According to Swedenborg, “Eden” by itself means love, in most cases the love that comes from the Lord and our love for the Lord, which is the highest human love of all. Of course, “Eden” is closely identified with “garden,” which represents a mind in its most fertile and receptive state, producing expressions of love from its intelligence and wisdom. The “Garden of Eden,” then, means the state of love and wisdom with people who are in a pure state of love to the Lord.
The Garden of Eden is referred to throughout Scripture, but is described in detail in Genesis 2:8-17. Those verses, understood on a spiritual level, show the nature of what Swedenborg calls the Most Ancient Church, in which people of prehistoric times were elevated to a state of love to the Lord and communion with heaven, a degree of innocence and love that we cannot truly imagine in the modern world.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 98
- Verse 8 And Jehovah God planted a garden in Eden, from the east, and there He put the man whom He had formed.
‘Garden’ means intelligence, ‘Eden’ love, ‘the east’ the Lord. ‘A garden in Eden, from the east’ therefore means celestial man’s intelligence which flows in by way of love, from the Lord.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 99
- The life – that is, the order of life – as it exists with the spiritual man is such that the Lord flows in by means of faith, into his intellectual concepts, his rational concepts, and his factual knowledge. But because his external man is at war with the internal, it seems as though intelligence were not flowing in from the Lord but from himself by way of facts and rational concepts. But life – that is, the order of life – as it exists with the celestial man is such that the Lord flows in by way of love and of faith included with love into his intellectual concepts, his rational concepts, and his factual knowledge. And since there is no resistance, he perceives that this is the case. In this way order which up to now has with the spiritual man been turned upside-down is restored with the celestial. This order, which is man, is called ‘the garden inEden, from the east’. In the highest sense ‘the garden planted by Jehovah God in Eden, from the east’ is the Lord Himself; in the inmost sense, which is also the universal sense, it is the Lord’s kingdom and heaven, where a person is placed on becoming celestial. At this point his state enables him to be with angels in heaven, and to be virtually one among them. In fact, man has been so created that while living on earth he may at the same time be in heaven. In that situation all of his thoughts, all his mental images produced by thoughts, and even his words and deeds lie open, containing what is celestial and spiritual. They lie open all the way from the Lord. Indeed everyone has the Lord’ s life within him, enabling him to have perception.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 100
- That ‘a garden’ means intelligence and ‘Eden’ love, is also evident in Isaiah,
Jehovah will comfort Zion, He will comfort all her waste places, and will make her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the Garden of Jehovah. Joy and gladness will be found in her, confession and the voice of song. Isa. 51:3.
Here ‘wilderness’, ‘joy’, and ‘confession’ are terms used by the prophet to express the celestial things of faith, that is, things that belong to love. But ‘desert’, ‘gladness’, and ‘the voice of song’ express the spiritual things of faith, which in turn are matters of the understanding. The former relate to ‘Eden’, the latter to ‘a garden’. For throughout this prophet dual expressions for the same thing are constantly occurring, with one expression meaning celestial things, the other spiritual. For more about what the garden in Eden means, see at verse to below.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 122
- Verse 15 And Jehovah God took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden, to till it and to care for it.
‘The garden of Eden’ means all the qualities of the celestial man which are the subject here. ‘Tilling it and caring for it’ means that he is allowed to enjoy all these things but not to possess them as his own, since they are the Lord’s.
Divine Love and Wisdom (Dole) n. 325
- Since there is a human image to everything in the universe, Adam’s wisdom and intelligence are described by the garden ofEden, where there were trees of every kind, as well as rivers, precious stones, and gold, along with the animals that he named. All of these meant things that were within him and that made him what we call “human.”
Quite similar things are said of Assyria in Ezekiel 31:3-9, meaning the church as far as its intelligence is concerned, and about Tyre in Ezekiel 28:12 and 23 [13], meaning the church in regard to its firsthand knowledge of what is good and true.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 130
- The person who wishes to become wise from the world has for his ‘garden’ sensory evidence and factual knowledge. His ‘Eden’ is self-love and love of the world, his ‘east’ is the west or himself. His ‘river Euphrates’ is all his factual knowledge, which is condemned; his ‘second river’, where Asshur is, is his insane reasoning from which come falsities; his ‘third river’, where Cush is, is the resulting assumptions he makes consisting of evil and falsity, which are his cognitions of faith; his ‘fourth’ is the wisdom that results, which in the Word is called magic. This is why Egypt, which means knowledge, after it has become magical, means this kind of person, the reason being that he wants to become wise from self, as shown throughout the Word. Such people are described in Ezekiel as follows,
Thus said the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster lying in the midst of his rivers, who said, My river is my own, and I have made myself. And the land of Egypt will be made into a desolation and a waste. And they will know that I am Jehovah. Moreover he has said, The river is mine, and I made it. Ezek. 29:3, 9.
