern those who are there [below them].'' (A. C. 
 1115.) 
 
 "There was shown in the dwellings of those who were 
 of the second and third posterities [or ages] of this Most 
 Ancient Church. They are magnificent, extending to a 
 
 98 
 
TRE HEAVEN OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 99 
 
 great length, and diversified with beautiful colors of royal 
 purple and azure blue. For the angels have most mag- 
 nificent dwellings, such as cannot be described, as I have 
 often seen. To their eyes, so real is the appearance that 
 nothing can be more real. . . . They live in an aura, so 
 to speak, of resplendent pearly light, and sometimes of 
 diamond-like lustre." (A. C. 1116.) 
 
 ' ' I have heard from the angels that those who lived in the 
 most ancient ages, live at this day in the heavens, house by 
 house, family by family, and nation by nation, in like man- 
 ner as they had lived on earth, and that scarcely anyone 
 of a house is absent. The reason is that there was love 
 truly conjugial with them, and thence their offspring in- 
 herited inclinations towards the conjugial of good and 
 truth, and were easily initiated into it more and more 
 interiorly by their parents." (C. L. 205; A. C. 2732, 
 2739.) 
 
 These celestial angels constitute the inmost cortical sub- 
 stance in the great brain of Heaven as a Grand Man, but 
 as this substance is not only in the head but throughout 
 the body by means of fibres and glands, so also "the an- 
 gels from the Most Ancient Church are scattered through- 
 out the heavens, in order that the others may have wis- 
 dom." (S. D. 5187.) These also constitute that great 
 Society of Heaven, whose love and worship of the Lord is 
 expressed in the one name of Mi-cha-el, ''Who is like unto 
 God ^ ' ' and whose sublime ministry throughout the ages has 
 been to defend against the assaults of hell the acknowledg- 
 ment of the Divine of the Lord. (A. C. 5747; A. E. 735.) 
 
 A Visit to Their Heaven. 
 
 ''Once when I was meditating on conjugial love," writes 
 Swedenborg, "my mind was seized with a desire to know 
 what was the quality of that love with those who lived 
 in the Golden Age, and what it was afterwards with those 
 who lived in the ages following, which are named from 
 silver, copper, and iron. And because I knew that all who 
 lived well in those ages are in the heavens, I prayed the 
 
100 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Lord that He would allow me to speak with them and be in- 
 structed. 
 
 ' ' And lo ! an angel stood by me and said, ' I am sent by 
 the Lord to be your guide and companion. And first I 
 will guide and accompany you to those who lived in the 
 first age or period which is called the Golden Age.' And 
 he added, 'the way to them is arduous. It lies through 
 a dark forest which no one can pass through without a 
 guide given him by the Lord.' 
 
 "I was in the spirit and girded myself for the journey, 
 and we turned our faces toward the east; and as we went 
 on I saw a mountain whose height extended above the 
 region of the clouds. We passed through a great desert 
 and came into the forest which the angel had told me of, 
 thick with various kinds of trees and dark by reason of 
 their density. But the forest was intersected by many 
 narrow paths, and the angel said that so many were the 
 windings of error, and that unless the eyes were opened 
 by the Lord to see olive trees encircled with vine tendrils, 
 and the steps directed from olive tree to olive tree, the trav- 
 eler would wander away into Tartarus which is round about 
 at the sides. Such is this forest, to the end that it may 
 guard the approach. 
 
 "After we entered the forest our eyes were opened and 
 we saw here and there olive trees encircled with vines from 
 which hung clusters of grapes of an azure color; and the 
 olive trees were arranged in perpetual spirals, so that we 
 went round and round according as the trees came into 
 view. At length we saw a grove of lofty cedars and sev- 
 eral eagles on their branches. 
 
 "Seeing this the angel said, 'We are now on the moun- 
 tain not far from its summit.' 
 
 ' ' We continued on, and lo ! beyond the grove a circular 
 plain where lambs of both sexes were feeding, which were 
 representative forms of the state of innocence and peace 
 of those who dwelt upon the mountain. Then we passed 
 over this plain and behold! tents upon tents appeared be- 
 fore us and on either side, many thousands in number, as 
 far as eye could reach. 
 
TEE HEAVEN OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 101 
 
 "And the angel said, 'Now we are in the camp. There 
 is the army of the Lord Jehovah. So they call themselves 
 and their habitations. These most ancient people, when 
 they lived in the world, dwelt in tents, wherefore also they 
 dwell in them now. But let ns bend our way to the south, 
 where the wiser of them are, that we may meet some one 
 with whom we may converse.' 
 
 ' ' As we went on I saw at a distance three boys and three 
 girls sitting at the door of a tent ; but as we came near they 
 were seen to be men and women of middle stature. 
 
 ''And the angel said, 'All the inhabitants of this moun- 
 tain appear from a distance like little children iDCcause 
 they are in a state of innocence, and infancy is the appear- 
 ance of innocence.' 
 
 "On seeing us the men ran up to us and said, 'Whence 
 are you ? And how came you hither ? Your faces are not 
 of the faces of our mountain.' 
 
 "In reply the angel told them how we passed through 
 the forest and the reason of our coming. Hearing this one 
 of the three men invited and introduced us into his tent. 
 The man was clothed with a mantle the color of hyacinth 
 and a tunic Of white wool; and his wife with a flowing 
 robe of crimson, and under it a tunic about the breast of 
 fine linen embroidered. And because in my thought was 
 the desire to learn about the marriages of the most ancient 
 people, I looked by turns at the husband and the wife, and 
 observed as it were the unity of their souls in their faces. 
 
 "And I said, 'You two are one.' 
 
 "The man replied, 'We are one. Her life is in me and 
 mine in her. We are two bodies but one soul. The union 
 between us is as that of the two tabernacles in the breast 
 which are called the heart and the lungs. She is my heart 
 and I am her lungs. But because by the heart we here 
 mean love and by the lungs wisdom, she is the love of my 
 wisdom and I am the wisdom of her love. Therefore her 
 love from without veils my wisdom, and my wisdom 
 is inwardly in her love. Thence there is, in our faces, 
 as you have said, an appearance of the unity of our 
 souls. ' 
 
102 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 * ' I then asked, ' If such is the union, can you look at any- 
 other woman than your own ? ' 
 
 "He replied, 'I can; but as my wife is united to my 
 soul, we two look together, and then nothing of lust can 
 enter. For when I look at the wives of others I look at 
 them through my wife whom alone I love. And because 
 she, my own, has a perception of all my inclinations, she 
 as an intermediate directs my thoughts, and removes every- 
 thing discordant, and at the same time imparts a cold and 
 horror of everything unchaste. Wherefore it is as impos- 
 sible for us here to look from lust upon the wife of a com- 
 panion as it is to look from the shade of Tartarus at the 
 light of our heaven. With us therefore there is no idea of 
 thought, still less any word of language, for the allure- 
 ments of libidinous love.' He could not utter the word 
 ' whoredom, ' for the chastity of their heaven strove against 
 it. 
 
 ' ' The angel guide said to me, ' You hear now the speech 
 of the angels of this heaven that it is the language of wis- 
 dom; for they speak from causes.' 
 
 "After this I looked about and saw their tent as if over- 
 laid with gold, and asked, 'Whence is this?' 
 
 "He replied, 'It is from the flaming light which, like 
 gold, glitters and casts forth rays and tinges the curtains 
 of our tent when we are in conversation about conjugial 
 love. For then the heat from our Sun, which in its es- 
 sence is love, unveils itself and tinges the light, which in its 
 essence is wisdom, with its own color which is golden. And 
 this takes place because conjugial love in its origin is the 
 play of wisdom and love ; for the man is bom that he may 
 be wisdom; and the woman that she may be the love of 
 the man's wisdom. Thence are the delights of that sport 
 in conjugial love, and from it the delights between us and 
 our wives. We here for thousands of years have seen 
 clearly that those delights, as to abundance, degree, and 
 vigor, are superlative and eminent, according to the wor- 
 ship of the Lord Jehovih with us, from whom inflows the 
 heavenly union, or the heavenly marriage, which is of love 
 and wisdom.' 
 
TBE HEAVEN OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 103 
 
 ''As these words were said I saw a great light upon a 
 hill in the midst among the tents, and asked, 'Whence is 
 that light.' 
 
 ' ' He replied, ' It is from the holy place of the tabernacle 
 of our worship.' 
 
 "And I asked whether it was lawful to approach it. He 
 said it was; and I went and saw the tabernacle, without 
 and within exactly like the tabernacle which was built for 
 the sons of Israel in the wilderness, the pattern of which 
 was shown to Moses on Mount Sinai. (Exod. 25:40; 26: 
 30.) 
 
 "And I asked, 'What is within in the holy place from 
 whence comes so great a light ? ' 
 
 "He replied, 'There is a tablet on which is the inscrip- 
 tion. The Covenant Between Jehovah and the Hea\^n. ' 
 He said no more. 
 
 "And then because we were ready to depart I asked, 
 'Did any of you while you lived in the natural world live 
 with more than one wife. ' 
 
 ' ' He answered that he knew not one : ' For we could not 
 think of more. Those who had thought of more have told 
 us that instantly the heavenly blessedness of their souls 
 withdrew from the inmosts even to the extremities of their 
 bodies, even to the toe-nails, and with it at the same time 
 the honorable badges of manhood. When this was per- 
 ceived they were expelled from our districts.' 
 
 ' ' Having said this the man ran to his tent and returned 
 with a pomegranate, in which there was an abundance of 
 seeds of gold; and he gave it to me and I brought it away 
 as a sign that we had been with those who lived in the 
 Golden Age. And then after a salutation of peace we de- 
 parted and returned home." (Conjugial Love, 78.) 
 
 The Beauty of their Love. 
 
 "One morning I was looking up to heaven and beheld 
 above me expanse above expanse; and I saw the first and 
 nearest expanse opening, and then the second which was 
 higher, and finally the third and highest. And by light 
 
104 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 thence I perceived that upon the first expanse were the 
 angels who form the first or lowest heaven ; upon the second 
 expanse those who form the second or middle heaven ; and 
 upon the third expanse those who form the third or highest 
 heaven. At first I wondered what this was, and why. But 
 presently a voice as of a trumpet was heard from heaven, 
 saying : 
 
 " 'We have perceived that your are meditating on con- 
 jugial love ; and we know that as yet no one on earth knows 
 what love truly conjugial is in its origin and in its essence ; 
 and yet it is important that it should be known. Where- 
 fore it has pleased the Lord to open the heavens to you, 
 that light and thence perception may flow into the in- 
 teriors of your mind. With us in the heavens, espe- 
 cially in the third heaven, heavenly delights are chiefly 
 from conjugial love. Wherefore by leave given us we 
 will send down to you a married pair that you may see 
 them. ' 
 
 "And lo! a chariot appeared descending from the high- 
 est or third heaven, in which one angel was seen ; but as it 
 approached two were seen therein. In the distance the 
 chariot glittered like a diamond before my eyes, and young 
 horses were harnessed to it, white as snow; and they that 
 sat in the chariot held two turtle doves in their hands. 
 And they called to me, saying: 
 
 " 'You wish us to come nearer! But have a care then 
 that the glittering and flaming light from the heaven 
 whence we have descended, does not penetrate too far 
 within you. By the influx of this light the higher ideas of 
 your understanding — which in themselves are celestial — 
 are indeed illustrated; but in the world in which you are 
 these things are ineffable. Therefore receive rationally 
 what you are about to hear, and so explain it that it may 
 be understood.' 
 
 ' ' I answered, ' I will take heed ; come nearer. ' 
 
 "And they came, and behold, it was a husband and his 
 wife. 
 
 "And they said, 'We are married partners. From the 
 first age, called by you the Golden Age, we have lived 
 
TRE HEAVEN OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 105 
 
 blessed in heaven; and always in the same flower of youth 
 in which you see us to-day. ' 
 
 "I observed them both attentively, for I perceived that 
 they represented conjugial love in its very life and beauty : 
 in its life in their faces, and in its beauty in their apparel. 
 For all angels are affections of love in human form; their 
 ruling affection shines forth from their faces, and from 
 their affection and in harmony with it their garments are 
 given to them. It is therefore said in heaven that every 
 one is clothed in his own affection. The husband appeared 
 to be of an age midway between youth and early man- 
 hood. From his eyes beamed forth a light sparkling from 
 the wisdom of love ; his face was as if inmostly radiant from 
 this light, and by the irradiation from it there was a trans- 
 fulgence in his very skin, so that his whole face was one 
 resplendent comeliness. He was clothed in a long robe 
 that reached to his ankles, and beneath the robe was a 
 vestment of blue, girded with a golden girdle on which were 
 three precious stones, a sapphire at each side and in the 
 middle a carbuncle. His hosen were of shining linen inter- 
 woven with threads of silver; and his shoes were of silk. 
 Such was the representative form of conjugial love with 
 the husband. 
 
 * ' But with the wife it was this : I saw her face and yet 
 did not see it. I saw it as beauty itself, and did not see it 
 because it was inexpressible. For there was a splendor of 
 flaming light in her face, such light as is with the angels 
 of the third heaven, and it dimmed my sight, so that I was 
 dumb with amazement. Observing this she spoke to me, 
 saying : 
 
 '' 'What do you see?' 
 
 ''I answered, 'I see nothing but conjugial love and the 
 form thereof. But I see and yet do not see.' 
 
 ''At this she turned herself partly away from her hus- 
 band and then I was able to observe her more intently. 
 Her eyes sparkled with the light of her heaven, which as 
 was said is flaming, and therefore flows from the love of 
 wisdom. For in that heaven wives love their husbands 
 from their wisdom and in their wisdom ; and husbands love 
 
106 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 their wives from and in that love toward themselves — and 
 thus they are united. From this was her beauty which was 
 such as no painter could endeavor to equal and portray in 
 its form; for there is no such luster in his color, nor any 
 such beauty expressible by his art. Her hair was grace- 
 fully arranged in correspondence with her beauty, and 
 there were flowers inserted in it in the form of diadems. 
 She wore a necklace of carbuncles, and pendent from this 
 a rosary of chrysolites, and she had bracelets of large 
 pearls. She was arrayed in a flowing robe of scarlet, and 
 under this she wore a breast covering of purple clasped in 
 front with rubies. But, what was a marvel to me, the col- 
 ors varied according to her aspect toward her husband, 
 and also according to this they were now more now less 
 glittering, — more when they mutually turned toward each 
 other, and less when they were partly turned from each 
 other. 
 
 ' ' When I had seen these things they spoke with me again, 
 and when the husband was speaking he spoke as if at the 
 same time from his wife; and when the wife was speaking 
 she spoke as if at the same time from her husband; for 
 such was the union of their minds whence the speech flowed. 
 Then I heard also the sound of conjugial love, that it was 
 inwardly simultaneous with, and also proceeding from, the 
 delights of a state of peace and innocence. 
 
 "At length they said, 'We are recalled. We must de- 
 part.' 
 
 "And then again they appeared to ride in a chariot as 
 before, and were carried along a paved way among gardens 
 of flowers, with olive trees and orange trees laden with 
 fruit ; and as they drew near their heaven yoimg girls came 
 out to meet them, and received and led them in." (Con- 
 jugial LovE^ 42.) 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE DECLINE OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The Origin of Evil. 
 
 We have followed the sun of the Golden Age from its 
 first rising in the infancy of mankind to its full zenith of 
 celestial love and faith in the Garden of Eden. We must 
 now follow it also as it begins its downward course amidst 
 gathering clouds, until it sinks beyond the horizon in the 
 terrible night of the universal deluge. The Conflict of the 
 Ages is before us. How did it arise? 
 
 On this subject we must learn, first of all, that ''Good 
 IS from creation, but not evil; and yet evil in itself re- 
 garded is not a nothing, although it is a nothing of good. 
 From creation good existed, and also good in the greatest 
 degree and in the least degree ; when this least of good be- 
 comes nothing of good, then evil arises on the other hand. 
 There is, therefore, neither a relation nor a progression of 
 good to evil, but there is a relation of good to greater good 
 and to lesser good, and there is a relation of evil to greater 
 evil and to lesser evil, for good and evil are opposites in all 
 and single respects." (C. L. 444.) 
 
 How, then, could evil arise, since nothing but good ex- 
 isted from creation? In order that anything may exist, it 
 must have an origin. Good cannot be the origin of evil, 
 since evil is the nothing of good, being the privative and 
 the destructive of good. Still, since it exists and can be 
 felt, it is not a nothing, but is something. Whence, then, 
 can this something exist on the other side of the nothing? 
 
 Thus, once upon a time, two angels from the heaven of 
 innocence queried of Swedenborg, and the inspired servant 
 of the Lord answered as follows : 
 
 ' ' This arcanum cannot be opened unless it be known that 
 no one is good hut God alone, and that there is not any- 
 
 107 
 
108 TKE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 thing good that is good in itself except from God. And 
 therefore the man who looks to God and is willing to be 
 led by God, is in good; but he who turns himself away 
 from God and wants to be led by himself, is not in good, 
 for the good which he does is either for the sake of him- 
 self or for the sake of the world, and thus it is either 
 meritorious, or simulated, or hypocritical. Hence it is 
 manifest that man himself is the origin of evil, — not that 
 this origin was from creation inherent in man, but that he 
 himself has implanted it in himself by turning from God 
 to himself." 
 
 But the two angels then asked: ''How was man able to 
 turn himself away from God and to himself, when yet he 
 is not able to will, think or do anything except from God? 
 AVhy did God permit thisT' 
 
 And Swedenborg answered : ' ' Man w^as so created that all 
 that he wills, thinks and does, appears to him as if it were 
 in himself and thus from himself. Without this appear- 
 ance man would not be man, for he could not then receive, 
 retain, and thus, as it were, appropriate to himself any- 
 thing of good and truth or of love and wisdom. Hence it 
 follows that without this appearance, — this, as it were, liv- 
 ing appearance, — man could have no conjunction with God, 
 and thus could not have eternal life. But if from this 
 appearance he induces upon himself the belief that he 
 wills, thinks, and does what is good, from himself, and not 
 from the Lord — though to all appearance from himself, — 
 he then turns good into evil with himself, and thus in him- 
 self he makes the origin of evil. This was the sin of Adam. ' ' 
 (C. L. 444.) 
 
 With these universal truths in mind, we may now trace 
 the gradual descent of the race from celestial good to actual 
 evil. 
 
 The Beginning of the Decline. 
 
 In the sacred history we find the first suggestion as to a 
 change for the worse in the following words: 
 
 ^' And Jehovah God said, It is not good that man should 
 he alone; I will make him a help as with him." (Gen. 2: 
 18.) 
 
TEE DECLINE OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 109 
 
 It is evident that these words do not refer to the actual 
 creation of woman as the help-mate of man, for she was cre- 
 ated simultaneously with man: ''Male and female created 
 He them.'' The text, therefore, refers to something else, 
 something new, which is introduced by the words: "It is 
 not good." 
 
 In the literal sense it sounds as if this new thing was 
 created by Jehovah God, but it is so written in accommoda- 
 tion to the belief of fallen man that all his misfortunes 
 come from an angry God. In the internal sense, however, 
 these words describe a growing inclination among some in 
 the Most Ancient Church to dwell no longer alone with 
 God as their only help, but to put their trust instead in 
 their own guidance. In the language of the Writings: 
 "they began to desire a proprium," — a self -life, — and, as 
 the man of this generation was still on the whole well dis- 
 posed, a "proprium" was granted, but of such a nature 
 that it appeared as it were his own, and therefore it is said 
 "a help as with him." (A. C. 140.) 
 
 This concession, however, was accompanied with every 
 needed warning and instruction, which are described by 
 Jehovah God's bringing to the man every kind of beast and 
 fowl for the man to name them. By this is meant that 
 man was instructed as to the "name" or quality of every 
 celestial and spiritual affection. Yet, notwithstanding this 
 knowledge, he still inclined to a proprium, and in conse- 
 quence of this desire the man fell into "a deep sleep," a 
 stupor as to heavenly things. 
 
 Jehovah God then "took one of the man's ribs, and closed 
 up the flesh in the place thereof. But the rih which He 
 had taken from the man He built into a woman, and brought 
 her to the man." (Gen. 2:21, 22.) 
 
 By "the rib," as a bone close to the heart, is signified 
 that which is the lowest in man's nature, yet dearest to 
 him. This, with a decadent man, is his "amour propre" 
 or proprium, which, "when viewed from heaven, appears 
 as something that is altogether bony, inanimate, and very 
 ugly, consequently as being in itself dead; yet, when vivi- 
 fied by the Lord, it looks like flesh. For a man 's proprium 
 
110 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 is a mere dead thing, although to him it appears as some- 
 thing, — indeed, as everything. Whatever lives in him is 
 from the Lord's life, and if this were withdra\\Ti he would 
 fall do^vn as dead as a stone; for man is only an organ 
 of life, and such as is the organ, such is the life 's affection. ' ' 
 (A. C. 149.) 
 
 This dead rib, this proprium, was "built" into a living 
 "woman" and was brought to the man. To "build" sig- 
 nifies to instruct, to raise up that which has fallen, and a 
 "woman" signifies, and is, a living affection. That gener- 
 ation or posterity of the Most Ancient Church in whom 
 the great change took place, "did not, like their parents, 
 wish to be celestial men, but they wished to be under their 
 own guidance ; and therefore, inclining as they did to their 
 proprium, a propriiun was granted to them, but still a 
 proprium vivified by the Lord, and therefore called a 
 'woman,' and afterguards a 'wife.' (A. C. 151.) 
 
 "It requires but little attention for anyone to discern 
 that woman was not formed out of the rib of a man, and 
 that deeper arcana are here implied than any person has 
 been aware of. But that by the ' woman ' is signified man 's 
 proprium may be knowTi from the fact that it was the 
 'woman' who was deceived; for nothing ever deceives man 
 but his proprium, or, what is the same, the love of self and 
 the love of the world." (A. C. 152.) 
 
 By the rib being taken out of the man and built into a 
 woman is meant, therefore, that the Lord, in His mercy, 
 while permitting the man to have and to love a proprium, 
 yet removed it from the man so that he should not love it 
 directly in himself, but in others outside of himself. That 
 is. He permitted the man to turn from the highest good, 
 the love of God, to a good somewhat lower, — the love of the 
 neighbor. This lower good is the "vivified proprium" sig- 
 nified by the "woman." 
 
 What this means may be seen exemplified in the life of 
 every man who is happily married. The "rib" with him 
 is the self-conceit or love of his o^vn intelligence which is 
 actually "taken out of him" when the wife becomes the 
 love of his wisdom. Instead of loving it in himself he 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE GOLDEN AGE. \\\ 
 
 then loves it in her, and thus the love of self is turned into 
 eonjugial love, which is the most intimate form of the love 
 of the neighbor. Of this transformation, however, the 
 husband is as unconscious as was Adam in his "deep 
 sleep." 
 
 That this first declining posterity of the Most Ancient 
 Church turned from the purely celestial state of their an- 
 cestors, is involved in the words: "Therefore shall a man 
 ^ leave' his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his 
 wife;'' but that they were still in the good of innocence is 
 evident from the fact that "they were both naked, the man 
 and his wife, and were not ashamed." For this genera- 
 tion "was not evil, but was still good; and because they 
 desired to live in the external man, or in their proprium, 
 this was permitted them by the Lord, but that which is 
 spiritual-celestial was mercifully insinuated therein." (A. 
 C. 161.) This "insinuation of good" into the human 
 proprium "may be observed in little children, in whom 
 what is evil and false is not merely concealed, but is even 
 pleasing, so long as they love their parents and one another, 
 and their infantile innocence shows itself." (A. C. 164.) 
 
 Conditions of the ' ' First Posterity. ' ' 
 
 It will be noticed that it is everywhere said in the Ar- 
 cana CcELESTiA that the decline began with "the first 
 posterity" of the Most Ancient Church, and not with the 
 celestial men themselves of that Church. They could not 
 fall or begin to desire a life of self-guidance, for they had 
 reached that Sabbath state of regeneration when doubts 
 or temptations can no longer assail. 
 
 There were, however, six days of creation, six general 
 states preceding the state of perfect peace. The degree of 
 regeneration attainable by any one was a matter of indi- 
 vidual choice. Each one was kept in a perfect freedom 
 of choice between lesser goods, higher goods, and the high- 
 est. No one was compelled to "dwell alone" with the Lord 
 as his only ruling love, but was free to choose and remain 
 in lower loves, if he so wished. And some, as is known 
 
112 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 preferred the lower, though, able to perceive the higher 
 goal and able also to reach it if they had so wished. 
 
 Of this character was this "first posterity" with whom 
 the decline began, — a generation of men endowed with all 
 the good tendencies of celestial ancestors, and fully in- 
 structed in all the truths of their fathers, and thus com- 
 pletely responsible for their choice and actions. For such 
 persons to turn from the highest good to a lower good was 
 to enter upon a downward course; it was, indeed, the be- 
 ginning of evil. To illustrate: a good man loves his fam- 
 ily, his community, his countrj', and his Church, and he 
 knows that in serving the highest uses he, at the same time, 
 serves the best interests of all the lower ones. If, then, he 
 were to exclude from his heart the love of the Lord's 
 eternal cause in order to devote his life entirely to the in- 
 terests of his country, such a choice would be essentially 
 evil, even though the love of the country is in itself a noble 
 love. And it would be the same if he preferred the wel- 
 fare of the community to the good of the countrj^ or the 
 family to the community. Any deliberate lowering of the 
 highest standard of good is a betrayal of that standard: it 
 is evil for a man to do so, even though the lower degree 
 of good which he chooses to prefer is in itself an actual 
 good. 
 
 Why, then, did this "first posterity" of the Most An- 
 cient Church deliberately choose the lower good of love to 
 the neighbor instead of the highest good of love to the 
 Lord? We may ask in return. Why does any man who 
 knows the better, choose the worse? We may ascribe it to 
 weakness of the flesh, surrounding circumstances and in- 
 fluences, and what not, but within his heart every rational 
 man I'nows that no one is responsible for his final choice 
 but he himself. As long as he is rational he can at any 
 moment stop his hand from the doing of an evil act, if he 
 wills to stop. Why, then, does he not stop it? The only 
 answer is. Because he does not will to do so ! The affec- 
 tion of the will is, like woman, beyond the reach of mere 
 argument. In its final solution the question is not one for 
 intellectual discussion, but for action or non-action, and 
 
TRE DECLINE OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 113 
 
 the power to do or not to do lies in the hand of every 
 one. 
 
 Nevertheless, though this is true beyond any peradven- 
 ture and as a matter of fact and experience, it is permissible 
 to discuss contributory causes, such as environments, cir- 
 cumstances, and suggestions from within and from without. 
 What, then, were the surrounding conditions that contribu- 
 ted to the fatal choice of our first decadent ancestors? 
 
 We enter, here, upon a field of speculations and sugges- 
 tions which should be taken for what they may be worth. 
 First, as to influences from within, there were in the spirit- 
 ual world those simple and ignorant spirits of Preadamites 
 who had passed away in an arrested state of development, 
 — arrested, not by the hand of God, but by their own choice. 
 From the beginning there were those who, with every op- 
 portunity to advance, did not care to progress beyond the 
 first threshold of the regenerate life. These, though by no 
 means evil, carried with them into the other world the in- 
 nocent but fallacious appearances of the outer senses, and 
 — chief of all — the appearance that, since man is a free 
 agent, he is able to be his own guide and master. 
 
 From such sensuous spirits, then, there would come sug- 
 gestions as to the possibility of a life to some degree de- 
 pendent upon self rather than upon the Lord, — ^suggestions 
 which might have caused certain doubts with this posterity, 
 doubts which if harbored would produce a state of obscur- 
 ity like the ''deep sleep" into which Adam fell. 
 
 Besides this internal influence from the spiritual world, 
 there may have been also certain seductive influences from 
 the external world. In its very first infancy the race pos- 
 sessed and required very few externals of life. But as age 
 succeeded age, external delights were added to internal 
 blessings. The fund of external knowledges accumulated 
 from the experiences of successive generations, and to- 
 gether with these the inventions of external comforts and 
 pleasures. At first naked as newborn children, they gradu- 
 ally learned to make garments, erect dwellings, cook their 
 food, tend the herd, till the ground, make ornaments, etc. 
 In all this there was nothing wrong, and as they advanced 
 8 
 
114 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 in regeneration they learned to regard these delightful ex- 
 ternals as ever increasing evidences of the tender mercy of 
 their Heavenly Father toward His beloved children. 
 
 This external progress of ' ' civilization ' ' probably reached 
 its highest development in the land of Egypt, where not 
 only the Ancient Church, but also the Most Ancient, at one 
 time flourished. History seems to indicate that Egypt was 
 the special home of the "serpent" which seduced Eve. 
 
 As externals multiplied, their attractions increased, and 
 the younger generations who had not yet reached the ce- 
 lestial state would naturally be in a greater danger of se- 
 duction by external delights. This danger, however, was 
 balanced by the w^ise teachings of the older generation 
 whose interior wisdom was growing in a corresponding ra- 
 tio. The origin of evil, therefore, cannot be blamed upon 
 any combination of overwhelming circumstances and en- 
 vironments. The responsibility and the blame inmostly 
 rest upon the man himself. 
 
 The Fall. 
 "When first bom a man consists of nothing but an immortal 
 soul enclosed in a little lump of flesh furnished with five 
 peep-holes — called the senses — through which the soul looks 
 out into the world. This lump of flesh is his bodily or 
 corporeal degree, wdthin which, through the observations 
 of the senses, there is gradually born a next interior de- 
 gree, called the sensual or sensuous man. Within this, 
 again, as the man begins to put together into new pictures 
 the various sense-images stored in the memory, there is 
 formed still another degree called the interior-sensual or 
 imaginative degree, and within this, finally, there is formed 
 an inmost natural degree which is called the rational, — 
 so called because endowed with the power to judge of the 
 relations between the various sense-images. To illustrate: 
 the corporeal babe puts his finger into the flame of a can- 
 dle; the result is a sensual impression w^hich can forever 
 be recalled by the imagination, and the budding rational 
 man concludes that the relation between the finger and the 
 flame should not be too close. 
 
THE DECLINE OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 115 
 
 Now, the sensual, being next to the corporeal, is in it- 
 self gross and low and next to the ground, and hence in the 
 figurative language of the ancients it was compared to and 
 even called a "serpent." In the Garden of Eden this 
 serpent was not a poisonous serpent, but a harmless though 
 lowly animal, created by God Himself and gifted with a 
 ''subtleness" — i. e., circumspection and prudence — beyond 
 all the animals of the field. A man could not live without 
 a sensual degree, and every perfect man should be wise as a 
 serpent and yet innocent as a dove. The Lord Himself 
 possessed such a sensual, which by continual victories in 
 temptation, and finally by the passion on the cross, was 
 glorified and made Divine. This Divine Sensual is what 
 was represented by the Brazen Serpent in the wilderness. 
 
