Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 190122. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison,signifies that those who are in falsities from evil will set about todeprive them of all truth from the Word. This is evident from thesignification of “casting into prison,” as being, in reference to thosewho are in the spiritual affection of truth, to endeavor and to setabout to deprive them of truths from the Word (of whichpresently); and from the signification of the “devil,” as being thehells which are in evil and in falsities therefrom (of which above, n.120). “To cast into prison,” in reference to those who are in thespiritual affection of truth, is to endeavor and to set about todeprive them of truths from the Word, for the reason that truthsare, as it were, in prison or in confinement when falsities break in;and so long as falsities are under view, truths cannot appear, stillless can they be set at liberty. Those that are in the spiritualaffection of truth, who are those that love truths because they aretruths, are held in such confinement whenever they do notunderstand the Word and yet wish to understand it; the falsitiesthat imprison rise up from hell into the natural man when thedelights of the love of self and the world have rule therein, for thesedelights are the origins of all evils and of the falsities therefrom (seeDoctrine of the New Jerusalem, n. 65–83).[2] This is meant, in the spiritual sense, by “being cast by thedevil into prison”; for as the devil is hell, and out of hell every evilarises, and as the influx from hell is into the natural man, and notinto the spiritual, so the devil affects all who are in the delights ofthese loves, and subjects them to himself and makes them his crew;for all who are in the hells are in evils and the falsities thence fromthe loves of self and of the world (see Heaven and Hell, n. 551–565;but that the delights of those loves are changed intocorrespondences, the character of which may be seen there, n.485–490).This casting into prison by the devil is described in the Word,where it is said that the Jews and the evil will persecute the Lord’sdisciples, and will revile and kill them; for by the “disciples of theLord” are meant all who are in truths from good, thus who are intruths from the Lord; and as these are meant by the Lord’s