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Swedenborgian Symbolism: Cain represents faith or truth. In that way, they gave doctrine more power than love. But after the appearance of “Cain,” people started to drift into a written, conceptual theology and treated the development of theological ideas as something you discover rather than as a universal truth.
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In this “golden age,” people originally just knew how to act and knew what was right without any sort of doctrinal discussion. Cain represents the creation of a doctrine that can be separated from pure spiritual love. Swedenborgian Symbolism: “I have acquired the man Jehovah” means “the faith among those called Cain was recognized and acknowledged as a thing in itself” ( Secrets of Heaven #338)Ĭain symbolizes a shift in thought in this “golden age,” when people began writing down the truth or faith they perceived. In this story, the catalyst in the fall was a spiritual shift represented by Cain. However, nothing perfect can stay perfect, so the golden age began to fall. At first, this group of people, or “church,” had everything-they could communicate with the heavens and feel that heavenly love. Swedenborg harkens back to an idea almost like the golden age, where people have access to heaven and communication with God. It refers to a mindset, a group of people who shared the same ideas. In Secrets of Heaven, Swedenborg writes, “The human and his wife, Eve, symbolize the earliest church.” Here, the word “church” does not refer to an individual building. Swedenborg uses these associations or correspondences to explain aspects of human nature. These concepts change through life, just as characters do.
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In Swedenborg’s assessment of the Bible story, each character corresponds to an idea, and the journey of that character tells us about that idea through different stages and changes. “And the human knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and delivered Cain and she said, “I have acquired a man: Jehovah.”–Genesis 4:1 In this episode of Swedenborg and Life, host Curtis Childs takes us through the story of Cain and Abel, examining the symbolism, meaning, and application that Swedenborg finds within each passage of the story. How can we apply the Bible story of Cain and Abel to our modern lives? Swedenborg answers this question in his multivolume work Secrets of Heaven, in which he combs through the meaning and symbolism behind the stories in Genesis and Exodus.