 But after the first posterity of the Most Ancient Church 
 had begun to incline to the sensual and listen to its always 
 more or less fallacious suggestions, (for, being the lowest 
 it was always the least perfect), instead of listening to the 
 voice of God within their faculty of perception, then the 
 serpent began to be a dangerous beast which infused the 
 -first doubt as to the evil of eating of the tree of the knowl- 
 edge of good and evil. 
 
 This suggestion of a doubt was at first repelled, as is evi- 
 dent from the reply of the woman: "God hath said, Ye 
 shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die,'' 
 for there was still with them from instruction and percep- 
 tion an intuition that thus all wisdom and intelligence 
 would perish among them. But still they permitted the 
 doubt to recur: "Ye shall not surely die. For God doth 
 know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall he 
 opened, and ye shall he as God, knowing good and evil." 
 These words describe ' ' an incipient doubt whether it might 
 not be lawful for them" to investigate spiritual and ce- 
 lestial things from the knowledges of worldly things, and 
 thus from without, a posteriori, instead of the former 
 method of receiving these things from Divine Revelation 
 and perception, and thus from within, a priori, "since 
 thus they would see whether the things they had heard 
 from their forefathers were true, and so their eyes would be 
 
116 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 opened. At leng-th, in consequence of the ascendency of 
 self-love, they began to think that they could lead them- 
 selves, and thus be like the Lord ; for such is the nature of 
 the love of self that it is unwilling to submit to the Lord's 
 leading, but prefers to be self-guided, and — being self- 
 guided — ^to consult the things of the senses and of science 
 as to what is to be believed." (A. C. 205.) 
 
 "Who have a stronger belief that their eyes are opened, 
 and that as God they know what is good and evil, than 
 those who love themselves and at the same time excel in 
 worldly learning? And yet who are more blind? Only 
 question them, and it will be seen that they do not even 
 know, much less believe in, the existence of spirit; with 
 the nature of spiritual and celestial life they are utterly 
 unacquainted ; they do not acknowledge an eternal life ; for 
 they believe that they are like the brutes which perish; 
 neither do they acknowledge the Lord, but worship only 
 themselves and nature. Those among them who wish to be 
 guarded in their expressions say that a certain Supreme 
 Being, (of the nature of whom they are ignorant), rules all 
 things. These are the principles in which they confirm 
 themselves in many ways by the things of the senses and 
 of science, and if they dared they would do the same be- 
 fore the whole world. Although such persons desire to be 
 regarded as gods, or as the wisest of men, if they were 
 asked whether they know Avhat it is not to have anything 
 of their own [proprium], they would answer that it is to 
 have no existence, and that if they were deprived of every- 
 thing that is their own, they would be nothing. If they 
 were asked what it is to live from the Lord, they would 
 think it is a phantasy. If asked whether they know what 
 conscience is, they would say it is a mere figment of the 
 imagination which may be of service in keeping the vulgar 
 under restraint. If asked whether they know what per- 
 ception is, they would merely laugh at it and call it en- 
 thusiastic rubbish. Such is their wisdom, such 'open eyes' 
 have they, and such 'gods' are they! Principles like these, 
 which they think to be clearer than day, they make their 
 starting point, and so they continue, and in this way they 
 
THE DECLINE OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 117 
 
 reason about the mysteries of faitli; and what can be the 
 result but an abyss of darkness? Such persons above all 
 others are the 'serpents' who seduce the world. But this 
 posterity of the Most Ancient Church was not as yet of 
 such a character." (A. C. 206.) 
 
 Very soon, however, the woman saw that the tree of sci- 
 ence was ''good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and de- 
 sirahle for making one wise, and she took of the fruit 
 thereof and did eat, and she gave also to her husband with 
 her, and he did eat." The ''woman" now signifies the 
 perverted will deliberately choosing evil instead of good, 
 and her husband eating signifies the conscious understand- 
 ing consenting to the fatal deed. And then "the eyes of 
 both of them were opened, and they knew that they were 
 naked." They Imew from a remnant of perception that 
 they were no longer in innocence, as before, but in evil, and 
 therefore they "sewed fig-leaves together, and made them- 
 selves girdles"; that is, they covered their shame with ex- 
 cuses, specious arguments drawn from merely natural good. 
 (For the fig-tree, in the Word, stands for natural good, even 
 as the vine stands for spiritual good, and the olive for ce- 
 lestial good. ) As every fire produces its own light, so every 
 evil love disguises itself in truths falsified, truths of natural 
 but 7iot spiritual good. It always professes to have some 
 good end in view, some altruistic end that "justifies the 
 means." 
 
 And now the scene changes. The heavenly idyl of the 
 Golden Age passes, through the intermediate stage of melo- 
 drama, into the most terrible tragedy this world has ever 
 witnessed. 
 
 The Curse and the Promise. 
 
 A curse was now pronounced upon the serpent, a uni- 
 versal curse that lasted through the ages until the coming 
 of the "Seed of the Woman." The Father of Mercy, in- 
 deed, curses no one, but the race cursed itself by misusing 
 every Divine blessing. The serpent, or the sensual plane 
 of life, whch formerly had not been evil but simply the 
 lowest degree of good with man, now became in itself in- 
 
118 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 f emal : the proprium itself becoming the seat of every evil 
 inclination and the origin of every false persuasion. It 
 became that accursed thing which henceforth no mortal 
 man can ever get rid of ; he may by regeneration subdue it, 
 trample it under his feet, cage it up in his cellar, but even 
 with the angel this poisonous serpent remains in the cellar as 
 a perpetual reminder that in himself — in the old self or 
 proprium — the angel is nothing but a poor miserable sin- 
 ner, impure in the sight of God. 
 
 The "woman," — who now represents the fallen Church 
 as a whole, — was henceforth to bring forth her sons in sor- 
 row; these ''sons" are the truths or thoughts which for- 
 merly were conceived in joy by the celestial perception; 
 henceforth such conceptions would be attended with the 
 anxiety of doubts and the combats of temptations. And no 
 longer was the faculty of the ivUl to rule, as in the Golden 
 Age itself, but ''thine ohedience shall he to thy man, and he 
 shall ride over thee/' (Gen. 3: 16), for henceforth the rem- 
 nant of rational understanding must take the lead in order 
 to restrain the passions of the perverted will. 
 
 And the "man," the rational, which by "hearkening" 
 to the voice of the woman had consented to the choice of 
 evil, was now cursed by its o^^Tl folly, and with it the whole 
 external man, signified by "the ground." 
 
 "Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In great sorrow 
 thou shalt eat of it all the days of thy life.'' For miserable 
 henceforth would be the state of the man even unto the 
 end of this fallen Church and of all fallen Churches. 
 "Thoriis and thistles it shall bring forth unto thee, and 
 thou shalt eat the herb of the field." Evils and falsities 
 alone would flourish in that human soil which once had 
 been the Garden of God, and man would return to the 
 state of the wild beast which eats the herb of the field, — 
 not the gentle and innocent animalism of the Preadamites, 
 but a state of ferocious savagery. 
 
 "hi the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread." This 
 does not, as is commonly supposed, mean that man was now 
 first condemned to the "curse" of having to work instead 
 of enjoying an indolent and useless life in paradise. The 
 
THE DECLINE OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. HQ 
 
 men of the Golden Age were l>usy people, profoundly en- 
 joying the life of usefulness in the service of God and the 
 neighbor. Work is never in itself a curse but a blessing, 
 and a bit of sweat adds only spice to the bread. But the 
 "sweat" to which the perverted descendant of this Church 
 was condemned was the sweat of the criminal in the pres- 
 ence of the Law, the sweat of fear and aversion, — the 
 radical aversion to everything true and good ; for ' ' bread ' ' 
 is the universal correspondent of all that is good. 
 
 ^'For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." 
 This signifies the death of the Church, and the eternal 
 damnation of those who have damned themselves while on 
 earth. 
 
 Jehovah God now "sent the man forth from the Garden 
 of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken." 
 The posterity of the Most Ancient Church was deprived 
 of the celestial intelligence and wisdom which had con- 
 stituted their paradise, and they turned to the cultivation 
 of a merely external and corporeal life. And at the en- 
 trance to the Garden there were placed "cherubim and the 
 flame of a sword which turned every way, to keep the way 
 of the tree of life." The cherubim were figures of guard- 
 ian angels, such as were also placed upon the mercy-seat 
 over the ark, to signify the Providence of God protecting 
 His Word. This Word, in its internal sense, is the true 
 Garden of Delights in which all spiritual and celestial 
 blessings lie hidden, but there is a Providence which keeps 
 guard over this internal sense lest anyone enter into it to 
 profane it. The Divine Love, indeed, bids all to come unto 
 Him in His Word, but if a man should approach for an 
 evil purpose, from the love of self and of the world, this 
 evil love would stand in the way like the flame of a sword, 
 so that he could not perceive the way to the tree of life ; his 
 mind, in the Divine Mercy, is carried away to the cor- 
 poreal and earthly things that he loves, and thus he is kept 
 from that deadliest sin, the profanation of what is most 
 holy, the "sin against the Holy Spirit." There is but one 
 means of finding the way to the tree of life, and that is — 
 Repentance. 
 
120 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The Hope of the Ages. 
 
 Thus evil arose in the world, and from this original sin 
 of disobedience, (for it was nothing else), came all that 
 countless brood of varied evils that ever since have cursed 
 the human race. Yet, as in Pandora's box, one blessing 
 remained amidst the swarm of ills, and that blessing was 
 — Hope. Before mankind had totally closed against it- 
 self the gates of Paradise, a Promise was given which for 
 thousands of years remained the sole Hope that these gates 
 would one day be opened again. While cursing the serpent, 
 Jehovah God added: "I will put enmity between thee and 
 the woman, aiid between thy seed and her seed; He shall 
 trample upon thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." 
 (Gen. 3:14.) 
 
 "Every one is aware that this is the first prophecy of 
 the Coming of the Lord into the world ; indeed, it appears 
 clearly from the words themselves, and from them and from 
 the prophets even the Jews knew that a Messiah was to 
 come." (A. C. 250.) 
 
 Henceforth there was to be an unrelenting enmity and 
 conflict between the sensual prOprium, now infernal, and 
 the "seed of the woman," that is, the remnant of those in 
 the Church who possessed faith in the Lord. But instead 
 of looking back to the memory of that Lord who had re- 
 vealed Himself as a Man in the lost days of the Golden 
 Age, this remnant was henceforth to look forward to that 
 same Lord who in the fulness of time was to come upon 
 the earth in a Manhood taken from a Virgin. The "seed 
 of the serpent" is the accumulated power of all the hells, 
 and the "seed of the woman," in the supreme Incarnation, 
 is "He" who in the human thus assumed from a woman 
 was to overcome all the evil inclinations inherited through 
 her from all the generations of sinful ancestors since the 
 days of Adam. 
 
 By His victories over all evil tendencies in His human 
 He was to trample upon the head of the serpent, conquer 
 the power of hell, and break the curse that rested upon 
 the fallen race, for if One had conquered and broken a 
 
TEE DECLINE OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 121 
 
 way through the hells, others could, by following in His 
 footsteps. What if the foot was "bruised" in the combat! 
 What if Achilles was shot in the ''heel" by the treacherous 
 Trojan? Achilles was killed, but lived again, and his death 
 paved the way for the final victory of the Greeks. The 
 Lord also was vulnerable in His ' ' heel, ' ' the lowest natural, 
 for it was into the sensuous degree, inherited from the hu- 
 man mother, that the hells could enter to attack Him, to be 
 met and overcome. He was but "bruised" when this low- 
 est plane was nailed to the cross, for He arose again on the 
 third day, thenceforth in His visible Divine Human to 
 judge and to rule over the quick and the dead. 
 
 This promise of the Coming Redeemer became the pivotal 
 point around which revolved all the religions of the ages 
 succeeding the Golden Age. The tradition of this supreme 
 Hope was handed down from generation to generation in 
 the centuries before the Flood, and was finally written 
 down in a book, after writing was invented, lest it should 
 be lost in the gathering gloom, the impending night of ut- 
 ter infidelity, barbarism and final savagery. This book was 
 hidden and preserved during the finally ensuing cataclysm 
 of the Flood, and was afterwards restored to the Church 
 of the Silver Age. In this new Church the Messianic 
 prophecy was cherished as the most precious inheritance 
 of mankind, and further details as to its fulfillment were 
 added in the numerous succeeding revelations. Many de- 
 tails as to the future life of the Messiah, (from His birth 
 in Bethlehem even to His betrayal for thirty pieces of sil- 
 ver), were prophetically revealed in the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 but many more particulars were revealed in that Ancient 
 Word which was lost and is yet to be found. Fragments 
 of that Ancient Word, however, have been preserved in 
 all the ancient mythologies and also in all the surviving 
 heathen religions, and in all of them the IMessianic proph- 
 ecy figures as the final hope. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 THE AGE OF THE PATRIARCHS. 
 
 Cain and Abel. 
 
 To the man and the woman, after their expulsion from 
 Eden, there were born two sons, whose successive births 
 signify the separation of two essential principles which 
 heretofore had been one. The first-bom was named Cain, 
 a name which in the Hebrew means ''a smith," from the 
 root qoim, "to make or beat into form by hammering," 
 and he was so named because the generation or age vvhich 
 he represents loved to formulate, — ^to beat into the fixed 
 shape of dogma, — the truths of religion which they had 
 learned from their ancestors. ''Before this time they had 
 not known what faith was, because there had been with them 
 a perception of all the things of faith. But when they be- 
 gan to make a distinct doctrine of faith, they took the 
 things of which they had a perception and reduced them 
 into doctrine, calling it: 'I have gotten a man, Jehovah,' 
 as if they had found out something new; and thus what 
 was formerly inscribed upon the heart now became a mat- 
 ter of the memory." (A. C. 340.) 
 
 Deplorable as was this descent from celestial perception 
 into merely intellectual cognition, this Cain-doctrine was not 
 so bad in the beginning, while there was still some sim- 
 plicity in it. (A. C. 347, 384.) For by means of the 
 knowledge thus acquired there was bom with those who 
 acted on their knowledge a degree of charity to the neigh- 
 bor which is represented by Abel, the younger "brother." 
 His name, {Hehel), means "a light breath," which seems 
 to indicate that from this charity there could still be with 
 this generation a remnant of internal respiration and spirit- 
 ual perception. 
 
 In the ]\Iost Ancient Church itself these two, faith and 
 charity, had been regarded as one and indivisible, to be 
 
 122 
 
TEE AGE OF TEE PATEIAECES. 123 
 
 distinguished from one another only in thought, as one may- 
 distinguish between substance and form, neither of which 
 is anything without the other. But subsequently, when 
 men allowed themselves to be deceived by mere appear- 
 ances, they began not only to distinguish, but actually to 
 separate, in their life, these two essentials of every existing 
 thing. According to the appearance, truth or faith is the 
 first or first-born, because a man must k7iow the truth be- 
 fore he can live according to it. But this, after all, is only 
 an appearance, for if there is not first an affection or hun- 
 ger for the truth, there is not in the man any fruitful soil 
 to receive it, but the seed fall upon stony ground. This 
 affection, or this good of love, is therefore actually the first, 
 even though it appears as if the works of charity — because 
 according to the teachings of faith — were the fruits of that 
 faith. 
 
 Being misled by this appearance, the first decadent 
 posterity of the Golden Age began to regard faith as the 
 first-bom or first in importance, and they therefore began 
 to "till the ground," to cultivate doctrinal matters as a 
 separate field of study. They still regarded charity as an 
 essential next in importance to faith, and still permitted 
 the gentle Abel, or charity, to pursue his peaceful calling 
 as a ''shepherd of the flock." 
 
 Nevertheless the lingering perception remained that the 
 merely intellectual offerings of faith could not be as ac- 
 ceptable to the God of love as the living works of charity, 
 and this consciousness produced a feeling of anger against 
 charity with those who had confirmed themselves in the se- 
 ductive persuasion of intellectualism. Thus they reasoned : 
 Any simple person is able to work, but we are the thinkers, 
 the advanced philosophers, the scientific minds, the emanci- 
 pators of the human understanding from the shackles of 
 an antiquated Divine paternalism ! And thus they began 
 to look down upon charity and good works, at first as being 
 less essential and then as non-essential to salvation, — just 
 as was done in the Protestant Church at the Reformation. 
 
 This is what is meant by Cain killing his brother, Abel. 
 To the question of Jehovah, ' ' Where is Abel, thy brother ? ' ' 
 
124 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 he replied, "Am I my brother's keeper?" In other words : 
 ''What do I care what has become of Charity in my re- 
 ligion?" 
 
 The Curse upon Cain. 
 
 Cursed henceforth was the faith of the decadent Church. 
 The doctrinal ground which it tilled no longer yielded any 
 increase, and "a fugitive and a vagabond" it became in 
 the earth. As in the Protestant Church, after the doctrine 
 of Faith-alone had been firmly established, all theological 
 progress ceased and the Eeformation split up into contend- 
 ing heresies and sects, so after Faith-alone had slain Charity 
 in the ]\Iost Ancient Church, the field of doctrinal study 
 became barren and the faith itself a "fugitive and a vaga- 
 bond," fleeing from the detecting eye of rational truth. 
 
 Nevertheless "Jehovah set a marh upon Cain, lest any 
 one finding him should slay him." For since charity had 
 been slain, faith was now the only thing left in the Church, 
 and if faith also should be destroyed, the Church would be 
 at an end. Faith alone, even though it has become a 
 merely historical faith, of the memory only, is better than 
 total irreligion, for by it at least the knowledges of truth 
 are preserved for the use of future ages. By the "mark" 
 set upon Cain lest anyone should slay him, is meant, there- 
 fore, that God caused the intellectual faith to be preserved 
 "because there can be no saving faith unless historical 
 faith precedes. Moreover, they who are only in historical 
 faith, — ^that is, in the knowledge of the things of faith, who 
 are Cain, — are preserved because they are able to teach 
 truths from the Word to others, for they teach from the 
 memory." (A. E. 427^) And the 7neans by which the 
 knowledges of faith were thus "marked" and preserved, 
 was none other than the Art of Writing which was now 
 invented. "By the Providence of the Lord the doctrinals 
 of faith, together with some of the revelations of the IMost 
 Ancient Church, were preserved for the use of the later 
 posterity represented by Noah. These doctrinal things were 
 first collected by Cain and stored up so that they should 
 not be lost, on which account it is said of Cain that a 'mark' 
 
THE AGE OF TEE FATEIAECES. 125 
 
 was set upon him lest anyone should slay him." (A. C. 
 609.) This work of collecting and storing up the religious 
 traditions of the Golden Age was afterwards continued by 
 the generation known as Enoch, of whom more anon. 
 
 As for Cain himself, he ''we7it forth from the face of 
 Jehovah and dwelt in the land of Nod/' by which is signi- 
 fied that the faith of the Church, now separated from the 
 good of love, in the course of time became more and more 
 estranged from worship of the true God. In the land of 
 Nod, ("flight," "exile"), i. e., in this exile from genuine 
 religion, Cain became the father of a son named Enoch 
 and built a city which he called after the name of his son. 
 (Gen. 4:17.) The original heresy of Faith-alone in time 
 produced another heresy which now was formulated into 
 a definite system of doctrine. A city always signifies a 
 doctrinal system, as Rome stands for the doctrines of the 
 Catholic Church, Augsburg for the Lutheran doctrine, 
 Geneva for the Reformed, and the New Jerusalem for the 
 Heavenly Doctrine of the New Church. 
 
 The Cainites and the Sethites. 
 There follows now in the Word a genealogical list of 
 "patriarchs" descended from Cain, and immediately after- 
 wards another patriarchal succession descended from Seth. 
 In each list nine names appear, some of these identical in 
 both, and some very similar, as may be seen from the follow- 
 ing genealogical table : 
 
 Adam 
 " Abel Seth 
 
 Enosh 
 Cainan 
 
 Mehujael Mahalaleel 
 
 Jared 
 Enoch 
 
 Methusael Methuselah 
 
 Lamech 
 
 Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-cain 
 
126 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 By the descendants of Cain, in this genealogy, are repre- 
 sented the successive steps in the decline of the Most An- 
 cient Church as to intellectual things, while the descend- 
 ants of Seth represent the corresponding decline as to vol- 
 imtary things. The Cainites are so many successive here- 
 sies, born one from another, and each worse than the other, 
 until the end of all truth was reached in Lamech, who lived 
 just before the Flood. And the Sethites are so many suc- 
 cessive evils, continually growing worse, until the end of 
 all good was reached in the same Lamech-condition. The 
 names and the order of succession are somewhat different 
 in the two lines, on account of the different processes in 
 the working of the two faculties of understanding and will ; 
 and yet they are similar and in some cases identical, be- 
 cause of the intimate relationships of the two faculties 
 which can never be completely separated. In each line 
 Lamech represents the end of the Most Ancient Church, 
 and in each line the children of Lamech represent the be- 
 ginning of a new Church,— the Church of the Silver Age. 
 
 Enoch, the son of Cain, is the heresy or doctrine spring- 
 ing immediately from the separation of charity from faith, 
 just as Calvin's doctrine of Predestination was the immedi- 
 ate fruit of Luther's doctrine of salvation by Faith-alone. 
 But of Enoch we shall speak more fully in connection with 
 the descendants of Seth. 
 
 Irad, the son of Enoch, stands for a further development 
 of heresy, "but as there is nothing extant respecting him 
 and his descendants, except the names, it is unnecessary 
 to say anything about them. Something might be gath- 
 ered from the derivations of the names. The name Irad, 
 for instance, means that he 'descends from a city,' thus 
 from the heresy called 'Enoch;' and thus with the other 
 names." (A. C. 404.) 
 
 Mehujael, the son of Irad, carried a name which is said 
 to signify ' ' smitten by God. ' ' 
 
 Methusael, the son of Mehujael, is explained by the 
 lexicographers as signifying ' ' a man that is from God, ' ' but 
 Swedenborg states that both Methusael and Methuselah 
 "signify something that is about to die." (A. C. 527.) 
 
TEE AGE OF THE PATBIAECES. 127 
 
 The word meth means "dead," and the whole name prob- 
 ably means "dead as to God." 
 
 Lamech, the son of Methusael, had a name which the 
 lexicographers have not been able to explain, there being no 
 other word similar to it in the Hebrew tongue. The Writ- 
 ings of the New Chnrch, however, state that Lamech signi- 
 fies ' ' vastation ' ' and ' ' something destroyed. " ( A. C. 527. ) 
 That by "Lamech" is signified the vastation and destruc- 
 tion both of faith and of charity, is evident from his own 
 statement that he ' ' slew a man to his wounding, and a little 
 one to his hurt," for by "a man" is meant faith, and by 
 "a little one" is meant innocence and charity. (A. C. 
 406.) 
 
 Yet, though the Most Ancient Church had now come to 
 its end, and as a whole had become thoroughly vastated 
 as to everything good and true, there still remained a few, 
 a bare remnant, who possessed some salvable elements, and 
 out of whom a new Church could be formed. "There al- 
 ways remains some nucleus of a Church, whom those who 
 are vastated as to faith do not recognize; and thus it was 
 with the Most Ancient Church, of which a remnant con- 
 tinued until the time of the flood, and continued after that 
 event. This remnant of a Church is called 'Noah.' " (A. 
 C. 407.) 
 
 This new Church, as to the remains of intellectual in- 
 tegrity, is described, in the line of Cain, by "Adah" and 
 "Zillah," the two wives of Lamech. "They are called the 
 wives of Lamech, although he himself possessed no faith, 
 just as the internal and external Church of the Jews, (who 
 also had no faith), are also called 'wives' in the Word, 
 being represented by Leah and Rachel, the two wives of 
 Jacob, — Leah representing the external Church, and Eachel 
 the internal." (A. C. 409.) 
 
 That Adah signifies the Church is self-evident, for her 
 name is the regular Hebrew word for the "congregation" 
 regarded as a whole. Her name also means "ornament," 
 and, as the mother of Jabal and Jubal, she signifies that 
 interior affection of truth which produced the celestial and 
 spiritual things in the new Church which now arose. Jabal, 
 
128 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 ''the father of the dwellers in tents, and of cattle," stands 
 for "the doctrine concerning the holy things of love and the 
 goods thence derived, which are celestial,^ ^ (A. C. 412) ; 
 while his brother, Jubal, "the father of every one that 
 playeth upon the harp and the organ," signifies "the doc- 
 trine of the spiritual things of the same Church," (A. C. 
 417) ; for stringed instruments represent worship from the 
 spiritual things of faith, while wind instruments, producing 
 sounds from the interior of man, represent worship from 
 the celestial things of love. The name of Jubal, (from 
 jahal, "to make music"), is the origin of our English word 
 "jubilee." 
 
 The name of the second wife of Lamech was Zillah, 
 which means "a shade" and signifies the more external 
 and natural affection of truth in the new Church that was 
 to be established after the flood. She became the mother 
 of TuBAL-CAiN, who as ' ' the instructor of every artificer in 
 brass and iron," stands for the doctrine of natural good 
 and truth; the "instructor" means this doctrine; "brass" 
 always means natural good, and "iron" natural truth. 
 (A. C. 421.) The name of Tubal-cain is said to mean "a 
 loud-sounding smith, ' ' and naturally calls to mind old Vul- 
 can, that noisy smith of Greek Mythology. 
 
 The fourth chapter of Genesis continues with the ac- 
 count of the birth of Seth and of his son Enosh, by whom 
 are represented faith and charity in that new Church, the 
 Ancient Church, which was introduced on the scene by 
 Adah and Zillah. (A. C. 434, 435.) The Seth and Enosh 
 of this chapter, therefore, do not represent the same things 
 as the patriarchs of the same names mentioned in the fifth 
 chapter, who were of the Most Ancient Church, but they 
 represent similar or analogous states. By the first Seth 
 is signified a new faith, and by the first Enosh a new char- 
 ity, — kindled by means of this faith, — among the remnant 
 that constituted the nucleus of the Ancient Church. The 
 name Seth comes from a root, meaning "to put," "to 
 place," and he was so called because he was "appointed 
 as another seed in the place of Abel, whom Cain slew." 
 (Gen. 4: 25.) The new seed was this new faith, by means 
 
TEE AGE OF TEE PATEIAECES. 129 
 
 of which the charity, which was lost by the death of Abel, 
 could be replaced or restored in the Ancient Church. And 
 Enosh was this new charity, born not from but hy means 
 of faith. The name Enosh means "man," — not the ce- 
 lestial man who was called "Adam," but a new man, a 
 spiritual man, whose chief love was not so much the love 
 of God, as the love of fellow-man. (A. C. 439.) This idea 
 of neighborly love is involved in the very name "Enosh," 
 which comes from an old Semitic root, anash, "to join, to 
 associate, to be a companion." Hence comes the regular 
 Hebrew word for "man," aisJi, plural anashim, which es- 
 sentially means a "companion." 
 
 That this Enosh is an entirely new Church or Dispensa- 
 tion is evident from the final statement that in his day 
 "they began to call on the name of Jehovah," which means 
 that the worship of Jehovah, the God of the Golden Age, 
 was now restored among men. (A. C. 441.) 
 
 The Eemains of the Most Ancient Church. 
 
 The fifth chapter of Genesis treats specifically of the 
 lingering propagation of the Most Ancient Church through 
 successive generations, posterities, or churches, almost to 
 the time of the flood, the remains of good and truth con- 
 stantly decreasing, until the last remains, represented by 
 Noah, were separated from the corrupted Church and 
 formed into a new Church. The years of life ascribed to 
 these antediluvians are, like their names, purely representa- 
 tive. Men never lived to an age so fabulously great as that 
 of IMethuselah,* but the number of the years describes in 
 
 * The teachings upon which we base our statement concerning the 
 years of the patriarchs are the following in the Arcana Ccelestia: 
 
 ''What the years and the number of years, which are mentioned 
 in this chapter, signify has never heretofore been known to anyone. 
 Those who are in the sense of the letter suppose the years to be 
 secular ones, but this chapter even to the twelfth contains nothing 
 historical, such as appears in the literal sense, but all and single 
 things contain other matters; as in the case of the names, so also 
 in the case of the numbers." (A. C. 482.) 
 
 ''That their ages were not so great — as that of Jared 962 years, 
 
 9 
 
130 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 a brief compass the whole state of that generation or 
 church. Each number signifies a different thing 
 and can be unfolded with mathematical precision ac- 
 cording to the law of correspondence, but it does not seem 
 necessary to enter into this exegesis in the present little 
 work. 
 
 Seth, who was bom ''into the image and after the like- 
 ness' of Adam, represents the first posterity or church de- 
 scended from the Most Ancient Church itself ; it was ' ' not 
 YQYj unlike" that Church, but it was different in this that 
 "love was not now the principal thing, but faith, 
 though this faith was still conjoined with love." (A. C. 
 485.) 
 
 Enosh, the son of Seth, was a third church, still less per- 
 fect than Adam and Seth, yet a part of the Most Ancient 
 Church regarded as a whole. (A. C. 502.) The people 
 who constituted these two churches, Seth and Enosh, at- 
 tained the spiritual degree of regeneration ; they were con- 
 sequently saved, and are now angels of heaven. Sweden- 
 borg describes them as living in magnificent habitations, 
 and surrounded with an aura of light glittering with a 
 lustre as of pearls and diamonds, but the light in which 
 live those of the Church of Adam is still more intense. 
 (A. C. 1116, 1117.) 
 
 Cainan, the son of Enosh, was a fourth church, which 
 was not as perfect as the three preceding ones, because the 
 perception which in former ages had been distinct and clear 
 now began to become more obscure. (A. C. 507.) The 
 name of this church is almost the same as that of Cain, 
 and probably signifies something similar. 
 
 and of Methuselah 969, may indeed be evident to every one, and 
 also from what, of the Divine Mercy of the Lord, will be said in the 
 next chapter, verse 3, [A. C. 575], where it is stated that 'their days 
 shall be a hundred and twenty years ; ' the number of the years, 
 therefore, does not mean the age of the life of any one man, but 
 the times and states of the Church." (A. C. 515.) 
 
 ''Numbers in the Word are to be understood altogether abstractly 
 from the sense of the letter; they are inserted only in order to con- 
 nect the historical series which is in the sense of the letter, as has 
 been said and shown before." (A. C. 813.) 
 
TEE AGE OF TEE PATBIAECHS. 131 
 
 Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan, was a Church, still 
 further removed from perception and love. The life of 
 this posterity was ''such that they preferred the delight 
 arising from truths to the delight arising from uses, as 
 has been given me to know," says Swedenborg, "by ex- 
 perience among their like in the other life." (A. C. 511.) 
 This state is fitly expressed in their name, Mahalaleel, which 
 means "praising God." The prefix Ma is the sign of 
 the participial form of halal which means "to praise" (as 
 in Hallelicjah "praise Jehovah"), and El or "God" al- 
 ways refers to the Divine Truth rather than to the Divine 
 Good. 
 
 Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, represents a church in 
 which even natural good began to decline, (A. C. 283), as 
 is expressed in the name Jared, which means "going 
 down. ' ' 
 
 Enoch^ the son of Jared, was a church which played an 
 important role in the history of Divine Revelation. We 
 will treat of this church at some length after concluding 
 the rest of the genealogy. 
 
 Methuselah, the son of Enoch, was a church of which 
 nothing further is known except that now "integrity de- 
 creased, and with it intelligence and wisdom." (A. C. 
 524.) The name Methuselah, (properly, Methushelach), is 
 explained by the lexicographers as meaning "a man of the 
 dart," but Swedenborg states that it means "something 
 about to die," (A. C. 527) ; literally translated it seems to 
 signify ' ' death being sent forth. ' ' 
 
 Lamech, the son of Methuselah, signifies the same as the 
 Lamech who descended from Cain, of whom we have 
 treated above. It was the last, expiring state of the Most 
 Ancient Church, in which "the perception of truth and 
 of good was so obscure as to be almost none ; it was thus a 
 vastated Church." (A. C. 527.) 
 
 ' ' The Churches which are called Methuselah and Lamech 
 both expired immediately before the flood." (A. C. 533.) 
 Lamech also "begat sons and daughters." One of these 
 "sons" was Noah. The rest were the Nephilim or Ante- 
 diluvians who perished in the flood. 
 
132 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Enoch. 
 
 Returning to Enoch., the son of Jared, we learn in the 
 New Revelation that ''there were some at that time who 
 framed doctrines from the things that had been matters of 
 perception in the Most Ancient Church, in order that such 
 doctrine might serve as a rule whereby to know what was 
 good and true; such persons were called 'Enoch.' This is 
 what is signified by the words 'and Enoch walked with 
 God,' and thus they called that doctrine, which is likewise 
 signified by the name Enoch, which means 'to instruct.' 
 The same is evident also from the signification of 'walk- 
 ing,' and from the fact that he is said to have 'walked 
 with God,' not with Jehovah. To 'walk with God' is to 
 teach and live according to the doctrine of faith, but to 
 'walk with Jehovah' is to live the life of love." (A. C. 
 519.) 
 
 " 'And Enoch ivas no more, for God took him.' (Gen. 
 5 : 24. ) This signifies that this doctrine was preserved for 
 the use of posterity." (A. C. 520.) 
 
 This work of collecting and formulating the doctrinal 
 traditions of the Golden Age was first undertaken by those 
 who are known by the collective name of Cain, and was 
 continued and completed by the subsequent generation or 
 church called Enoch, whose Hebrew name is "Chanoch." 
 These people were in possession of the book or documents 
 written by the Cainites, and to this they added the results 
 of their own investigations and recollections. Their own 
 interest in this work seems to have been purely historic 
 and antiquarian, for they themselves were of a decadent 
 race hastening towards its doom. The codex which they 
 compiled was of no practical use to them, and their ter- 
 rible antediluvian descendants would have destroyed the 
 book if it had not, in Providence, been removed and hid- 
 den from their fury, {"reposita," A. C. 609). It was re- 
 stored, however, to the little remnant of religious people 
 known as Noah, and it was by means of this book that 
 something of the celestial wisdom of the Golden Age, to- 
 gether with a knowledge of correspondences, passed over 
 
TEE AGE OF TEE PATBIABCES. 133 
 
 to the Churcli of the Silver Age. To them this book of 
 Enoch was the Word of Grod. It was the first book of the 
 Ancient Word. In the beginning the Ancient Church had 
 no other Word. 
 
 The remembrance of the Book of Enoch lingered long 
 in the memory of mankind. The legends of the ancient 
 mythologies have much to tell about it, and the resurrected 
 clay tablets of Chaldea and Assyria confirm the tale and 
 likewise confirm the statements of Swedenborg concerning 
 it. The traditions of the Arabs describe quite minutely, 
 not only the Book of Enoch, but also the Book of Cain, 
 and they tell even of a Book of Adam. But this book of 
 Enoch was lost with all the other books of the Ancient 
 Word, and though we know it will be restored, in time, for 
 the use of the New Church, it is quite certain that it has 
 not yet been found. There was, indeed, a "Book of 
 Enoch, the seventh from Adam," known to Jude the 
 Apostle, and twice mentioned and quoted by him in his 
 Epistle, and concerning these quotations Swedenborg states 
 that ''Jude, the Apostle, had these things from ancient 
 books which were written by correspondences." (A. E. 
 735.) This Book of Enoch was re-discovered by the Eng- 
 lish traveler, Bruce, in the year 1773, in a monastery in 
 Abyssinia, and contains the sentences quoted by Jude. But 
 it is quite evident that it is neither an inspired work, nor 
 of any greater antiquity than, perhaps, the book of Job. 
 Though it contains many references to antediluvian his- 
 tory, it also brings in many things from other and later 
 parts of the Old Testament, all clothed in the usual ex- 
 uberance of oriental imagery. 
 
 But though the real Book of Enoch has not yet been dis- 
 covered, it is carefully preserved in the other world, as was 
 told to Swedenborg when visiting a great library in Heaven. 
 He states that "there were a great number of books there. 
 The persons who were there were not seen by me, but still 
 they spoke with me. They said that there were books there 
 from the time of the Ancients, written by correspondences. 
 Interiorly in other libraries there were books written by 
 those who were of the Ancient Churches, and still more 
 
134 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 interiorly there were books for the ]\Iost Ancients, from 
 whom the society called Enoch had collected correspond- 
 ences that afterwards were for the nse of those who were 
 of the subsequent Churches, called the Ancient Churches." 
 (S. D. 5999.) 
 
 We will adduce two more quotations from the many 
 statements in the Writings concerning the Book of Enoch : 
 
 ^'It was provided by the Lord that some of those who 
 lived with the ]\Iost Ancients should collect the correspond- 
 ences into one [codex], and connect them together in writ- 
 ing. These were they who are meant by ' Enoch, ' and this 
 writing is what is there signified. As this writing was to 
 be of service to future churches for the knowledge of spir- 
 itual things in natural things, it was preserved by the Lord 
 for their use, and also guarded lest the last posterity of the 
 Most Ancient Church should do injury to it. This is what 
 is signified in the spiritual sense by 'Enoch was no longer, 
 for God took him.' " (A. E. 728^.) 
 
 The exact nature of the Book of Enoch is described in 
 the following teaching : 
 
 ''As the Lord foresaw that the state of the celestial man 
 would become changed and inverted. He provided for the 
 preservation of the doctrinal things of faith, in order that 
 man might know what is celestial and spiritual. These 
 doctrinal things were collected from the men of the Most 
 Ancient Church by those called 'Cain,' and also by those 
 called 'Enoch.' . . . These doctrinals consisted altogether 
 of significatives, and thus as it were enigmatical things — 
 I. e., what is signified by the things which are upon the 
 earth, as that mountains signify celestial things and the 
 Lord; that the morning and the east also signify these 
 things; that the various kinds of trees and fruits signify 
 man and the celestial things with him; and thus what all 
 other things signify. Their doctrinals consisted in things 
 such as these, which were collected from the significatives 
 of the Most Ancient Church, and consequently their writ- 
 ings also were of the same nature." (A. C. 920.) 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 THE ANTEDILUVIANS. 
 
 In the Days before the Flood. 
 
 We come now to the blackest chapter in the history of 
 mankind, the terrible night of corruption and violence 
 which culminated in that universal Flood of evil and falsity 
 which destroyed the last generations of the perverted ce- 
 lestial race. Indelibly impressed upon the memory of the 
 race-man, the story of the Flood and of the state preced- 
 ing it is found in the mythologies of all the nations of 
 antiquity and in the legends of every gentile people and 
 tribe in every comer of the earth. In the lore of antiquity 
 the Nephilim of the Bible rise before us in the monstrous 
 shapes of Titans, Pythons, Gorgons, Cyclops and Cloud- 
 giants who inhabited the earth in the days before the Flood. 
 It was an age of gold mingled with blood, of celestial love 
 perverted and profaned, of gigantic persuaions and in- 
 sane lusts such as had never existed before nor ever will 
 exist again upon the earth. This state of wickedness was 
 such that we will never fully comprehend it, for we are of 
 a totally different genius and form of mind. The Ante- 
 diluvians were of the celestial genius, though in the last 
 stage of its perversion, and the spiritual genius cannot 
 comprehend the celestial any more than a straight line can 
 measure the curved. Nevertheless, we can grasp the out- 
 lines of their story as told in a few words in Genesis and 
 unfolded at length in the New Revelation. 
 
 ''And it came to pass that man began to multiply him- 
 self upon the faces of the ground, and daughters were lorn 
 unto them.'' (Gen. 6 : 1.) The Authorized Version trans- 
 lates this: ''when men began to multiply," which entirely 
 misses the point involved in the internal sense. That "man 
 began to multiply himself means that he waxed great in 
 
 135 
 
136 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 his own conceit; and that "daughters were bom unto 
 them" means that all kinds of evil lusts sprang forth from 
 a stupendous love of self. For as ' ' sons ' ' signify new ideas 
 of truth arising in the intellectual mind, and, in the oppo- 
 site sense, new ideas of falsity, so ' ' daughters ' ' signify new 
 affections of good, and in the opposite sense, as here, new 
 lusts or cupidities of an evil will. 
 
 The love of the celestial age, which had been a heavenly 
 love of Jehovah God, and thence an inmost love of the 
 neighbor, when once perverted soon turned into its very 
 opposite, — a most intense hatred of God and of the neigh- 
 bor. From the daily tragedies of the divorce courts it is 
 seen how love may turn into its opposite. The more in- 
 tense the love of the honey-moon, the more fierce the hatred 
 when love has turned. When the descendants of the 
 Golden Age had lost their love of Jehovah God, this love 
 turned through rapidly descending degrees to an insane 
 love of self as the only object of w^orship ; and as the love 
 of self hates whatever stands in the way of its supreme 
 control, the all over- ruling Deity became the object of the 
 most passionate hatred. The love of dominion, which is 
 the supreme form of the love of self, now took universal 
 possession of the minds of men. They did not care so much 
 for the riches and pleasures adored by the love of the 
 world, but were consumed by a burning lust for dominion 
 and power over others, especially the spiritual power over 
 minds and souls, a determination to rule over the Church 
 in this world and the next, and to cast down God Himself 
 from the throne of Heaven. The memory of this fearful 
 state is preserved in the mythological stories of the arro- 
 gance of that race of giants who piled Pelion upon Ossa 
 when fighting with the gods for the possession of Olympus. 
 Nor has later history been lacking in instances of this in- 
 sane love of rule, as may be seen from the Gregories and 
 Innocents, Leos and Benedicts and other "holy fathers," 
 who as "gods on earth" claimed infallibility and universal 
 dominion in this world, and in the other life — the keys of 
 Heaven and Hell ! 
 
 To this love of self, then, in the days before the Flood, 
 
TEE ANTEDILUVIANS. 137 
 
 there were bom "daughters" in the alluring shape of flat- 
 tering affections and lusts of the flesh,— derivative loves of 
 evil such as the contempt of others, love of revenge and 
 cruelty, robbery, adultery and despotism. Peace and mu- 
 tual confidence became impossible on the earth. Distrust 
 and suspicion filled each heart with malice against all, 
 breaking out undoubtedly into internecine tribal wars of 
 extermination. We may gain a faint idea of this state 
 from the conditions of Europe during the Dark Ages, when 
 the "robber barons" made life well-nigh impossible. Ovid 
 has well described this state: "Then destructive iron came 
 forth, and gold more destructive than iron. Then War 
 came forth, that fights by the means of both, brandishing 
 clattering arms in blood-stained hands. Men live by rap- 
 ine ; the guest is not safe from his host, nor the father-in- 
 law from the son-in-law; good feeling between brothers is 
 rare. The husband is eager for the death of the wife, she 
 for the death of her husband. Horrible step-mothers min- 
 gle the ghastly wolfsbane. The son prematurely makes 
 inquiry into the years of his father. Piety lies vanquished, 
 and the virgin Astroea [the goddess of Justice] is the last 
 of the celestials to abandon the earth, now drenched in 
 slaughter." (Metamorph, Fable IV.) 
 
 In the language of Scripture: "And God saw that the 
 wickedness of man luas multiplied on the earth, and thai 
 all the imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only 
 evil every day." (Gen. 6:5.) For "the earth also was 
 corrupt lefore God, and the earth ivas filled with violence.'' 
 (Gen. 5:11.) 
 
 The Profanation of Celestial Truth. 
 
 "And the sons of God saw the daughters of man that 
 they were good, and they took to themselves ivives from all 
 whom they chose.'' (Gen. 6:2.) The "sons of God" were 
 the celestial truths of the Most Ancient Church, the knowl- 
 edge of which still lingered with this degenerate race. 
 These were now "married," i. e., conjoined with the filthy 
 lusts signified by "the daughters of man,"— a horrible com- 
 
138 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 mingling which is the most direful kind of profanation. 
 For ''they immersed the holy truths of the Church in their 
 cupidities, and thereby defiled these truths, and in this way 
 they confirmed the principles of which they were so strongly 
 persuaded." (A. C. 570.) 
 
 There are many kinds and degrees of profanation, some 
 milder, some worse, but the Antediluvians committed the 
 worst kind of this ''sin against the Holy Spirit" because 
 they so turned and twisted the highest truths as to make 
 them appear to excuse, support and confirm the worst of 
 evils. By such confirmations, truths and evils, and goods 
 and falsities, become so inextricably commingled that they 
 cannot in the other life be separated by the ordinary 
 processes of vastation, but must be violently torn assunder, 
 leaving the miserable profaners almost devoid of life. (S. 
 D. MiN, 4745.) 
 
 "Hence it is that after death profaners are not spirits 
 in the human form, as others are, but are mere phantasies, 
 and appear to themselves to flit hither and thither without 
 thought, and at last are separated from others, and are 
 cast down into a hell the lowest of all, and as they do not 
 appear in the human form they are called its, that is, non- 
 man." (A. E. 375.) "In the light of heaven they appear 
 like charred skeletons, and therefore are spoken of in the 
 neuter gender. By degrees they lose human life, and be- 
 come like ghosts." (S. D. 5950.) 
 
 The Nephilim. 
 
 "There were Giants in the earth in those days, and espe- 
 cially after the sons of God went in unto the daughters of 
 man, and they hare to them; the same became mighty men 
 that were of old, men of renown.'' (Gen. 6:4.) 
 
 These "giants" were gigantic chiefly in their own con- 
 ceit, filled as they were with monstrous persuasions of their 
 own loftiness and pre-eminence, each one conceiving him- 
 self superior not only above all his fellows, but above the 
 angels and above God Himself. 
 
 The word "giants" in the Hebrew original is Nephilim, 
 
THE ANTEDILUVIANS. 139 
 
 which according to some authorities, is derived from the 
 root pala, "to be marvelous," but, according to others, 
 from naplial, "to fall." In either case the etymology of 
 the word would fitly express the quality of this terrible 
 race, who were "marvellous" in their own eyes, but "fallen 
 ones'"— monstrous births, spiritual abortions,— in the eyes 
 
 of heaven. 
 
 Whether these people were actually of a gigantic stature 
 is a matter of conjecture. Certain it is that some of their 
 remote descendants, the Anakim, were physical giants, for 
 the spies sent out by Joshua testified that, compared with 
 the Nephilim of Hebron, "we were in our own sight as 
 grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." (Numbers 
 13:22-33.) Remnants of these Anakim found refuge 
 among the Philistines and produced Goliath of Gath, who 
 measured over ten feet and who had four brothers equally 
 monstrous. (II Sam. 21: 10-20; I Chron. 20: 4.) From 
 them, also, came the Rephaim of Bashan, the last of whom 
 was Og, king of Bashan, whose bedstead of iron measured 
 some fourteen feet. (Deut. 3:11.) 
 
 Every nation of antiquity, moreover, possessed legends 
 of an aboriginal race of giants who lived after the Golden 
 Age and before the Flood, but whether these were physic- 
 ally giants or not does not matter, for the ancients named 
 things and persons after spiritual qualities rather than 
 natural conditions. The words "there were giants m the 
 earth in those days" is not an expression of admiration 
 but of horror,— horror at the monstrous imaginations and 
 persuasions of self -exaltation and self-worship which at that 
 time existed among men. 
 
 Antediluvian Persuasions. 
 
 Abstractly considered, the "Nephilim" stand for gigan- 
 tic persuasions of self-conceit, the like of which never pos- 
 sessed men before or after those days. Persuasion is a 
 very different thing from Conviction. Conviction is a good 
 affection confirmed by genuine truth. Persuasion is an 
 evil affection confirmed by truth perverted. The very 
 
140 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 term ''persuasion" involves the idea of some irrational 
 notion binding the mind by sweet flattery appealing to the 
 external senses or "feelings" of emotion, rather than by 
 the stern logic of solid argiunent. Take for instance the 
 persuasion that man is saved by an instantaneous conver- 
 sion through faith alone. The exhorter appeals chiefly to 
 the feeling of fear — the fear of sudden death and subse- 
 quent hell-fire; having properly shaken his hearers into a 
 panic, throwing all rational thought into confusion by this 
 fear, he next holds himself up as one purer than snow, 
 saved and sanctified in an instance by a mere turning of 
 the mind. No repentance is needed, no shunning of evils, 
 no works of charity. The sinner, having risen from the 
 "mourner's bench," is henceforth as one of the angels in 
 heaven, and the "weaknesses of the flesh" are no longer 
 imputed to him as sins. No wonder this "persuasion" is 
 the very palladium of the Protestant Religion, and is im- 
 possible to eradicate with those once fully captured by it! 
 
 Such "persuasions immensely increase when men mingle 
 truths with cupidities, or compel truths to favor the love 
 of self and the love of the world: for then in a thousand 
 ways they pervert these truths and force them into agree- 
 ment with the lusts." (A. C. 794.) The wretched de- 
 scendants of the Most Ancient Church were completely 
 filled with such persuasions, which with them assumed gi- 
 gantic proportions because they were the perv^ersions of 
 celestial truths. And chief of these persuasions was the 
 profane notion that they themselves were gods, and that 
 there was no other God in the universe. 
 
 Having received from their ancestors the knowledge that 
 man was created in the image and likeness of God, they 
 persuaded themselves that they were not only like God but 
 were actually Divine. Knowing that in the creation of 
 man God breathed His Spirit into the nostrils of Adam, 
 they persuaded themselves that God had thereby trans- 
 fused all His Divinity into man, that He had breathed Him- 
 self away. This notion had its rise in the insane whisper- 
 ing of the serpent that "in the day ye eat of the fruit of 
 the tree your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God. ' ' 
 
TEE ANTEDILUVIANS. 141 
 
 (Gen. 3:5.) ''This dire persuasion," says Swedenborg, 
 "that God had transfused and transferred Himself into 
 men, was held by the men of the Most Ancient Church at 
 its end, when it was consummated. This I have heard from 
 their own mouths; and on account of that horrible belief, 
 that they consequently were gods, they lie deeply hidden 
 in a cavern near to which no one can approach without 
 being seized by an inward dizziness which causes him to 
 fall." (T. C. E. 470.) ''They had thought much about 
 God, but had persuaded themselves that there is no God, 
 but that men are gods, and thus that they themselves were 
 gods, and they confirmed themselves in these persuasions by 
 their dreams." (A. C. 1268.) 
 
 "The people before the flood were such that at last they 
 had almost no remains [of good and truth], because they 
 were of such a genius that they became imbued with dire- 
 ful and abominable persuasions concerning all things that 
 occurred to them or came into their thought, so that they 
 would not go back from them one whit, but they supposed 
 themselves to be as gods, and that whatever they thought 
 was Divine. No such persuasion has ever existed in any 
 people before or since, for it is deadly and suffocating, and 
 therefore in the other life antediluvians cannot be with any 
 other spirits, for when they are present they take away 
 from them all power of thought by injecting their fear- 
 fully determined persuasions." (A. C. 562.) 
 
 The idea that man is god, and the only god in existence, 
 did not perish, however, when the antediluvians met their 
 doom in the great flood ; it exists at this day, and is openly 
 proclaimed as the acme of philosophic truth by the various 
 schools of Positivism, Monism, and Agnosticism generally. 
 It lies, in fact, at the bottom of all forms of Atheism, and 
 those who are possessed by this persuasion are called "mod- 
 em Antediluvians," of whom there are great numbers at 
 this day in the hells of former Christians. (See A. C. 
 1673, 2754; S. D. 3594, 4449, 5354.) This persuasion, 
 nevertheless, is not at this day so intimately bound up with 
 the loves of the will as it was among the antediluvians, 
 but is more in the nature of an enormous intellectual stu- 
 
142 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 pidity. Many may claim, but few really believe, that tbey 
 are "gods." 
 
 ''When such a persuasion takes possession of a man, it 
 is like glue which catches in its sticky embrace the goods 
 and truths which otherv\dse would constitute 'remains';* 
 the result of this is that remains can no longer be stored 
 up, and those which have been stored up can be of no use ; 
 and, therefore, when these people arrived at the summit 
 of such persuasion they became extinct and were suffocated 
 by an inundation not unlike a flood." (A. C. 563.) 
 
 We fancy that it was this deadly persuasion which the 
 ancient imaged by the head of Medusa, the daughter of 
 Titans, every hair of whose head was a writhing serpent, 
 and whose aspect was so terrible, (the word gorgon means 
 "terrible"), as to turn the beholder into stone. This mon- 
 ster was finally killed by Perseus and her head was affixed 
 to the shield of Minerva to represent the fact that this fear- 
 ful persuasion of the antediluvians was exposed by the 
 Doctrine of Truth in the Ancient Church. 
 
 As a race the antediluvians perished in the flood, but a 
 remnant lingered for ages in the land of Canaan, divided 
 into seven horrible tribes known as the Avim, the Anakim, 
 the Horim, the Emim, the Zuzim, the Zamzummim, and 
 the Rephaim. These seven tribes, which in the Word are 
 included under the collective name of Nephilim, are all de- 
 scribed as men of gigantic stature and fearful aspect and 
 habits, — a savage and vicious race of robbers and murder- 
 ers, living like wild beasts in caves and ruins, yet preserv- 
 ing some sort of tribal organization by which they were 
 able to resist the successive invasions of Hittites and Ca- 
 naanites, until the coming of Chedorlaomer and the He- 
 brews. 
 
 Of these Nephilim the tribe called Avm, (literally 
 "ruined ones"), lived at one time in the coast-land after- 
 wards occupied by the Philistines. Better known are the 
 Anakim, ("long-necked ones"), who lived in Hebron until 
 they were finally destroyed by Joshua. The Horim, ('cave- 
 
 * This is what is meant by Saturn devouring his new-born infants. 
 
TBE ANTEDILUVIANS. 143 
 
 dwellers"), dwelt in Mount Seir until exterminated by the 
 children of Esau. The Emim, C 'terrible ones"), lived to 
 the east of the Dead Sea in the territory afterwards occu- 
 pied by the Moabites. The Zuzim and the Zamzummim 
 were so named by their conquerors because of the "buzz- 
 ing" sound of their speech; they lived in Mount Gilead 
 and were subdued by the Ammonites. The Rephaim, fin- 
 ally, who lived in the land of Bashan, seem to have been 
 the worst of all. Their name is said to be derived from a 
 root meaning "to sink down, to be unstrung with fear," 
 probably on account of the impression they made upon 
 strangers. In the Authorized Version the name Rephaim 
 is usually translated by "the dead," and in the Phoenician 
 inscriptions their name is used as an expression of horror 
 and execration, and as meaning the haunting ghosts of in- 
 fernal spirits. Concerning these aboriginal tribes of Pales- 
 tine we have treated at greater length in our Correspond- 
 ences OF Canaan, pp. 51-62. They one and all signify 
 most foul and horrible persuasions of falsity arising from a 
 profound love of self. 
 
 Life among the Antediluvians. 
 
 But few details are given in the Writings concerning the 
 life of the people who lived in the days before the flood, 
 but those that have been revealed are of interest as illus- 
 trating the decline of the Golden Age. Among other 
 things Swedenborg speaks of some of these antediluvians, 
 "not of those who perished, but of those who were some- 
 what better. At first they flowed in rather gently and im- 
 perceptibly, but it was given me to perceive that interiorly 
 they were evil, and that interiorly they acted contrary to 
 love. There exhaled from them a sphere of the odor of 
 a dead body, so that the spirits who were about me fled 
 away. They imagined themselves to be so subtle that no 
 one could perceive what they thought. I spoke with them 
 about the Lord, as to whether or not they had expected 
 Him, as their fathers did. They said that they had repre- 
 sented the Lord to themselves as an aged and holy man 
 
144 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 with a gray beard, and they said further that they were 
 made holy from Him, and in like manner bearded. Hence 
 arose the great veneration for beards among their descend- 
 ants. They added that now also they are able to adore 
 Him, but from themselves. But then an angel came, whose 
 presence they could not endure." (A. C. 1124.) 
 
 ' ' It was shown me how their women were clothed. They 
 wore upon the head a round black hat, projecting turret- 
 like in front, and they had small faces, but the men were 
 shaggy and hairy. It was shown me also how they gloried 
 in the great number of their children, and that they had 
 their children with them wherever they went, the children 
 walking before them in a curved line. But they were told 
 that all brute animals, even the worst of them, also have a 
 love for their young, and that this is no evidence that there 
 is anything good in them ; but that if they had loved chil- 
 dren, not from the love of self and self-glory, but from 
 the love of seeing human society increased for the sake of 
 the common good, — and especially if they had loved their 
 children because by them heaven would be increased, — and 
 thus for the sake of the kingdom of the Lord, — then their 
 love of children would have been genuine." (A. C. 1272.) 
 
 Thus, in whatever they loved, or thought, or did, the 
 love of self and of dominion entered in, defiling and pro- 
 faning every good and truth, until at last they ''could 
 no longer visibly express any idea of thought, but what was 
 most deformed." (A. C. 607.) And then the Judgment 
 came upon them. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 NOAH AND THE FLOOD. 
 
 The Church of the Golden Age had come to its end, and 
 the human race was threatened with universal destruction 
 through the ever-growing increase of hereditary evil and 
 through the overwhelming influence and power of the ma- 
 lignant forces that were gathering in the spiritual world. 
 A Judgment had to come or no flesh could have been saved. 
 But the hour of midnight was the beginning of a new day. 
 
 The Beginning of a New Church. 
 
 The first indication of a new state is expressed in the 
 words: '^And Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah. 
 Noah was a man righteous and perfect in his generations. 
 Noah walked with God." (Gen. 6: 8, 9.) 
 
 Degeneration, as well as regeneration, is always an in- 
 dividual process. In a dying Church all do not rush simul- 
 taneously to the same degree of corruption, but there are 
 always a few who remain in a somewhat better state than 
 the vast majority. These constitute "the remnant" of the 
 former Church such as it was in its purer states, and it is 
 to this remnant or to these remains of faith and love that 
 the Lord appears in a new Advent or Revelation. Such re- 
 mains are always few at the end of a Church, but these few, 
 when collected, inaugurated and instructed, serve as a nu- 
 cleus or parent stock for the New Church which is after- 
 wards established in its fullness among those who before 
 had been in a gentile condition. This nucleus of upright 
 people, lingering in the midst of the corrupt Antediluvians, 
 are represented collectively by the name Noah, a word 
 which literally signifies ''to rest," "to remain." 
 
 The persons thus represented were not, indeed, of the 
 
 145 
 
146 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 same celestial genius as their remote ancestors of the 
 Golden Age, but were to a verj^ great extent contaminated 
 with the evils of the age and society in which they lived. 
 ''For every man had become corporeal, not only the 
 Nephilim or Antediluvians, but also those called 'Noah,' 
 before they were regenerated." (A. C. 628.) As with the 
 others, so with the Noachites, the voluntary faculty had 
 become corrupt and filled with all kinds of sensual lusts, 
 as is indicated by the fact that the ' ' ark ' ' which they built, 
 — i. e., their general state, — was made of gopher wood, 
 which is a highly inflammable material, abounding in sul- 
 phur; and this structure, moreover, was "pitched within 
 and without with pitch," (Gen. 6: 14), — i. e., contaminated 
 with the lusts and falsities prevailing in their gener- 
 ation. 
 
 Nevertheless, "Noah was a man righteous and perfect. 
 Noah walked with God. ' ' This does not describe the actual 
 state of Noah before his regeneration, "but as to what he 
 was capable of becoming, namely, that by the knowledges 
 of faith he might be gifted with charity." "Righteous" 
 signifies the good of charity. "Perfect" or upright signi- 
 fies the truth of charity, and "to walk with God, " ( as was 
 also said of Enoch), means to possess the doctrine of faith. 
 (A. C. 615.) All that remained with them was "a kind 
 of rational truth and natural good, and therefore they could 
 be regenerated." (A. C. 628.) 
 
 Before their regeneration, therefore, there did not exist 
 with these people any genuine spiritual love of good, but 
 only a species of natural good, or of natural integritj^, hon- 
 esty and decency, not yet purified by the trials of tempta- 
 tion, but still remaining as a plane or vessel for the future 
 reception of spiritual life. Nor did they, at first, possess 
 any genuine understanding of spiritual truth, but there re- 
 mained with them a certain intellectual faculty, enabling 
 them to receive natural rational truth. This was the ' ' win- 
 dow" in Noah's ark, through which the light of heaven 
 could flow in to illumine his spiritual darkness. And the 
 "door" of the ark, through which Noah later on could go 
 forth into a new life, signifies a remaining affection of 
 
NOAE AND THE FLOOD. 147 
 
 truth, which is the only door leading to the good of life. 
 (A. C. 651.) 
 
 There remained, finally, with them the traditions of 
 heavenly doctrine handed down from their celestial an- 
 cestors, — the book or books written by Cain and Enoch. 
 This code, which had been hidden from the fury of the 
 Nephilim, was intrusted to the hands of the Noachites, and 
 from it they learned not only general principles of spirit- 
 ual truth and good, but also the science of correspondences, 
 which became the science of sciences in the Church of the 
 Silver Age. Without this key they could not have entered 
 into the spiritual sense of those Scriptures which were sub- 
 sequently given to the Ancient Church itself. The teach- 
 ings contained in the book of Enoch were therefore the 
 first means of Divine Revelation to the Church of Noah. 
 This code was their Word, in which they believed with a 
 simple faith. (A. C. 736, 1068, 1071, 1409, 2897, 3432.) 
 
 The Separation op the Will and the 
 Understanding. 
 
 These doctrines of truth could be of no practical use to 
 the completely corrupted descendants of the Most Ancient 
 Church, with whom the will and the understanding acted as 
 one faculty, for with such a people every truth of heaven 
 was instantly swallowed up by the perverted will, (just as 
 Saturn swallowed his new-bom children), and was turned 
 into a falsity still further confirming the evil lusts. These 
 monsters of old were Cyclops, possessing but a single eye, 
 and that eye was evil. Their will had become infernal lust, 
 their understanding mere persuasion. They could see noth- 
 ing but that which flattered their lust, and it was impossible 
 for them to recognize their own depraved nature. They 
 were therefore hopelessly lost. 
 
