404. And a third of the sea became blood. This symbolically means that general truths had all been falsified in them.

A third means, symbolically, all (no. 400). Blood symbolizes the falsification of the Word's truth (no. 379). The sea symbolizes the church in people concerned with its external elements and caught up in faith alone (nos. 398, 402). General truths are falsified among such people because they are concerned with those truths alone, as they do not know the particulars of that faith, as the clergy do. It is because of those general truths in them that they appear in the spiritual world to be at sea. That is because waters symbolize truths (no. 50), and the sea is the general receptacle of them (no. 238).

402. Then the second angel sounded. (8:8) This symbolizes an examination and disclosure of the state of the church and its character in people caught up externally in that faith.

To be shown that to sound a trumpet means, symbolically, to examine and disclose the state of the church and so of the life in people for whom religion is faith alone, see no. 397 above.

What is said here concerns people caught up externally in that faith because the subject now is people who are at sea, whereas previously it was people upon the earth; and those on the earth mean people concerned with the internal elements of the church, namely the clergy, while those at sea mean people concerned with the external elements of the church, namely the laity (see no. 398 above).

These people in the spiritual world are seemingly at sea (nos. 238, 290).