Arcana Coelestia (Elliott) n. 261

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261. Verse 16 And to the woman He said, I will greatly multiply your pain and your conceiving; in pain you will bear sons; and your obedience will be to your husband, and he will have dominion over you.

At this point 'the woman' means the Church [corrupted] by the proprium, which it loved. 'Greatly multiplying its pain' means conflict and the anxiety that arises out of conflict. 'Conceiving' means every thought. 'The sons' it would bear in pain means the truths it would in this way bring forth. 'Husband' (vir) here, as previously, means the rational which it is to obey and which is to have dominion over it.


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