Coronis, or Appendix,
to True Christian Religion

Emanuel Swedenborg

SECOND PROPOSITION (29 - 30)

29. (c) The third state of the church, which is its decline and evening, and is called vastation, is described in the third chapter of Genesis by these words:

The serpent became more subtle than any wild animal of the field, which Jehovah God had made. He said to the woman, Yea, wherefore hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And when the woman said unto the serpent, Of the fruit of the tree we may eat; only of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die, the serpent said, Ye shall not die for God doth know that in the day wherein ye shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. The woman therefore saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and to be desired to give understanding; therefore she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat and she gave to her husband with her, and he did eat (Gen. 1-6).

[2] Every man has a natural mind and a spiritual mind, distinct from each other like two stories of one house connected by stairs; in the upper story of which dwell the master and mistress with their children, but in the lower the men-servants and maid-servants, with other helpers. The spiritual mind in man from birth even to early childhood is closed, but after that first age it is opened step by step; for there is given to every man from birth the faculty, and afterwards the power, of procuring for himself steps by which he may ascend and speak with the master and mistress, and afterwards descend and execute their commands. This power is given him through the endowment of free will in spiritual things. Nevertheless no one can ascend to the upper story, by which is meant the spiritual mind, unless he eat of the trees of life in the garden of God. For by eating of these a man is enlightened and made whole, and conceives faith; and through the nourishment of their fruits he acquires the conviction that all good is from the Lord, who is the tree of life, and not the smallest portion from man; and yet by abiding together and operating together, hence by the Lord's being in him and he in the Lord, he must do good of himself, but still be in the belief and confidence that it is not from himself but from the Lord.

[3] If a man believe otherwise, he does what appears like good, in which there is evil inwardly, because there is merit; and this is eating of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil, among which dwells the serpent, in the dreadful persuasion that he is as God, or else that there is no God, but that Nature is what is called God, and that he is composed of the elements thereof. Furthermore, those eat of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil who love themselves and the world above all things; but those eat of the trees of life who love God above all things and the neighbor as themselves. Those also eat of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil who hatch out canons for the church from their own intelligence, and afterwards confirm them by the Word; but on the other hand those who procure for themselves canons for the church by means of the Word, and afterwards confirm them by intelligence, eat of the trees of life. Those also who teach truths from the Word and live wickedly eat of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil; but those eat of the trees of life who live well and teach from the Word. Universally speaking, all eat of the trees of the knowledge of good and evil who deny the Divinity of the Lord and the holiness of the Word, inasmuch as the Lord is the Tree of Life and the Word, from whom the church is a "garden in Eden at the east."

30. The spiritual man is an erect man, who with his head looks to heaven above him and about him, and treads the earth with the soles of his feet. But the natural man separated from the spiritual is either like a man bent downwards, who nods with his head, and continually looks at the earth, and then at the steps of his own feet; or, he is like an inverted man, who walks on the palms of his hands, and lifts up his feet towards heaven, and by shakings and clappings of these performs worship. The spiritual man is like a rich man, who has a palace in which are dining rooms, bed chambers, and banquet halls, the walls of which are continuous windows of crystalline glass, through which he sees the gardens, fields, flocks, and herds which also belong to him, and with the sight and use of which he is daily delighted. But the natural man, separated from the spiritual is also like a rich man, who has a palace containing chambers, the walls of which are continuous planks of rotten wood, which sheds around a fatuous light, wherein appear images of pride from the love of self and the world, like molten images of gold, in the middle, and of silver at the sides, before which he bends the knee like an idolater. Again, the spiritual man, in himself, is actually like a dove as to gentleness, like an eagle as to the sight of his mind, like a flying bird of paradise as to progression in spiritual things, and like a peacock as to adornment from spiritual things. But on the contrary the natural man separated from the spiritual is like a hawk pursuing a dove, like a dragon devouring the eyes of an eagle, like a fiery flying serpent at the side of a bird of paradise, and like a horned owl beside a peacock. These comparisons are made that they may be as optical glasses whereby the reader may more closely contemplate what the spiritual man is in itself, and the natural man in itself. But the case is altogether different, when the spiritual man by its spiritual light and spiritual heat is inwardly in the natural; then both constitute one, just like effort in motion, and will (which is living effort) in action, and like appetite in taste, and like the sight of the mind in the sight of the eye, and still more evidently like the perception of a thing in cognition, and the thought of it in speech.