 But with the Noachites, who had not sunk to the same 
 depth of corruption, a great change was miraculously ef- 
 fected by means of a new mental creation, — a total re- 
 organization of the mind, resulting in a separation of the 
 understanding from the depraved will. This separation is 
 
148 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 described in the Word by the '' mansions" or "stories" 
 which Noah was commanded to make in the ark. The low- 
 est part of the ark, — i. e., the evil will, — was shut in and 
 pitched over with pitch: it was covered up and closed, lest 
 the evil lusts of the hereditary proprium should arise and 
 overwhelm the understanding, which now was formed into 
 a higher mansion, fit to live in by virtue of the windows of 
 spiritual intelligence that was open to the light and atmos- 
 phere of heaven. 
 
 This separation was effected by the Lord through the 
 implantation of a Conscience which henceforth stood be- 
 tween the rational understanding and the insane will. (A. 
 C. 863.) There remained in Noah, as was said, something 
 of a natural rational quality still unperverted, by means 
 of which he was still able to judge of the ratio or relation 
 between good and evil, and between truth and falsity ; and 
 he was thus able also to view himself in the light of heaven. 
 This natural-rational faculty of discrimination was im- 
 planted in him from early infancy not only by means of 
 direct instruction, but also by means of castigations and 
 vicissitudes of various kinds, resulting in a state of fear, 
 — at first the fear of punishments, afterguards fear of the 
 evil that leads to such punishment, and finally the fear of 
 hurting with himself that which is good and true. This 
 fear, which is the fear of God and the beginning of all 
 wisdom, is the basis of that warning voice which is called 
 Conscience with the man of the spiritual genius, and which 
 with him takes the place of the native love of God and the 
 celestial perception that existed among the men of the 
 Golden Age. 
 
 Thus Jehovah God in His mercy established in Noah a 
 protecting barrier against the inundation of the flood which 
 now oven\'helmed the rest of mankind, and within and 
 above this separating plane called Conscience the Lord 
 could now erect a new temple for Himself, a new dwelling 
 place in which to operate for the eternal salvation of the 
 human race. 
 
 Having thus established in man a new means of salva- 
 tion, a new power by which man was able to compel him- 
 
NOAE AND TEE FLOOD. 149 
 
 self to resist the impulses of the evil will, the Lord now 
 commanded Noah to enter into the ark and to take with 
 him beasts and birds of every kind, both clean and unclean. 
 The man of the Church called Noah inherited and carried 
 over with him into the Silver Age all kinds of thoughts 
 and affections, both clean and unclean, and because of this 
 mixed company there ensued with him a state of tempta- 
 tions represented by the forty days and forty nights dur- 
 ing which the flood endured. That the nimiber ''forty" 
 throughout the Word signifies a state of temptations is 
 readily seen from the forty years of the Israelites in the 
 desert, and the forty days of the Lord's own temptations 
 in the wilderness. It is represented in human nature it- 
 self by the forty weeks of suffering which a mother endures 
 while carrying her child. 
 
 But ' ' God remembered Noah. ' ' Gradually the fountains 
 of the abyss and the cataracts of heaven were closed. A 
 wind was made to pass over the earth. The waters as- 
 suaged, and finally the ark rested upon the mountains of 
 Ararat. As the most external evils of the proprium were 
 gradually subdued by means of the Conscience, the "win- 
 dow" of the new intelligence could come more and more 
 into its true use. Though the "raven," sent out from the 
 ark, went to and fro upon the waters, and though the 
 "dove" at first returned empty to Noah,— though falsities 
 still for a time occasioned disturbances with the man of this 
 new Church, because there still lingered some belief in his 
 own power, — yet after a time the dove returned with an 
 olive leaf in her mouth as a sign of progress in regener- 
 ation. And when at last the dove returned no more, — 
 when the thought of good no longer reflected upon his own 
 righteousness,— Noah knew that the ground was dry. Self- 
 confidence had at last been subdued through the trials of 
 temptation, and now a great new light appeared, the moun- 
 tains of Ararat, a name which literally signifies the "moun- 
 tains of light." Noah could now freely leave his ark of 
 gopher-wood, having mastered the tendencies of his heredi- 
 tary proprium, and he now could build an altar unto Je- 
 hovah and offer burnt offering thereupon. A new spiritual 
 
150 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Church was now safely established, and an internal and 
 at the same time external and representative worship could 
 be instituted. 
 
 The Flood. 
 
 ''The morning cometh, and the night also." As the 
 light increased in the new Church, so the darkness grew 
 in the former Church. The influx of falsity and evil which 
 to the Noaehites were the source of temptations, was to 
 the antediluvians a devastating inundation which at last 
 caused the extermination of the miserable race. 
 
 By those who are evil all misfortunes are ascribed to the 
 punishing vengeance of God, and this appearance is not 
 only inevitable but necessary. The letter of the Word is 
 written in the language of appearances and therefore it is 
 said that God brought the flood upon mankind: "And 7, 
 behold I do bring the flood of waters upon the earth, to 
 destroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under 
 the heavens; everything that is on the eai^th shall expire/' 
 (Gen. 6:17.) 
 
 That no literal flood or universal deluge of water is here 
 meant is evident from the small dimensions of Noah's ark, 
 which could not possibly have contained space for repre- 
 sentative specimens of all the animals in the world together 
 with their food for forty days. Moreover, in order to 
 cover the tops of the highest mountains, there would be 
 required a volume of water extending five miles above the 
 present sea-leavel, and such an inundation for so long a 
 period would have destroyed under its fearful pressure 
 not only the animal kingdom but also the whole vegetable 
 kingdom, and the dove would never have been able to find 
 an olive leaf. But by the ''flood" is meant a spiritual 
 deluge, an all-destructive influx of evil lusts and false 
 persuasions from the opened hells, (it must be remem- 
 bered that men still had open communication with the spir- 
 itual world, but now no longer with the angels of heaven 
 but with the devils of hell), and when at last the Nephilim 
 had "arrived at the summit of persuasion, they became ex- 
 tinct of their own accord, and were suffocated by an inun- 
 
NOAK AND TEE FLOOD. 151 
 
 dation not unlike a flood ; and therefore their extinction is 
 compared to a flood and was also thus described according 
 to the custom of the ancients." (A. C. 563.) 
 
 Even in the present age men speak in similar terms of 
 the movements of the mind and of the intellectual world. 
 There are "currents" and ''waves" of thought, a "stream" 
 of ideas, a "flood" of various popular notions, and this is 
 because influx from the spiritual world is an actual stream 
 of affections and thoughts,— the influx from heaven being a 
 gentle and almost imperceptible flow, but the influx from 
 hell a wild and devastating deluge of furious lusts and in- 
 sane phantasies which actually let loose an over-supply of 
 gall into the blood and sometimes cause physical death. 
 
 "In that day were the fountains of the great deep broken 
 up, and the cataracts of heaven were opened.'' (Gen. 7: 
 11.) The fountains of the deep are the evils arising from 
 hell, and the cataracts of heaven (the sky) are the false 
 persuasions pouring in from the spiritual world. (A. C. 
 756, 757.) "And the waters were strengthened exceed- 
 ingly upon the earth, and all the high mountains were cov- 
 ered.'' (Gen. 7 : 19.) The persuasions of falsity increased 
 unceasingly throughout the doomed Church, and all the 
 high mountains of celestial love were covered by evils of 
 life until nothing of charity remained. (A. C. 792.) 
 
 "And all flesh died that crept upon the earth . . . and 
 every man; all in whose nostrils was the breathing of the 
 breath of life, of all that was on the dry land, died." (Gen., 
 7: 21, 22.) Every thought of truth and every affection of 
 good perished with the last generation of the Most Ancient 
 Church, and flnally the men themselves became extinct. 
 "As regards the man of the Church before the flood, he 
 in course of time conceived direful persuasions, and im- 
 mersed the goods and truths of faith in foul lusts, in so 
 much that there were scarcely any remains with them ; and 
 when they came into this state they were suffocated as if 
 of themselves, for man cannot live without remains." (A. 
 C. 560.) 
 
 The physical reason for this suffocation and as it were 
 drowning, was that little by little the internal respiration, 
 
152 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 — the "breathing of the breath of life," which was enjoyed 
 by the men of the Golden Age, — came to an end ; and ' ' with 
 those who were possessed by these dreadful persuasions and 
 phantasies, it became such that they could no longer present 
 any idea of thought except the most debased, the effect of 
 which was that they could not survive, and therefore they 
 became extinct." (A. C. 607, 805.) 
 
 "It was shown that the internal respiration of the men 
 of the ]\Iost Ancient Church, — which was from the navel 
 toAvard the interior region of the breast, — was changed, and 
 receded more toward the region of the back, and toward 
 the abdomen, thus more outward and downward; and that 
 at length in the last posterity of that Church, which ex- 
 isted immediately before the flood, scarcely anything of in- 
 ternal respiration remained; and when at last there re- 
 mained none of this in the breast, they were suffocated of 
 themselves, but witli some external respiration then be- 
 gan, and with it articulate sound or the language of spoken 
 words. Thus, with the men before the flood, the respiration 
 was in accordance with the state of their love and faith; 
 and at last, when there was no love and no faith, but only a 
 persuasion of falsity, internal respiration ceased, and with 
 this also the immediate communication with angels, and 
 perception." (A. C. 1120.) 
 
 In Tartarus. 
 
 When, after death, the Nephilim entered the spiritual 
 world, they herded together there in the first, deepest, and 
 most terrible of all the hells. Concerning their condition 
 in that direful place we are told a great many things in 
 the Revelation given to the Church of the New Jerusalem. 
 
 "They can never be where other spirits are, but are 
 separated from the other hells and are kept at a distance 
 from the world of spirits. They are neither permitted to 
 ascend, nor can anyone be let in among them." (A. C. 
 1266.) 
 
 The reason for this separation is that "they so kill and 
 suffocate all spirits with their most dreadful phantasies, 
 
NOAR AND THE FLOOD. 153 
 
 which exhale as a poisonous sphere from them, that the 
 spirits are deprived of the power of thinking and feel half 
 dead; and unless the Lord by His coming into the world 
 had freed the world of spirits from that poisonous brood, 
 no one could have existed there, and in consequence the 
 human race would have perished, since it is ruled by the 
 Lord by means of spirits. They are therefore now kept 
 in a hell as it were beneath a misty and dense rock, be- 
 neath the heel of the left foot, nor do they make the slight- 
 est attempt to rise out of it. Thus the world of spirits is 
 free from this most dangerous crew. . . . But it has been 
 provided by the Lord that mankind should never again be- 
 come imbued with such dreadful phantasies and persua- 
 sions." (A. C. 584, 1266.) 
 
 ''Those of them who obstinately try to emerge from that 
 hell are cruelly treated by their companions; for they are 
 possessed with deadly hatred against all, even against their 
 own companions. Their greatest delight consists in hold- 
 ing each other in subjection and as it were in butchering 
 each other. Those who more resolutely persist in their en- 
 deavor to force their way out are sent down still deeper 
 under that misty rock; for it is their innate crazy ardor 
 to destroy all, which leads them on; hence their efforts 
 to emerge. They wrap all they meet in a cloth, in order 
 to take them captive, and cast them into a certain sea, as 
 it appears to them, or otherwise treat them savagely." 
 (A. C. 1267.) 
 
 "I was led, guarded, toward that misty rock; (to be led 
 to such spirits is not to be led from place to place, but it is 
 effected by means of intermediate societies of spirits and 
 angels, the man remaining in the same place ; and yet it ap- 
 pears to him as a letting down) . As I came near the rock I 
 was met w^ith a coldness which gripped the lower region 
 of my back." (A. C. 1268.) 
 
 After having been totally vastated, "the antediluvians 
 can serve as subjects, retaining only so much life as there 
 is in the bony parts of the human body. . . . They become 
 as skeletons or as lifeless appendages, and life is after- 
 wards breathed into them. Being scarcely aware of their 
 
154 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 own existence, or sensible, or conscious, they can thus serve 
 for bones, [in the grand monster of hell], into whom other 
 spirits can inflow." (S. D. 3912. See further A. C. 1270- 
 73; S. D. 3359, 3365, 4217.) 
 
 A terribly graphic description of their hell is given in 
 the CoRONis TO THE True Christian Religion, n. 38: 
 ''The hell of those who had been of the Most Ancient 
 Church is the most atrocious of all the hells. It consists of 
 those w^ho in the world had believed themselves to be as 
 God, according to the deceitful saying of the serpent,* 
 (Gen. 3:5); and deeper in that hell are those who had 
 persuaded themselves that they were altogether gods, from 
 the phantasy that God had transfused His Divinity into 
 men, and that thus there was no longer a God in the uni- 
 verse. From this direful persuasion a deadly stench ex- 
 hales out of that hell, which infests the neighboring regions 
 with so fierce a pestilence that when anyone approaches he 
 is at first seized with a delirious madness, and presently, 
 after convulsive motions, he seems to himself to be in the 
 agonies of death. I have seen a certain spirit near that 
 place, lying down as if dead, but on being removed thence 
 he revived. 
 
 ''That hell lies in the middle of the southern quarter, 
 surrounded with ramparts upon which stand spirits who 
 with the voice of a stentorian trumpet call out : ' Approach 
 no nearer!' 
 
 ' ' I have heard from the angels who were in heaven above 
 that hell, that the evil spirits [cacodoBmones] there appear 
 like poisonous serpents, twisted into inextricable folds, 
 which they derive from their vain devices and incantations, 
 by which they had persuaded the simple to acknowledge that 
 they were gods and that there was no God beside them. 
 The Ancients, who couched everything under fables, de- 
 scribed these by the 'Giants' who assaulted the camp of 
 the gods, and who were cast down by Jove with his thun- 
 derbolts, and were thrust beneath the fire-breathing Mount 
 
 * Nowadays represented by ' ' Christian Science ' ' and similar rep- 
 tiles. 
 
NOAB AND TEE FLOOD. 155 
 
 iEtna, and were called 'Cyclops.' They also called their 
 hells 'Tartarus' and the 'stagnant pools of Acheron,' and 
 the deeper places there they called 'Styx,' and those who 
 dwelt there they called 'Lemsean Hydras,' etc." 
 
 The Victory op the Lord over these Hells. 
 
 "They, who, before the Coming of the Lord, had been 
 of the Church and at the same time had been evil as to 
 life, were in such falsity as had not been before, and was 
 not'to be afterwards. The reason was that those who were 
 called Nephilim, and also Anakim and Rephaim, and were 
 of the last posterity of the Most Ancient Church, had not 
 yet been shut up in hell, but wandered about and infused 
 dire and deadly persuasions wherever they could, thus also 
 into those who were evil in the [Ancient] Church. This 
 was the source of such falsity." (A. C. 7686.) 
 
 The influence of these antediluvian spirits is very evi- 
 dent in the history of the Ancient Church and of the classic 
 world, especially in the insane love of battle and conquest, 
 dominion and tyranny, which arose in the declining days 
 of the Silver Age, to fill with blood and tragedy the his- 
 tory of Chaldea and Egypt, Assyria and Babylon, Media 
 and Persia, Greece and Rome, where kings and emperors 
 demanded to be worshiped as gods. In Rome, especially, 
 this love of dominion culminated about the time of the 
 Lord's Coming, producing monsters on earth such as 
 Marius and Sulla, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero and Caracalla, 
 persons clearly possessed by the devils of the Nephilim. 
 In Palestine, also, these devils were rampant, actually tak- 
 ing possession of the bodies of men and filling the land 
 with a continual uproar, slaughter, frenzy and madness. 
 At the head of this possessed nation of the Jews stood 
 Herod, the most furious madman of all, who murdered his 
 vTives and his own sons and massacred the babes of Beth- 
 lehem. With a cunning born from the hells of the Nephilim, 
 he knew that the Messiah was about to be bom, and with 
 tUir fear in his heart he "privily called the wise men, in- 
 quiring of them diligently what time the star had appeared. 
 
156 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, Go and search dili- 
 gently for the young child, and when ye have found him, 
 bring me word again, that I may come and worship him 
 also." (Matth. 2:7, 8.) 
 
 Through a representative such as Herod the hells of the 
 Nephilim were lying in wait, trembling with hatred and 
 fear, to destroy, if possible, the seed of the woman which 
 was to bruise the head of the serpent. Was it not prophe- 
 sied that "hell from beneath is moved for Thee to meet 
 Thee at Thy coming; it stirreth up the Rephaim for Thee, 
 even all the chief ones of the earth?" (Is. 14:9.) 
 
 "Such were the wicked tribes against whom the Lord 
 fought in His earliest childhood, and whom He conquered ; 
 and unless the Lord had conquered them by His coming 
 into the world, not a man would have been left at this 
 day upon the earth, for every man is governed by the Lord 
 by means of spirits. These same Nephilim are at this day 
 enclosed through their phantasies by what seems like a 
 misty rock, out of which they are continually but in vain 
 striving to rise. These, and others like them, are meant 
 by the words in Isaiah: 'The dead shall not live; the Re- 
 phaim shall not rise, because Thou hast visited and hast de- 
 stroyed them, and hast made all their memory to perish. ' ' ' 
 (Is.'26:14; A. C. 1673.) 
 
 In the fourteenth chapter of Genesis it is said that 
 Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, "smote the Rephaim in 
 Ashtaroth Kamaim, and the Zuzim in Cham, and the Emim 
 in Shaweh Kiriathaim, and the Horim in their ]\Iount 
 Seir. ' ' By Chedorlaomer, in the early chapters of the story 
 of Abraham, is signified the Lord in His infancy, who then 
 fought and overcame the hells of the antediluvians, which 
 were the first to attack Him because possessed of a cunning 
 and a malignant hatred more terrible than that existing 
 among the rest of the infemals. 
 
 How the infant Saviour could — as of Himself — ^have con- 
 quered these most malignant of all the hells we cannot de- 
 scribe. We only know that the victory is a fact of the uni- 
 versal Redemption which He wrought throughout His life 
 on the earth. We know also that the deepest hells are those 
 
NOAR AND TEE FLOOD. 157 
 
 which most furiously hate the innocence of childhood, and 
 that the diseases and death of so many little children is 
 due — under Providence — to their infernal malice. We 
 know, further, that the most decisive battles in our own 
 lives are fought, almost unconsciously, in our own child- 
 hood m resisting the beginnings of evil. The child is the 
 father of the man, and though the man may have forgot- 
 ten the battles of his cliildliood, he knows that then it was 
 that he chose the particular path upon which he is wan- 
 dering in adult life. Watch the little one, and you will 
 observe that he is continually choosing and selecting, run- 
 ning into one mischief, yet resisting the impulse to run 
 into another. The psychology of the phenomenon can be 
 known to the Lord alone, who is the only Father. 
 
 The history of the Lord's life on earth is foretold with 
 an astounding wealth of details in the "Messianic prophe- 
 cies" of the Old Testament. In the various books of the 
 Ancient Word, also, — as for instance the book known as 
 The Wars of Jehovah, — ^these Prophecies must have been 
 given with even greater details, as is evident from the 
 legends of a future Redeemer which abound in the my- 
 thologies of all ancient nations. Thus the combats of the 
 infant Lord are depicted in the Egyptian representations 
 of the infant Horus, trampling upon crocodiles and hold- 
 ing serpents and scorpions captive in his hands. And in 
 the Greek legend of Hercules, who most manifestly pre- 
 figures the Messiah, w^e read of two great pythonic serpents 
 attacking the babe in his cradle. But the babe reached out 
 his chubby fists, grasping a python in each hand, strang- 
 ling them to death. Thus also the Lord in His infancy 
 strangled to death the first impulses of evil arising from the 
 deepest of the hells to assail the Seed of the woman. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 LEGENDS OF CREATION. 
 
 Thus far we have followed the history of the Golden 
 Age as embodied in broad outlines in that portion of the 
 Ancient Word which has been preserved entire in the first 
 seven chapter of Genesis. As to the authenticity of these 
 most ancient records we learn that they were copied by 
 Moses from the Ancient Word and this with such care that 
 ''not even one little word is wanting." (S. S. 103; De 
 Verbo 15.) 
 
 This primeval Revelation was universally known through- 
 out the Ancient Church, the Church of the Silver Age, 
 which flourished after the flood in the land of Canaan, 
 Syria, Assyria, Babylonia and Egypt, and afterwards 
 spread in more or less diluted forms to the gentile nations in 
 almost every part of Europe, Asia and Africa, and, we 
 have reasons to believe, also of America and Polynesia. In 
 the course of time this Ancient Word was lost, but frag- 
 ments were preserved in the form of traditions and 
 legends which have been the common property of all the 
 subsequent ages and of all the divergent branches of our 
 race. 
 
 A comparative study of all these legends, — especially 
 those concerning the Creation of the world, the Paradise, 
 the Fall, and the Flood, — will show that while they all differ 
 from one another as to form, there are certain essential 
 features common to all, and that all of these essentials are 
 to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures and in them alone. 
 This fact proves incontestably that the Hebrew text, as 
 found in the early chapters of Genesis, is the original docu- 
 ment from which all the gentile legends are derived, and 
 that, in consequence, there is no foundation for the claims 
 of the "higher critics" that the Bible presents only a dis- 
 
 158 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION. 159 
 
 torted and vitiated version, or combination of forged texts, 
 of some Chaldean or other ancient codes. 
 
 "It is quite within the range of possibility and reason- 
 ableness," says Prof. Albert T. Clay in his Light on the 
 Old Testament from Babel, (Philadelphia, 1907, p. 75), 
 *'to conceive the idea that both stories [i. e., the Baby- 
 lonian Creation story and the Biblical one] have a common 
 origin among the Semites who entered Babylonia prior 
 to their amalgamation with the Smnerians, and who may 
 have also carried their traditions into Palestine. Contrary 
 to the view held by some critics, that the Hebrew story 
 belongs to the time of the exile or after, there are indica- 
 tions that it belongs to a great antiquity. And it is also 
 possible that in some way, unknown to us, it had been 
 handed down in a form more or less free from the fan- 
 tastically polytheistic features of the Babylonian version." 
 
 The comparative study of these ancient legends not only 
 brings collateral evidence of the integrity and authenticity 
 of the sacred text, but they in every case confirm the Reve- 
 lation given in the Writings of Swedenborg concerning the 
 spiritual history of the Most Ancient Church and the An- 
 cient Church, and this in a manner so self-evident and con- 
 vincing as to establish our faith in the New Revelation 
 upon an absolutely scientific ground. And, finally, this 
 study sheds an unexpected light upon all the mythological 
 systems of the ancient world, by affording a synoptic view 
 of their internal harmony with one another and with their 
 one and common source, — the Word of God. And the 
 same key by which the Lord in His Second Coming has 
 opened the Internal Sense of His Word, will unlock also 
 the rusty portals of fable and legend, tradition and myth. 
 
 The Assyrian Story of Creation. 
 
 The fragments of the ancient epic which are here pre- 
 sented were found by George Smith, ''the father of As- 
 syriology," at Kouyunjik, on the site of ancient Nineveh, 
 and first published to the modern world in the year 1875 ; 
 since then a number of other fragments have been found 
 
160 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 among the tablets preserv^ed in tlie British Museum. The 
 text itself dates from the time of Assurbanipal, (B. C. 668- 
 626), at whose command it was translated into Assyrian 
 from a far more ancient Babylonian text. The English 
 version is that found in the work of Prof. Clay, quoted 
 above, with which I have compared the German versions 
 published by Dr. Schrader in his Keilinschriften und 
 DAS Alte Testament, and by Dr. Alfred Jeremias in his 
 Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, (Leipzig 
 1906). 
 
 The first tablet as far as recovered, reads as follows : 
 
 ''When, above, heaven did not yet announce. 
 And the earth beneath was not yet called by a name. 
 The primordial Apsu was their begetter. 
 Mummu Tiamat was the bearer of them all ; 
 Their waters were mingled together in one body. 
 A field was not marked, a marsh was not seen, 
 When of the gods none was yet created, 
 And they bare not a name, and destinies had not been 
 
 fixed ; 
 Then the gods were created in the midst [of heaven] ; 
 Lakhmu and Lakhamu were called forth. 
 The days prolonged themselves; 
 Anshar and Kishar were created." 
 
 With this ancient fragment compare the words in Gen- 
 esis: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth. 
 And the earth was empty and void, and thick darkness upon 
 the faces of the abyss : and the spirit of God moved upon 
 the faces of the waters. ' ' 
 
 Both texts begin by describing the state of man before 
 his regeneration, — the unformed character of the Preadam- 
 ites and the state of every man before he is created a 
 spiritual man. There is with him an heaven and an earth, 
 an internal and external man, but ''heaven above did not 
 yet announce ' ' any revelation from God out of the internal 
 man, and the earth beneath is empty and void of good and 
 truth, and consequently "was not yet called by a name"; 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION. |6[ 
 
 the external man did not yet possess any truly human qual- 
 ity or ''name." 
 
 For there was "thick darkness upon the faces of the 
 abyss"; nothing but spiritual stupor and gross ignorance 
 reigned within the abyss of sensuous appetites in the natu- 
 ral man. The ''primordial Apsu" was the Divine be- 
 getter; by "Apsu" is meant "the house of wisdom," (Alf. 
 Jeremias, p. 7), perhaps the Logos, the Word "which was 
 in the beginning with God," and by which all things were 
 made. But "Mummu Tiamat" was the bearer or mother 
 of them all ; Mummu is the Assyrian word for the Hebrew 
 mayim, waters; and "Tiamat" is the same as the Hebrew 
 tehom, the abyss. There is no discrimination as yet be- 
 tween truth and falsity. God had not yet "divided the 
 waters from the waters," but "their waters were mingled 
 together in one body." Darkness reigned supreme, and 
 "none of the gods was yet created," — none of the funda- 
 mental truths of heaven had as yet shone forth upon the 
 lifeless earth of the sensuous man. 
 
 The first act of the spiritual creation is the revelation 
 of the Divine Truth. "And God said. Let there be Light, 
 and there was Light," or in the Assyrian legend, "Then 
 were the gods created in the midst of heaven." Lakhmu 
 and Lakhamu were called forth. These, according to Dr. 
 Jeremias "correspond to the heavenly world, and Anshar 
 and Kishar to the earthly world," (p. 7). 
 
 The rest of the first tablet describes the assault of the 
 abyss-woman Tiamat and her brood of monsters upon the 
 gods of heaven, by which perhaps is signified the first bat- 
 tles of the lusts in the unregenerate natural man against 
 the newly revealed truths of the internal man. 
 
 The second and third tablets tell of the preparations 
 made by Marduk (Merodach), the son of Ea, the supreme 
 God, for the coming battle against Tiamat, and the fourth 
 describes the battle itself: wildly shrieking "the ancient 
 dragon" advanced with wide-open mouth, but 
 
 The Lord drove in the evil wind, before she could shut her 
 lips. 
 
162 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The terrible wind filled her belly. 
 
 Her courage left her, and her mouth she opened wide. 
 
 He seized the spear, and burst her belly ; 
 
 He severed her inward parts ; he pierced her heart, 
 
 He overpowered her, and cut off her life; 
 
 He threw down her body, and stood upon it." 
 
 Her monstrous offspring then took to flight, whereupon 
 Marduk smashed her skull with his club, and "split her up 
 like a flat flsh into two parts. He took one half and estab- 
 lished a covering for heaven," — which reminds us of "the 
 division of the waters" of the abyss. 
 
 The story continues in the fifth tablet: 
 "He made the stations for the [two] great gods, [the sun 
 and the moon] ; 
 
 The stars, their images, the constellations he fixed. 
 
 He ordained the year, and into sections he divided it; 
 
 The twelve months he fixed by three stars ; 
 
 And after the days of the year he fixed by. . . . 
 
 He established the station of Nibir, [the sun] to deter- 
 mine their bounds, 
 
 In order that none might err or go astray. 
 
 Nannar [the moon] he caused to shine forth; 
 The night he entrusted to him. 
 
 He appointed him a Luminary for the night, to deter- 
 mine the days. ' ' 
 
 The rest of the tablet is fragmentary, but it is supposed 
 to refer to the creation of the vegetable kingdom. As a 
 whole, this portion closely corresponds to the account in 
 Genesis: "And God said, Let there be light in the firma- 
 ment of Heaven to divide the day from the night; and let 
 them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years. 
 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule 
 the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the 
 stars also. ' ' All of which, in the Assyrian as well as in the 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION. 163 
 
 Hebrew account, describes the birth of charity and faith in 
 the regenerating man. 
 
 Of the sixth tablet only the beginning has been preserved, 
 but it clearly refers to the creation of man on the sixth day : 
 
 "When Marduk heard the words of the gods. 
 His heart prompted him, and he devised [a plan] 
 He opened his mouth and unto Ea he spoke ; 
 'My blood will I take, and bone will I [fashion], 
 I will make man, that man may. . . . 
 I will create man who shall inhabit [the earth]. 
 That the service of the gods may be established, and that 
 [their] shrines [may be built].' " 
 
 A fragment of the seventh tablet reads as follows : 
 
 ''At that time the gods in their assembly created; 
 They made perfect the mighty monsters. 
 They caused the living creatures [of the field] to come 
 
 forth; 
 The cattle of the field, the [wild] beasts of the field, and 
 
 the creeping things of the field. 
 They fixed the habitations for the living creatures of the 
 
 field: 
 They distributed in their dwelling-places the cattle and 
 
 the creeping things of the city. 
 They made strong the multitude of the creeping things ; 
 
 all the offspring of the earth." 
 
 The rest of the tablet refers to the glorification of Marduk 
 by the other gods on account of his wonderful deeds as the 
 creator of heaven and earth. It probably contained also 
 a further account of the creation of man, which, in another 
 fragment, (Delitsch, 2, A. 80; F. 15-17) is thus referred to: 
 
 ' ' In order to save them, He created mankind. 
 The Merciful One, with whom is the calling into life. 
 May He establish, and may never His word be forgotten 
 In the mouth of the black-headed race whom His hands 
 created. ' ' 
 
164 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 The "black-headed race" was the national designation of 
 the Siimero-Akkadians, the earliest inhabitants of the Eu- 
 phrates valley. This tablet is, unfortunately, too mutilated 
 to be deciphered as a whole, but there is not the least doubt 
 as to the meaning of the part which is preserved. "Ana 
 padishunu ihnu avilutu," ''in order to save them [or, to 
 set free, or, redeem them], He created mankind." The 
 learned Dr. Schrader, admits that "it is not clear how the 
 sentence 'in order to save them' is to be understood in con- 
 nection Tvdth the rest," ("Wie das, 'um sie zu losen, in 
 dem Zusammenhange zu verstehen sei, is nicht klar ersicht- 
 lich"), but to a Newchurchman this sentence presents so 
 noble a conception of the Lord 's end in the creation of man- 
 kind, that he is startled to find it in a "heathen" legend. 
 "In order to save tliem, Be created mankind,'' that is, He 
 created them for no other purpose than to bless them with 
 eternal salvation. Who would have thought to find, amidst 
 the dust-heaps of ancient Nineveh, this precious pearl of 
 spiritual truth, this glorious ray of light from the vanished 
 sun of the Ancient Word ! 
 
