117. Quod ab antiquissimis temporibus fuerit religio, et incolae orbis ubivis noverint de Deo, et aliquid de vita post mortem, non fuit ex ipsis, et ex proprio illorum acumine, sed ex Verbo Vetusto (de quo supra, 101-103), et postea ex Verbo Israelitico. Ex his religiosa emanaverunt in Indias et illarum insulas; perque Aegyptum ac Aethiopiam in regna Africae; et ex maritimis Asiae in Graeciam; et inde in Italiam. Sed quia Verbum non potuit aliter quam per repraesentativa esse conscriptum, quae sunt talia in mundo quae correspondent caelestibus et inde significant illa, ideo religiosa plurium gentium versa sunt in idolatrica, et in Graecia in fabulosa; ac attributa et praedicata Divina in totidem Deos, quibus praefecerunt supremum, quem vocaverunt Jovem (forte ¹ ) a Jehovah. Quod illis cognitio fuerit de paradiso, de diluvio, de igne sacro, de quatuor aetatibus, a prima aurea ad ultimam ferream, per quas in Verbo significantur quatuor status ecclesiae, (ut apud Danielem, Danielem 2:31-35), notum est. Quod religiosum Mahumedanum, quod successit, et religiosa plurium gentium priora delevit, ex Verbo utriusque Testamenti desumptum sit, etiam notum est.

Bilješke:

440. And they had as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, but who in Greek has the name Apollyon. (9:11) This symbolically means that those caught up in falsities springing from lusts, who by a total falsification of the Word destroyed the church, are in a satanic hell.

The angel of the bottomless pit as king does not signify that some angel is king there, but that falsity reigns in it. For a king in its genuine sense symbolizes someone who possesses truths owing to an affection for goodness, and abstractly truth itself (no. 20); and in an opposite sense, therefore, a king symbolizes someone who is caught up in falsities owing to a lust for evil, and abstractly falsity itself. The bottomless pit symbolizes the satanic hell where such people reside (nos. 387, 421). A name symbolizes the character of someone's or something's state (nos. 81, 122, 165).

Abaddon in Hebrew is someone who destroys, or a destroyer, and likewise Apollyon in Greek, and this is falsity of the most fundamental sort, which by a total falsification of the Word has destroyed the church.

Abaddon in the Hebrew text means destruction in the following places:

Your truth in destruction? (Psalms 88:11)

Hell is naked before Him, and destruction has no covering. (Job 26:6)

For it will be a fire that consumes to destruction... (Job 31:12)

Destruction and death say... (Job 28:22)

Elsewhere hell and the devil are called destruction or a destroyer (Isaiah 54:16, Ezekiel 5:16; 9:1, Exodus 12:13), but by using another term.