People like this are also called in the same prophet where again Pharaoh or the Egyptian is the subject ‘the trees of Eden in hell’ as follows,
I will cause him to go down into hell with those going down into the pit. Whom have you become like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? You will be made to go down with the trees of Eden into the nether world, in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those pierced by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his horde. Ezek. 31:16, 18.
Here ‘trees of Eden’ stands for facts and cognitions drawn from the Word which they profane in this manner by means of reasonings.
AR 90
That the Paradise of God is the truth of wisdom and faith is apparent from the symbolic meaning of a garden in the Word. A garden there symbolizes wisdom and intelligence, because trees symbolize the people of the church, and their fruits goods of life. That is what the Garden of Eden symbolizes, for it describes the wisdom of Adam.
[2] The garden of God in Ezekiel has the same meaning:
With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself…. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering…. (Ezekiel 28:4, 13)
The subject is Tyre, which symbolizes the church in respect to its concepts of truth and good, thus in respect to its intelligence. Accordingly it is said, “With your wisdom and your understanding you have gained riches for yourself.” The precious stones which served as its covering symbolize truths of intelligence.
[3] In the same book:
Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon…. The cedars in the garden of God did not hide it…. No tree in the garden of God was like it in beauty…. All the trees of Eden envied it…in the garden of God. (Ezekiel 31:3, 8, 9)
This is said of Egypt and Assyria, because Egypt symbolizes knowledge, and Assyria rationality, which leads to intelligence. A cedar has a similar symbolism.
But because Egypt’s rationality led also to a conceit in its own intelligence, therefore it is said of it,
To which of the trees in Eden were you then likened in glory and greatness, when you were brought down with the trees of Eden to the earth below, and you lay in the midst of the uncircumcised…? (Ezekiel 31:18)
The uncircumcised are people who lack the goodness of charity.
[4] In Isaiah:
…Jehovah will comfort Zion…, and make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of Jehovah. (Isaiah 51:3)
Zion there is the church. The wilderness and desert are a deficiency of truth and ignorance of it. Eden and the garden of God are wisdom and intelligence.
Wisdom and intelligence are also symbolically meant by a garden in Isaiah 58:11, 61:11, Jeremiah 31:12, Amos 9:14, and Numbers 24:6.
True Christian Religion (Rose) n. 467
467
In the Word the Garden of Eden does not mean some garden but a state of understanding; and a tree does not mean some tree but a human being. You can see that the Garden of Eden means understanding and wisdom from the following passages: “With your understanding and wisdom you had made wealth for yourself”; and in the following verses there: “Full of wisdom, you were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering” (Ezekiel 28:4, 12, 13). These things are said of the prince and of the king of Tyre. The king is said to possess wisdom because Tyre in the Word means the church’s concepts of truth and goodness, which lead to wisdom. The precious stones that cover him also mean these concepts of truth and goodness. The prince and the king of Tyre were not in the Garden of Eden.
[2] Elsewhere in Ezekiel: “Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon. The cedars in the garden of God could not hide it. No tree in the garden of God was equal to it in beauty. All the trees of Eden in the garden of God were jealous of it” (Ezekiel 31:3, 8, 9). And again: “To which among the trees of Eden did you become comparable in glory and size?” (Ezekiel 31:18). This is said of Assyria, because in the Word Assyria means rationality and understanding. [3] In Isaiah: “Jehovah will comfort Zion and turn her wilderness intoEden, and her desert into the garden of Jehovah” (Isaiah 51:3). Zion here means the church; Eden and the garden of Jehovah mean wisdom and understanding. In the Book of Revelation: “To those who overcome I will give [food] to eat from the tree of life, which is in the middle of the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:7). “In the middle of the street [and] of the river, on this side and that, will be the tree of life” (Revelation 22:2). [4] From these verses it is very clear that the garden in Eden in which Adam was placed means understanding and wisdom, because similar things are said about Tyre, Assyria, and Zion.
Elsewhere in the Word as well, a garden means understanding; for example, in Isaiah 58:11; 61:11; Jeremiah 31:12; Amos 9:14; Numbers 24:6. A garden has this spiritual meaning because of symbolic representations in the spiritual world. In that world, garden paradises appear wherever there are angels who have understanding and wisdom; the understanding and wisdom they have from the Lord causes such things to appear around them. This occurs because of correspondence, for all things that exist in the spiritual world are correspondences.