5090. The reason why they are dangerous is that they can convince the simple and upright of almost anything whatever, that this or that must be believed on the basis of the Word's outward meaning alone, without explanation, And the simple in the world do not stir themselves and learn that the Word's outward meaning is adapted to the grasp of a person who is on the level of sense impressions because a person's initial grasp is sensory and because there must be this lowest level in the Word because it is in the place of a foundation, or the place of the soles of the feet on which the body rests. For in the sight of the Lord the Word is like a human being, because it is the Divine Truth. Consequently, the sense of letter is the sole of the foot. Nonetheless, there are inward things in it that correspond to the interrelationship of such things as are in a human being.

377. Verses 7, 8. And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the wild beasts of the earth.

"And when he had opened the fourth seal," signifies, prediction manifested still further: "I heard the voice of the fourth animal saying," signifies, out of the inmost heaven from the Lord: "Come and see," signifies attention and perception. "And I looked, and behold a pale horse," signifies not any understanding of the Word, from evils of life, and then from the falsities thence; "and he that sat upon him," signifies the Word; "his name was Death, and Hell followed with him," signifies eternal damnation; "and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill," signifies deprivation of all good, and thence of truth, from the Word, and thence in the doctrine of their church derived from the Word; "with the sword," signifies, by falsity; "and with hunger," signifies, by deprivation, lack, and ignorance of the knowledges of truth and good; "and with death," signifies the extinction thereby of spiritual life; "and with the wild beasts of the earth," signifies evils of life, or lusts and the falsities thence arising from the love of self and of the world, which devastate all things of the church with man.