[2] Since to commit whoredom signifies to falsify truths, and to live delicately signifies to love evils, and thus falsities also, the origin of the falsification of the Word by the Babylonish sect and the weakening of its Divine sanctity by them shall also he stated. It was well known in the whole Christian world, that the Word is Divine, and that therefore all the things contained in it are Divine truths. Now because the Babylonians arrogated to themselves, and actually assumed, dominion over everything in the church, and over heaven also, and because in consequence of this they plunged into all the evils that spring up from the love of self, it therefore became necessary for them to confirm those evils by the Word, and this could be done only by its falsification-for the Word can never substantiate evil; therefore the man who does substantiate it by the Word falsifies its truths. This was done by the Babylonians. But because they still saw truths in the Word which they could not falsify, as all those things that are said concerning Babel, therefore they craftily weakened its Divine sanctity, and forbade the reading of it by the people. Their prelates and their presbyters, who are called monks, also ceased to read it, maintaining that the declarations of the Pope are as holy as those contained in the Word. They also said that everything belonging to the church ought to be accommodated to its state, and should consequently be changed when the state of the church required, and that such accommodations and changes ought to take place according to inspiration from the Pope. It is evident from this why the truths of the Word have been falsified and also rejected by them, and in the place of these such things adopted and promulgated by their Pope as countenance and pander to their love of power, these things being in themselves falsities. From these things, the particular signification of the kings of the earth committing whoredom with Babylon the harlot is evident.

[3] Continuation concerning the Athanasian Creed, and concerning the Lord.- Because God is uncreated, He is, also, eternal; for life itself, which is God, is life in itself, neither from itself, nor from nothing, thus it is without origin; and what is without origin is from eternity, and is eternal. But an idea of that which is without origin cannot be grasped by the natural man, neither can the idea of God from eternity; but these things are apprehended by the spiritual man. The thought of the natural man cannot be separated and withdrawn from the idea of time, this idea inhering in it from nature in which the natural man is; neither can it be separated and withdrawn from the idea of origin, because it regards origin as implying a beginning in time. The appearance of the sun's progression has impressed this idea on the natural man. But the thought of the spiritual man, because it is elevated above nature, is withdrawn from the idea of time, and instead of this idea of time there is the idea of state of life, and instead of the duration of time there is the idea of the state of thought from affection, which constitutes life. For the sun in the angelic heaven neither rises nor sets, nor does it cause years and days, like the sun in the world; for this reason the angels of heaven, being in spiritual ideas, think abstractedly from time. Their idea therefore of God from eternity does not partake of the notion of origin, or a beginning, but it is an idea of state, that He is eternal, thus that every thing that is God, and which proceeds from God, is eternal, that is, Divine in itself. That this is the case I have been permitted to perceive by being raised above the natural into the spiritual idea. From these things it is now evident, that God, who is uncreated, is also eternal; and also that it is impossible to think that nature is from eternity, or in time from itself, but that it is possible to think that God is from eternity, and that nature together with time is from God.