Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 602appeared “like a flying eagle;” for “to fly” signifies presence andclear vision or every side, and in reference to the Divine it signifiesomnipresence. “Eagle” signifies intelligence for this reason also, thatthe “birds of heaven” signify in a good sense things intellectual andrational, and the eagle especially, because it not only flies high butalso has keen vision. (That “the birds of heaven” signify thingsintellectual and rational, in both senses, see Arcana Coelestia, n.745, 776, 866, 988, 991, 3219, 5149, 7441.)[2] That “eagle” signifies intelligence is evident from thefollowing passages in the Word. In Ezekiel:A great eagle, great in wings, long in pinions, full of feathers,which had divers colors [embroidery], came upon Lebanon, and took atwig of cedar; he plucked off the head of its shoots, and carried it into aland of traffic; and set it in the city of spice dealers. He took of the seedof the land, and placed it in a field of sowing; he took it to great waters,and placed it carefully; and it sprouted and became a luxuriant vine oflow stature, so that its branches looked to it, and the roots thereof wereunder it; so it became a vine that produced shoots and sent out boughs.And there was another great eagle, great in wings and full of feathers;and behold, this vine did bend its roots toward it and sent forth itsbranches toward it to war it from the beds of its plantation; it wasplanted in a good field by many waters, to make the bough and to bearfruit, that it might be a vine of magnificence (17:1–8).The establishment of a spiritual church by the Lord is here treatedof, and in the internal sense the process of its establishment or ofthe regeneration of the man of that church from beginning to endis described. By the first eagle the process of regeneration of thenatural or external man by means of knowledges and cognitionsfrom the Word is described; and by the other eagle the process ofregeneration of the spiritual or internal man by means of truthsfrom good is described; therefore the first eagle signifies theintelligence of the natural man, and the second the intelligence ofthe spiritual man. Let it be also explained briefly what theseparticulars signify. The first eagle is said to have been “great inwings, long in pinions, full of feathers,” and this signifies anabundance of the knowledges and cognitions of truth and good,from which comes the first intelligence, which is the intelligence ofthe natural man; it is therefore said that “it had divers colors”