The most famous rib in the Bible is, of course, the one taken from Adam and formed into Eve in the Garden of Eden. This event, according to Swedenborg, illustrates a key moment in the spiritual history of humanity, one that still drives our lives today.
Swedenborg says that Adam represents the earliest church on earth in its purest form. People lived in a state of love to the Lord and love for each other, communed with heaven, and could simply feel what was true and good without having to think about it. They were also different from us in a couple of key ways. First, they had no sense that life was their own – they felt all life, thought and emotion flowing to them from the Lord. Second, they lacked the capacity to separate their hearts and their minds. They could not want one thing and use their minds to choose another; their minds followed their hearts.
But Adam was lonely – which Swedenborg says represents the fact that people started to want their lives to be their own. So God took his rib and forming it into Eve.
This represents what Swedenborg calls the “proprium,” a Latin word which is sometimes translated as the “Own” or the “as of self” but is often simply left in the original language. It is a complex idea, but in a nutshell it is this:
The proprium is the part of us that feels our lives as our own, our thoughts as our own, our feelings as our own. It lets us see ourselves as self-sustaining, self-determining, self-propelled. This is, according to Swedenborg, not the case — just as our physical being comes from the natural matter and energy of the universe, so also our spiritual being flows from the love and wisdom of the Lord. But the Lord knew we would need it to be happy and to act in freedom, and created it for us as we turned away from him.
The Lord did this by taking the most external parts of us — the thoughts and feelings we have that are most connected to the physical world — and bringing them to a place of prominence. He can still flow into us from the inside, but we can live on the outside without being aware.
As a bone, the rib (like all bones) is largely mineral — non-living material. But the minerals are interlaced with living material that allow the bone to grow and to heal. So it represents the proprium itself, while Eve — with flesh covering the bones — represents the proprium clothed with affections for good things that come from the Lord.
Passages from Swedenborg
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 147
- Verse 21 And Jehovah God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he fell asleep; and He took one of his ribs, and He closed up the flesh in its place.
‘A rib’, which is a breast bone, is used to mean man’s proprium when it contains very little life, a proprium indeed that he cherishes. ‘The flesh in place of the rib’ is used to mean the proprium when it does contain some life. ‘A deep sleep’ is used to mean that state into which he was brought so that he might seem to himself to have a proprium. This state resembles sleep because a person in that state is conscious only of living, thinking, speaking, and acting from himself. But when he starts to realize that this is false, he is aroused from sleep so to speak and wakes up.
Conjugial Love (Rogers) n. 193
- (8) A woman is actually transformed into a wife according to the description in the book of creation. We are told in this book that woman was created from the rib of a man, and that when she was brought to him, the man said,
She…is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘Ishshah (Woman) because she was taken from ‘Ish (Man). (Genesis 2:22-24)
In the Word, a rib from the breast symbolically means, in its spiritual sense, not a rib but natural truth. This is the symbolism of the ribs which the bear carried between its teeth in Daniel 7:5; for bears symbolize people who read the Word in its natural sense and see truths there without understanding. The breast of a man symbolizes that essential and distinctive quality which makes it different in character from the breast of a woman. This quality is wisdom, as may be seen above in no. 187; for truth supports wisdom, as a rib supports the breast. These distinctive qualities are symbolized, because the breast is where all the qualities of a person are, so to speak, at their center.
Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 10189
- ‘On its two ribs’ means with truths lying in one direction, that is to say, a joining together with them and preservation by means of them. This is clear from the meaning of ‘the ribs’, when used to mean the sides, as truths; for the sides that are called ‘the ribs’ face the south and the north, and ‘the south’ means truth dwelling in light, 9642, while ‘the north’ means truth dwelling in shade, 3708. But by ‘the sides’ which are properly the sides good is meant since these face the east and the west, and ‘the east’ means good set in clearness and ‘the west’ good set in obscurity, 3708, 9653. Therefore it says here,
Two rings of gold you shall make for it under the rim; on its two ribs you shall make them, on its two sides.
The fact that the sides which are properly the sides face the east and the west, whereas the sides which are called ‘the ribs’ face the south and the north is evident in Exod. 26:13, 26, 27, 35*. Furthermore since the ribs serve to reinforce the chest truths giving support to good are meant by them.
That the symbolic meanings of a leopard, bear and lion are as stated can be seen from the similar beasts that Daniel saw, which are described as follows:
Four great beasts came up from the sea…. The first was like a lion, but had eagle’s wings. I watched till its wings were plucked off; and it was lifted up from the earth and made to stand on its feet like a man, and a man’s heart was given to it. …a second beast (was) like a bear, and it raised itself up on one side, had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth, and was told, “Arise, devour much flesh!” …(the third beast was) like a leopard, which had on its back four wings, like those of a bird, and the beast also had four heads, and dominion was given to it. …a fourth beast (was) dreadful and terrible, exceedingly strong, which had…iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and trampled the residue with its feet. (Daniel 7:3-7)
[2] These four beasts describe succeeding states of the church, from its first state to its last, until it was completely desolate of any good or truth of the Word prior to the Lord’s advent. The lion symbolizes the Divine truth of the Word in the first state, by which the church was established. This is what is meant by its being lifted up from the earth and made to stand on its feet like a man, and its being given a man’s heart.
The bear describes the church’s second state, a state in which the Word is indeed read, but not understood. The three ribsbetween its teeth symbolize appearances and misconceptions, and much flesh symbolizes the literal sense of the Word in its totality.