778. As then 'birds of the air' ¹ means intellectual truths and so thoughts, they also mean things that are the contrary, such as delusions or falsities, which because they are part of man's thought are called birds as well. 'The wicked being given as food to birds of the air ¹ and to wild animals', for example, stands for delusions and evil desires, Isaiah 18:6; Jeremiah 7:33; 16:4; 19:7; 34:20; Ezekiel 29:5; 39:4. Also the Lord Himself compares delusions and persuasions of falsity to birds when He says,

The seed which fell on the pathway was trodden under foot, and the birds of the air ¹ devoured it. Matthew 13:4; Luke 8:5; Mark 4:4, 15.

Here 'birds of the air' ¹ are nothing other than falsities.

Voetnoten:

529. If the life of man is scanned and explored by rational insight it is found to be threefold, namely, spiritual, moral, and civil, with these three lives distinct from each other. For there are men who live a civil life and not as yet a moral and spiritual life; and there are men who live a moral life and not as yet a spiritual life; and there are those who live a civil life, a moral life, and a spiritual life at the same time. These live the life of heaven; but the former live the life of the world separated from the life of heaven. From these things, in the first place, it can be established that the spiritual life is not a life separated from natural life or the life of the world, but is joined with it as the soul is joined with its body, and if it were separated it would be, as just said, like living in a house that has no foundation. For moral and civil life is the activity of the spiritual life, since willing well belongs to spiritual life, and acting well to moral and civil life, and if the latter is separated from the former, the spiritual life consists solely of thought and speech, and the will, left with no support, recedes; and yet the will is the man's spiritual itself.