Genesis: Chapter 5.

For Swedenborg, Genesis Chapter 5—the long list of begats and lifespans—is anything but a boring historical register. It’s a crucial spiritual summary that charts the rapid decline of the Most Ancient Church (the one from Eden) and the final, catastrophic destruction of its purest elements. Here is the informal breakdown of this lineage in Arcana Coelestia:

The Book of the Generations of Adam (Verses 1–5)

The chapter starts by restating that “God created man in the likeness of God; male and female He created them, and blessed them and called their name Adam.” This isn’t just repetition; it serves a key function:

It solidifies the representation.

It reminds the reader that the lineage being discussed comes from the original, perfect state of the Most Ancient Church, which was characterized by the celestial union of good (male) and truth (female).

The Spiritual Accounting.

The whole list is a spiritual account book. The names and ages are not literal history; they are representative periods or states of the church as it spirals downward into spiritual darkness.

What the Lineage Represents: The Descent of the Church

The names in this list are symbolic figures that each represent a successive, declining state of the Most Ancient Church, starting with Adam and leading to Noah. Adam: The first state, representing the purest celestial church that communicated directly with the Lord through love and perception.

Seth (The New Seed).

Introduced in Chapter 4 as a replacement for Abel (pure charity). Seth represents the truth and doctrine that was saved and established after the spiritual murder (Cain killing Abel). This is the beginning of the church trying to rebuild itself based on teaching, rather than pure perception.

Enosh (Man/Calling on the Name of the Lord).

Represents a state where people started to formalize their worship and rely on external rituals. “To call on the name of the Lord” no longer meant immediate perception, but acknowledging the Lord through an external form of worship—a clear sign that the internal relationship had faded.

Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared.

These names represent a series of progressively more distant and corrupted states. As you go down the list, the heavenly elements get weaker, and the people become more focused on themselves, their own knowledge, and their own glory. The church is losing its spiritual essence and becoming merely natural and external.

Lamech and his contemporaries (the generation of the Flood, discussed more in Chapter 6) represent the last, most evil stage—people whose goodness and truth have been completely profaned by their love of self and the world.

The Meaning of the Lifespans: Spiritual Quality

In the literal sense, the long lifespans (Adam living 930 years, Methuselah 969, etc.) are astounding. In the internal sense, they aren’t about biology; they are about spiritual quality and duration.

Long Life = Deep Life.

The long years assigned to each patriarch signify the spiritual depth and integrity of that particular state of the church, and how strongly the remnant of celestial good was still present.

Gradual Decline.

As the lineage continues, the spiritual quality gets worse, and the ages generally drop off after the flood (Noah’s generation). The long ages in this chapter emphasize that the first church was rooted in deep, genuine celestial good, which gave it a long-lasting spiritual life, even as it declined.

Enoch: The First Collectors of Correspondence (Verses 21–24).

Enoch is the most important figure in this list, because he interrupts the pattern of “lived…begat…and he died.”

Enoch’s Representation: Enoch represents a group of people in the declining church who were the first to realize that the ancient people communicated with heaven through correspondences—the symbolic link between natural things and spiritual things.

Enoch walked with God.

This means that Enoch and his followers turned their minds away from the corrupted, self-serving life of their peers. They were busy collecting and classifying the knowledge of correspondences that the first church had once used naturally (like how “fruit” means goodness and “garden” means wisdom).

And he was not, for God took him.

This doesn’t mean a physical rapture. It signifies that the knowledge of correspondences (Enoch) was preserved and safeguarded by the Lord and taken into the heavens. This knowledge could no longer remain safely among the wicked people of the earth; it had to be removed and stored for the next church (the Ancient Church) to use later on.

The End of a Church (Verses 28–32).

The chapter concludes with the birth of Lamech and Noah, setting the stage for the Flood. Noah’s Spiritual Meaning: The birth of Noah is the sign that the Lord is working to save a small remnant. Noah represents the commencement of a new church that is spiritual (based on doctrine/truth) rather than celestial (based on pure love/perception, like the Most Ancient Church).

The Spiritual Death.

Every entry ends with “and he died.” This signifies that the spiritual quality of that state of the church came to an end. It wasn’t the end of a human being, but the death of that particular kind of spiritual life.

Summary.

Genesis 5 is Swedenborg’s secret index to the history of the earliest church. It teaches that the Divine Truth (the Word) is continuous and that even the most repetitive part of the Bible is silently telling the story of how spiritual life gradually degenerated from pure, innocent love (Adam) to external, doctrinal knowledge (Seth/Enosh), a process that had to be halted and saved through the protective removal of truth (Enoch) to prepare for a completely new spiritual beginning (Noah).

Taken from Arcana Coelestia Volume 1.

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