Divine Love and Wisdom (Ager) n. 319

Previous Number Next Number Next Translation See Latin 

319. ALL THINGS OF THE CREATED UNIVERSE, VIEWED IN REFERENCE TO USES REPRESENT MAN IN AN IMAGE, AND THIS TESTIFIES THAT GOD IS A MAN By the ancients man was called a microcosm, from his representing the macrocosm, that is, the universe in its whole complex; but it is not known at the present day why man was so called by the ancients, for no more of the universe or macrocosm is manifest in him than that he derives nourishment and bodily life from its animal and vegetable kingdoms, and that he is kept in a living condition by its heat, sees by its light, and hears and breathes by its atmospheres. Yet these things do not make man a microcosm, as the universe with all things thereof is a macrocosm. The ancients called man a microcosm, or little universe, from truth which they derived from the knowledge of correspondences, in which the most ancient people were, and from their communication with angels of heaven; for angels of heaven know from the things which they see about them that all things of the universe, viewed as to uses, represent man as an image.


This page is part of the Heavenly Doctrines

© 2000-2001 The Academy of the New Church