 The Chaldean Legend. 
 
 The following account dates from the time of Alexander 
 the Great, when a Chaldean priest, named Berosus, trans- 
 lated into Greek the history and sacred traditions of his 
 native country. Babylonia. His work as a whole has been 
 lost, but fragments were copied by two subsequent writers, 
 Polyhistor and ApoUodorus, and have been collected by 
 Cory in his Ancient Fragments. 
 
 "There was a time when nothing existed but darkness, 
 and an abj^ss of waters wherein most hideous beings resided. 
 
 ' ' The person who presided over them was a woman named 
 Omorka, which, in the Chaldean language, is Tiamat, in 
 Greek, Thalassa, the sea. 
 
 "All things being in this [chaotic] condition, the god 
 Belus came and cut the woman asunder. 
 
 "And of one half of her he formed the earth, and of the 
 other half the heavens, and at the same time he destroyed 
 the animals within her. 
 
LEGENDS OF CEEATION. 165 
 
 ''The whole universe consisting of moisture, and ani- 
 mals being continually generated therein, Belus took off 
 his own head; upon which the other gods mixed the blood, 
 as it gushed out, with the earth; and from thence were 
 formed men. 
 
 ' ' On this account it is that they are rational, and partake 
 of Divine knowledge. 
 
 ''This Belus, by whom is signified Jupiter, divided the 
 darkness, and separated the heavens from the earth, and 
 reduced the universe to order. 
 
 "Belus also formed the stars, and the sun, and the five 
 planets. ' ' 
 
 The Chaldean legend, as will be seen, closely resembles 
 the Assyrian account. The abyss-woman, Omorka, is the 
 female dragon, Mummu Tiamat, the Hebrew teJiom, the 
 unregenerate nature of the sensual man; and the hideous 
 animals within her are the lusts and persuasions of the old 
 proprium. The Chaldean account is unique in describing 
 the creation of man as resulting from the creator "taking 
 off his own head," the signification of which is obscure. 
 But there is no obscurity as to the meaning of the "blood" 
 of the god, the Divine Truth, whence men "are rational 
 and partake of Divine Knowledge." Compare the words 
 in Genesis 2 : 6, 7 : " And there went up a mist from the 
 earth and watered all the faces of the ground. And Je- 
 hovah God formed man dust of the ground, and breathed 
 into his nostrils the breath of lives; and man became a 
 living soul. 
 
 The Egyptian Cosmogony. 
 
 For many years the Egyptologists were unable to find 
 among the papyri any connected account of the creation 
 of the world, but in the year 1904, Dr. E. A. Wallis Budge 
 in the first volume of his great work The Gods of the 
 Egyptians, published two versions of a Creation story. 
 These are, however, so involved, obscure, and in places 
 obscene, that we cannot introduce them here as a whole. 
 Both are entitled "The Book of knowing the evolutions of 
 
166 TEB GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Ra and the overthrowing of Apep. " Ea is the Sun of the 
 spiritual world, the Divine creative Word, and Apep is the 
 great w^orld-serpent. Ra tells the story of how all things 
 came forth from his mouth. "Heaven did not exist, nor 
 the earth, nor had the things of the earth and the creeping 
 things been created. I raised them up from Nu, the 
 primeval abyss of water, from a state of inactivity." The 
 rest of the story bears no resemblance to the scriptural ac- 
 count or to any other story that we have seen. "Men 
 and women came into being from the tears which flowed 
 forth from my eye." The future will no doubt bring 
 forth papyri more similar to that document from which 
 Moses copied the first chapters of Genesis, for he must 
 have done this work either in Egypt or during his exile 
 in the land of Midian. As the adopted son of Pharaoh's 
 daughter it is likely that he was brought up in the learn- 
 ing of the Egyptians. 
 
 Among the papjTi there are many scattered references 
 to the liistory of creation, from which Dr. Brugsch has 
 compiled the following summary in his Religion und 
 Mythologie der Alten ^gypter, (Vol. I., p. 101) : 
 
 "In the beginning there was neither Heaven nor earth. 
 Encompassed with thick darkness, a boundless ocean filled 
 the all, concealing in its bosom the germ of the future 
 world. 
 
 "The Divine Spirit, feeling the impulse to creative ac- 
 tivity, by His word called the world into life, according 
 to the prototype which from eternity had existed within 
 His OT^-n mind. Corresponding to this prototype, or 'the 
 Truth, ' the world was made as to its body, forms, and color. 
 
 "The first beginning of creation was the production of 
 an egg from the primeval ocean, and out of it broke forth 
 the 'Light of Day,' (i?a), and this was the immediate 
 cause of life upon the earth. 
 
 "The creative word itself is called by the name of Ftali, 
 the 'opener,' the 'God of Truth.' " 
 
 In the Book of the Dead Ptah is said to have created the 
 primeval ocean by means of his thoughts. 
 
 "The Nile poured forth its waters at the command of 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION, 167 
 
 Ptah. The light, following upon it, beautified the region 
 of Seb. Yet this region was still a waste. No trace of 
 thinking beings could be found. 
 
 "Afterwards 'the Most Holy,' brought forth the green 
 things of the earth, and the trees which every year produce 
 all kinds of fruits and refreshing drinks." 
 
 In another papyrus we find the following allusions to the 
 creation of man, and the institution of the Sabbath: 
 
 "A song of praise to the Builder, who made the world 
 for me, for a home of man, the image of the Creator. 
 
 "Mine is the government, mine who am the Prince, who 
 hath commanded the stated festivals of the Most Holy; 
 mine, who am he that ordered the year of the sun, who 
 commanded the celebration of the seventh day of the week, 
 the celebration of the new moon at On." (Fisher, Heiden- 
 
 THUM UND OfFENBARUNG, p. 321.) 
 
 This account is almost Johannine in its doctrine of the 
 Logos, the creative Word, and contains many features re- 
 sembling the Hebrew narrative. 
 
 The Aryan Legend. 
 
 In the Rig Veda, the most ancient sacred code belong- 
 ing to that original stock whence sprang all the Indo-Euro- 
 pean races, the creation of the world is thus described : 
 
 ' ' There was at that time neither the non-existing, nor the 
 existing. Space was not, nor Heaven by the side of space. 
 What was it that so powerfully concealed all? Where was 
 the water, the unfathomable, the deep? 
 
 "Death was not then, nor immortality. There was no 
 sign of day or of night. Moved by no wind, there was 
 breathing alone, activity, in the Divine Essence. Besides 
 this there was absolutely nothing. 
 
 "Darkness was. All was in the beginning an indistin- 
 guishable ocean, hidden by the Darkness. The great thing 
 which was closed up by the Nothing, this was bom from 
 the might of the Tapa. 
 
 "Kama came first into existence. He was the first-bom 
 seed of the Spirit. 
 
168 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 "Who knowetli it, in truth? Who is able to announce 
 it here, whence was this creation? Hither the gods have 
 come through this sending; but who knoweth whence He 
 Himself hath come?" (Quoted by Fisher, p. 70.) 
 
 By the "Kama," in the Sanscrit, is meant the Logos, the 
 Word, whence is all the Light of Truth. With the words 
 "moved by no wind, there was breathing alone, activity 
 in the Divine Essence," compare the sacred text: "And 
 the Spirit of God moved upon the faces of the waters," 
 (Gen. 1:2), by which is signified the Divine Mercy, by 
 gentle and continual activity calling into life the remains 
 or seeds of good and truth which during infancy were con- 
 cealed and treasured up within every man. (A. C. 19.) 
 
 In the tenth book of the Rig Veda we find also the tradi- 
 tion that all things were made out of the mangled limbs 
 of Purusha, a gigantic supernatural man, who was sacri- 
 ficed by the gods, as Ymir was slain by Odhin and his 
 brothers. 
 
 The following bit of ancient Hindu philosophy is of 
 special interest. 
 
 "Prajapati, (the universal Infinite), formed the animals 
 from his breath, ma7i from his soul. The soul is the first 
 of the breaths, since he formed man from his soul. There- 
 fore they say that 'man is the first of the animals and the 
 strongest. The soul is all the breaths, for all the breaths 
 depend upon the soul. Since he formed man from his soul, 
 therefore they say "man is all the animals, for all these 
 are man's.' " (Muir's Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I, p. 24.) 
 
 The Greek Legend. 
 
 From the Eevelation given to the New Church it is known 
 that "the science of correspondences was cultivated in 
 many kingdoms of Asia, and especially in the land of 
 Canaan, Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, Syria, Arabia, and in 
 Tyre, Sidon, and Nineveh ; also, that it was carried thence 
 from the maritime districts into Greece; but there it was 
 turned into fables, as is evident from the writings of the 
 earliest authors there." (S. S. 21.) 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION. 169 
 
 Among these ' ' earliest authors ' ' were Homer and Hesiod, 
 who, according to various estimates, lived anywhere be- 
 tween 1000 and 700 B. C. Of Homer, the author of the 
 Iliad and the Odyssey, we know that he composed his im- 
 mortal epics in a correspondential or representative style, 
 as is shown in the Arcana Ccelestia, 2762, where the corre- 
 spondence of the Trojan horse is given. But it is espe- 
 cially Hesiod, who, in his Theogony, relates the origin of 
 gods and men, and who describes the creation of the world 
 as follows: 
 
 *' First Chaos was; next ample-bosomed earth, 
 The seat eternal and immovable 
 Of deathless gods, who still th' Olympian heights 
 Snow-topt inhabit. Third, in hollow depth 
 Of the vast ground, expanded wide above 
 The gloomy Tartarus. Love then arose, 
 Most beauteous of immortals — 
 From Chaos, Erebus and sable Nyx [were born]. 
 From Nyx arose the Ether and the Day, 
 Whom she, with dark embrace of Erebus, 
 Commingling bore. 
 
 Her first-bom Earth produced, 
 Of like immensity, the starry Heaven; 
 That He might sheltering compass her around 
 On every side, and be for evermore 
 To the blest gods a mansion unremoved." 
 
 (From C. A. Elton's translation.) 
 
 Hesiod quickly passes over the story of creation, and 
 proceeds immediately" to the description of the birth of the 
 Titanic race, of whom Chronos, or Saturn, was the young- 
 est. But in the few lines quoted above we may still trace 
 the leading features of the Biblical account of creation, or 
 of the establishment of the Most Ancient Church. ' ' Chaos ' ' 
 is the mixed state of man before regeneration, before he 
 has begun to discriminate between good and evil. ' ' Gloomy 
 Tartarus" is the ''abyss" of the Bible, the "Tiamat" of 
 the Assyrian legend, the "Omorka" of Berosus, the lusts 
 
170 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 of the unregenerate man. "Love," or "Eros," would 
 seem to correspond to "the Spirit of God moving upon 
 the waters." "Erebus," (which signifies evening), and 
 "sable Night," answer to the "thick darkness upon the 
 faces of the abyss." 
 
 Then follow "Ether and the Day," which clearly stand 
 for the "Light" which was the "beginning of the working 
 of God," and finally there comes forth "Heaven," or the 
 god Uranos, who signifies the Celestial Church of the Golden 
 Age. But these things stand forth more clearly in the 
 Metamorphoses of Ovid. 
 
 The Latin Legend. 
 
 The statement in the Doctrine concerning the Sacred 
 Scripture, n. 21, as to the correspondential style of the 
 Greek fables, is thus stated and amplified in the little work 
 On the Word, {De Verho), n. 7: "Similar were the rest 
 of the things which are termed fables, which were com- 
 posed by the most ancient writers in Greece, and which 
 were collected together and described by Ovid in his Meta- 
 morphoses. ' ' 
 
 Of all the ancient legends of creation the one presented 
 by Ovid in his first two Fables is certainly the most sys- 
 tematic. Though it is based on the brief account given 
 by Hesiod, it is clear that the author consulted other docu- 
 ments, now unknown, in the compilation of his noble col- 
 lection. The first Fable reads as follows, in the translation 
 of Henry T. Eiley: 
 
 "At first the sea, the earth, and heaven which covers all 
 things, were the only face of nature throughout the whole 
 universe, which men have named Chaos; a rude and un- 
 digested mass, and nothing more than an inert weight, and 
 the discordant atoms of things not harmonizing, heaped 
 together in the same spot. 
 
 "No Sun as yet gave light to the world; nor did the 
 Moon by increasing, recover her horns anew. The earth 
 did not as yet hang in the surrounding air, balanced by its 
 own weight, nor had Amphitrite, [the goddess of the ocean], 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION. 171 
 
 stretched out her arms along the lengthened margin of the 
 coasts. 
 
 "Wherever, too, was the land, there also was the sea 
 and the air; and thus was the earth without firmness, the 
 sea unnavigable, the air void of light; in no one of them 
 did its present form exist. 
 
 "And one was ever obstructing the other; because in 
 the same body the cold was striving with the hot, the moist 
 with the dry, the soft with the hard, things having weight 
 with those devoid of weight." 
 
 Thus far the Fable has described the pruneval condi- 
 tion of the earth, while it was empty, void and dark. Now 
 follow the separation of the waters and the firmament, and 
 the coming forth of Light. 
 
 ' ' To this discord God and bounteous Nature put an end ; 
 for he separated the earth from the heavens, and the waters 
 from the earth, and distinguished the clear heavens, [the 
 ether], from the gross atmosphere. 
 
 "And after he had unravelled these elements, and re- 
 leased them from that confused heap, he combined them, 
 thus disjoined, in harmonious unison, each in its proper 
 place. 
 
 "The element of the vaulted heaven, fiery and without 
 weight, shone forth, and selected a place for itself in the 
 highest region ; next after it, both in lightness and in place, 
 was the air; the Earth was more weighty than these, and 
 drew with it the more ponderous atoms, and was pressed 
 together by its own gravity. 
 
 "The encircling waters sank to the lowermost place, and 
 surrounded the solid globe." 
 
 One cannot avoid a feeling of astonishment at the knowl- 
 edge of natural law possessed by Ovid, the knowledge of 
 the law of gravitation, for instance, of the different atmos- 
 pheres, and of the rotundity of the earth, — facts "dis- 
 covered" a thousand and more years later by Galileo, Cor- 
 pemicus, and Newton! Whence did Ovid possess this 
 knowledge ? Does it not point to a very advanced state of 
 science in ancient times, a science derived not so much 
 from external observation, as from a knowledge of corre- 
 
172 TRE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 spondenees and from deductive reasoning, a priori, it is 
 true, but still arriving at correct conclusions? 
 
 In the second Fable the author speaks with amazing 
 scientific accuracy of the conformation of the globe and 
 of the zones, and refers briefly to the creation of the planets, 
 the heavenly lights, and the animals, very much in the 
 order presented in the first chapter of Genesis. 
 
 ' ' When thus He, whoever of the gods He was, had divided 
 the mass so separated, and reduced it, so divided, into dis- 
 tinct members; in the first place, that it might not be un- 
 equal on any side. He gathered it up into the form of a 
 vast globe; then He commanded the sea to be poured 
 around it, and to grow boisterous with the raging winds, 
 and to surround the shores of the earth, encompassed by 
 it. . . . 
 
 "He commanded the plains, also, to be extended, the 
 valleys to sink do\^Ti, the woods to be clothed with green 
 leaves, the craggy mountains to arise ; and, as on the right- 
 hand side, two Zones intersect the heavens, and as many on 
 the left, and as there is a fifth hotter than these, so did 
 the care of the Deity distinguish this enclosed mass of the 
 Earth by the same number, and as manj^ climates are 
 marked out upon the Earth. 
 
 ''Of these, that which is the middle one, is not habitable 
 on account of the heat; deep snow covers two of them. 
 Between either these He placed as many more, and gave 
 them a temperate climate, heat being mingled with cold. 
 
 . . . Scarcely had He separated all these by fixed limits, 
 when the stars, which had long lain hid, concealed beneath 
 the mass of Chaos, began to glow through the range of 
 the heavens. 
 
 "And that no region might be destitute of its own 
 peculiar animated beings, the stars and the forms of the 
 Gods, [the Sun and the Moon, Apollo and Diana], possess 
 the tract of heaven ; the waters fell to be inhabited by the 
 smooth fishes ; the Earth received the wild beasts, and the 
 yielding air the birds." 
 
 The cosmogonic Fable concludes with a sublime account 
 of the creation of man, in which are clearly visible the in- 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION. 173 
 
 fluences of the Chaldean and Egyptian traditions, if not, 
 indeed, also some more direct acquaintance with the Word 
 of the Ancient Church. 
 
 "But an animated being, more holy than these, more 
 fitted to receive higher faculties, and which could rule over 
 the rest, was still wanting. 
 
 ' ' Then Man was formed. Whether it was that the Arti- 
 ficer of all things, the original of the world in its improved 
 state, framed him from Divine elements; or whether the 
 Earth, being newly made, and but lately divided from the 
 lofty ether, still retained some atoms of its kindred heaven, 
 which, tempered with the waters of the stream, the son of 
 lapetus, [Prometheus], fashioned after the image of the 
 gods, who rule over all things. 
 
 "And, whereas other animals bend their looks down- 
 wards upon the earth, to man He gave a countenance to 
 look on high and to behold the heavens, and to raise his 
 face erect to the stars. 
 
 ' ' Thus, that which had been lately rude earth, and with- 
 out any regular shape, being changed, assumed the form 
 of Man, till then unknown. ' ' 
 
 Then, in the next Fable, follows the famous story of 
 the Four Ages, as, in the Word, the story of creation is 
 followed by the history of the Ancient Churches, — Adam, 
 Noah, and Israel, — and these by the Christian Church. 
 
 The Scandinavian Saga. 
 
 Of all the ancient legends of the Creation, there is none 
 more grand and beautiful than the one contained in the 
 Elder Edda, the Icelandic epic, in which are preserved 
 the religious traditions of the common ancestors of the 
 Scandinavian and the Anglo-Saxon races. 
 
 The Vala, or inspired prophetess who is represented as 
 singing her song at the command of Odhin, thus be- 
 gins her mysterious lay, the "Voluspa, " of which we 
 here present some extracts in a literal translation of our 
 0"WTi: 
 
174 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 "Hearken now, all ye 
 Heaven-born races, 
 Children of Heimdal, 
 Everywhere. 
 Valfather's wonderful 
 Works I will tell you, 
 Tales of most ancient 
 Times that I know." 
 
 Many ages before the earth had been made, two worlds 
 existed: Niflheim, the world of darkness, cold, and nebu- 
 lous clouds, far to the north; and Muspelheim, the bright 
 world of fire and flame far to the south. Between these two 
 there was nought but a yawning abyss, called Ginungagap. 
 The two worlds clearly correspond to the "heaven and 
 earth" of Genesis, Muspelheim being the internal man, in 
 which the Lord with His infinite love dwells with man, and 
 Niflheim, the external man, the selfhood, the abode of dark- 
 ness and spiritual death. Ginungagap is the "abyss," the 
 "chaos," which is common to all the legends. 
 
 The Edda continues: 
 
 "T'was the morning of ages. 
 When Ymir builded. 
 Sand was not seen, nor 
 Billowing sea. 
 The earth had not risen, 
 Nor heaven above it; 
 Ginungagap was. 
 But grass grew not." 
 
 "Ymir," whose name strangely resembles that of 
 "Omorka," was a "frost-giant," an evil being who came 
 into existence when, in the midst of Ginungagap, the sparks 
 of fire from Muspelheim met the venomous vapor exhaling 
 from Niflheim. In Ymir we may recognize the sensual 
 man, the first state and degree of our conscious life, the 
 plane which has life only from the Lord in the internal 
 man, but individual existence and form only from our 
 
LEGENDS OF CBEATION. 175 
 
 hereditary proprium. But the life of regeneration is about 
 to begin: 
 
 ''Then the mighty ones 
 
 Moved to the judgment, 
 
 The gods all-holy 
 
 Their council held. 
 
 To night and sunset 
 
 Names they rendered; 
 
 Morning from mid-day 
 
 They set apart, — 
 
 Twilight and evening 
 
 To tell the years." 
 
 This calls to mind the first day of creation, when "God 
 called the light, day, and the darkness He called night. 
 And the evening and the morning were the first day." 
 
 "The sons of Bure 
 The lands now builded; 
 From out of the ocean 
 Fair Midgard formed. 
 The Sun shone southward 
 On stones and earth-walls; 
 Then in the ground 
 Grew herbage green." 
 
 "Midgard" is the "dry land," the inhabitable earth, 
 which appeared in the midst of the waters. The "sons of 
 Bure" were the three creative divinities, Odhin, Vile and 
 Ve, the last two of whom are also called Hoener and Lodur. 
 They may be compared to the "Elohim" of the Scriptures, 
 a "plural of majesty." 
 
 These three slew the giant Ymir, as Bel slew Omorka, 
 or as IMerodach slew Tiamat, and the creation of all things 
 on earth was then accomplished in the following manner: 
 
 "Of Ymir's hulk 
 The earth was shapened. 
 His blood made billows. 
 
176 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 His bones made bergs. 
 The hair formed bushes 
 And heaven high 
 From his skull was made. 
 Next, from his eyebrows 
 The mighty powers 
 Midgard made 
 For the sons of men. 
 But of his brains 
 Were made the baleful 
 And gloomy clouds 
 Of the lowering sky." 
 
 There is preserved here a precious relic of the ancient 
 "anthropomorphic" idea of the Grand Man, the idea that 
 the whole universe, the macrocosm, is stamped with the 
 human form. The details may be difficult of interpreta- 
 tion, but the last lines, describing the creation of the clouds, 
 suggest the thought that all doiihts arise from the sensual 
 understanding of the proprium, the brains of Ymir. 
 
 We come finally to the creation of man : 
 
 "And, last, three Asar, 
 Blithesome and mighty, 
 From the gods went forward 
 To Midgard 's house. 
 There on the ground 
 They found the helpless 
 Ask and Embla 
 Without a use. 
 No spirit had they. 
 No understanding. 
 No blood, or motion. 
 Or blooming hue. 
 Odhin gave spirit, 
 Hoener gave reason, 
 Lodur gave blood 
 And blooming hue." 
 
LEGENDS OF CREATION. I77 
 
 ''Ask" and "Embla" were two trees, the Ash and the 
 Ehn, from which were created the first man and the first 
 woman, Adam and Eve. The reader is reminded, here, of 
 Swedenborg's description, in the Worship and Love of 
 God, of the creation of the first pair, on trees in the para- 
 dise. It is possible that this idea was suggested to him by 
 the legends of his northern ancestors. Whether we look 
 upon this as a scientific fact or as an allegory, the spiritual 
 meaning of the legend unfolds itself when we know that 
 a tree signifies perception; that the Lord created the first 
 men with the faculty of natural perception ; and that these 
 men became celestial as their perception became that celes- 
 tial perception which constitutes the highest of all human 
 faculties. 
 
 The Chinese Doctrine of Creation. 
 
 The Chinese cosmogony is presented by Confucius in the 
 form of questions and answers. We give the following 
 excerpt as translated by Canon M'Clatchie: 
 
 "At the beginning of Heaven and Earth, before Chaos 
 w^as divided, I think there were only two things. Fire and 
 water, and the sediment of the water formed the Earth. 
 When we ascend a height and look down, the host of 
 hills resemble the waves of the sea in appearance; the 
 water just flowed like this. I know not at what period it 
 coagulated. At first it was very soft, but afterwards it 
 coagulated and became hard. 
 
 "Someone asked whether it resembled sand thrown up 
 by the tide ? He replied, Just so : the coarsest sediment of 
 the water became the earth, and the most pure portion of 
 the Fire became Wind, Thunder, Lightning, Sun, and 
 Stars. 
 
 "He was asked: From the commencement of Heaven 
 and Earth to the present time is not ten thousand years ; 
 I know not how it was before that time? 
 
 "He replied. Before that time there was another clear 
 opening, {i. e., another Heaven and Earth*), like the 
 
 * Or, perhaps, another Divine Eevelation and Dispensation. 
 12 
 
178 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 present one. Being further asked whether Heaven and 
 Earth can altogether perish, he replied, They cannot, but 
 when mankind totally degenerate, then the whole shall re- 
 turn to chaos, and men and things shall cease to exist ; and 
 then the World shall hegin anew. (Italics our owti.) 
 
 ''Someone asked how the first man was generated? And 
 he replied, By the transmutation of the atmosphere: the 
 subtle portions of the Light and Darkness and the Fire 
 Elements united and produced his form. 
 
 "Before Chaos was divided, the Light-Dark air was 
 mixed up and dark, and when it was divided the centre 
 formed an enormous and most brilliant opening, and the 
 two E were established. Shaon Kang-tsee considers 129,600 
 years to be a Yuen, (Kalpa) ; then, before this period of 
 129,000 years, there was another opening and spreading 
 out of the world ; and before that again, there was another 
 like the present ; so that Motion and Rest, Light and Dark- 
 ness, have no beginning. 
 
 "Being asked whether the multitude of things existed 
 before Heaven and Earth were divided, he replied: There 
 was merely the idea of each thing. Heaven and Earth 
 generate all things, and throughout all time, ancient and 
 modem, cannot be separated from all things." (His- 
 torians' History of the World, Yol. I, pp. 34, 35.) 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 LEGENDS OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 As with each of the nations descended from the Ancient 
 Church there was a legend of the Creation of the world 
 and of man, so also there were with them traditions of a 
 Golden Age, of a primeval state of perfect innocence, wis- 
 dom and blessedness, in which, as in a garden of delights, 
 (Eden signifies "delight"), the first ancestors of the human 
 race dwelt in tranquility and peace, nurtured by the Tree 
 of Life. 
 
 That these traditions have their common origin in the 
 first chapters of the Bible, is admitted by all sane savants. 
 ''The Bible narrative," says Lenormant, "is not one iso- 
 lated tale, unconnected with the traditions of other nations, 
 and proceeding only from the pen of Moses. It is on the 
 contrary the most complete and authentic form of a grand 
 primitive tradition, which can be traced back to the earliest 
 ages of humanity, and has originally been common to all 
 races and all peoples, and been carried all over the world, 
 by the dispersion of these races on the surface of the earth. 
 In his narration of this history the Hebrew legislator has 
 faithfully reproduced the ancient memories preserved from 
 age to age among the Patriarchs, and, by a special dispen- 
 sation of Providence, favored by the isolated and nomadic 
 life led by the family of Abraham, less corrupted among 
 them than among the surrounding nations. He has, as- 
 sisted by the light of inspiration, restored their true char- 
 acter to facts elsewhere frequently obscured by polytheism 
 and idolatry. . . . We shall find in one place or another 
 all its essential features, even those parts of the tradition 
 that are difficult to understand literally, and where we may 
 be allowed to suppose allegorical and figurative expres- 
 sions." (Ancient History of the East, Vol. I, p. 9.) 
 
 179 
 
180 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 All this is eminently satisfactory to a Newchurclnnan, 
 and one cannot but wonder that with such teaching before 
 them the most modern critics and students of comparative 
 mythology should have gone so far astray as to seek to in- 
 vert the true relations between Scripture and tradition. 
 It is astonishing, also, that with all their minute labors, 
 the learned world has not produced any one work in 
 which all these traditions are actually brought together 
 in the form of original documents. But most marvellous 
 of all is the fact that the revelations concerning the An- 
 cient Churches and concerning the Ancient "Word have 
 been published broadcast to the world for a century and a 
 half, and yet, outside the small circle of the New Church, 
 the world, the learned world as well as the common people, 
 remains as profoundly ignorant of the existence of this in- 
 exhaustible fountain of information and interpretation, as 
 if it had never been opened up. It is evident that few are 
 able to discover it or approach it, for the internal sense 
 of the Word and of History, like the Garden of Delights 
 of the Golden Age, remains guarded by the angel with the 
 flaming sword. 
 
 The Assyrian Legend. 
 
 No tablet has been found, as yet, describing Paradise or 
 the Golden Age, but that the Sumero- Akkadians, that is, 
 the earliest Hamitic inhabitants of Chaldea, possessed docu- 
 ments or traditions similar to the account in the second and 
 third chapters of Genesis, is evident from a cylinder found 
 by George Smith and now preserved in the British Mu- 
 seum. It pictures a man and a woman, seated on opposite 
 sides of a tree from which hang two fruits. Their hands 
 are reaching for the fruits, and behind the woman is seen 
 an enormous serpent, standing erect on his tail, and whis- 
 pering in her ear. The cylinder is supposed to date from 
 between four to five thousand years B. C, and is the most 
 ancient sample of "Scripture illustrations" that has yet 
 been found. (See frontispiece, Fig. 1.) 
 
 In Assyrian art and literature, the Tree of Life plays a 
 
LEGENDS OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 181 
 
 most prominent part. Assyria, as we know, corresponds 
 to the Rational, and is represented in the Word by the 
 Cedar tree, erect, strong, enduring, and furnished with 
 needle-like leaves, even as the rational man is furnished 
 with pointed arguments. 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, to find that the sacred tree 
 of the Assyrians is always depicted as a cone-bearing tree, 
 probably the Cedar, but highly elaborated and convention- 
 alized in form. It is known as the ''Asherah," or tree of 
 blessings, and is the same as the carved ''groves," which 
 were set up on "high places" and worshipped by the 
 Canaanites and idolatrous Jews. (See frontispiece. Fig. 3.) 
 
 The Assyrian Tree of Life is described in a tablet which 
 has been deciphered and translated in The Records of the 
 Past, (Vol. IX, p. 146). 
 
 "In Eridu a dark pine grew. 
 In a holy place it was planted. 
 
 Its crown was white crystal which spread towards the deep. 
 The abyss of Ea was its pasturage in Eridu, a canal full 
 
 of waters. 
 Its seat was the central place of the earth. 
 Its shrine was the couch of the primeval mother. 
 The roof of its holy house like a forest spread its shade; 
 There was none who entered not within." 
 
 With this may be compared the "world-ash," Yggdrasil, 
 of Scandinavian Mythology. 
 
 The Chaldean Story of Cannes. 
 
 We will insert here the story concerning Cannes, the Fish- 
 god, as related by Berosus of Babylon. It is of interest 
 as illustrating the original ignorance of the Preadamites, — 
 the "thick darkness upon the faces of the abyss." The 
 key to the interpretation of the legend lies in the significa- 
 tion of a "fish" as the correspondent of the knowledge of 
 natural truth. 
 
