127. Men's desire to probe into mysteries of faith by means of sensory evidence and factual knowledge was not only the cause of the downfall of the Most Ancient Church, that is to say, of its descendants - to be dealt with in the next chapter; it is also the cause of the downfall of every Church. For that desire leads not only to falsities but also to evils of life.

9314. 'And will act as adversary to your adversaries' means that He will turn away all evils from which falsities arise. This is clear from the meaning of 'acting as adversary', when it refers to Jehovah or the Lord, as turning away, dealt with immediately above in 9313; and from the meaning of 'adversaries' as evils from which falsities arise, since those evils in the spiritual sense are 'adversaries' opposed to forms of good from which truths spring. The reason why evils from which falsities arise are meant by 'adversaries' is that falsities arising from evil are meant by 'enemies'; for wherever falsity is the subject in the Word, so too is evil, even as when truth is the subject so too is good, see 683, 793, 801, 2173, 2516, 2712, 3132, 4138 (end), 5138, 5502, 6343, 7945, 8339. From this it is evident that one thing is meant by 'acting as enemy to enemies' and another thing by 'acting as adversary to adversaries', and that the latter is not a repetition that occurs simply to make the subject sound more lofty.