582. And with them do they hurt, signifies that thus they pervert the truths and goods of the church. This is evident from the signification of "to hurt," as being to pervert the truths and goods of the church by means of crafty reasonings from sensual knowledges [scientifica] or fallacies; for the "horses" in the vision, about whose tails this is said, signify the falsifications of the Word by reasonings from fallacies (See above, n. 575). From the way these horses appeared to John, what the representative appearances in heaven are can be seen, namely, that affections there, when represented by animals, are presented in the forms of such animals as appear in our world, and yet everywhere with variety in respect to their parts, especially the face, the particulars of which from correspondence signify various things of the affection so represented; as here there were seen "horses, whose heads were as the heads of lions, and their tails like serpents, and had heads," and those who sat upon the horses had "breastplates, fiery, hyacinthine and brimstone-like."

[2] Animals of various forms appear daily in the spiritual world, and also I have often seen them; and by a knowledge of correspondences, it is there known what the particulars signify. For all the affections that flow from the minds of angels are imaged before their eyes by animals of all kinds that exist on the earth, in the air, or in the sea; likewise by the subjects of all things that are in the vegetable kingdom of the earth, and by the subjects of all things that are in the mineral kingdom of the earth. This is why such things in our world have been made representative of celestial and spiritual things. Such representatives exist in the spiritual world, because in that world there are spiritual things interior and exterior; interior spiritual things are all such as belong to affection, and to thought therefrom, or to the understanding of truth and the wisdom of good; and exterior spiritual things are so created by the Lord as to clothe or invest interior spiritual things; and when these are clothed and invested, there come into existence such forms as are in the natural world, and thus into these forms interior spiritual things finally close, and in them have their ultimate existence.

259. 'The heel' is used to mean the lowest part of the natural, which is the bodily. This cannot be known unless one knows how the most ancient people looked on the things that are in man. Celestial and spiritual things within him they associated with the head and face. The things that sprang from these, such as charity and mercy, they associated with the breast. Natural things however they associated with the foot, lower natural things with the sole of the foot, and the lowest natural and bodily with the heel. Not only did they associate things within man with parts of the body, they also called them such. The lowest things of reason, namely facts, were also meant by what Jacob prophesied concerning Dan,

Dan will be a serpent on the road, an asp on the path, biting the horse's heels; and its rider falls backwards. Genesis 49:17.

And the statement in David,

The iniquity of my heels has surrounded me. Psalms 49:5.

A similar statement is made in reference to Jacob whose hand, as he was being born, was grasping Esau's heel, which was why he was called Jacob, Genesis 25:26. The name Jacob derives from the word for a heel, for the Jewish Church, meant by Jacob, was to bruise the heel.

[2] The serpent is capable of harming only the lowest natural things in man, but not, unless they are types of vipers, the interior natural, still less the spiritual, and least of all the celestial. These the Lord preserves, and stores away in man without his awareness. The things which the Lord stores away are in the Word called 'remnants'. But how the serpent through sensory-mindedness and self-love destroyed those lowest things with people before the Flood; how it destroyed them with the Jews by means of sensory judgements, traditions, and things of no importance, as well as by self-love and love of the world; and how today it is destroying them and has destroyed them by means of sensory judgements, material facts, and philosophical arguments, along with the same self-love and love of the world, will in the Lord's Divine mercy be discussed later on.