847. We are told here and there in the Word that people were slain, pierced or stabbed, or simply put to death, and yet the meaning is not that they were slain, pierced, stabbed, or put to death, but that they were rejected by people caught up in evils and falsities, as may be seen in nos. 59, 325, 589. This is also the symbolic meaning of the dead in the next verse, where we are told:

The rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were completed. (Revelation 20:5)

It is apparent from this that those who are said to have been beheaded symbolize people rejected by those caught up in falsities hatched out of their own intelligence.

That an axe used to behead someone symbolizes falsity hatched out of people's own intelligence is apparent from the following:

...the statutes of the peoples are vanity, if indeed one cuts wood from the forest, the work of the hands of an artisan, with an ax. (Jeremiah 10:3)

(Egypt's) voice shall go like a serpent, ...they come... with axes, like hewers of wood. (Jeremiah 46:22)

He is known as one who lifts up axes against a thicket of wood, and already they are demolishing his carvings with axes and hammers... They have profaned to the ground the dwelling place of Your name. (Psalms 74:5-7)

When you besiege a city..., you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them. (Deuteronomy 20:19)

Axes in these passages symbolize falsity hatched out of people's own intelligence, and this for the reason that iron symbolizes truth in its lowest form, which we call sensual truth, which when divorced from rational and spiritual truth turns into falsity. It is falsity hatched from people's own intelligence because sensuality is inherent in people's native character, as may be seen in no. 424.

Because iron and axes have this symbolic meaning, the command was given to Israel that if they built an altar of stone, it should be built of unhewn stones, and that no iron tool should be used on the stones, lest they profane it (Exodus 20:25, Deuteronomy 27:5).

Therefore, regarding the temple in Jerusalem, we are told the following:

...the edifice itself... was built with unhewn stone, and no hammer or ax or any iron tool was heard in the edifice while it was being built. (1 Kings 6:7)

Conversely, when a carved image is the subject, which symbolizes falsity hatched out of people's own intelligence, we are told that it was fashioned with iron, with tongs or axes and hammers (Isaiah 44:12). To be shown that falsity hatched out of people's own intelligence is symbolically meant by a carving or idol, see no. 459 above.

59. And was put to death. This symbolically means that the Lord was disregarded and His Divine humanity not acknowledged.

His being put to death does not mean that He was crucified and so died, but that He was disregarded in the Church and His Divine humanity not acknowledged, for thus He became dead to people.

People do indeed acknowledge the Lord's Divinity from eternity, but this is in actuality Jehovah. They do not, however, acknowledge His humanity to be Divine, even though the Divinity and the humanity in Him are like soul and body, and so are not two entities but one, in fact one person, in agreement with the doctrine accepted throughout the Christian world which has its name from Athanasius.

When people divorce the Lord's Divinity from His humanity, therefore, saying that His humanity is not Divine but like the humanity of any other person, He becomes then dead to them.

Regarding this divorce, however, and thus the death of the Lord, more may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord; and also in Angelic Wisdom Regarding Divine Providence, nos. 262, 263.