822. The Saints of the Roman Catholics in the spiritual world.

It is well known that a person has inborn or hereditary evil from his parents, but few people know where it resides in its fulness. It resides in the love of possessing the goods of all others, and in the love of dominating. This latter love is so virulent that, to the extent it is given rein, it bursts out so violently as to burn with the desire of lording it over all, and finally of wishing to be invoked and worshipped as God. This love is the serpent which deceived Eve and Adam, for it said to the woman:

God knows that on the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, your eyes will be opened and you will then be like God, Genesis 3:4-5.

To the extent, then, that a person lets go the reins and plunges into this love, he turns his back on God and turns to himself, becoming a worshipper of himself. Then he can call upon God with his mouth hot as a result of self-love, but cold as a result of his contempt for God. Then too the Divine things of the church can serve him as means to an end, but because his purpose is domination, he does not like the means except to the extent they serve his purposes. If such a person is raised to the highest rank, he imagines himself to be like Atlas carrying the globe with its seas and lands on his shoulders; or like Phoebus carrying the sun around its orbit with his horses.