 In the beginning, says Berosus, Chaldea was inhabited 
 
182 
 
 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 »^ fe ^ 
 
 by a great mass of people who ' ' lived without rule or order, 
 like the beasts of the field. In the first year there made 
 its appearance from the Erythrean Sea, [the Persian Gulf], 
 an animal endowed with reason, who was called Cannes. 
 The whole body of this animal was like that of a fish, but 
 beneath the fish's head he had another head similar to that 
 
 of a man, and the feet of a man 
 beneath the fish's tail. His voice, 
 too, and his language, were ar- 
 ticulate and human, and his 
 figure could be seen represented 
 at Babylon even in the time of 
 the writer, Berosus. This Being 
 in the daytime used to converse 
 with men, but he took no food 
 at that season ; and he gave them 
 a knowledge of letters, and of 
 science, and of every kind of art. 
 He taught them how to construct 
 houses, to found temples, to com- 
 pile laws; and he explained to 
 them the principles of geomet- 
 rical knowledge. He made them 
 distinguish the seeds of the 
 earth, and showed them how to 
 collect fruits. In short, he in- 
 structed them in everything 
 which could tend to soften man- 
 ners and humanize mankind. 
 From that time, so universal 
 were his instructions, nothing 
 has been added materially by 
 way of improvement. When the 
 sun set, it was the custom of this Being to plunge again 
 into the sea, and abide all night in the deep." (Bryant, 
 The Analysis of Ancient Mythology, Vol. Ill, p. 103.) 
 It was this Cannes, adds Berosus, who wrote the first 
 account of the Creation of all things. 
 
 Comparing this legend with the more ancient docu- 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 183 
 
 ments recently unearthed from the mounds of Babylonia, 
 we find that the name ''Oannes" is the Greek form of the 
 Babylonian Ea-khan, Ea the fish. "Ea" was the name 
 of the supreme God of the Babylonian Pantheon, and is 
 a remnant of the Hebrew "Jah" or '^ Jehovah." Ea was 
 ''the god who knoweth all," the father of all the gods, 
 and the one with whom all the other gods took council. 
 He was ''the lord of unfathomable wisdom," whose dwell- 
 ing was "in the great deep," by which the ancients meant 
 the depth of Infinite Wisdom. The clay tablets state that 
 in the earliest times, when the country was new^ and the 
 inhabitants were rude and ignorant, Ea arose out of the 
 ocean in the form of a fish and instructed mankind in all 
 matters of civilization. Hence Ea is called "the intelligent 
 fish," "the teacher of mankind," "the God of knowledge" 
 and "the Lord of understanding." The story of Oannes, 
 therefore, is only the echo of a most ancient tradition of the 
 manner in which Jehovah God first revealed himself to 
 the newly created human race, guiding their infant feet 
 upon the first steps toward human development by in- 
 structing them in the knowledge of natural truth. Thou- 
 sands of years later, in the decline of the Silver Age, the 
 veneration of Ea khan was perverted into the idolatrous 
 worship of Dagon, the Philistine fish-god. 
 
 The Egyptian Legend. 
 
 "Among the Egyptians," says Lenormant, "the terres- 
 trial reign of the god Ra, who inaugurated the existence 
 of the world and of human life, was a Golden Age, to 
 which they continually looked back with regret and envy; 
 to assert the superiority of anything above all that im- 
 agination could set forth, it was sufficient to affirm that its 
 like had never been seen since the day^ of the God Ra. 
 The same idea is found again in the Egyptian account of 
 the succession of the terrestrial reign of the gods, the demi- 
 gods, heroes, and men, as collected from the fragments of 
 Manetho." (Beginnings of History, pp. 67, 73.) 
 
 The creation of man and woman is a frequent subject 
 
184 
 
 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 of representation in the papyri, where the god Neph, or 
 Chnemn, — the supreme and infinite God, whose all-father- 
 hood is represented by the ram's head, — is seen fashion- 
 ing our first parents on a potter's table. 
 
 The memory of the 
 preadamite state sur- 
 vived in Egypt also. 
 ''Some of the Egyp- 
 tians, ' ' saj'^ ]\Iaspero, 
 ' ' affirmed that their first 
 ancestors were so many 
 brutes, unprovided with 
 the most essential arts of 
 a gentle life. They knew 
 nothing of articulate 
 speech, and expressed 
 themselves by cries only, 
 like other animals, until 
 the day when Thoth 
 taught them both speech 
 and waiting. ' ' ( History 
 OF Egypt, Vol. I, p. 
 296.) Thoth was the 
 *' scribe of the gods," — the revealed Word. 
 
 Of the Garden of Eden no account has been found as 
 yet by the Egyptologists, but Dr. Jeremias communicates 
 the follo\^dng reference to the Tree of Life from a Hymn 
 to Amen Ra: 
 
 "Supreme of all the gods, lord of humanity, father of 
 the gods, who made the man and created the animals, lord 
 of all that exists. Thou who created the tree of life, who 
 made the herb and the fruit tree." (Das Alte Testa- 
 ment, p. 145.) 
 
 The Greek Legend. 
 
 Hesiod, in his Works and Days, ascribes the Fall of 
 Mankind to the accursed curiosity of Pandora, and states 
 that before the jealous gods had sent her as a gift to Epi- 
 metheus, (''after-thought"), "the races of men were wont 
 
 The Egyptian God Chnemu Model 
 
 LING Man on a Potter's Wheel. 
 
 (From the Temple of Luxor.) 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE GOLDEN AGE. 185 
 
 to live on earth free from ills, and without harsh labor and 
 the painful diseases which have brought death on mortals. 
 But, the woman having with her hands removed the great 
 lid from the box [of which more anon], dispersed these 
 blessings and contributed baneful cares for men." The 
 poet continues: 
 
 ''But another tale will I briefly tell you, well and skil- 
 fully, and do you ponder it in your mind: that gods and 
 mortal men are sprung from the same origin. First of all 
 the immortals holding the mansions of Olympus made a 
 golden race of speaking men. (They, indeed, were under 
 Chronos, at the time he ruled in heaven.) And as gods 
 men were then wont to live, with a life void of care, apart 
 from, and without, labors and troubles; nor was wretched 
 old age at all impending, but, ever the same in hands and 
 feet, did they delight themselves in festivals out of the reach 
 of all ills : and they died as if overcome with sleep. 
 
 ' ' All blessings were theirs ; of its own will the fruitful 
 field would bear them fruit, much and ample; and they 
 gladly used to reap the labors of their hands in quietness 
 along with many good things, being rich in flocks and dear 
 to the blessed gods. 
 
 "And after the earth had covered this generation, they, 
 indeed, became kindly spirits, hovering near the earth, 
 guardians of mortal men, and they watch both the decisions 
 of justice and also harsh deeds, going to and fro every- 
 where over the earth, having wrapped themselves in mists, 
 the givers of riches ; and this is the kingly function which 
 they have." 
 
 Then follows the description of the silver, brazen, and 
 iron ages. The age of the Celestial Church is also briefly 
 referred to in Hesiod's Theogony under the name of 
 Uranos, or the ' ' starry Heaven, ' ' the primeval deity who is 
 described as the son of Giea, the earth. He afterwards 
 married his mother, and from this unlawful union was born 
 the race of Titans who, under the leadership of Chronos, or 
 Saturn, deposed and mutilated their father and instituted 
 a reign of terror in heaven and on earth. 
 
 The identification of Uranos with the celestial and golden 
 
186 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 age of the ]\Iost Ancient Church, and of Chronos and the 
 Titans with the gigantic race of Nephilim or antedilu\aans, 
 has given us the key to the interpretation of the whole 
 Mythology of the Greeks and Komans. But to this sub- 
 ject we will return when we come to the legends of the 
 Fall and of the Flood. 
 
 The Latin Legend. 
 
 The "aurea prima sata est cetas" of Ovid in his Meta- 
 morphoses awakens tender, (or, it may be, painful) mem- 
 ories with every one who, as a boy, was set to parse those 
 immortal lines. But for those who are not familiar with 
 the original, we reproduce here the whole of this most im- 
 portant document of comparative mythology. 
 
 "The golden age was first sown, when, without a judge, 
 of their own accord, without laws, men practiced both faith 
 and righteousness. Punishment, and the fear of it, did not 
 exist, and threatening decrees were not read upon the 
 brazen tables, fixed up to view, nor yet did the suppliant 
 multitude dread the countenance of its judge ; but all were 
 in safety, without any avenger. The pine-tree, cut from its 
 native mountains, had not yet descended to the flowing 
 waves, that it might visit a foreign region; and mortals 
 were acquainted with no shores beyond their own. 
 
 "Not as yet did deep ditches surround the towns, no 
 trumpets of straight, or clarions of crooked brass ; no hel- 
 mets, no swords, existed. "Without occasion for soldiers, 
 the minds of men, free from care, enjoyed an easy tran- 
 quility. 
 
 "The earth itself, too, in freedom, untouched by the 
 harrow, and wounded by no plowshares, of its own accord 
 produced everything, and men, contented Avith food created 
 under no compulsion, gathered the fruit of the arbute-tree 
 and the straw-berries of the mountain, and cornels and 
 blackberries adhering to the prickly bramble-bushes, and 
 acorns which had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of 
 Jove. 
 
 "Then it was an eternal spring, and the gentle zephyrs 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE GOLVEN AGE. 187 
 
 with their soothing breezes cherished the flower produced 
 without any seed. Soob, too, the earth unplowed yielded 
 crops of grain, and the land without bemg renewed w^ 
 whitened with the heavy ears of com. Then nvers of milk, 
 then rivers of nectar were flowing,^ and yellow honey was 
 distilled from the green hohn-oak." • .„ v„ 
 
 "The wide-spreading tree of Jove" we conceive to be 
 the same as the Tree of Life, which, however, does not 
 otherwise figure in the Latin traditions. 
 
 In this connection we may mention the Etruscan legend 
 of Creation, as related by Suidas in his aiieient Greek 
 Lexicon or Encyclopedia, under the entry of Tyrrenia. 
 Though it is but a brief reference, it bears so striking a 
 resemblance to the Scriptural account as to cause a sus- 
 picion of Hebrew or Christian influences. This, however 
 is absurd, as the Etruscans ceased to have any national 
 existence in the fourth or fifth century before the Christian 
 
 era 
 
 The Etruscans, according to Suidas, believed that the 
 Demiur^ had limited the duration of the world to twelve 
 thousand years, and that he had placed each niiUennium 
 under the dominion of one sign of the Zodiac The work 
 of Creation occupied six thousand years, and the world 
 will endure a similar length of time. Durmg the first 
 millennium Heaven and Earth were created, during the 
 second the firmament, during the third the sea and the 
 waters, then the two great luminaries, then the souls ot 
 animals, and at last man.- (Alfred Jeremias, Das Alte 
 Testament, p. 154.) 
 
 The Scandinavian Saga. 
 The Elder Edda in the ' ' Song of the Vala" thus describes 
 the golden age of the Asa-gods, that is, the most ancient 
 ones in Asia who afterwards were worshipped as gods: 
 
 ''The Asa- gods met 
 on the plains of Ida. 
 High they builded 
 
188 TRE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 their courts and altars. 
 
 Their strength they tried, 
 
 all things attempting. 
 
 Smithies they builded, with gold working, 
 
 hammering tongs and tools hardening." 
 
 ''The plains of Ida," where Asgard stood in the begin- 
 ning of time, was the original Asiatic home of primeval 
 mankind. The name signifies "knowledge" or "wisdom," 
 and the root-meaning is found in the Hebrew yadha, the 
 Greek oida, the Latin video and fides, and the English idea 
 and wit. The most ancients, therefore, dwelt on the plains 
 of knowledge and wisdom, and there, a^ain, they assembled 
 for the final conflict with the powers of darkness on the 
 day of Ragnarok, "the twilight of the gods," the Last 
 Judgment. 
 
 Here, in the beginning of time, 
 
 "With golden tablets, 
 in joy they gamboled. 
 Of gold they had, 
 more than they needed; 
 
 until from Jotunheim there came to the high ones 
 three great and mighty 
 giant-maidens. ' ' 
 
 These giant-maidens, by whom are signified powerful 
 affections of falsity and lust, brought evil and conflict into 
 the golden age. Jotunheim means "the home of giants." 
 The whole legend is a dim recollection of the marriage of 
 the sons of God with the daughters of men, the profane 
 conjunction of celestial truths with sensual lusts. 
 
 The "golden tablets," which seem to signify the long- 
 lost celestial perceptions which constituted the primeval 
 revelation, figure again at the close of the "Song of the 
 Vala," when, after the old heavens and the old earth had 
 perished in the universal conflagration of Ragnarok, a new 
 heaven and a new earth had been created: 
 
LEGENDS OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 189 
 
 ' ' Then will the wonderful, 
 golden tablets, — 
 which in the beginning 
 the Asa-gods owned, — 
 be found again, in the grass." 
 
 This beautiful legend may be regarded as a prophecy 
 describing the final restoration of celestial perception, and, 
 perhaps, also of the Ancient Word, in the crowning age 
 of the New Church. 
 
 The legend is described at greater length in the Younger 
 Edda: 
 
 ''In the beginning Allfather appointed rulers and bade 
 them judge with him over the fate of men and regulate the 
 government of the celestial city. They met for this pur- 
 pose in a place called Idavold [the plains of Ida], which 
 is the centre of the Divine Abode, [Asgard], the abode of 
 the Asas. 
 
 ''Their first work was to erect a court or hall, where 
 there are twelve seats for themselves, besides the throne 
 which is occupied by Allfather. This hall is the largest 
 and most magnificent in the universe, being resplendent 
 on all sides both within and without with the finest gold. 
 Its names is Gladsheim, [the home of gladness]. They also 
 erected another Hall for the sanctuary of the goddesses. 
 It is a fair structure, and is called Vangolf [Friends' floor]. 
 Thereupon they built a smithy and furnished it with ham- 
 mers, tongs, and anvils, and with these made all other 
 requisite instruments with which they worked in metals, 
 stone and wood, and composed so large a quantity of the 
 metal called gold, that they made all their house furniture 
 of it. Hence that age was called the golden age. This was 
 the age that lasted until the arrival of the women out of 
 Jotunheim, who corrupted it." 
 
 ' ' Yggdrasil, ' ' the Tree of Life, is represented as an Ash- 
 tree which supported the whole world. It has its roots 
 deep down in the kingdom of Hela (Hell and Death) ; its 
 trunk reaches up to heaven, and its branches spread over 
 the universe. At the foot of the tree is the well of Vrd, 
 
190 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 or wisdom, where sit the three Nomas, or fates, who over- 
 rule the gods themselves. Its name means "the bearer of 
 the Deep Thinker, ' ' and stands as a noble symbol of Divine 
 Wisdom itself. 
 
 The legends of the Golden Age are, however, far more 
 scanty in the ancient mythologies than those describing 
 the Fall, the Antediluvians and the Flood. 
 
 Iranian and Persian Legends, 
 
 Among the ancient Iranians the knowledge of the Four 
 Ages and of Paradise was very complete, and has been 
 preserved in the Zend-Avesta, the original document of the 
 religion taught by Zoroaster, which is still used by the 
 Parsees of India as their sacred book. Ahura-Mazda, or 
 Ormuzd, according to this book, created the world by means 
 of his mystical word ''Honover, " the work occupying six 
 periods of a thousand years each, man being the last 
 created. (Kleuker 1 : 19, 20.) The duration of the universe 
 is represented as filling four world-periods of three thou- 
 sand years each. During the first period all was pure and 
 sinless, but at its close the evil one declared war against 
 Ahura-I\Iazda, the holy God, and this war was destined to 
 fill the last three ages. 
 
 During the first of these three ages, evil was still unsuc- 
 cessful; during the second, good and evil were exactly 
 balanced ; but during the last, evil obtained and will main- 
 tain the supremacy until the destined overthrow, at the 
 very end. 
 
 As to the Paradise w^e read on the first page of the Zend- 
 Avesta : 
 
 "Ahura-Mazda said to the holy Zarathustra: 'I created, 
 Zarathustra, a Place, a creation of Delights, whither was 
 created no possibility of approach. For, holy Zara- 
 thustra, had I not created a place, a creation of Delight, 
 whither was created no possibility of approach, then would 
 the whole world have gone to Airj^ana-vaejo. A first and 
 best of all places have I created, I who am Ahura-Mazda.' " 
 
 In this Place of Delight Ahura-IMazda planted "many 
 
LEGENDS OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 191 
 
 useful and healthful trees, in the midst of which was the 
 tree of Life, called Garokerena, the fruit of which gives 
 immortality to those eating thereof." In this blessed spot 
 the primitive men lived free from cares or sicknesses or 
 death, yea, they did not even have any need of natural 
 food. 
 
 ''The first of men was called Yima, to whom Ahura- 
 Mazda first revealed himself and his law. He became the 
 king of the golden age, and under his rule abundance and 
 fruitfulness never decreased, and mankind then lived in 
 continual youth, in mutual love and in immediate inter- 
 course with God and his heavenly spirits. 
 
 "In the reign of Yima men and cattle were immortal; 
 waters and trees never dried up ; the edible food was inex- 
 haustible. In his wide kingdom there was neither cold nor 
 heat, nor age, nor death, nor want — which the Dcevas 
 created; father and son walked side by side — both of the 
 same youthful countenance, as of fifteen years of age." 
 
 But the evil power, Agramainyus, tempted Yima to 
 doubt and pride. Ahura-Mazda then left him, and he was 
 killed. With him earthly immortality came to an end. 
 (Zend-Avesta, iii, 105.) 
 
 The Hindu Traditions. 
 
 The sacred books of the Brahmans abound in traditions 
 distinctly derived from the Ancient Word and from the 
 Doctrine of the Ancient Church. 
 
 Thus, in respect to The Four Ages we find the following 
 teaching in the Vishnu Purana (Wilson's edition, book 
 I, ch. 3) : ''Every perfect revolution in the fortunes of 
 the universe (mahd-yuga) is divided into four shorter 
 periods, which are each in turn invested with specific 
 qualities corresponding to the distinctions in the general 
 history of man. 
 
 After the Krita or Sataya Age, when everything was true 
 and perfect, came the Tretd-yuga, or age of Sacrifice, [the 
 Ancient Church], when virtue 'having lost one foot,' and 
 the Divine ingredient in our spirit having waxed feeble, 
 
192 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 'the innate perfectness of human nature was no more 
 evolved.' After this there appeared the Divdpara Age, 
 the age of doubt, of scepticism, of infidelity; and last of 
 all the Kali Age, through which the world is said to be at 
 present passing, when the powers of darkness and disorder 
 have become predominant in the soul of man, and when 
 external nature groans beneath the burden of iniquity." 
 (Hardwick: Christ and Other ]\Iasters, I: 304.) 
 
 As to the perfection of the Golden Age 'Hhe Hindu 
 legends are agreed in representing man as one of the last 
 products of creative Wisdom, as the master-work of God, 
 and also in extolling the first race of men as pure and up- 
 right, innocent and happy. The beings who were thus 
 created by Brahma are all said to have been endowed with 
 righteousness and perfect faith; they abode wherever they 
 pleased, unchecked by any impediment; their hearts were 
 free from guile; they were pure, made free from soil by 
 observance of sacred institutes. In their sanctified minds 
 Hari dwelt; and thej^ were filled with perfect wisdom by 
 which they contemplated the glory of Vishnu. The first 
 men were accordingly the best. The Krita Age was "the 
 age of truth, the reign of purity, in which mankind, as it 
 came forth from the Creator, was not divided into numer- 
 ous conflicting orders, and in which the different faculties 
 of man all worked harmoniously together." (Hardwick, 
 p. 298.) 
 
 As to Paradise itself we learn that "the Brahman and 
 the Buddhist, in like manner, have preserved some recol- 
 lections of the nature of the spot in which those first in- 
 habitants were planted. According to the legends of the 
 former, the abode of man in his primeval innocence was a 
 fabled mount Meru, the centre of the globe. 'It is a high 
 and beauteous mountain. From the glittering surface of 
 its peaks the sun diffuses light into far-off regions. Ar- 
 rayed in gold it forms a worthy habitation for the devas 
 and gandharvas. Hideous dragons guard this mountain; 
 they frighten back the sinner who ventures to approach it. 
 The sides are covered over with plants of heavenly origin; 
 and no finite thought can soar as high as the cloud-pierc- 
 
LEGENDS OF THE GOLDEN AGE. 193 
 
 ing summit. It is adorned with graceful trees and limpid 
 waters, and on every side resounds the music of the birds. ' 
 To this description of the Makdh-Jidrata some other features 
 may be added from different sources. The position of Meru 
 is in the centre of a region called Ildvrita ; it is said to be 
 enclosed by the river Ganges, 'which, issuing from the foot 
 of Yishnu, and washing the lunar orb, falls here from the 
 skies, and after encircling the city divides into four mighty 
 rivers, flowing in opposite directions. On the summit of 
 the mountain is the dwelling place of Siva, as well as the 
 capital of Brahma. There also is the home of blessed 
 spirits ; there is the Nandana, the grove of Indra, and there 
 the Jatnbu tree, whose apples, large as elephants, feed the 
 Jambu river with their juices, and secure to all who drink 
 of it unvarying health and happiness, and exemption from 
 all physical decay." (Hardwick, p. 300.) 
 
 13 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 LEGENDS OF THE FALL AND THE PATRIARCHS. 
 
 The Assyro-Chaldean Legends. 
 
 Among the thousands of clay-tablets, found in the ruined 
 temple-libraries along the banks of the Tigris and Eu- 
 phrates, no documents have been discovered describing the 
 fall of mankind in a manner closely resembling the story 
 in Genesis. But we have already described the ancient 
 cylinder depicting Adam and Eve sitting about the Tree 
 of Life, mth the serpent raising its head behind the woman. 
 We introduce here another remarkable illustration, which 
 seems to refer to the fall. It shows a human-headed ser- 
 pent, holding in his hand a star; in front stands a figure, 
 perhaps that of Eve, reaching for the star, which possibly 
 signifies the knowledge of good and evil. Behind a struc- 
 ture, which resembles some kind of an altar, stands an- 
 other figure which perhaps represents Adam. (From a 
 cylinder in the Bibliotheque National, Paris; published in 
 Jeremias, Das Alte Testament, p. 215.) 
 
 From a Cylinder in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. 
 194 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE FALL AND THE PATBIAECHS. 195 
 
 The following document, translated in the Records op 
 THE Past (Vol. VII, pp. 127, 128), certainly refers to the 
 fall of the Most Ancient Church. 
 
 *'. . . The Divine Being spoke three times, the commence- 
 ment of a psalm. 
 
 "The God of holy songs, the Lord of religion and wor- 
 ship, seated a thousand singers and musicians, and estab- 
 lished a choral band, who to his hymn were to respond in 
 multitudes. 
 
 "With a loud cry of contempt they broke up his holy 
 song, — spoiling, confusing, confounding his hymn of praise. 
 
 "The God of the bright crown, with a wish to summon 
 his adherents, sounded a trumpet-blast which would wake 
 the dead, — which to those rebel-angels prohibited return. 
 
 ' ' He stopped their service, and sent them to the gods who 
 were his enemies. In their room he created mankind. 
 
 ' ' The first who received life dwelt along with him. May 
 he give them strength never to neglect his Word, — by fol- 
 lowing the voice of the serpent whom his hands had made ! 
 
 ' ' And may the God of Divine speech expel from his five- 
 thousand that mcked one-thousand, who in the midst of 
 his heavenly song had shouted evil blasphemies! 
 
 ' ' The god Asshur, who had seen the malice of those gods 
 who deserted their allegiance, refused to go forth with 
 them." 
 
 This noble composition, which in its general style re- 
 sembles certain portions of the book of Job and undoubt- 
 edly was part of the sacred literature of the Ancient Church, 
 describes the primeval establishment of the holy, internal 
 worship of the Most Ancient Church, which afterwards was 
 "spoiled, confused, and confounded," in other words, 
 profaned, by disobedience or "by following the voice of 
 the serpent." The narrative has been called "the Rebel- 
 lion in heaven, ' ' and is supposed to refer to the fall of the 
 angels, but all the stories of the fallen angels simply de- 
 scribe the fall of the celestial men. The reference to "the 
 voice of the serpent" shows the Scriptural origin of this 
 
196 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 story. The sentence "in their room he created mankind" 
 refers, we think, to the establishment of the race of spiritual 
 men who constituted the subsequent Ancient Church. The 
 god Asshur, ''who refused to go forth" with the rebels, 
 may refer to Noah, who by virtue of rational integrity, sep- 
 arated himself from the antediluvians. "Asshur" signifies 
 the rational. 
 
 The profane and horrible state of the antediluvians, or 
 the Nephilim, is vividly described in the following corre- 
 spondential song of the ancient Chaldeans: 
 
 ' ' Seven are they ; seven are they. 
 
 In the channel of the deep, seven are they. 
 
 In the radiance of heaven, seven are they. 
 
 In the channel of the deep, in a palace they gi'ew up. 
 
 Male they are not, female they are not. 
 
 In the midst of the deep are their paths. 
 
 Wife they have not, sons they have not. 
 
 Order and kindness they know not. 
 
 Prayer and supplication they hear not. 
 
 The caverns of the mountains they enter. 
 
 Unto Ea they are hostile; the throne-bearers of the gods 
 are they. 
 
 Disturbing, in the torrent are they set. 
 
 Baleful are they ; baleful are they. 
 
 Seven are they; seven are they. 
 Seven twice again are they. 
 
 May the spirits of heaven remember; may the spirits of 
 earth remember." (Records of the Past.) 
 
 This thrilling description of the most fearful of demons 
 is in thorough harmony with the account of the antedilu- 
 vians and of other profaners, as revealed in the Writings 
 of the New Church. "Seven" signifies what is holy, but 
 in the opposite sense what is profane. "In a palace they 
 grew up," "in the channel of the deep:" they had been 
 gifted originally with profound perceptions of interior 
 wisdom. But afterwards their "channels of the deep" 
 became the deepest of all hells, "the caverns of the moun- 
 
LEGENDS OF THE FALL AND THE PATBIABCHS. 197 
 
 tains." There is with, them nothing of the conjugial: 
 ''male they are not, female they are not." In the light of 
 heaven they appear ''like charred skeletons and are there- 
 fore spoken of in the neuter gender," and as they do not 
 appear in the human form "they are called it, that is, non- 
 man" (S. D. 5950; A. E. 375). They are called "throne- 
 bearers of the gods," because this was the regular Chal- 
 dean synonym for black storm-clouds, and by these are 
 signified doubt, denial and spiritual destruction. "Unto 
 Ea they are hostile." Ea, or Hea, was the supreme and 
 most ancient of the Babylonian gods, and his name is one 
 with the name Jehovah. 
 
 Persian and Hindu Traditions. 
 
 According to the Zend Avesta, the two progenitors of 
 mankind, who were named Meschia and Meschiana, were 
 created for happiness in this world and in the world to 
 come. At first they acted according to their original na- 
 ture, acknowledging that all things were derived from 
 Ormuzd. But they were seduced by an evil spirit. (Kleu- 
 ker's Zend Avesta, part 3, p. 84.) 
 
 The sacred books of the Brahmans contain a far more 
 complete account of the Fall. The first man was called 
 Manu, and his wife Satarupa. ' ' In order to try them, Siva, 
 who is in the present story identified with the Supreme 
 Being, drops from heaven a blossom of the sacred vata, or 
 Indian fig, — a tree which has been always venerated by the 
 natives on account of its gigantic size and grateful shadow, 
 and invested by Brahman and by Buddhist alike — with 
 mysterious significations as 'the tree of knowledge or in- 
 telligence,' {hodhidruma) . Captivated by the beauty of 
 this blossom, the first man is determined to possess it. He 
 imagines that it will entitle him to occupy the place of the 
 Immortal and hold converse with the Infinite ; and on gath- 
 ering up the blossom he at once becomes intoxicated by 
 this fancy, and believes himself divine. But ere the flash 
 of exaltation has subsided, God himself appears to him in 
 terrible majesty, and the astonished culprit, stricken by the 
 
198 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 curse of heaven, is banished far from Brahniapattana and 
 consigned to an abyss of misery and degradation. From 
 this, however, (adds the story), an escape is rendered pos- 
 sible on the expiration of some weary term of suffering 
 and of penance, and the parallelism which it presents to 
 sacred history is well-nigh completed when the legend tells 
 us further that woman, his own wife, whose being was 
 derived from his, had instigated the ambitious hopes, w^hich 
 led to their expulsion, and entailed so many ills on their 
 posterity." (Hardwick, Christ and Other Masters, I, 
 p. 306.) 
 
 Some Legends of Central Asia. 
 
 Thibetan Mythology describes the primordial state of 
 mankind as one of perfection and spirituality. But the 
 desire to eat of a sweet herb, named scliima, put an end to 
 that condition. Shame sprang up within the fallen; the 
 need of clothing was felt. They were driven to agriculture 
 by necessity. Virtue fled; murder, adultery, and all other 
 vices succeeded. (Standlin. Archiv fur Kirchenge- 
 SCHICHTE, I, p. 15.) 
 
 According to the traditions of the Lamaic faith, the first 
 men lived to the age of sixty thousand years. They were 
 invisibly nourished and were able to raise themselves at 
 will to the heavens. In this age of the world the transmi- 
 gration of souls was universal, — all men were born twice; 
 and in this age it was that the thousand gods settled them- 
 selves in heaven. In an unlucky hour the earth produced 
 an honey-sweet substance; one of the men lusted after it, 
 tasted, and gave to his companions. The consequence was 
 that the men lost their size, their wisdom, and the power 
 of rising from off the earth, and were obliged to satisfy 
 themselves with food produced by the soil. (Pallas, Reise, 
 I, p. 334.) 
 
 An Echo from Madagascar. 
 
 The inhabitants of Madagascar have a strange myth re- 
 specting the fall, and the origin of woman. They say that 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE FALL AND THE PATBIAECHS. 199 
 
 the first man was created of the dust of the earth, and was 
 placed in a garden where he was subject to none of the 
 ills which now afflict mortality. He was also free from 
 all bodily appetites, and though surrounded by delicious 
 fruit and limpid streams, yet felt no desire to taste of the 
 fruit or to quaff the water. The Creator had, moreover, 
 strictly forbidden him either to eat or to drink. The great 
 enemy, however, came to him, and painted to him in glow- 
 ing colors the sweetness of the apple, the lusciousness of 
 the date, and the succulence of the orange. 
 
 In vain! the first man remembered the command laid 
 upon him by his Maker. Then the fiend assumed the ap- 
 pearance of an effulgent spirit, and pretended to be a mes- 
 senger from Heaven, commanding him to eat and drink. 
 The man at once obeyed. Shortly after, a pimple appeared 
 on his leg; the spot enlarged to a tumor, which increased 
 in size and caused him considerable annoyance. At the 
 end of six months it burst, and there emerged from the 
 limb a beautiful girl. Her he called Bahouna, and when 
 she became of marriageable age he took her to himself as 
 his wife, and she became the mother of all races of men. 
 (Baring- Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Proph- 
 ets, p. 31.) 
 
 American Legends. 
 
