55. People Whose Faith Is Divorced from Charity Are Meant by the Dragon in the Book of Revelation.

We said above that in the course of time every church goes off into two general, harmful forms of religion, into one out of a love of ruling, and into the other out of a conceit in its own intelligence. Moreover, we said that the first religion is meant and described in the Word by Babylon, and the second by Philistia.

Now because the book of Revelation has as its subject the state of the Christian church, especially the church’s final character, it deals in general and in particular with these two harmful religions.

The religion meant by Babylon is described in chapters 17–19, in its treatment of the harlot sitting upon the scarlet beast. And the religion meant by Philistia is described in chapters 12 and 13, in its treatment of the dragon, of the beast rising up out of the sea, and of the beast coming up out of the earth.

That the latter religion is meant by the dragon and its two beasts could not have been previously known. That is because the spiritual meaning of the Word was not disclosed before, so that the book of Revelation was not understood, and especially because the religion of faith divorced from charity was so widely accepted in the Christian world that no one could possibly see it. For every harmful religious belief blinds the eyes.