55. The Dragon Mentioned in the Book of Revelation Symbolizes People Devoted to a Faith Divorced from Caring

I noted earlier [§49] that in the course of time every church degenerates into two common evil versions of religion, one that comes from a love of having control and one that comes from intellectual pride. I noted that in the Word the first kind of religion is identified and depicted as Babylon and the second as Philistia.

Now, since the Book of Revelation deals with the state of the Christian church, especially at its close, it deals in general and in particular with these two evil versions of religion. The kind of religion meant by Babylon is described in chapters Revelation 17, 18, and 19 as the whore who sat on the scarlet beast, and the kind of religion meant by Philistia is described in chapters 12, 13 as the dragon, and also as the beast rising up out of the sea and the beast rising up out of the earth.

Until now there has been no way to know that this kind of religion was meant by the dragon and his two beasts. This is because the spiritual meaning of the Word had not yet been opened, so the Book of Revelation had not been understood, and particularly because in the Christian world a form of religion based on faith divorced from caring had become so strong that no one was able to see this. Every evil kind of religion blinds the eyes.

Generally in the Bible a "country" means a political subdivision ruled by a king, or sometimes a tribe with a territory ruled by a king or chieftain. Others are what we now call city-states, with surrounding farm areas. In almost all cases these countries were far smaller than our modern idea of countries, though Egypt and Assyria would be exceptions. Sometimes the word is used to refer to countryside, a wide area with no consideration of boundaries as when the twelve Israelites were sent to spy out the country.

(참조: Arcana Coelestia 3816 [3], 6818, 6820, 6821; Charity 83, 85; True Christian Religion 305)