 In Mexican Mythology the first woman is known as ''the 
 lady with the serpent," or ''the lady of our flesh," and 
 she had twin sons. The accompanying illustration presents 
 her speaking with the serpent, while the little twin sons 
 are engaged in combat. She was venerated in Mexico as 
 the wife of the god of the heavenly paradise. (Alf. Jere- 
 mias, Das Alte Testament, p. 213.) 
 
 The tradition of the Dog-rib Indians near the Polar Sea, 
 as related by Sir J. Franklin in his account of his expedi- 
 tion of 1825-27, is that the first man was called Tschapiwik. 
 He found the earth filled with abundance of all good things. 
 He begat children, and he gave to them two sorts of fruit, 
 one white and the other black, and he bade them eat the 
 white, but eschew the black. And having given them this 
 
200 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 command, he left tliem and went on a long journey to 
 fetch the sun to enlighten the world. During his absence 
 they ate only of the white fruit, and then the father made 
 a second journey to fetch the moon, leaving them well pro- 
 vided with fruit. But after a while they forgot his com- 
 mand, and con- 
 sumed the black 
 fruit. On his 
 return he was 
 angry, and 
 cursed the 
 ground that it 
 should thence- 
 forth produce 
 only the black 
 fruit, and that 
 with it there 
 should come in 
 sickness and 
 death. 
 
 In Greenland 
 "the first man 
 is said to have been named Kallak. He came out of the 
 earth, but his ^Wfe issued from his thumb, and from them 
 all generations of men have sprung. The woman brought 
 death into the world, in that she said : ' Let us die to make 
 room for our successors.' " (Cranz, Historie von Gron- 
 LAND, Leipzig, 1770, I, p. 262.) 
 
 Mexican Eepresextatiox of the First 
 
 Woman, the Serpent, and Two 
 
 Children Fighting. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 LEGENDS CONCERNING ENOCH. 
 
 "In the number given by the Bible for the antediluvian 
 patriarchs," says Lenormant, ''we have the first instance of 
 a striking agreement with traditions of various nations. 
 Ten are mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and a remark- 
 able coincidence gives the same number, ten, in the legends 
 of a great number of people, for those primitive ancestors 
 whose history is lost in a mist of fable. To whatever epoch 
 they carry back these ancestors, whether before or after the 
 deluge, whether the mythical or historical character pre- 
 vails in the picture, they are constant to this sacred num- 
 ber, ten. 
 
 ''In Chaldea, Berosus enumerates ten antediluvian kings, 
 whose fabulous reign extended to thousands of ordinary 
 years, forming ten cosmic days. The legends of the Iranian 
 race commence with the reign of ten Peisdadien kings, 
 'men of ancient law,' who lived on 'pure Homa (water of 
 life), and who preserved their sanctity.' In India we meet 
 with the nine Bradmadikas, who, with Brahma, their 
 founder, make ten, and who are called the Ten Petris or 
 Fathers. The Chinese count ten emperors, partakers of 
 the Divine nature, before the dawn of historical times. And 
 finally, not to multiply instances, the Germans and Scandi- 
 navians believed in the ten ancestors of Odhin, and the 
 Arabs in the ten mythical kings of the Adites, the primor- 
 dial people of their peninsula. Such an agreement can- 
 not be accidental, and must lead us back to a common origin 
 for all these traditions." (Anc. Hist., I, p. 12.) 
 
 The ten partriarchs, from Adam to Noah, represent the 
 complete history of the Most Ancient Church, from its be- 
 ginning even to its vastation and the establishment of a 
 new Church. 
 
 201 
 
202 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 There are in the ancient legends numerous allusions to 
 particular patriarchs, but especially to Enoch, who repre- 
 sents a generation which undertook the important task of 
 collecting and writing down the celestial doctrines and cor- 
 respondential traditions handed down by the men of the 
 Most Ancient Church to their degenerating posterity. 
 
 It is of interest to note that a knowledge of the true sig- 
 nificance of Enoch, though utterly unknow^n to the Chris- 
 tian Church, still remains in legendary form among vari- 
 ous oriental nations descended from the Ancient Church. 
 Thus the Jewish Rabbis still maintain that the passage in 
 Genesis v:l, "This is the book of the generations of Adam," 
 means that Moses here quoted from a book written by our 
 first parent, which Adam afterwards gave to Enoch. 
 (Fabricius, I, p. 11.) 
 
 Josephus, on the other hand, tells us that the patriarch 
 Seth, unwilling that the wisdom and astronomical discover- 
 ies of the ancients should perish in the double destruction 
 of the world, by fire and by water, which Adam had pre- 
 dicted, set up two pillars, on w^hich were engraved the rec- 
 ords of this wisdom, and which, he says, still remain in the 
 land of ''Siriad," by which, perhaps, he means Sinear, or 
 Chaldea. (Jewish Antiquities, I, 2, 3.) 
 
 The Arabic tradition of Enoch is very circumstantial and 
 interesting : 
 
 "Enoch, or Edris, as he is called by the Arabs, was born 
 in Hinclostan, but he lived in Yemen. He was a prophet. 
 In his days men worshiped fire, being deceived by Eblis. 
 "When God sent Enoch to his brethren to turn them from 
 their false worship, they would not believe him. 
 
 ' ' Idolatry began in the times of Jared, son of jMahalaleel, 
 and it spread to such an extent that, when Noah was born, 
 there were not eighty persons who worshiped the true and 
 living and only God. 
 
 ' ' Enoch knew how to sew, and was an accomplished tailor. 
 He luas the first to put pen to paper; he w^rote many books. 
 He had in his possession the books of Adam, and for ten 
 years, instead of sleeping, he spent the night in reading 
 them. He also read these books to the people, and en- 
 
LEGENDS CONCEENING ENOCH. 203 
 
 deavored thereby to bring them back to the knowledge of 
 the true God." (Related in the Chronicle of Abou-djafar 
 Tabari, published in French at Paris, 1867.) 
 
 Judging from internal evidence, it is quite clear that the 
 ''Book of Enoch," from which the apostle Jude quotes, 
 and which was rediscovered in Abyssinia at the end of the 
 eighteenth century, is not the actual book of Enoch which 
 was a part of the Ancient Word itself. Nevertheless, it is 
 stated in the Apocalypse Explained, n. 735, that "these 
 words of Jude (v. 9), the apostle quoted from ancient books 
 which were written by correspondences," and it is quite 
 possible that it contains at least some fragments from the 
 genuine, most ancient book. At any rate, we quote from 
 the Abyssinian volume the following charge from God to 
 
 Enoch : , 
 
 "Hear, and fear not, Enoch, thou righteous man and 
 writer of righteousness, come hither and hear my words : 
 Go, speak unto the Watchers of Heaven, and say unto them. 
 Ye' shall pray for men, and not men for you. Why have ye 
 forsaken the high and holy and eternal heaven, and have 
 joined yourselves to women, and polluted yourselves with 
 the daughters of men, and have taken to you wives, and 
 have become the fathers of a giant race? Ye who were 
 spiritual, holy, and enjoying eternal life, have corrupted 
 yourselves with women. . . . And now the giants, who are 
 born of flesh and blood, shall become evil spirits, and their 
 dwelling shall be on the earth. Bad beings shall proceed 
 from them. Because they have been generated from above, 
 from the holy Watchers have they received their origin; 
 therefore shall they be evil spirits on the earth, and evil 
 spirits shall they be called. And the spirits of the giants, 
 which mount upon the clouds, shall fail and be cast down, 
 and do violence and cause ruin on the earth, and injury. 
 (Das Buck Henoch, Leipzig, 1853, xv, p. 9.) 
 
 To this may be added the Phrygian story, related by 
 Suidas in his Lexicon, of the ancient king Annachus or Nen- 
 nakos, who reigned at Iconium long before Deukalion 
 (Noah) ; he reached an age of more than three hundred 
 years, foretold the deluge, wept and prayed for his people, 
 
204 TRE GOLDEN AGE. ' 
 
 and called all his subjects together to warn them against 
 the impending destruction. 
 
 Our comparative analysis next leads us to the account 
 of the Flood which has been related by the Chaldean priest, 
 Berosus, in the time of Alexander. It is evident that 
 Berosus drew upon the Assyrian document concerning the 
 Flood, but it is probable also that he had other, and per- 
 haps still more ancient, sources of information. 
 
 In his second book Berosus states that ten kings reigned 
 in Chaldea after the world was first created, and that 
 they reigned 423,000 years. The ninth king was named 
 Ardates. 
 
 After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthros reigned 
 eighteen years. In his time there happened a great Deluge, 
 the history of which is thus described : The Deity, Chronos, 
 appeared to him in a vision, and warned him that upon the 
 fifteenth day of the month D^esius, there would be a flood, 
 by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore en- 
 joined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, 
 and conclusion of all things ; and to bury it in the city of 
 the Sun, Sippora ; and to build a vessel, and take with him 
 into it his friends and relations, and to convey on board 
 everything necessary to sustain life, together with all the 
 different animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and trust him- 
 self fearlessly to the deep. Ha\ang asked the Deity whither 
 he was to sail, he was answered: ''To the Gods," upon 
 which he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He 
 then obeyed the Divine admonition, and built a vessel five 
 stadia in length, and two in breadth. Into this he put 
 everything w^hich he had prepared, and embarked in it with 
 his wife, his children, and his personal friends. After the 
 flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, 
 Xisuthros sent out some birds from the vessel, which, not 
 flnding any food, nor any place where they could rest, re- 
 turned to the vessel. After an interval of some days 
 Xisuthros sent out the birds a second time, and now they 
 returned to the ship with mud on their feet. A third time 
 he repeated the experiment, and then they returned no 
 more ; whence Xisuthros judged that the earth was visible 
 
LEGENDS CONCERNING ENOCH. 205 
 
 above the waters; and accordingly he made an opening in 
 the vessel, and seeing that it was stranded upon the site of 
 a certain mountain, he quitted it with his wife and daugh- 
 ter, and the pilot. Having then paid his adoration to the 
 earth, and having built an altar and offered sacrifices to the 
 gods, he, together with those who had left the vessel with 
 him, disappeared. Those who had remained behind, when 
 they found that Xisuthros and his companions did not re- 
 turn, in their turn left the vessel and began to look for him, 
 calling him by his name. Him they saw no more, but a 
 voice came to them from heaven bidding them to lead pious 
 lives, and so join him who was gone to live with the gods ; 
 and he further informed them that his wife, his daughter 
 and the pilot had shared the same honor. It was told them, 
 moreover, that they should return to Babylon, and how it 
 was ordained that they should take up the writings that 
 had been buried in Sippora, and impart them to mankind, 
 and that the country, where they then were, was the land 
 of Armenia. The rest, having heard these words, offered 
 sacrifices to the gods and, taking a circuit, journeyed to 
 Babylon. The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, some 
 part of it still remains in the mountain of the Corcyraeans 
 (the Kurds), in Armenia, and the people scrape off the 
 bitumen from the vessel and make use of it by way of 
 charms. Now, when those of whom we have spoken, re- 
 turned to Babylon, they dug up the writings which had 
 been buried at Sippora; they also founded many cities, 
 and built temples, and thus the country of Babylon be- 
 came inhabited again." (Cory, Ancient Fragments, pp. 
 26-29.) 
 
 This story, which, indeed, refers mostly to the Flood, is 
 quite remarkable also in its references to the prsediluvian 
 writings which were collected by Enoch, hidden away, and 
 preserved for the use of the Ancient Church. It is note- 
 worthy, also, that "the city of the Sun, Sippora," signi- 
 fies ''the city of books," the Biblical Separvaim, which, 
 moreover, is probably the same as the city of "Suripak," 
 mentioned in the Sumero-Akkadian account of the 
 Flood. 
 
206 THE GOLDEN AGE. ' 
 
 Enoch and "Hermes Trismegistus. " 
 
 A traditional knowledge of Enoch survived in ancient 
 Egypt, where we find the god Thoth, who by the Greeks 
 was called "Hermes Trismegistus," the "thrice greatest." 
 The legends concerning this mysterious individual is of 
 special interest to the New Church, because here we find a 
 distinct reference to the history of the Ancient Word. 
 
 Thoth, like the Greek Hermes, was the messenger of the 
 gods, the conductor of resurrected spirits, the patron of 
 letters and learning, and the chief medium of communica- 
 tion between gods and men. He was also the Scribe of the 
 gods, the "Scribe of Truth," the "Lord of Divine Words," 
 and the priestly office stood under his special protection. 
 
 Herodotus, Manetho, Plutarch and Clement of Alexan- 
 dria all testify that there were two, and some of them say 
 three, successive individuals who bore the distinguished 
 name of "Hermes Trismegistus." The first Hermes, 
 known as the * ' Celestial Hermes, ' ' was the god Thoth him- 
 self, who "was also identical with that Edries or Enoch, 
 who among the Chaldeans bore the surnames of Uriai or 
 Duwanei, i. e., 'great wise one'; he is said to have lived 
 one thousand years after Adam, thus in the second mil- 
 lennium of the world, and was the greatest sage of the 
 earth." (Vollmer: Worterbuch der Mythologie, p. 850.) 
 
 According to Manetho, this first Hermes lived before the 
 Flood, and inscribed on tablets, in sacred hieroglyphics, the 
 secret or esotoric doctrines of the most ancient times, to- 
 gether with the elements of all human knowledge. The 
 Egyptian priests declared that they owed to him all that 
 wonderfully minute and exact knowledge of the state of 
 man after death which is recorded in the "Book of the 
 Dead." But these tablets were afterwards buried in the 
 earth and thus lost from view, during a period of social 
 revolutions and natural catastrophies which once upon a 
 time overwhelmed the ancient world. 
 
 A SECOND Hermes Trismegistus appeared after the 
 deluge, at the beginning of the third millennium ; in the tra- 
 dition of the Arabs he is known as "the second Uriai," or 
 
LEGENDS CONCERNING ENOCH. 207 
 
 ''Hermes-al-Mothaleth." He is said to have unearthed the 
 hidden tablets of the first Hermes, and he interpreted the 
 sacred symbols inscribed upon them, and translated their 
 contents to the comprehension of the common people. With 
 these as a basis he wrote at the command of God a great 
 number of inspired books, in which may be found every- 
 thing that the human mind is capable of learning. These 
 books, which treated of universal principles, of the nature 
 and order of celestial beings, of astrology, medicine, etc., 
 were deposited in the temples in the care of the priesthood, 
 and to these books is ascribed the restoration of wisdom 
 taught by the first Hermes, and the revival of theology, 
 science, art and culture among the ancient Egyptians. This 
 second Hermes also taught that the lower world was cre- 
 ated after the similitude of the upper world, and ' ' he estab- 
 lished a vast system of correspondencies between the three 
 worlds, the physical or material, the rational or intermedi- 
 ary, and the psychical or spiritual." (Encyclop. Britan- 
 NiCA, Vol. I, p. 463.) 
 
 Then, according to Eusebius and other ancient writers, 
 there arose a third Hermes Trismegistus, who lived a lit- 
 tle after the time of Moses. He was a celebrated Egyp- 
 tian priest and philosopher, who collected the maxims, 
 commentaries and interpretations, ('hermeneutics") of the 
 second Hermes, and wrote them down in forty-two books, 
 which are known as the "hermetic books," treating in oc- 
 cult language of theology, astrology, science, art, etc., and 
 also containing the recipe for the making of gold, and for 
 finding the "philosophers' stone," on which account they 
 were much revered and studied by the alchemists and 
 mystics of later ages. It must be to this third Trismegistus 
 that Swedenborg refers in the Spiritual Diary, n. 6083, 
 where he speaks of "Trismegistus, in Egypt, at the time of 
 Moses, who is supposed to have discovered how to express 
 the ideas of the mind by means of images called hieroglyph- 
 ics." 
 
 Fragments of the works of this last Hermes still exist 
 in Arabic and Latin versions, but they are said to be so 
 mixed with later interpolations of gnostic, cabalistic and 
 
208 TEE GOLDEN AGE. ' 
 
 alchemistic nature, that it is difficult to judge as to their 
 original value. They may have been, when first written, 
 a series of commentaries on the books of the ''second 
 Hermes." As to the latter, — the books of the second 
 Hermes, — it is perfectly clear from the whole context that 
 we have here a marvelously distinct reference to the many 
 and various books which constituted the Ancient Word as 
 a whole; while "the tablets of the first Hermes" with equal 
 certainty refer to the Book of Enoch which was written be- 
 fore the Flood. 
 
 In view of all the evidence here adduced, the Newchurch- 
 man can but marvel at the convincing tribute which every 
 find of Archeology brings to the super-human and there- 
 fore Divine nature of the Revelation given through Em- 
 manuel Swedenborg, for Swedenborg did not and could not 
 by any possibility have known these things from any earthly 
 source of information. He know the Classics as few men 
 ever did, but Egypt, Babylonia, and Assyria had not in his 
 time begun to yield even the first of their buried secrets. 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 
 
 The Babylonian Story. 
 
 Of all the documents hitherto discovered in the Tigris- 
 Euphrates region, there is none of greater importance than 
 the Assy ro-Baby Ionian account of the Great Flood. It is 
 written in cuneiform characters, and in the Assyrian lan- 
 guage, a tongue closely related to the Hebrew, but it is 
 known to be a translation made at the command of As- 
 surbanipal from a far more ancient Babylonian text, orig- 
 inally written in a kind of hieroglyphic characters, and in 
 the Hamitic tongue of the Sumero- Akkadians. The As- 
 syrian text is fragmentary, the clay-tablets on which it was 
 written having been broken into hundreds of pieces which 
 have been fitted together with infinite care by the scholars 
 of the British Museum. The translation here presented 
 was made under the guidance of Prof. Hilprecht, and has 
 been carefully compared with the more recent versions of 
 Prof. Clay and Dr. Jeremias. 
 
 The Babylonian story of the Flood is found in the elev- 
 enth tablet of the "Izdubar" series. The name of the hero 
 of the story has been variously deciphered as "Izdubar," 
 or ' ' Gilgamesh. " He is introduced as wandering about in 
 the spiritual world, where, to his great surprise, he meets 
 in perfect human form his old friend, ' ' Shamas-napishtim, ' ' 
 or ^'Ut-napishtim," a name which is also conjectural, not 
 yet having been satisfactorily deciphered. The following 
 conversation now takes place between them : 
 
 [First Column.] 
 
 "Izdubar to him spoke, to Shamashnapishtim, afar off: 
 'I see thee, Shamashnapishtim. 
 14 209 
 
210 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Thy figure has not changed; as I art thou. And thou 
 thyself hast not changed, as I art thou. . . . 
 
 How didst thou betake thyself, and in the assembly of 
 the gods, how didst thou find life ? 
 
 Shamashnapishtim to him spoke, to Izdubar: 
 
 I will reveal to thee, Izdubar, the hidden matter, 
 
 And the secret of the gods, to thee I will tell it. 
 
 The city Shurippak, the city which thou knowest of, on 
 the banks of the Euphrates it is situated. 
 
 This city was ancient, when the gods within it, 
 
 To the sending of a Flood moved their hearts. The 
 gods, the great. 
 
 All of them ; their father, Anu ; their councillor, Bel ; 
 
 Their herald, Ninip ; their leader, Ennugi. 
 
 Ea, the god of unfathomable wisdom, was speaking with 
 them. 
 
 Their counsel he made known to the land: 'Land, land; 
 Field, field! 
 
 Land, hearken! Field, listen! 
 
 Surippakite, son of Ubaratutu. 
 
 Destroy the house, build a ship, leave your habitation, 
 look out for your life ! 
 
 The seed of life will be destroyed, but thou, cause thou 
 to live ! 
 
 Cause to go up the seed of life, all of it, to the midst of 
 the ship. 
 
 The ship which thou shalt build, 140 cubits shall be the 
 length of her measure; 
 
 140 cubits shall be the proportion of her width and her 
 height. 
 
 Against the ocean thou shalt cover it with a deck. ' 
 
 1 knew, and spoke to Ea, my Lord : 'That which thou, my 
 Lord, commandest, I will honor, I will fulfill it ! 
 
 But what shall I answer to the city, the people and the 
 Elders?' 
 
 The people and the Elders shall laugh at me. 
 
 Ea his mouth opened and said, speaking to me, his serv- 
 ant: 
 
 'Thus shalt thou speak to them: Because Bel hath re- 
 
LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 211 
 
 jected me, and hatetli me I will not live in your city. On 
 Bel's earth. I will no longer tarry. ... On the ocean, with 
 Ea, my Lord, I shall be sitting. 
 
 Upon you he will cause to rain evil, and will make you 
 the food of fishes. ... In the night he will cause misfor- 
 tune to rain from the face of heaven.' 
 
 Enter through the door of the ship and bring 
 
 Into its midst thy store of grain, thy goods and posses- 
 sions. 
 
 Thy family, thy servants, and maids, and relations ; 
 
 The beast of the field, the wild beast of the field, all I 
 will gather, 
 
 And send to thee, and they shall be enclosed within thy 
 door.'" 
 
 Compare with this document of hoary antiquity the still 
 more ancient words of the Sacred Text: "I will destroy 
 man, whom I have created, from the faces of the earth. . . . 
 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come be- 
 fore me. Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms thou 
 shalt make in the ark, and thou shalt pitch it within and 
 without with pitch. And thus thou shalt make it: the 
 length of the ark shall be three hundred cubits, the breadth 
 of it fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits. A win- 
 dow thou shalt make to the ark, and the door of the ark 
 shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and 
 third stories shalt thou make it. And behold, I, even I, 
 do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all 
 flesh wherein is the breath of life from under heaven ; and 
 everything that is in the earth shall die. But with thee I 
 will establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the 
 ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons' 
 wives with thee. And of every living thing of all 
 flesh, two of every kind shalt thou bring into the ark, 
 to keep alive with thee. . . . And take thou unto thee of 
 all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; 
 and it shall be for food for thee, and for them." (Genesis 
 6:7-21.) 
 
 We will now resume the Assyro-Chaldean narrative. 
 
212 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 [Second Column.] 
 
 "... my needed things I brought 
 
 In the fifth day I constructed its frame. 
 
 One hundred and forty cubits high were its walls. 
 
 One hundred and forty cubits broad was its roof. 
 
 I placed its walls ; I enclosed it. 
 
 I built it in six stories [ 1 ] 
 
 I divided it into seven compartments; 
 
 Its interior I divided into nine chambers. 
 
 With water-pegs on the inside I caulked it: 
 
 I make a rudder, and raised a mast. 
 
 Three measures of pitch I smeared upon the outside; 
 three measures of pitch I smeared upon the inside. 
 
 Three men carr^^ng vessels which contained oil, ... oil 
 which they ate and used for libation ; 
 
 Two measures of oil I distributed to the boatmen. 
 
 To the great gods I sacrificed oxen and lambs daily ; 
 
 Honey, must, oil, and wine I poured out without measure, 
 as the measure of a flood, as the dust of the earth. 
 
 . . . Shamash, the great, was pleased that the ship was 
 completed. 
 
 . . . the oars of the ship I caused to bring above and be- 
 low. 
 
 . . . two-thirds of it, whatever I had gathered, whatever 
 I had of silver I gathered it, whatever I had of gold. 
 
 Whatever I had, the strength of it, the seed of life, aU 
 of it, 
 
 I caused to go up into the ship, all my family male and 
 female ; 
 
 The cattle of the field, the animals of the field, workmen, 
 all of them, I brought up. 
 
 A stated time Shamash had fixed. 
 
 A voice spake : ' In the night I will cause the heavens to 
 rain misfortune. 
 
 Enter into the midst of the ship, and close thy door.' 
 
 The stated time drew near; the fixed command grew 
 stronger. 
 
 ... 'In the night I will cause the heavens to rain 
 calamity. ' 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE FLOOD. 213 
 
 I looked out upon the faces of the day. In that day I 
 had fear to go to sea. 
 
 I entered into the midst of the ship and closed my door, 
 in order to close the ship. 
 
 To Buzursadirabu, the pilot, the great building I deliv- 
 ered, together with its freight. 
 
 The raging of a storm in the morning arose, from the 
 horizon of the sky, black clouds. 
 
 Eammanu thundered in the midst of it. Nebo and Sheru 
 broke forth against one another. 
 
 The throne-bearers went forth over mountains and plains. 
 
 Nergal let loose the whirlwinds. 
 
 Ninib continually made the canals to overflow. 
 
 The Annunaki lifted up their torches; they lit up the 
 land with them. 
 
 Eammanu 's wild flood roared up against heaven. 
 
 All light was drowned in darkness." 
 
 For a just appreciation of the above, as well as of what 
 is yet to follow, we must ask our readers to peruse the whole 
 story of the Flood as given in the seventh and eighth chap- 
 ters of Genesis. 
 
 [The Reverse.] 
 
 "The face of the earth like a devastation it swept. 
 
 It destroyed all life from the face of the earth. 
 
 The waters rose above the mountains, 
 
 As a storm of battle they broke lose upon men. 
 
 Brother looked no more for brother, men were not recog- 
 nized in Heaven. 
 
 The gods feared the tempest and sought refuge. They 
 ascended to the heaven of Anu. 
 
 As a dog in his kennel, so the gods crouched at the gate 
 of heaven. 
 
 Ishtar cried as one in labor ; the bright goddess cried with 
 a loud voice, [saying:] 
 
 ' Oh, that the former day had been turned to clay. 
 
 When I in the assembly of the gods advised this evil ! 
 
214 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 Yea, when I ordered the tempest for the destruction of 
 my people. 
 
 I truly will give birth to my people again, and 
 
 Like a fish-brood will I fill the sea. ' 
 
 The gods of the Annunaki wept with her ; 
 
 The gods were downcast; they sat weeping; 
 
 Closed were their lips. . . . 
 
 Six days and seven nights the wind, the flood and the 
 storm continued in power. 
 
 At the beginning of the seventh day the storm abated, the 
 flood which had fought a battle like a mighty army became 
 peaceful. 
 
 The sea fell, and the storm and the flood ceased. 
 
 I sailed through the sea lamenting that the dwellings of 
 mankind had been turned into slime. 
 
 Like tree-trunks the bodies floated about. 
 
 I opened the window, and as the day-light fell upon my 
 face, 
 
 I trembled and sat down weeping. Tears flowed over my 
 face. 
 
 I sailed through the landscape, now a terrible sea. 
 
 Then appeared a land, twelve measures high. 
 
 To the land Nizir [Armenia] the ship I steered. 
 
 The mountain of the land Nizir held the ship fast, and let 
 it not loose. . . . 
 
 Six days the mount Nizir held the ship fast. At the 
 break of the seventh day 
 
 I brought out a dove and let her fly. 
 
 The dove flew hither and thither, but when there was no 
 resting place for her, she flew back to me. 
 
 Then I let loose a swallow and let her fly. 
 
 The swallow flew hither and thither, but when there was 
 no resting place for her she returned to me. 
 
 Then I put forth a raven and let him fly. 
 
 The raven flew hither and thither, and when he saw that 
 the waters were fallen, he croaked and he did not return. 
 
 Then I sent all the beasts in the ship to the four winds. 
 I offered a libation. 
 
 I erected an altar on the top of the mountain. ' ' 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE FLOOD. 215 
 
 The rest of the story describes how the gods ''swarmed 
 like flies to the sacrifice," and ends with Ea reproving Bel 
 for having sent the flood without taking counsel with the 
 other gods. Evil doers should be punished in various ways, 
 but the whole of mankind must never again be cut off by a 
 universal deluge. 
 
 The story of the Flood, in its internal sense, describes 
 the vastation of " the Most Ancient Church, and also the 
 temptations of the Ancient Church at its beginning. Hence 
 in the Biblical account it is said that the Flood lasted 
 ' ' forty days, ' ' the number forty always signifying tempta- 
 tions. In the Babylonian narrative the Flood lasted six 
 days, and by "six" is signified combat. In the internal 
 sense the two stories present a greater agreement than ap- 
 pears in the letter, though here also the harmony is most 
 remarkable. In the Word we read that ''the ark rested in 
 the seventh month." In the Babylonian story the flood 
 abated at ' ' the beginning of the seventh day. ' ' 
 
 But there are also many features of dissimilitude. In 
 the Babylonian account, for instance, we are told that 
 Shamashnapishtim, or Noah, expressed the fear that the 
 people would laugh at him, when building the vessel, — a 
 statement which is absent from the Biblical story. It is 
 remarkable, however, to find the same feature in the Arabic 
 legend of Noah, as told in the Koran, where, in the chapter 
 entitled "Hud," we read that, "Whilst Noah was build- 
 ing his ark, all those who passed by mocked him; but he 
 said to them: Though you rail at me now, the time will 
 come when I shall rail at you ; for you will learn to your 
 cost who it is that punishes the wicked in this world and 
 reserves for them a further punishment in the world to 
 come." 
 
 Another remarkable difference between the two stories is 
 in the account of the birds that were sent out of the Ark. 
 In the Word it is the raven that is sent out first, by which 
 is signified, in the internal sense, "that falsities still occa- 
 sioned disturbance" (A. C. 864), as they naturally would 
 in the beginning of a new Church. In the Babylonian 
 story the raven flies out last, which shows that this text is 
 
216 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 a later and corrupted version, because in this particular 
 it is not in harmony with the internal sense. Thus it is 
 by the internal sense, which is also the rational sense, that 
 we are able to judge as to the relative antiquity and authen- 
 ticity of these ancient documents, in their relation to the 
 original and inspired Word of the Ancient Church. The 
 ' ' higher critics ' ' do not possess this infallible touch-stone of 
 criticism, and so, in their negative spirit, they at once jump 
 at the conclusion that the Hebrew documents are corrupted 
 versions of the Babylonian text. 
 
 An Egyptian Legend. 
 
 In Egypt, contrary^ to what might have been expected, 
 no account of the Deluge has been as yet discovered, bear- 
 ing and striking resemblance to the storj^ in the Word. 
 There is, however, a mutilated inscription on the walls of 
 the tombs of Seti I and Rameses IV, at Thebes, describing 
 a general, though not universal, destruction of mankind, 
 which may refer to the destruction of the Nephilim. It be- 
 gins by stating that men and women were blaspheming the 
 god Ra, saying: "Behold, his majesty has grown old in 
 life, strength and health ; his bones are like silver, his limbs 
 like gold, his hair like lapis-lazuli. " His majesty, when 
 listening to these words, called a council of the gods and 
 laid before them the murmuring of the people who had 
 been created from his eyes, and asked for advice what to 
 do. Nu, the god of the primeval ocean, and the other 
 gods, suggested to Ra that he let his ''eye go forth, and 
 let it destroy for thee those who utter evil words of blas- 
 phemy against thee. There is not an eye upon all the earth 
 that can resist thee, when it descendeth in the form of 
 Hathor." The goddess therefore went forth and "slew 
 mankind on the mountains." His majesty then, repent- 
 ing, said :"Come, come in peace, Hathor, for the deed is 
 done. ' ' But the goddess replied, ' ' Thou gavest me life. It 
 was pleasing to me when I had power over mankind," and 
 she could not be prevailed upon to stop her slaughter until 
 Ra brewed seven thousand vessels of beer, which he caused 
 
LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 217 
 
 to be poured out upon the fields of heaven. Hathor drank 
 joyfully of it to such an extent that "she no longer knew 
 mankind, ' ' but went to sleep murmuring : " I slew them, but 
 there is a remnant of the worthless, for the destruction 
 was not as wide-spread as my power." (Wallis Budge, 
 The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, pp. 388-399.) A gro- 
 tesque story, but the only one at hand from Egypt! 
 
