801. 18:24 "And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all those slain on the earth." This symbolically means that from the Roman Catholic religion, meant by the city of Babylon, comes the adulteration and profanation of all the truth of the Word and so of the church, and falsity has consequently emanated from it throughout the whole Christian world.

Blood symbolizes a falsification, adulteration and profanation of the Word (nos. 327, 379, 684). Prophets symbolize all who possess Divine truth from the Word, and abstractly, doctrinal truths drawn from the Word (nos. 8, 133). Saints, or holy ones, symbolize people who belong to the Lord's church, and abstractly, the church's sacred truths (nos. 173, 586, 666). Those slain symbolize people who have been slain spiritually, and those who are said to be slain spiritually are people who perish as a result of falsities (no. 325, and in a number of places elsewhere). Moreover, because the earth symbolizes the church, all those slain on the earth symbolize all in the Christian Church who have perished as a result of falsities, because the falsity they possess has emanated from the Roman Catholic religion.

Regarding Babylon we are told also in Jeremiah that the slain of all the earth are there (Jeremiah 51:49, 52), and in Isaiah that Lucifer, who in Isaiah is Babylon, has destroyed their land and slain its people (Isaiah 14:20).

That from the Roman Catholic religion have emanated many of the falsities in the Protestant Reformed churches may be seen in no. 751 above, where we explained the statement that "the woman whom you saw is the great city which holds sway over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 17:18).

666. "For You alone are holy." This symbolically means that the Lord embodies the Word, truth, and enlightenment.

That the Lord alone is holy may be seen in no. 173 above, and that He is the Divine truth called holy, in nos. 173, 586. Moreover, because the Word is Divine truth, and the Lord embodies Divine truth, and because Divine truth enlightens spiritually, being the light in heaven, but emanating from the Lord, therefore the declaration, "For You alone are holy," symbolically means that the Lord embodies the Word, truth, and enlightenment.

Since the Word is Divine truth, and Divine truth enlightens spiritually, therefore people say that Jehovah dictated the Word through the agency of the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit enlightens a person and instructs him. But who does not know that God is omnipresent, and that holiness emanates from Him and enlightens wherever it is received? Who, then, cannot but conclude that the Holy Spirit is not God per se, distinguishable from Jehovah or the Lord as one person is from another, but that it is Jehovah Himself or the Lord? Anyone who acknowledges the Divine omnipresence must also acknowledge this.

That the Holy Spirit in the Word means the Lord's Divine life, thus Himself, and in particular the life of His Divine wisdom called Divine truth, may be seen in The Doctrine of the New Jerusalem Regarding the Lord, nos. 50-53 where we demonstrated this from the Word.

That the Lord embodies the Word may be seen in John 1:1, 14. That He embodies the truth, John 14:6. That He embodies the light and thus enlightenment, John 12:34-36.