55. But the Babylon mentioned in the book of Revelation is the present-day Babylon, which began after the Lord's coming; it is well known that it exists among the Roman Catholics. It is more dangerous and dreadful than the one before the Lord's coming, because it profanes the church's interior forms of good and truth, which the Lord revealed to the world when He revealed Himself. How dangerous and inwardly wicked it is can be summarily established from what now follows.

[2] The Roman Catholics acknowledge and worship the Lord without having any power to save. They totally divide His Divine from His human, and transfer to themselves His Divine power, which belonged to His human. ¹ For they forgive sins, grant entry to heaven, cast into hell, and save whomsoever they wish, putting a price on salvation and so claiming for themselves the prerogatives which belong to God's power alone. By exercising that power, it follows that they make themselves into gods, each in his own rank down to the lowest, by deriving it from their chief, whom they call the Vicar of Christ. Thus they look on themselves as the Lord and worship Him not for His sake, but for their own.

[3] They not only adulterate and falsify the Word, but even deprive the people of it, so that not a glimmer of the truth reaches them. Nor is this enough for them, they actually reduce it to nothing by accepting the decrees of Rome as containing a Divine element superior to that in the Word. By so doing they bar the way to heaven for all; for the way to heaven is the acknowledgment of the Lord and faith in Him and love to Him, and it is the Word which teaches the way. As a result, without the Lord acting by means of the Word, salvation is impossible. They devote their best efforts to quenching the light of heaven which comes from Divine truth, putting in its place ignorance, the more welcome to them the denser it is. They quench the light of heaven by preventing people reading the Word, and books containing teachings from the Word; and by establishing worship in the form of masses in a language simple people do not understand, and lacking any Divine truth. Moreover, they fill their world with false ideas, which are utter darkness, absorbing and scattering the light. They also persuade the common people that it is their faith that gives them life, that is, someone else's faith, not their own.

[4] In addition, they make all worship a matter of outward holiness, with no inward holiness; this they make empty, because it is devoid of the knowledge of good and truth. Yet Divine worship can only be outward to the extent that it is inward, for the outward comes from the inward. Besides this they bring in idolatrous practices of many kinds. They create saints in large numbers, and watch tolerantly while they are adored and have prayers addressed to them almost as if they were gods. They set up statues of them on every side, boast of their numerous miracles, making them patrons of their towns, churches and monasteries, and taking their bones - such utter trash - out of their graves and turning them into holy relies. By such means they divert the minds of all from the worship of God to the worship of human beings.

[5] Moreover, they have employed much skill in preventing anyone being brought out of that murky darkness into light, from the worship of idols to the worship of God. They have built numbers of monasteries to supply spies and guardians whom they post everywhere. They extort heartfelt confessions, even of thoughts and intentions, and if they do not succeed they frighten people's minds with hell-fire and the torments of purgatory. Those who dare to utter a word against the Papal throne and their power they shut up in a repulsive prison, called that of the Inquisition.

[6] Their only purpose in all these acts is to possess the world and its treasures, and to indulge their fancy making themselves supreme and all the rest their slaves. But such rule is not that of heaven over hell, but of hell over heaven, for the stronger the love of power grows in a person, especially if he belongs to a church, the more hell reigns in him. This is the reigning love of hell and makes it hell (see HEAVEN AND HELL 551-565). These facts can establish that what we have there is no church, but a Babylon; for a church is where the Lord Himself is worshipped and the Word is read.

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4738. 'So that he might therefore rescue him out of their hands, to return him to his father' means so that it might lay claim to it for the Church. This is clear from the meaning of 'rescuing out of their hands' as delivering, as above in 4732, and from the meaning of 'returning to his father' as laying claim to it for the Church; for Jacob, to whom 'father' refers here, represents the Jewish religion which sprang from the Ancient Church, as above in 4700, 4701. What was laid claim to for the Church was the Divine Truth concerning the Lord's Divine Human, for, as stated already, 'Joseph' means that truth specifically.

[2] To know more regarding this truth, it should be recognized that the Ancient Church acknowledged it, as also did the Primitive Christian Church. But there came a time when the papacy so extended its authority that it had control over every human soul; it exalted itself in the way the king of Babel is said to have done, in Isaiah,

You said in your heart. I will go up into the heavens, above the stars of God ¹ I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, I will go up above the heights of the clouds, and I will make myself like the Most High. Isaiah 14:13-14.

Then - at that time - Divinity was taken away from the Lord's Human, that is, His Divine was made distinct and separate from His Human.

[3] The way in which this distinction was decreed in a certain council ² has also been revealed to me. I saw some people appear on the right in front of me, some distance away on a level with the sole of my foot. They were talking among themselves, but I did not hear what about. I was told that they were some of those who had come together in the council when the decree was made regarding the Lord's two Natures - His Divine one and His Human one. Shortly after that I was allowed to talk to them. They said that those who had the greatest influence in the council and who held higher positions and had higher authority than the rest met together. They did so in a room that was dark, where they decided that both Divinity and Humanity should be attributed to the Lord, the main reason for their decision being that otherwise the papacy could not have remained in being. For if they had acknowledged that the Lord was one with the Father, as He Himself says, no one could then have been acknowledged as His vicar on earth. Schisms were developing at that time, which would have toppled and destroyed the power of the papacy, had they not made that distinction. To strengthen it they also assembled proof texts from the Word and swayed the rest of the council.

[4] Those who spoke to me added that by doing this they were able to have control in heaven and on earth. They knew from the Word that all power in heaven and on earth had been given to the Lord, and this power could not have been granted to any vicar [of Christ] if the Human too were acknowledged to be Divine. For they knew that no one was allowed to make himself equal to God and that that power existed essentially in the Divine, not in the Human unless it was granted to it as it was also subsequently granted to Peter. They said that by doing what they did they were then able to keep the schismatics quiet who were most astute, and were also able to strengthen the power of the papacy. From this it is clear that they invented the distinction they made purely for the sake of having control, and that therefore they had no wish to know that the gift of power to the Lord's Human in heaven and on earth demonstrates that His Human too is Divine. It is also clear that 'Peter', to whom the Lord gave the keys of heaven, does not mean the man Peter but faith rooted in charity, which is received from the Lord alone and is therefore a power that belongs to the Lord alone - see Preface to Genesis 22.

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