410. The name of the star is Wormwood, and a third of the waters became wormwood. (8:11) This symbolizes hellish falsity, the origin of their personal intelligence, by which they had falsified all the Word's truths.

The star symbolizes their personal intelligence owing to a conceit arising from a hellish love (no. 408). The name symbolizes its character (nos. 81, 122, 165). Wormwood symbolizes hellish falsity, which we will consider next. Waters symbolize truths (no. 50), here the Word's truths, because the subject is faith. A third means, symbolically, all, as said before. Gathering these into a single meaning yields the meaning presented above.

As for wormwood, it symbolizes hellish falsity because of its extreme bitterness, which renders foods and beverages unpalatable. Wormwood symbolizes such falsity, therefore, in the following places:

Behold, I feed... this people with wormwood, and will give them water of gall to drink. (Jeremiah 9:14-15)

...thus says Jehovah... against the prophets: Behold, I feed them with wormwood, and will make them drink water of gall; for from the prophets of Jerusalem hypocrisy has gone out into all the land. (Jeremiah 23:15)

...you turn justice into gall, and the fruit of righteousness into wormwood. (Amos 6:12, cf. 5:7)

...that there may not be among you a root bearing gall or wormwood. (Deuteronomy 29:18)

Since the Jewish Church falsified all the Word's truths, like the church which is the subject here, and the Lord represented it by all the events of His suffering, by permitting the Jews to treat Him as they had the Word, because He embodied the Word, therefore "they gave Him vinegar mingled with gall," which is like wormwood, "but when He had tasted it, He would not drink" (Matthew 27:34, Mark 15:23, cf. Psalms 69:21).

As that was the character of the Jewish Church, it is therefore described in this way:

He has filled me with bitterness, (and) He has made me drunk on wormwood. (Lamentations 3:15, 19)

121. "'And I will give him a white stone.'" This symbolizes truths supportive of and united to good.

A white stone has this symbolism because in cases requiring decision, votes used to be tallied by collecting stones, and white stones meant affirming votes. Affirming truths are symbolized here, because whiteness is predicated of truths (nos. 167, 379). Consequently a white stone symbolizes truths supportive of good. It means also truths united to good, because goodness attracts truths and unites them to itself. Indeed, all good loves truth and joins to itself such truth as is in harmony with it, and especially so the goodness of celestial love. This so unites truth to itself that they form an indivisible whole.

For this reason celestial people view truths from the perspective of good. They are the people meant by those who have the law written on their hearts, of whom we read in Jeremiah:

I will put My law in the midst of them and write it on their hearts... No more shall each teach his companion, or each his brother, saying, "Know Jehovah," for everyone shall know Me... (Jeremiah 31:33-34)

Of such a character are all the inhabitants of the third heaven. They do not talk about truths from some memory of them, but clearly see truths whenever they hear other people talking about them, and especially when they read the Word. That is because they possess a real marriage of goodness and truth.

People become of this character in the world if they have turned to the Lord alone and done good works because they accord with the Word's truths.

Something regarding these angels may be seen in the book Heaven and Hell, nos. 25, 26, 270, 271.