Swedenborg Arcana Caelestia Vol. III (1750)

...is shown above (n. 2761, 2762). That the wild donkey signifies truth separated from good, see n. 1949. That the camel signifies scientific knowledge in general, and the donkey signifies scientific knowledge in particular, see n. 1486. There are two things that constitute the Natural in a person, or which is the same, the Natural man: natural good and natural truth. Natural good is the pleasantness flowing from charity and faith; natural truth is their scientific knowledge. That natural truth is what is signified by the donkey, and rational truth by the mule, can be clear from these passages: In Isaiah: "The prophetic utterance of the beasts of the south: in a land of distress and anguish, the lion and the tiger, and from them the viper and the flying serpent, will carry their wealth upon the shoulder of donkeys, and their treasures upon the hump of camels, to a people that will not profit them; and the Egyptians will help in vain and to no purpose" (xxx:6, 7). The "beasts of the south" are those who are in the knowledges of good and truth, but who make them matters of science rather than of life. It is said of them that they carry their wealth upon the shoulder of donkeys, and their treasures upon the hump of camels, for the reason that donkeys signify scientifics in particular, and camels signify scientifics in general. That the Egyptians are sciences, see n. 1164, 1165, 1186, of whom it is said that they will help in vain and to no purpose. That this prophecy has an internal sense, and that without it it can be understood by no one, is clear to everyone; for without the internal sense, it cannot be known what is meant by the "beasts of the south," what the lion and tiger are, what the viper and flying serpent are, and why those beasts would carry their wealth on the shoulder of donkeys and their treasures on the hump of camels, and why it immediately follows that the Egyptians will help in vain and to no purpose. Something similar is understood by the "donkey" in Israel’s prophecy concerning Issachar, in Moses: "Issachar is a bony donkey crouching between the burdens" (Genesis xlix:14). In Zechariah: "This shall be the plague with which Jehovah will strike all the peoples who will fight against Jerusalem; it shall be a plague of the horse, the mule, the camel, and the donkey, and every beast" (xiv:12, 15). That by the horse, mule, camel, and donkey are signified the intellectual things in a person which will be struck with a plague is clear from all and each of the things that precede and follow there; for the subject is the plagues that will precede the final judgment or the consummation of the age, of which John also speaks in the Apocalypse, and the rest of the prophets elsewhere. Those who are then to fight against Jerusalem—that is, the Lord’s spiritual Church—and its truths, are signified by those animals, which will be affected by plagues regarding their intellectual faculties. In Isaiah: "Blessed are you who sow beside all waters, who send out the foot of the ox and the donkey" (xxxii:20). "Sowing beside all waters" is for those who allow themselves to be instructed in spiritual things (that waters are spiritual things, and thus the intellectual faculties of truth, see n. 680, 739, 2702); "sending out the foot of the ox and the donkey" is for the natural things that will serve; for the ox is the natural regarding good (n. 2180, 2566), and the donkey is the natural regarding truth. In Moses: "Binding his donkey to the vine, and the son of his donkey to the choice vine; he washed his garment in wine, and his cloak in the blood of grapes" (Genesis xlix:11). There is the prophecy of Jacob, then Israel, concerning the Lord; "vine" and "choice vine" are for the Church...