THE
BOOK OF GENESIS.
1. THAT the Word of the Old Testament includes arcana of heaven, and that all its contents, to every particular, regard the Lord, his heaven, the church, faith, and the things relating to faith, no man can conceive who only views it from the letter. For the letter, or literal sense, suggests only such things as respect the externals of the Jewish church, when, nevertheless, it everywhere contains internal things, which do not in the least appear in those externals, except in a very few cases, where the Lord revealed and unfolded them to the apostles—as that sacrifices are significative of the Lord—and that the land of Canaan and Jerusalem are significative of heaven, on which account they are called the heavenly Canaan and Jerusalem—and that Paradise has a, like signification.
2. But that all and every part of its contents, even to the most minute, not excepting the smallest jot and tittle, signify and involve spiritual and celestial things, is a truth to this day deeply hidden from the Christian world; in consequence of which little attention is paid to the Old Testament. This truth, however, might appear plainly from this single circumstance; that the Word being of the Lord, and from the Lord, could not possibly be given without containing interiorly such things as relate to heaven, to the church, and to faith. For, if this be denied, how can it be called the Word of the Lord, or be said to have any life in it? For whence is its life, but from those things which possess life? that is, except from hence, that all things in it, both generally and particularly, have relation to the Lord, who is the very Life Itself. Wherefore whatsoever does not interiorly regard Him, does not live; nay, whatsoever expression in the Word does not involve Him, or in its measure relate to Him, is not divine.
3. Without such a living manciple, the Word, as to the letter, is dead. For it is with the Word as it is with man, who, as all Christians are taught to believe, consists of two parts, an external and an internal. The external man separate from the internal is the body, which, in such a state of separation, is dead; but the internal is that which lives and causes the external to live. The internal man is the soul; and thus the Word, as to the letter alone, is like a body without a soul.
