Swedenborg Arcana Caelestia Vol. I (1750)

...the person to think so at first, for the person at that time cannot conceive otherwise, nor can he be led otherwise to believe, and then to perceive, that all good and truth is from the Lord alone. While he has thus thought, his truths and goods are compared to tender herbs, then to herbs yielding seed, then to a fruit-bearing tree, which are inanimate. But now, when he is vivified by love and faith, and believes that the Lord works every good that he does, and the truth that he speaks, then he is compared first to the reptiles of the water, and to birds that fly above the earth; then to beasts, which are all animate, and are called living souls.

40. By the reptiles that the waters produce, are signified the knowledges of the external man; by birds, in general, rational things, and also intellectual things, which belong to the internal man. That the reptiles of the waters, or fish, signify scientific knowledges is evident in Isaiah: "I will come and not a man, by My rebuke I will dry up the sea, I will make the rivers a desert; their fish will stink from there being no water, and will die for thirst; I will clothe the heavens with blackness," L: 3, 4. Still more manifest is it in Ezekiel, where the Lord describes a new temple, or in general a new church, and the man of the church, or the regenerate man—for every regenerate man is a temple of the Lord—as follows: "The Lord Jehovah said to me, 'These waters that go out to the border toward the east, and come down toward the sea, brought into the sea, the waters shall be healed; and it shall be that every living soul that creeps, where the river waters come, shall live; and there shall be a very great many fish, because these waters come there, and they shall heal, and everything shall live where the river comes. And it shall be, that fishers shall stand by it from En-gedi to En-eglaim; they shall be there for the spreading of nets; according to their kind shall their fish be, as the fish of the great sea, a very great many,'" XLVII: 8–10. The fishers from En-gedi to En-eglaim with the spreading of nets signify those who will teach the natural man about the truths of faith. That birds signify rational and intellectual things is evident in the prophets, as in Isaiah: "Calling a bird from the east, the man of My counsel from a far land," XLVI: 11. In Jeremiah: "I saw, and behold, not a man, and all the birds of the heavens had fled," IV: 25. In Ezekiel: "I will plant a shoot of a high cedar, and it will lift up a branch, and bring forth fruit, and it will be a magnificent cedar; and under it shall dwell every bird of every wing, in the shadow of its branches they shall dwell," XVII: 23. And in Hosea, where the subject is the new Church, or the regenerate man: "And I will make a covenant for them, in that day, with the beast of the field, and with the bird of the heavens, and with that which moves on the ground," II: 18. That "beast" does not signify a beast, nor "bird" a bird, must be evident to everyone, because the Lord is establishing a new covenant with them.

41. Whatever is the Proprium The Proprium is the "selfhood" or the life of self-derived love and intelligence, which is essentially empty without the Lord. of man, this has no life in itself, and when it is set forth to be seen, it appears hard, as if bony and black. But whatever is from the Lord has life, is spiritual and celestial within it, and when set forth to be seen, it appears as a living human being. And—what is perhaps incredible but nonetheless most true—every word, every idea, and every least bit of the thought of an angelic spirit lives; in its most minute details is an affection proceeding from the Lord, who is Life itself. Therefore, things that are from the Lord have life in...