770. The Roman Catholic religion is called a mighty city because it had well fortified itself. For it had fortified itself not only by the multitude of nations and peoples acknowledging it, but also by many other means, as by the number of its monasteries and the armies of monks in them (we say armies because they call their ministry warfare); by their rich possessions beyond any measure or sufficiency; also by their Inquisition; and moreover by threats and terrors, especially those of purgatory, into which they say everyone comes; by extinguishing the light of the Gospel and people's consequent blindness in spiritual matters, which they accomplish by prohibiting and obstructing their reading of the Word; by masses said in a language that the common people do not know; by various outward shows of sanctity; by inculcating in the common people a worship of the dead and images of the dead, by which the people are kept in ignorance regarding God; and by various splendors in outward displays: all this to the end that people may be kept physically in believing in the sanctity of all the tenets of that religion.

[2] As a result, people are completely unaware of what lies hidden at the heart of that religion, even though that religion is altogether as described in these words explained above:

The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her licentiousness. (Revelation 17:4)

But although Babylon had so well fortified itself, even in the spiritual world as well, as described in no. 772 below, still at the time of the Last Judgment it was completely destroyed.

Its destruction was prophesied by Jeremiah thus:

If Babylon mounted up to heaven, and if she fortified the height of her strength, yet from Me plunderers would come to her... (Jeremiah 51:53)

The mighty men of Babylon... sit in their strongholds; their might is forgotten... They have burned her dwelling places, the bars of her gate are broken... ...(the) city is captured from one end to the other... The wall of Babylon has also fallen. (Jeremiah 51:30-31, 44)

Babylon has suddenly fallen and been broken. Wail over her! Take balm for her pain; perhaps she will be healed. (Jeremiah 51:8)

772. 18:12 "Merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls." This symbolically means that these Roman Catholics no longer have these things because they do not have any of the spiritual goods and truths to which these things correspond.

Their merchandise symbolizes just the things listed here, for we know that the Roman Catholic hierarchy possesses gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls in abundance, and that they have acquired them by the sanctities of their religion which they have presented as Divine and sacred.

Those coming from Babylon had these things before the Last Judgment, for it was then granted them to form for themselves apparent heavens and by various arts to procure for themselves such things from heaven, indeed to fill their storerooms with them as they did in the world. However, after the Last Judgment, when their counterfeit heavens were destroyed, all of these were then reduced to dust and ash and were carried away by an east wind and strewn over their hells as a profane dust. But on this subject, read what we witnessed and described in the short work, The Last Judgment and Babylon Destroyed (London, 1758).

[2] Since the overthrow of that religion and its adherents' being cast down into hell, they are in such a wretched state that they do not know what gold, silver, precious stones and pearls are. That is because gold, silver and precious stones correspond to spiritual goods and truths, and pearls to concepts of these; and since they do not have any of these truths and goods, nor any concepts of them, but instead of them have evils and falsities and concepts of these, they cannot have what they had before, but only such things as correspond, which are cheap and ugly-colored materials. They also have some seashells, and they set their heart on them, as they did previously on the valuables listed above.

[3] It should be known that the spiritual world contains everything found in the natural world, the only difference being that everything in the spiritual world is a correspondent form, for these forms correspond to the interior qualities of the inhabitants, being splendid and magnificent in the case of people governed by wisdom gained from Divine truths and goods from the Lord through the Word, and being the opposite in the case of those governed by irrational thinking arising from falsities and evils.

This correspondence from creation exists when the spiritual component of the mind descends into the sensory component of the body. Consequently, in the spiritual world everyone knows the character of another when he enters the other's own room.

[4] It can be seen from this that no one's buying their merchandise of gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls means symbolically that they no longer have these material gains, because they do not have any of the spiritual goods and truths, or any concepts of these, to which these things correspond.

To be shown that gold by correspondence symbolizes goodness, and silver truth, see nos. 211, 726 above. That a precious stone symbolizes spiritual truth, nos. 231, 540, 726. That pearls symbolize concepts of truth and goodness, no. 727.