Apocalypse Explained, volume 1 - Swedenborg Foundation

APOCALYPSE EXPLAINED 230By this was represented what the quality of the church was, namely,that it was wholly in falsities.[12] In the same:They sinned against me; I will change their glory into disgrace.They committed whoredom; because they have forsaken Jehovah.Whoredom, wine, and new wine, have occupied the heart. Yourdaughters commit whoredom, and your daughters-in-law commitadultery (Hosea 4:7, 10–11, 13).“Whoredom, wine, and new wine,” are falsified truths;“whoredom” falsification itself; “wine” interior falsity; “new wine”exterior falsity; “daughters who commit whoredom” are the goodsof truth perverted; “daughters-in-law who commit adultery” areevils conjoined with falsities therefrom.[13] In Isaiah:It shall come to pass after the end of seventy years that Jehovah willvisit Tyre, that she may return to her meretricious hire, and commitwhoredom with all the kingdoms of the earth upon the faces of theworld; at length her merchandise [and her meretricious hire] shall beholiness to Jehovah (Isa. 23:17, 18).“Tyre,” in the Word, is the church in respect to the knowledges oftruth and good; “meretricious hire” the same knowledges applied,by perverting them, to evils and falsities; “her merchandise” thevending of these. “To commit whoredom with all the kingdoms ofthe earth,” is with all and every truth of the church. “Hermerchandise and her meretricious hire shall be holiness to Jehovah”because these signify the knowledges of truth and good applied bythem to falsities and evils; and by means of the knowledgesthemselves regarded in themselves, a man can gain wisdom; forknowledges are means of becoming wise, and they are also means ofbecoming insane. They are the means of becoming insane whenthey are falsified by being applied to evils and falsities. The like issignified where it is said that: