ng or skin is cast off, the spiritual or
substantial man comes forth, a purer, interior, and more perfect man.
That the spiritual man is still a perfect man, notwithstanding his being
invisible to the natural man, is evident from the Lord's being seen by
the apostles after his resurrection, when he appeared, and presently he
did not appear; and yet he was a man like to himself both when seen and
when not seen: it is also said, that when they saw him, their eyes were
opened.
32. II. IN THIS CASE A MALE IS A MALE, AND A FEMALE A FEMALE. Since a
man (_homo_) lives a man after death, and man is male and female, and
there is such a distinction between the male principle and the female
principle, that the one cannot be changed into the other, it follows,
that after death the male lives a male, and the female a female, each
being a spiritual man. It is said that the male principle cannot be
changed into the female principle, nor the female into the male, and
that therefore after death the male is a male, and the female a female;
but as it is not known in what the masculine principle essentially
consists, and in what the feminine, it may be expedient briefly to
explain it. The essential distinction between the two is this: in the
masculine principle, love is inmost, and its covering is wisdom; or,
what is the same, the masculine principle is love covered (or veiled) by
wisdom; whereas in the feminine principle, the wisdom of the male is
inmost, and its covering is love thence derived; but this latter love is
feminine, and is given by the Lord to the wife through the wisdom of the
husband; whereas the former love is masculine, which is the love of
growing wise, and is given by the Lord to the husband according to the
reception of wisdom. It is from this circumstance, that the male is the
wisdom of love, and the female is the love of that wisdom; therefore
from creation there is implanted in each a love of conjunction so as to
become a one; but on this subject more will be said in the following
pages. That the female principle is derived from the male, or that the
woman was taken out of the man, is evident from these words in Genesis:
_Jehovah God took out one of the man's ribs, and closed up the flesh in
the place thereof; and he builded the rib, which he had taken out of the
man, into a woman; and he brought her to the man; and the man said, This
is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; hence she shall be called
Eve, becaus
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