5495. 'To give fodder to his ass, in a lodging-place' means when they stopped to reflect on the facts present in the exterior natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'giving fodder to his ass' as stopping to reflect on facts (for fodder is the food, made up of straw and chaff, that asses are fed with, and therefore all reflection on facts is meant by it since reflection primarily is what nourishes these; as regards 'an ass' meaning factual knowledge, see just above in 5492); and from the meaning of a lodging-place' as the exterior natural. The meaning of 'a lodging-place' here as the exterior natural cannot, it is true, be substantiated from other places in the Word; even so it is evident from the consideration that facts are in their proper lodging-place so to speak when they are present in the exterior natural. For the natural has two parts, the exterior natural and the interior natural, see 5118. When facts exist in the exterior natural they have a direct communication with the external senses of the body, where they install themselves and so to speak rest. Therefore the exterior natural provides a lodging-place for facts, that is, a place for them to rest or spend the night.

5492. 'And they loaded their corn onto their asses' means the truths gathered into factual knowledge. This is clear from the meaning of corn' as truth, dealt with in 5276, 5280, 5292, 5402; and from the meaning of 'ass' as factual knowledge, dealt with in 2781. From these meanings it follows that 'they loaded their corn onto their asses' means that truths were gathered into factual knowledge. Such a meaning of these words will seem strange to someone who fixes his mind on the historical sense of the letter. It will seem even stranger to him if he does not believe in the existence of any internal sense other than the one which lies in close proximity to and shines out of the letter. For that person will say to himself, How can 'loading corn onto their asses' mean truths gathered into factual knowledge? But let him know that in the Word the sense of the letter passes into a sense of a spiritual kind when it passes from man to the angels, that is, into heaven. Indeed it passes into a sense stranger still when it passes into the third heaven, where every single detail in the Word passes into affections belonging to love and charity, which the internal sense serves as the foundation for it to rest upon.

[2] The fact that the historical descriptions in the Word move away into another sense when they are raised into heaven may become clear to anyone who uses his reason to draw conclusions and who knows something about the natural and the spiritual. He can see that 'loading corn onto their asses' is a purely natural action and has absolutely nothing spiritual about it. He can also see that angels in heaven, that is, in a spiritual world, cannot grasp those words in any but a spiritual manner and that they do grasp them in a spiritual manner when corresponding entities are understood in place of them, that is to say, when they understand truth known to the Church in place of 'corn' and facts present in the natural in place of 'asses'. It has been shown previously that in the Word 'asses' means objects of service and so known facts, for in relation to spiritual ideas and also to rational concepts such facts are objects of service, see 2781. From all this one may also see what the thought and speech of angels are like compared with men's thought and speech. That is to say, one may see that angels' thought and speech are spiritual whereas men's are natural, and that when angels' thought and speech move downwards they pass into men's, and that men's are converted into angels' when they move upwards. If this were not so there would not be any communication at all between mankind and the angels, that is, between the world and heaven.