 The Greek Traditions. 
 
 The Greeks had two different traditions as to the Deluge. 
 With the first was connected the name of Ogyges, the first 
 king of Attica, an entirely mythical personage who is lost 
 in the mist of ages; his name, even, is derived from the 
 primitive designation of the ''deluge" (Sancrit augha). 
 It was reported that in his time all the country was cov- 
 ered by the deluge, and that the waters reached even to the 
 heavens, and that he escaped in a vessel with some com- 
 panions. (Lenormant, Anc. Hist, of the East, ii, p. 19.) 
 
 The more common tradition is that of Deukalion, of 
 whom there are many and different accounts. Lucian, in 
 his work, De Dea Syria, relates it thus : 
 
 ''This is the story of Deukalion that I have heard in 
 Greece. The present race of men is not the first, for that 
 perished. This is the second race, and it sprang from 
 Deukalion. The earlier generation was very evil, and 
 violated the Divine law. They neither kept oaths nor 
 showed hospitality; they received not the stranger, nor 
 protected him when he sought protection; therefore, a ter- 
 rible destruction fell upon them. Much water gushed out 
 of the earth, great rains poured down, and the sea rose 
 and overwhelmed the earth. Deukalion alone of all men 
 was preserved for another generation on account of his 
 wisdom and piety. He was saved thus: he went into a 
 great ark which he had built, along with his wife and chil- 
 dren. Then came to him, pair by pair, cows, horses, lions, 
 serpents, and all kinds of animals which are nourished on 
 earth, and he took them all in. They did not hurt him, 
 for Zeus ordained a great friendship amongst them. So 
 
218 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 they all sailed in the ark as long as the flood lasted. This 
 is the Greek story of Deukalion. 
 
 "But very wonderful in the confirmation of the history 
 as related in Hieropolis. In the neighborhood of that city 
 a great chasm opened, which engulfed all the waters of the 
 Flood. Thereupon Deukalion erected altars, and dedicated 
 a temple to Here (Atergatis) over the chasm. I have seen 
 this." 
 
 According to other versions, Deukalion was the grand- 
 son of Japetos and the son of Prometheus, of the race of 
 the Titans, and the son of Deukalion was Hellen, the an- 
 cestors of the Hellenic race. Deukalion is simply another 
 name for Noah, whose descendants were Japheth, Javan, 
 Elishah, etc., by whom "the isles of the Gentiles were di- 
 vided in their lands." (Gen. 10:1-5.) It is clear that 
 remnants of these Hebrews names are preserved in the 
 Greek Japetos, Ion, Hellas, Eolus and Elis. Apollodorus 
 tells us the following story : 
 
 "Deukalion was married to Pyrrha, the daughter of 
 Epimetheus and Pandora. When Jupiter designed to de- 
 stroy the human race on account of their impiety, Deuka- 
 lion, by the advice of his father, made himself an ark, 
 {larnalca), and, putting provisions into it, entered it with 
 his wife Pyrrha. Jupiter then poured rain from heaven, 
 and inundated the greater part of Greece, so that all the 
 people, except a few who escaped to the lofty mountains, 
 perished in the waves. Deukalion was carried along the 
 sea in his ark for nine days and nights, until he reached 
 mount Parnassus. By this time the rain had ceased, and 
 then, leaving his ark, he sacrificed to Jupiter, who sent 
 Hermes, desiring him to ask what he would. His request 
 was to have the earth replenished with men. By the direc- 
 tion of Jupiter, thereupon, he and his wife flung stones 
 behind them, and those which Deukalion cast became men, 
 those thrown by Pyrrha, women. And from this circum- 
 stance came the name for "people," (laos, from laas, "a 
 stone"). 
 
 Plutarch adds that "the mythologists inform us that a 
 dove, being allowed to fly out of the ark, was to Deukalion 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE FLOOD. 219 
 
 a sign of bad weather if it came again ; but of good weather 
 if it flew away." 
 
 The Latin Fable. 
 
 The account in Ovid's Metamorphoses, though preserv- 
 ing the general outlines of the Greek stories, is more elabo- 
 rate and poetical, and yet preserves many features closely 
 resembling the Divine original. Having described the 
 glorious things of the Golden and Silver Ages, the increas- 
 ing wickedness of the Brazen Age, and the horrible degra- 
 dation of the Iron Age, Ovid ends his fourth fable with 
 the words ''Piety lies vanquished, and the virgin Astraga 
 [the goddess of Justice], is the last of the celestial beings 
 to abandon the earth, now drenched in slaughter." 
 
 In the fifth fable the poet describes how the Giants [the 
 Nephilim], aspiring to the sovereignty of heaven itself, 
 piled mountain upon mountain, even to the lofty stars." 
 But the omnipotent Father, hurling his lightnings from 
 Olympus, struck Pelion from Ossa, and destroyed the 
 monstrous race. Nevertheless, from the blood of their car- 
 casses, there sprang into life another ruthless race, despis- 
 ing the gods above, and full of violence and greed. Then, 
 in the sixth fable, Jupiter, beholding the crimes of men, 
 ''groaned aloud" and called a council of all the gods, to 
 whom, in the next fable, he recounts the horrible crime of 
 Lycaon, the treacherous host who had set before the visit- 
 ing god a meal of human flesh; Lyacon was changed into 
 a ferocious wolf, but the rest of mankind was as bad as he. 
 "Wherever the earth extends the Furies reign. You would 
 suppose that men had conspired to be wicked." Compare 
 the Divine words: "And God looked upon the earth, and 
 behold, it was corrupt, and the earth was filled with vio- 
 lence." Hence Jupiter announced "Let all men speedily 
 feel that vengeance which they deserve to endure, for such 
 is my decree. ' ' 
 
 At first the thunderer was disposed to destroy the earth 
 with his lightnings, but he laid aside his cyclopean weapons 
 when remembering that ' ' it was in the decrees of Fate that 
 
220 TEE GOLDEN AGE. ' 
 
 a time should come, at which the sea, the earth, and the 
 palace of heaven, seized by flames, should be burned with 
 fire." This passage in Ovid is most remarkable, as indi- 
 cating tha the Romans possessed a prophecy of a Last 
 Judgment, similar to the Scandinavian Ragnarok, "the 
 twilight of the gods," when heaven and earth were to per- 
 ish in a universal conflagration, to be succeeded by " a new 
 heaven and a new earth." This passage has generally 
 passed unnoticed by writers on Comparative Mythology, 
 but is not isolated in classic literature. Lactantius informs 
 us that the Sibyls predicted that the world should perish 
 by fire. Seneca, also, mentions the same destined end of 
 the present state of the universe, and it was a tenet of the 
 Stoic philosophers that when the stars should cease to be 
 nurtured with moisture, a conflagration of the universe 
 would ensue. 
 
 Not yet was the time for the final and fiery judment, to 
 which Aeschylus also alludes in ' ' Prometheus Bound, ' ' when 
 Jupiter himself was to be dethroned, and suffering man- 
 kind was to be redeemed by the coming Hercules. An- 
 other punishment was determined upon at this, the first 
 general judgment. The south wind was let loose, "with 
 soaking wings flying abroad, having his terrible face cov- 
 ered with pitchy darkness. As with his broad hand he 
 squeezes the hanging clouds, a crash arises, and showers 
 are poured in torrents from the sky." Neptune aids his 
 brother with auxiliary waves from beneath, and commands 
 the streams to "open the mouths of their fountains." As 
 stated in Genesis, "All the fountains of the great deep 
 were broken up, and the cataracts of heaven were opened. ' * 
 
 A universal destruction followed, and no men were saved, 
 with the exception of Deukalion and his wife who were car- 
 ried to the top of Mount Parnassus in a little ship. "No 
 man was more upright than he, nor a greater lover of jus- 
 tice; nor was any woman more regardful of the Deities 
 than she." Or, as stated in the Word, "Noah was a just 
 man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with 
 God." (Gen. 6:9.) 
 
 Deukalion having landed and offered worship to the 
 
LEGENDS OF TEE FLOOD. 221 
 
 gods, Jupiter ' ' disperses the clouds ; and, the showers being 
 removed by the north wind, he both lays open the earth 
 to the heavens, and the heavens to the earth. Also, the 
 rage of the sea does not continue," — words which are sub- 
 stantially the same as those in the Bible : ' ' God made a wind 
 to pass over the earth, and the waters were assuaged. The 
 fountains also of the deep and the cataracts of heaven were 
 stopped." (Gen. 8:1, 2.) 
 
 Deukalion and Pyrrha, bemoaning their loneliness upon 
 the desolated earth, were told by the goddess Themis to 
 ''throw behind your backs the bones of your great mother." 
 They were at first greatly amazed at this seemingly impious 
 command, but Deukalion finally concluded that by the 
 bones of the great mother must be meant the stones of the 
 earth. They acted upon this interpretation, and "by the 
 interposition of the gods above, the stones thrown by the 
 hands of the man took the shape of a man, and the female 
 race was renewed by the throwing of the w^oman." (Meta- 
 morphoses, Fable x.) 
 
 We would suggest, as a possible interpretation of this 
 remarkable myth, that the "bones of the great mother" 
 which Deukalion and Pyrrha were to cast behind their backs, 
 signify the falsities of the former Church, which the men of 
 the new Church, Noah, were to reject. Only by such action 
 could a new^ Church be established, and only thus could the 
 dead stones of false and natural thoughts and affections be 
 replaced by spiritual and truly human truths and goods. 
 
 The Scandinavian Story. 
 
 In the Eddas there is but a single allusion to the Flood. 
 When Odhin and his two brothers had slain Ymir, there 
 ran so much blood out of his wounds that with it they 
 drowned all the race of the ' ' Frost-giants, ' ' save one who 
 got away with his household ; him the giants call Bergelmer, 
 He went on board his boat, and with him went his wife, 
 and from them came a new race of frost-giants. 
 
 This legend, though somewhat obscure, embodies the idea 
 of the profanations of the Antediluvians, (the "blood" of 
 
222 THE GOLDEN AGE. ' 
 
 Ymir) and also the fact that Noah and his descendants were 
 of the stock of the Nephilim, that is, men of a fallen race. 
 
 A Welsh Legend. 
 
 The following has been preserved among the Welsh, who 
 tenaciously retained the traditions of their Celtic fathers: 
 
 "One of the most dreadful of events was the outbreak 
 of Llyn Llion, the sea of seas, which overwhelmed the 
 world and droAvned all men except Dwyan and Dwyach, 
 who escaped in a bare boat, and colonized Britain. This 
 ship was one of the three masterpieces of Hu, and was 
 built by the heavenly lord, Eeivon; and it received into 
 it a pair of every kind of beast, when the Llyn Llion burst 
 forth. 
 
 ' ' Reivon is the same as Hu Cadarn, the discoverer of the 
 vine ; and it is said of him that "he built the ark laden with 
 fruit, and it was stayed up in the water, and carried for- 
 ward by serpents." And of the rainbow it was said that 
 the Woman of the silver wheel, Arianrhod, to control the 
 wizards of the night and the evil spirits of the tempest, 
 and out of love for the Britons, "wove the stream of the 
 rainbow, — a stream which drives the storm from the earth, 
 and makes its former destruction stay far from it, through- 
 out the world's circle. " (Davis, Mythology of the British 
 Druids. ) 
 
 We have here a recollection of Noah as the planter of a 
 vineyard, the founder of a spiritual, not a celestial Church, 
 and of the Bow in the clouds, the doctrine revealed to the 
 Ancient Church. The "woman of the silver wheel" is a 
 beautiful representative of the Church of the Silver Age, 
 the dominant love of which was the affection of truth, the 
 affection of spiritual-rational Doctrine. 
 
 A Lithuanian Legend. 
 
 Among the Lithuanians, who, of all Indo-European 
 races, are said to retain most closely the language and tra- 
 ditions of their Sankrit-speaking ancestors, we find the fol- 
 lowing quaint myth: 
 
LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 223 
 
 -When Pramzimas, the most high God, looked out of his 
 heavenly house upon the world through a window, he saw 
 that it was filled with violence. Then he sent Wind and 
 Water to devastate the earth, and this they did for twenty 
 days and twenty nights. Pramzimas looked on, and as he 
 looked on, he ate nuts at his window, and threw the shells 
 down One shell fell on the top of a mountain, and some 
 men, women and beasts scrambled into it, and were saved 
 alive, while all the rest of the inhabitants of the world were 
 
 ^- When the flood drained away, the pairs in the nutshell 
 left it, and were scattered over the earth. Only one aged 
 couple remained, and they complained. Then God sent 
 them the rainbow to console them, and bade them 3nmp 
 over the bones of the earth. They jumped nine times, and 
 nine pairs of living human beings started to life, and 
 founded the nine races of Lithuanian blood. (Grimm, 
 Deutsche Mythologie, p. 545.) . . -i • i 
 
 This story, from the coast of the Baltic Sea, is strikingly 
 similar to that of the ancient Greeks on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean. The nutshell- feature is amusing, but may 
 it not, nevertheless, be representative^ May not the nut- 
 shell cast down from heaven, represent the Dmne Reve- 
 lation which was given to the Ancient Church m an 6a;- 
 ternal and literal form^ This new revelation, the Ancient 
 Word, was really that ark which saved Noah from the de- 
 struction of the Deluge. 
 
 Persian Legends. 
 
 The Zoroastrian Bundahish thus relates the story of the 
 Fall and the Flood : 
 
 '^Man was, the father of the world was. Heaven was 
 his destiny, on condition that he should be humble of heart, 
 that he should do the work of the law, that he should be 
 pure in his thoughts, pure in his words, pure m his actions 
 and that he should not invoke the Devs [evil spirits] At 
 first they said these words: 'Ormuzd [the good God], has 
 given us water, the earth, the trees, the animals, the stars, 
 
224 TEE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 the moon, the sun, and all good things that come from a 
 pure root and bear pure fruit.' 
 
 "Then the Lie entered their thoughts, altered their dis- 
 positions, and said to them: 'It is Ahriman [the evil 
 power], who has given water, the earth, the trees, animals, 
 and all that has been mentioned. ' Thus it was that in the 
 beginning Ahriman deceived them with regard to the Devs, 
 and to this end, only, the evil one has sought to seduce 
 them. By believing this lie they both became Darvands, 
 and their souls will be in the infernal regions until the 
 resurrection. The Dev who told this lie became more bold, 
 presented himself a second time, and brought them fruits, 
 which they ate, and, in consequence, of all the innumerable 
 advantages they enjoyed, there remained only one." 
 (BUNDAHISCH i, p. 10.) 
 
 This "only one," perhaps, refers to the "Hope" that 
 remained in the box of Pandora, — the Hope of a future 
 Redeemer. 
 
 "After the Fall, the man and the woman 'first covered 
 themselves with the skins of dogs, and ate the flesh of these 
 animals. Then they hunted and made themselves clothing 
 of the skins of deer. ' Ahriman is represented as a poison- 
 ous serpent, and springs in this form from heaven to earth. " 
 (Kleuker's Zend Avesta, part 3, pp. 84, 85.) 
 
 As to the Flood we find this tradition : 
 
 Tascher (the spirit ruling the waters), found water for 
 thirty days and thirty nights upon the earth. Every water- 
 drop was as big as a bowl. The earth was covered with 
 water the height of a man. All idolaters on earth died 
 through the rain; it penetrated all openings. Afterwards 
 a wind from heaven divided the water and carried it away 
 on clouds as souls bear bodies; then Ormuzd collected all 
 the water together and placed it as a boundary to the earth, 
 and thus was the great ocean formed. (Bundahisch, 7.) 
 
 A Hindu Tradition. 
 
 The ancient Hindu tradition is, that in the reign of the 
 sunbom monarch Satyavrata, the whole earth was dro^^Tied, 
 
LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 225 
 
 and the whole human race was destroyed by a flood, except 
 X pious prince himself, the seven Rishis, and their se vera 
 wives This general prdaya, or destruction, is the subject 
 ^f the first rurana, or sacred poem; and the story is con- 
 cisely told in the eighth book of the Bhagavata, from which 
 the following is an abridged extract: 
 
 "The demon Hayagriva having purloined the Vcdas [ tl t 
 sacred Sancrit volumes] from Brahma while the latter wa. 
 repcSng, the whole race of man became corrxipt except 
 the Eishis and Satyavrata. This prince was performing 
 his ab utions in the river Critamala, when Vishnu appeared 
 to htti the shape of a small fish, and thus addressed his 
 amazed votary: 'In seven days all creatures who have ot- 
 r/ed me. sMl be destroyed by a deluge ; but thcnishaU 
 be secured in a capacious vessel miraculously foimeci 
 Take therefore, all kinds of medicinal herbs and esculent 
 grain for food and. together with the seven holy men 
 your respective wives, and pairs of all anima s, enter the 
 ark without fear: then shnlt thou know God face to ace 
 and all thy questions shall be answered.' Saymg this, he 
 disapneared; and. after seven days, the ocean began to 
 overflow the coasts, and the earth to be flooded by constant 
 showers, when Satyavrata, meditating on the Deity, saw a 
 large vessel moving on the waters: he entered it, having 
 in all respects conformed to the instructions of Vishnu, 
 who in the form of a large fish, suffered the vessel to be 
 tied with a great sea-serpent, as with a cable, to his meas- 
 ureless horn. When the deluge had ceased, Vishnu slew 
 the demon and recovered the Vedm, and Instructed Satyav- 
 rata in Divine knowledge." (On the Chronology of the 
 Hindus, by Sir W. Jones, in Asiatic Rese.^rctes n. p. lib.) 
 The "fish " it will be remembered, signifies knowledge, 
 truth' stored in the memory, which is the first means of 
 salvation, for men must learn the truth before they can 
 live according to it. 
 
 Chinese Legends. 
 In China the legends of the Fall and the Flood are so 
 numerous and various that it is difficult to make a selection. 
 
 15 
 
226 TEE GOLDEN AGE. ' 
 
 According to Chinese philosophy, man is part spirit, part 
 animal. The spirit follows the laws of Heaven, as a dis- 
 ciple his master ; the animal, on the other hand, is the slave 
 of sense. At his origin, man obeyed the heavens; his first 
 state was one of innocence and happiness ; he knew neither 
 disease nor death; he was by instinct wholly good and 
 spiritual. But the immoderate desire to be wise, or, accord- 
 ing to Lao-tse, to eat, was the ruin of mankind. (Memoires 
 Chinois I, p. 107.) 
 
 The Jesuit M. Martinius says that the Chinese computed 
 the Deluge to have taken place 4,000 years before the 
 Christian era. Fah-he, the reputed author of Chinese 
 civilization, is said to have escaped from the waters of the 
 Deluge. He reappears as the first man at the production 
 of a renovated world, attended by seven companions, — 
 his wife, three sons and three daughters, by whose inter- 
 marriage the whole circle of the universe is finally com- 
 pleted. (Hardwick's Christ and Other Masters, iii, 16.) 
 
 One extraordinary Antediluvian saved his life by climb- 
 ing up a mountain, and there and then, in the manner of 
 a bird planting a nest, he passed his days on a tree, whilst 
 all the country below him was one sheet of water. He after- 
 wards lived to a very old age, and could testify to his late 
 posterity, that a whole race of human beings had been 
 swept from the face of the earth. (The Chinese Reposi- 
 tory, viii, p. 517.) 
 
 In one of the writings of the disciples of Lao-tse, the 
 tradition takes a fuller form. Kung-Kung, a bad spirit, 
 enraged at having been overcome in war, gave such a blow 
 against one of the pillars of the sky with his head that 
 he broke the pillar; and the vault of heaven fell in, and a 
 tremendous flood overwhelmed the earth. But Niu-Noa 
 [Noah!] overcame the water with wood, and made a boat 
 to save himself, which could go far; and he polished a 
 stone of five colors, — the rainbow — and therewith he fast- 
 ened the heavens, and lifted them up on a tortoise shell. 
 Then he killed the black dragon, Kung-Kung, and choked 
 the holes in heaven with the ashes of a pumpkin. (Mem. 
 concernant les Chinoise, ix, p. 383.) 
 
LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 227 
 
 Another account, published in the Philadelphia North 
 American for August 30, 1903, states that: 
 
 ''In the fifty-nine books of the original 100 volumes of 
 the Historical Records of China, which are all that sur- 
 vived the carrying out of the edict of the Emperor Che 
 Hwangti, in 221 B. C, ordering the destruction of all books 
 not relating to astrology and divination or medicine, there 
 may be found a story of the warning of Nuh that the world 
 was to be destroyed by water. The wickedness of the world 
 was the cause of the flood. 
 
 ''In the same manner that the Noah of the Bible is said 
 to have done, Nuh heeded the warning and built himself a 
 huge junk and coated it upon the outside with pitch. Into 
 the junk Nuh retreated with his wife and three sons. He 
 took with him rice, millet, silkworms and a tortoise. None 
 of the animals that Noah sheltered in the ark went into 
 Nuh's junk. 
 
 "After many days a stork, bearing in its mouth a sprig 
 of willow, flew to the junk and announced the subsidence 
 of the flood. The story follows the narration of Noah's ad- 
 ventures particularly close in the matter of the landing of 
 the junk. The junk grounded upon the mountain spelled 
 in the Chinese record "Ay-ahr-at." The peak, which is in 
 the eastern part of Thibet, bears this name at the present 
 day." 
 
 American Traditions. 
 
 George Catlin, the eminent authority on the Aborigenes 
 of America, says that among one hundred and twenty dif- 
 ferent tribes that he had visited in North, South and Cen- 
 tral America, not a tribe existed that had not related to 
 him traditions, vague or distinct, referring to the great 
 Flood. (Okeepa, p. 2.) 
 
 Beginning at the extreme north we learn that the Ko- 
 losches, of Alaska, say that the first dweller on the earth 
 was Kitkhughiasi, and that he resolved to destroy all his 
 children who sinned against him. Thereupon he brought 
 a flood over the land, and all perished save a few who 
 escaped in boats to the tops of mountains, where, say they, 
 
228 ^'^^ GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 the remains of the boats, and the ropes which fastened them, 
 remained to be seen. The same storj^, precisely, is told by 
 the closely allied race of the Chippewas. (Atheme Jones, 
 Traditions op the North American Indians^ ii, p. 9.) 
 
 Among the Dog-rib Indians Sir John Franklin found a 
 very curious story of the Deluge; and as this tribe lives 
 near the Polar Sea, far from any mission stations, it is 
 scarcely possible that the story can have been derived from 
 Christian teachers. 
 
 ''They say that Tshapiwih, their great ancestor, lived 
 on a track between two seas. He built a weir, and caught 
 fish in such abundance that they choked the watercourse, 
 and the w^ater overflowed the earth. Tschapiwih with his 
 family entered his canoe, and took with him all kinds of 
 beasts and birds. The land w^as covered for many days; 
 at last Tschapiwih could bear it no longer, so he sent out 
 the beaver to look for the earth. But the beaver was 
 drowned. Then he sent out the muskrat, which had some 
 difficulty in returning, but it had mud on its paws. Tschap- 
 iwih was glad to see the earth, and moulded it between his 
 fingers till it became an island on the surface of the waters, 
 on which he could land." (Lutke, Voyage autour du 
 Monde, i, p. 19.) 
 
 The ancient Mexicans have a myth of Xolotl, making out 
 of a bone the primeval mother in the heavenly Paradise; 
 she was the mother of twins, and is represented in a Mexi- 
 can hieroglyph as speaking with a serpent, whilst behind 
 her stand the twins, whose different characters are repre- 
 sented by different colors, and one of them is represented 
 as slaying the other. Xolotl, who made her out of a bone, 
 was cast out of heaven, and became the first man. (Hum- 
 Ijoldt, Pittorske Ansichten der Cordilleren^ Plate XIII, 
 and explanation, ii, pp. 41, 42.) 
 
 The Flood was described by the Mexicans as follows : 
 
 "There was a great deluge which destroyed all men and 
 beasts, save Cox-cox and his wife, Chichequetzal, w'ho. 
 escaped in a tree-trunk and landed on Mount Colhuacan, 
 where they became parents of many children, who, how- 
 ever, were all dumb. Then appeared a dove, which seated 
 
LEGENDS OF THE FLOOD. 229 
 
 itself on a high tree, and taught them language. But as 
 none of them understood the speech of the other, they separ- 
 ated and dispersed over the world." (Muller, Geschichte 
 DES Amerikanischen Ur-religion, p. 515.) 
 
 The inhabitants of Mechoacan in Mexico related that, on 
 account of the iniquity of men, a flood was sent to sweep 
 them all away; but a priest, named Tezbi, along with his 
 wife and children, were saved in a box of wood into which 
 they had entered along with all kinds of seeds and animals. 
 After some time Tezbi, wearying of his confinement, sent 
 forth the vulture, which, however, did not return to him. 
 Then he sent forth other birds, but they did not come back. 
 Finally he sent out the humming-bird, which returned with 
 a branch in its beak. And of this event they had paintings 
 in their temples, which they showed to the white men who 
 arrived amongst them. (Herrera, Hist, general de los 
 Hecos, Madrid, 1601.) 
 
 The Caribs of South America relate that Luoguo, the 
 first man and god, created the earth and the sea, and made 
 the earth as fair as the beautiful garden in the heaven 
 where dwell the gods. Luoguo dwelt for some time among 
 the men he had made. He drew the man out of his navel 
 and out of his thigh which he cut open. One of the first 
 men was Racumon, who was transformed into a great ser- 
 pent with a human head, and he lived twined round a great 
 Cabatas tree and ate of its fruit, and gave to those who 
 passed by. At that time the Caribs lived to a great age, 
 and never w^axed old or died. Afterwards they found a 
 garden planted with manioc, and on that they fed. But 
 they became wicked, and a flood came and swept them away. 
 (De la Borde, Eeise zu den Caraiben, i, pp. 380-85.) 
 
 ''The belief in a deluge," says Humboldt, "is not found 
 merely among the Tamanaks, but is a portion of a whole 
 system of historical traditions of which the scattered ac- 
 counts are to be gathered from the Maipures of the Great 
 Cataract, the Indians of Rio Crevato, which pours into the 
 Cauca, and almost from all the races in the Upper Orinoko. 
 (Humboldt, Reise in die Aequinoctial Gegenden, iii, p. 
 406.) 
 
230 THE GOLDEN AGE. 
 
 This is the tradition of the Tamanaks, in Guiana: 
 "At the time of our ancestors the whole earth was over- 
 flowed. Then two persons alone were saved, a man and a 
 woman, who remained on Mount Tamamaku, which is not 
 far from the Cucivero river, where our ancestors formerly- 
 dwelt. They lamented sore over the loss of their friends 
 and relations, and as they wandered sadly about the moun- 
 tain they heard a voice which told them to cast the kernels 
 of the nuts of a certain palm tree backwards over their 
 shoulders. They did so, and out of the nuts cast by the 
 woman there arose females, and out of those cast by the man 
 sprang males. (Nachrichten aus dem Lande Guiana, by 
 Salvator Gili, Hamburg, 1785, p. 440.) 
 
 Legends such as these, of the Creation, the Fall and the 
 Flood, exist throughout the earth and are self-evident and 
 sufficient proofs of the common origin of all the religions, 
 ancient and modem, of the universal human race. Through- 
 out all of them we clearly see certain golden strands, which, 
 when followed up, all point to and finally center in the 
 opening chapters of Genesis, where alone we find all the 
 essential features of all the primitive traditions of all the 
 races and tribes of mankind in all the ages of its history. 
 
WORKS BY C. TH. ODHNER 
 
 ANNAIiS OF THE ITEW CHUBCH. Vol. I. 1688-1850. Bryn 
 Athyn, Pa. 1904. Pp. 573, with an index of 52 pp. Octavo; 
 cloth, $1.50. 
 
 A great storehouse of New Church History, in chronological 
 order. Contains: 1. The most complete outline extant of the facts 
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 Illustrated with 12 full page and 45 half-tone portraits of Swe- 
 denborg, eminent Newchurchmen, church buildings, etc. 
 
 A BRIEF VIEW OF THE HEAVENLY DOCTRINES OF THE 
 
 NEW JERUSALEM. Second Edition. Bryn Athyn. 1903. 
 
 Pp. 103. Cloth, 25 cents; paper, 15 cents. 
 
 A concise and definite summary of the leading Doctrines of the 
 
 New Church. Excellent not only for missionary purposes, but also 
 
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 EMANUEL SWEDENBORG, THE SERVANT OF THE LORD. 
 
 A true story for the young. New York. N. C. Board of Pub- 
 lication. 1900. Pp. 114. Cloth, 50 cents. 
 A brief but correct and interesting biography of the revelator 
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 JAMES JOHN GARTH WILKINSON. Bryn Athyn. 1901. Pp. 36. 
 Paper, 30 cents. 
 A biographical sketch of a great New Church scholar and writer. 
 With a portrait of Dr. Wilkinson. 
 
 MICHAEL SERVETUS. HIS LIFE AND TEACHINGS. Phila- 
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 This little work sets forth the life and work of a most remark- 
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 ROBERT HINDMARSH. A BIOGRAPHY. Philadelphia. 1895. 
 Pp. 116. Cloth, 50 cents. 
 
 Presents not only a biography of the great founder of the New 
 Church as a distinct organization, but also the founding of the 
 Church and its subsequent history in England until the death of 
 Hindmarsh in 1835. 
 
 With a portrait of Hindmarsh and three appendices: I. Eeasons 
 for separating from the Old Church; II. Principles of ecclesiastical 
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 gra}>hi('al list of New Church ministers in England. 
 
 THE TESTIMONY OF THE WRITINGS CONCERNING THEM- 
 SELVES. Biyn Athyn, Pa. 1902. Pp. 46. Paper, 15 cents. 
 A compilation and systematic presentation of some of the most 
 definite passages in the Writings of the New Church, dealing with 
 the nature of Swedenborg's inspiration and the relation of his 
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 ing "authority," and respecting the affirmative principle and the 
 negative. 
 
 COERBSPONDENCES OF CANAAN. A study of the spiritual 
 geography and historv of the land and the nations of the Word. 
 Bryn Athyn, Pa. 1910. Pp. 146. Cloth, 75 cents. 
 An importaifit text-book for New Church Schools and Teachers, 
 and of interest to every student of the Word. 
 
 THE GOLDEN AGE. The Story of the Most Ancient Church. 
 Bryu Athyn, Pa. 1913. Pp. 230. Cloth, $1.00. 
 
 All of these works may be obtained from 
 
 THE ACADEMY BOOK ROOM, 
 
 Bryn Athyn, Pa. 
 
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