171. The idea of the Trinity which the present-day Christian church has embraced and introduced into its faith, is that God the Father fathered a Son from eternity, and the Holy Spirit then issued from both, each by Himself being God. There is no way this Trinity could be conceived by human minds except as a triad of rulers, like having three kings in one kingdom, or three generals in command of one army, or three masters in one house, each of whom has equal power. This can only lead to ruin. And if anyone wants to form a mental picture or sketch of this triad of rulers while preserving their oneness, he can only conceive of it as a man with three heads on one body, or with three bodies beneath a single head. Such is the monstrous image of the Trinity which will be seen by those who believe in three Divine persons, each of whom is by Himself God, and link them to form a single God, denying that being one makes God one person.

[2] The idea that a Son of God fathered from eternity came down and took upon Himself human form can be compared with the myths of the ancients, that human souls were created from the beginning of the world, and they enter into bodies and become men and women. It is also like the absurd idea that the soul of one person passes into another, as many of the Jewish religion have believed; for instance, that the soul of Elijah came back in the body of John the Baptist, and that David will return to his own or someone else's body, and reign over Israel and Judah, because Ezekiel says:

I will raise up over them a shepherd who shall feed them, my servant David. He shall be their shepherd, and I Jehovah will be their God, and David shall be prince in their midst, Ezekiel 34:23-24.

There are other such passages. But they do not know that David here means the Lord.

8678. 'For this reason, that they behaved proudly over them' means because of the endeavour and the force used to exercise control over those belonging to the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'behaving proudly' as the endeavour and the force used to exercise control, dealt with below; and from the representation of the children of Israel, who are the ones over whom they behaved proudly, as those belonging to the spiritual Church, dealt with above in 8645. The reason why 'behaving proudly' means the endeavour and the force used to exercise control is that kind of endeavour and the force used as a result are present in all pride; for pride consists in loving self more than others, putting self before others, and wishing to rule others. Those who wish to do this also despise others in comparison with themselves, and in addition out of hatred and vengeance persecute others who put themselves before them or do not pay respect to them. The nature of self-love, which is pride, is such that so far as it is given rein it gallops away, gaining speed with every possible step it can take, till eventually it reaches the very throne of God - wishing to usurp God. This is what all in hell are like. What they are like is revealed by their endeavours emanating from there, and also by their intense feelings of hatred for one another and their awful acts of revenge because of their wish to exercise control. That endeavour is one that is curbed by the Lord; and it is what is meant by the head of the serpent which the seed of the woman will tread down, 257. Such spirits also are meant by Lucifer in Isaiah,

How have you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the Dawn? You have been cut down to the earth, you have been weakened below the nations. And you said in your heart, I will go up the heavens, above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the furthest parts of the north; I will go up above the heights of the clouds, and I will make myself like the Most High. But you have in truth been sent down to hell, to the sides of the pit. You have been cast out of the sepulchre like an abominable branch, [like] a garment of the killed, [like] those pierced with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit like a dead body trodden underfoot. Isaiah 14:12-19.

[2] The fact that pride of heart, which is self-love, drives the Divine away from itself and puts heaven away from itself becomes perfectly clear from that state in which the Divine and heaven find acceptance, which is a state of love towards the neighbour and a state of humility towards God. To the extent that a person can humble himself before the Lord, to the extent that he can love his neighbour as himself, and - as they do in heaven - above himself, he accepts the Divine and for that reason lives in heaven. From this one can see what the state is of those who love themselves more than their neighbour, and who behave proudly towards him, that is, who are ruled by self-love. One can see that it is a state in which they are opposed to heaven and to the Divine; it is therefore the state in which those in hell live. See what has been stated and shown about self-love in 2041, 2045, 2051, 2057, 2219, 2363, 2364, 2444, 3413, 3610, 4225, 4750, 4776, 4947, 5721, 6667, 7178, 7255, 7364, 7366-7377, 7488-7492, 7494, 7643, 7819, 7820, 8318, 8487.