5089. Those who are dragons are able to defend whatever doctrine they wish; they waver among them all. They can be Catholics, they can be Protestants, they can be Lutherans, and they can be Quakers. In a word, it is a question what faith they profess. The reason is that they think nothing that is beyond the perceptions of their outward senses and agrees with them, where nothing is definite and everything is worldly and earthly. They do not allow themselves to be raised into heaven and draw their doctrine from there, for they all love themselves and the world. As result they are exceedingly dangerous, for they are those who are understood by the serpent whose head was trampled upon, but nonetheless injured the heel [Gen. 3:15]; and in David, he who exults the head and drinks from the brook [Ps. 110:7]; and he is the one in the prophecy about Israel, always lying in the way and biting the heel of the horse [Gen. 49:17].

377. Verses 7, 8. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the wild beasts of the earth.

"And when he had opened the fourth seal," signifies, prediction manifested still further: "I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying," signifies, out of the inmost heaven from the Lord: "Come and see," signifies attention and perception. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse," signifies not any understanding of the Word, from evils of life, and then from the falsities thence; "and he that sat upon him," signifies the Word; "his name was Death, and Hell followed with him," signifies eternal damnation; "and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill," signifies deprivation of all good, and thence of truth, from the Word, and thence in the doctrine of their church derived from the Word; "with the sword," signifies, by falsity; "and with hunger," signifies, by deprivation, lack, and ignorance of the knowledges of truth and good; "and with death," signifies the extinction thereby of spiritual life; "and with the wild beasts of the earth," signifies evils of life, or lusts and the falsities thence arising from the love of self and of the world, which devastate all things of the church with man.