719. Saying to me, "Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters." This symbolizes a revelation about that religion as regards its profanations and adulterations of the Word's truths.

Saying and showing symbolize a revelation. The judgment symbolizes the state of the Roman Catholic religion at its end. The great harlot symbolizes a profanation of the sanctities of the Word and the church, and an adulteration of their goodness and truth. Many waters symbolize the Word's truths adulterated. To sit upon the waters means, symbolically, to possess them and live caught up in them.

To play the harlot, to whore, to behave licentiously and to commit adultery mean, symbolically, to falsify and adulterate the Word, as may be seen in nos. 134, 620, 632 above; and waters symbolize its truths, nos. 50, 563, 614, 685, here those truths adulterated and profaned, because a harlot is said to be on them.

It is apparent from this that "saying to me, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters," symbolizes a revelation about the aforesaid religion as regards its profanations and adulterations of the Word's truths.

[2] Something similar is said about Babel in Jeremiah:

...Jehovah will... do what He spoke against the inhabitants of Babel. You who dwell upon many waters, abundant in treasures, your end is coming, the measure of your material gain. (Jeremiah 51:12-13)

We say that Roman Catholics adulterated and profaned the Word's truths, because they used the Word's truths to gain dominion over the sanctities of the church and over heaven and to claim for themselves the Lord's Divine power; and to use the Word's truths to gain dominion over the sanctities of the church and heaven is to adulterate them, and to use them to claim for oneself the Lord's Divine power is to profane them.

People know that they use the Word to defend their dogmas. But read those dogmas attentively and you will see that they have used everything that they have taken from the Word to gain dominion over people's souls and to acquire for themselves a power, authority and majesty that is Divine.

It is for this reason that Babylon is named the Mother of the Whoredoms and Abominations of the Earth in verse 5.

729. 17:5 And on her forehead a name was written: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Whoredoms and Abominations of the Earth. This symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion such as it is interiorly, which is concealed, that from its origin, springing from a love of exercising dominion from a love of self over the sanctities of the church and over heaven, thus over everything connected with the Lord and His Word, it defiled and profaned things having to do with the Word and so with the church.

To be written on the forehead means, symbolically, to be deep-seated in the love, for the forehead symbolizes the love (nos. 347, 605). Mystery means symbolically that it is inwardly concealed. Babylon the Great symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion and its whole character, as said in no. 717 above. Whoredoms symbolize adulterations of the Word's goodness and truth (nos. 719-721), and also defilings of them, as in no. 728 just above. Abominations symbolize profanations of the church's sanctities, as also in no. 728 above. The earth symbolizes the church (no. 285). Consequently the mother of whoredoms and abominations of the earth symbolizes the origin of these.

Now because these words were written on her forehead, and to be written on the forehead means, symbolically, to be deep-seated in the love, and because the love in Roman Catholics is a love of exercising dominion from a love of self over everything connected with the church and over heaven, thus over everything connected with the Lord and His Word, therefore the symbolic meaning is as stated.

[2] It can be seen from this that "on her forehead a name was written: Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Whoredoms and Abominations of the Earth," symbolizes the Roman Catholic religion such as it is interiorly, which is concealed, that from its origin, springing from a love of exercising dominion from a love of self over the sanctities of the church and over heaven, thus over everything connected with the Lord and His Word, it defiled and profaned things having to do with the Word and so with the church.

That their love is a love of exercising dominion over everything connected with the church is something people know from the jurisdiction they claim they have over people's souls and over everything connected with their worship. They know that it is a love of exercising dominion over heaven from the power they have appropriated of loosing and binding, and thus of opening and closing. ¹ They know that it is a love of exercising dominion over everything connected with the Lord from the Vicariate, by which they attribute to themselves all that is the Lord's. They also know that it is a love of exercising dominion over everything connected with the Word from their reserving its interpretation for themselves alone.

We say that their love of exercising dominion comes from a love of self because possible also is a love of exercising dominion from a love of performing useful services. These two loves are diametrically opposite each other. That is because a love of exercising dominion from a love of self is diabolical, for it has regard for self only and for the world in the service of self. In contrast, a love of exercising dominion from a love of performing useful services is heavenly, for it has regard for the Lord, from whom emanate only useful endeavors, and useful endeavors to it are to do good to the church for the salvation of souls. This latter love consequently abhors a love of exercising dominion from a love of self.

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