747. "And make her desolate and naked." This symbolically means that Protestants will rid themselves of the falsities and evils of the Roman Catholic religion.

To make her desolate means, symbolically, to rid themselves of the Roman Catholic religion's falsities, and to make her naked means, symbolically, to rid themselves of its evils, for they make it desolate and naked in themselves. Desolation in the Word is predicated of truths and falsities, while nakedness is predicated of goods and evils, as can be seen from what we have presented regarding nakedness in nos. 213, 706 above.

It can be seen from this that their making her desolate and naked means symbolically that they will rid themselves of all that religion's falsities and evils. People know that this is what Protestants or the Reformed have done.

As with many verbs, the meaning of "remove" in the Bible varies a good bit depending on context. It generally involves a separation of spiritual states, and in most cases specifically refers to a kind of sorting-out process to separate true ideas from false ones.

(参照: Arcana Coelestia 932, 3993, 4544, 6371, 7392, 9258; The Apocalypse Explained 811 [6])