Arcana Coelestia #40
40. 'Creeping things which the waters bring forth' means facts which belong to the external man, while 'birds' generally means rational concepts and also intellectual concepts, of which the latter belong to the internal man. That creeping things from the waters, or fish, mean facts is clear in Isaiah,
I came, and there was no man. By My rebuke I will dry up the sea, I will make the rivers a desert. Their fish will stink because there is no water and will die of thirst. I will clothe the heavens with darkness. Isaiah 50:2-3.
[2] This is plainer still in Ezekiel where the Lord describes the new temple, or new Church in general, and the member of the Church, or person who has been regenerated, for every regenerate person is a temple of the Lord,
The Lord Jehovih 1 said to me, Those waters which will go out to the boundary eastwards will come towards the sea, having been directed into the sea, and the waters will be fresh. And it will be that every living creature which swarms will live, wherever the water of the rivers reaches, and there will be very many fish, for these waters are going there and will become fresh; and everything will live where the river goes. And it will be that fishermen from En-gedi to En-eglaim will stand beside it, with nets spread out. Its fish according to their kinds will be very many, like the fish of the great sea. Ezekiel 47:8-10.
'Fishermen from En-gedi to En-eglaim with their nets stretched out' means people who are to teach the natural man about the truths of faith.
[3] In the Prophets 'birds' invariably means rational concepts and intellectual concepts, as in Isaiah,
Calling a bird of prey from the east, a man of My counsel from a distant land. Isaiah 46:11.
In Jeremiah,
I looked, and behold there was no man, and all the birds of the air 2 had fled. Jeremiah 4:25.
In Ezekiel,
I will plant the sprig of a lofty cedar, and it will bring forth a branch, and bear fruit, and it will become a noble cedar, and under it will dwell every bird of every sort, 3 in the shade of its branches they will dwell. Ezekiel 17:23.
And in Hosea, when the subject is a new Church, or regenerate person,
And I will make for them a covenant on that day, with the wild animals of the field, and with the birds of the air, 2 and with things moving on the ground. Hosea 2:18.
Anyone may see that because the Lord 'is making a new covenant' with them, 'wild animal' is not used to mean a wild animal, nor 'bird' to mean a bird.
Footnotes:
1. The Latin has Jehovah; for the form Jehovih see 1793
2. literally, bird of the heavens (or the skies)
3. literally, of every wing
The New Jerusalem and its Heavenly Teachings #28
28. Will and Understanding
We have two abilities that make up our life, one called will and the other understanding. 1 They are distinguishable, but they are created to be one. When they are one, they are called the mind; so they are the human mind and it is there that all the life within us is truly to be found.
Footnotes:
1. The Latin words here translated "will" and "understanding" are voluntas and intellectus, respectively; the latter is also sometimes translated " intellect. " In Swedenborg's use, however, intellectus has a somewhat broader connotation than understanding or intellect has today, one more consonant with the use of the Latin word in the system of the Scholastics. For example, in the philosophy of the major figure of Scholastic thought, Thomas Aquinas (1224 or 1225-1274), which underlies the terminology of much of philosophical language up to and including Swedenborg's time, intellectus encompasses all of what we associate with the faculties of mind, not only the capacity to reason and understand, but the capacity to perceive ideas in the abstract, as well as the mind's ability to be aware of itself (Shallo 1923, 115-116). The complementarity of will and intellect is also something Swedenborg shares with Scholastic thought. For an overview of the relationship between the will and the intellect, see True Christianity 397; for a detailed and extensive account of their interaction as analogous to that of the heart and the lungs, see Divine Love and Wisdom 394-431. For discussion of the related term "intellectual truth," see note 1 in New Jerusalem 26 above. For further discussion of the will and the understanding, see note 1 in New Jerusalem 33 below. [GFD, RS, JSR]
