1326. The symbolism of for this reason he called its name Babel as this type of worship — specifically the type symbolized by Babel — is evident from what has been said so far. It is worship that has self-love deep inside it and consequently everything that is unclean and profane. Self-love is nothing but the conviction that we answer to ourselves alone, and the filth and profanity of human selfhood can be seen from the explanation presented earlier, in §§210, 215.
From philautia 1 — from self-love, that is, or a sense of autonomy — flows every kind of evil, such as hatred, vengefulness, cruelty, adultery, deceit, hypocrisy, and godlessness. So when our worship harbors self-love, or the desire to be our own ruler, it harbors evils like these, but with differences in amount and kind, depending on the amount and kind of influence self-love has. This is where all profanation in worship comes from.
The fact of the matter is that the more self-love or a misplaced sense of independence worms its way into our worship, the more internal worship recedes, or becomes nonexistent. Inward devotion consists in an affection for what is good and an acknowledgment of truth, but the more egoism or self-dependence advances or enters, the more an affection for goodness and the acknowledgment of truth withdraw or leave. Holiness can never coexist with profanation, just as heaven cannot coexist with hell. The one needs to separate from the other; that is what conditions in the Lord's kingdom, and the way it is organized, require. This is the reason why inward worship does not exist in those whose worship is called "Babel." Instead they worship something dead and even cadaverous that lies within. It is evident, then, what outward worship is like when something like this lies at its core.
[2] The fact that this kind of worship is Babel can be seen in the many places where the Word describes Babel [Babylon]. Daniel contains one example in the statue that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, saw in a dream. Its head was gold; its chest and arms, silver; its belly and thighs, bronze; its legs, iron; its feet, part iron and part clay. The statue symbolizes the fact that from true worship there finally evolved the kind of worship called Babylon, and that is why a stone cut out of a rock crushed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold. (See Daniel 2:31, 32, 33, 44-45.) The statue of gold that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, set up, and that the people worshiped, was also nothing else (Daniel 3). Likewise the fact that the king of Babylon drank wine with his nobles out of the golden vessels from Jerusalem's Temple, that they praised gods made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and stone, and that this resulted in the handwriting on the wall (Daniel 5). Then there was the command by Darius the Mede that he be revered as god (Daniel 6); and there were the beasts that Daniel saw in a dream (Daniel 7), and likewise the beasts and Babylon in John's Book of Revelation. 2
[3] The fact that this kind of worship is symbolized and represented is clear to see not only in Daniel and John but also in the prophets. In Isaiah:
Their faces are faces aflame. The stars of the heavens and their constellations do not shed their light. The sun has been shadowed over in its entrance, and the moon does not radiate its light. Tsiyim lie down there, and their houses are filled with ochim, and daughters of the owl live there, and satyrs leap there, and iyim answer in its palaces, and serpents in its pleasure halls. 3 (Isaiah 13:8, 10, 21-22)
This passage is talking about Babylon and describing the inner content of this kind of worship. It does so through the faces aflame (cravings), the failure of the stars (individual religious truths) to shine, the overshadowing of the sun (sacred love), the failure of the moon (religious truth as a whole) to radiate, and the tsiyim, ochim, daughters of the owl, satyrs, iyim, and serpents (inward aspects of worship) because these properties characterize self-love. So in John (Revelation 17:5), Babylon is also called the mother of obscenities and abominations. And the same author calls it "a dwelling place for serpents, 4 and a prison for every unclean spirit, and a prison for every unclean and loathsome bird" (Revelation 18:2). When such attributes lie at the core, obviously no religious goodness or truth can exist, and the good effects of love and the true ideas of faith retreat as those attributes invade. In Isaiah 21:9 they are also called carved images of the Babylonian gods.
[4] The fact that self-love (arrogant self-dependence) is what pervades self-worship, or actually constitutes self-worship, is plain to see in Isaiah:
Prophesy this parable over the monarch of Babylon: You have said in your heart, "I will scale the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God and sit on the mountain of assembly, on the flanks of the north. 5 I will climb above the loftiest parts of the cloud; I will become like the Highest One." Nevertheless, you will be thrown down to hell. (Isaiah 14:4, 13-14, 15)
In these verses, clearly, Babylon is one who wishes to be worshiped as a god; in other words, it is self-worship.
[5] In the same author:
Go down and sit in the dirt, virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the earth. There is no throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. You trusted in your wickedness; you said, "There is no one to see me." Your wisdom and your knowledge turned you away. You said in your heart, "I am, and there is no one else like me." (Isaiah 47:1, 10)
In Jeremiah:
Here now, I am against you, ruinous mountain, ruining the whole earth; and I will stretch my hand out over you and roll you down from the rocks and make you a mountain aflame. If Babylon climbs into the heavens, and if it fortifies its lofty stronghold, destroyers will come to it from me. (Jeremiah 51:25, 53)
This too shows that Babylon is self-worship.
[6] Jeremiah describes the fact that they have no light of truth — none of the truth that faith espouses — but pure darkness:
The word that Jehovah has spoken against Babylon, against the land of the Chaldeans: "A nation from the north will come up over them. It will make their land a desolation, and nothing will live in it; from human to animal they will move off, they will leave." (Jeremiah 50:1, 3)
The north stands for darkness, or lack of truth. No human and no animal stands for a lack of goodness.
For more on Babylon, see below at verse 28, where it speaks of Chaldea [§1368].
Footnotes:
1. Philautia is an ancient Greek word denoting self-love. It was used in Latin from early times through the Neo-Latin period; see, for example, Cicero Letters to Atticus 13:13:1 and Erasmus Praise of Folly §9, where the personified Philautia is one of the attendants of Folly. [SS]
2. For an example of a beast in the Book of Revelation, see Revelation 13; for treatment of Babylon, see Revelation 18. [LHC]
3. Like "tsiyim" (see note 2 in §306 above), "ochim," and "iyim" are transliterations of plural Hebrew words: אֹחִים ('ōḥîm) and אִיִּים ('îyyîm). They reflect similar transliterations of Hebrew in Swedenborg's Latin first edition here. Again as in the case of "tsiyim," the exact identity of these types of creatures is obscure. Biblical scholars and translators have generally presented them as wild, predatory animals, but Swedenborg clearly takes them to be birds (True Christianity 661:12; Marriage Love 430). [JSR]
4. The Latin word for "serpents" here is draconum; its Greek equivalent would be δράκοντων (drácontōn). But the Greek word that actually appears in Revelation 18:2 is δαιμόνων (daimónōn), meaning "demons," and the Latin equivalent would be daemonum. Elliott (Swedenborg [1749-1756] 1983-1999) makes and annotates the correction in his translation. [LHC]
5. On "the flanks of the north," see note 4 in §1151. [Editors]
