788. 18:19 "And they put dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and mourning, and saying, 'Woe, woe, that great city!'" This symbolizes their interior and exterior grief and mourning, which is a lamentation that so eminent a religion was completely destroyed and condemned.

Putting dust on their heads symbolizes their interior and exterior grief and mourning over the destruction and damnation, as we will show below. To cry out, weeping and mourning, symbolizes their exterior grief and mourning - to weep symbolizing a mourning of the soul, and to grieve a grief of the heart. "Woe, woe, that great city!" symbolizes a grievous lamentation over the destruction and damnation. That "woe" symbolizes a lamentation over a calamity, misfortune, or damnation, and that "woe, woe," therefore symbolizes a grievous lamentation, may be seen in nos. 416, 769, 785; and that the city symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion may be seen in no. 785 and elsewhere.

That putting dust on the head symbolizes an interior grief and mourning over a destruction and damnation is clear from the following passages:

They will cry bitterly and cast dust on their heads; they will roll about in ashes. (Ezekiel 27:30)

(The daughters) of Zion sit on the ground...; they have cast dust on their heads... (Lamentations 2:10)

(Job's friends) rent their tunics and sprinkled dust upon their heads... (Job 2:12)

Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne... (Isaiah 47:1)

And so on elsewhere.

The people put dust on their heads when they grieved deeply, because dust symbolized something damned, as is apparent from Genesis 3:14, Matthew 10:14, Mark 6:11, Luke 10:10-12, and dust on the head represented the people's acknowledgment that of themselves they were damned, and thus their repentance, as in Matthew 11:21, Luke 10:13.

Dust symbolizes something damned because the land over the hells in the spiritual world consists of nothing but dust, without grass or plants.

751. 17:18 "And the woman whom you saw is the great city which holds sway over the kings of the earth." This symbolically means that the Roman Catholic religion will reign as to doctrine in the Christian world, and to some extent still also among the Protestant Reformed, even though the latter are not under papal dominion.

These words symbolize all of this because they form a conclusion and so involve not only the declarations made about Roman Catholics, but also those made about the French nation and Protestants. Thus we are told that the woman, which is the great city, also holds sway over these.

But we must say how this is so. The Roman Catholic Church holds sway over Protestants, not to the degree that it does over those who are committed to its religion, but to the extent that Protestants in some measure have accepted its doctrines. The doctrines they have accepted are these, that they turn to God the Father and not the Lord; that they do not acknowledge the Lord's humanity as Divine; that His suffering of the cross constitutes an atonement, conciliation and satisfaction with God the Father; the imputation of the merit of Christ; some tenets regarding baptism, original sin, and free will; and, in the case of Lutherans, that they come close to accepting the doctrine of transubstantiation. ¹

These doctrines taken over from Roman Catholicism, and that in some part accord with it, are the reason we are told that the woman, which is the great city, holds sway over the kings of the earth.

The woman symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion, as we have said. A city symbolizes doctrine (nos. 194, 501, 502, 712). A kingdom symbolizes the church (no. 749), and thus to hold sway symbolizes the governing of it. Kings of the earth symbolizes a church's truths or falsities (nos. 20, 483, 664, 704, 720, 737, 740), and so also its doctrines. The earth symbolizes the church (no. 285).

It is apparent from this that the declaration that the woman whom you saw is the great city which holds sway over the kings of the earth, symbolically means that the Roman Catholic religion will reign as to doctrine in the Christian world, and to some extent still also among the Protestant Reformed, even though the latter are not under papal dominion.

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