1201. That corrupted the earth with her whoredom, signifies those by whom all the truths of the Word have been falsified and its goods adulterated. This is evident from the signification of "the earth," as being the church; also from the signification of "corrupting it with whoredom," as being to falsify all its truths and to adulterate all its goods (n. 141, 161, 1083, 1130). That such have falsified the truths of the Word is evident from this, that they have little regard for the Word; but from what is their own [proprium] they devise new statutes, judgments, and commandments, most of which have regard to dominion over the church and heaven as an end, and these are all falsified truths. That the goods of the church are also adulterated is evident from this, that they call holy all things given to their monasteries and idols, and also to the papal chair, and call such gifts good works, and yet they thereby despoil homes, and deprive widows and orphans of their goods; and this they do notwithstanding they dwell amid treasures and possess superabundant revenues. Moreover, they make such works meritorious, and do many other like things.
(Continuation)
[2] These things being premised, what the soul of beasts is shall be told. The soul of beasts, regarded in itself, is spiritual; for affection of whatever kind, whether good or evil, is spiritual, for it is a derivation from some love, and has its origin in the heat and light that proceed from the Lord as a sun; and whatever proceeds from that is spiritual. That the evil affections that are called lusts are from the same source is evident from what has been already said about the evil loves and insane cupidities therefrom of infernal genii and spirits. [3] Beasts and wild beasts, as mice, poisonous serpents, crocodiles, basilisks, vipers, and the like, with the various noxious insects, the souls of which are like evil affections, were not created from the beginning, but they originated with hell in stagnant lakes, marshes, rank and fetid waters, and in the effluvia from dead bodies, dung, and urine, with which the malignant loves of infernal societies have communication. That such communication exists has been granted me to know from much experience. Moreover, in everything spiritual there is a plastic force wherever homogeneous exhalations are present in nature; and in everything spiritual there is also a propagative force, for the spiritual gives form by means of wombs or eggs not only to the organs of sense and motion, but also to the organs of prolification. But from the beginning useful and clean beasts only were created, the souls of which are good affections. [4] It must be known, however, that the souls of beasts are not spiritual in the same degree in which the souls of men are spiritual, but in a lower degree. For there are degrees in things spiritual; and although affections of a lower degree, regarded in their origin, are spiritual, they must be termed natural. They must be so called because they are like the affections of the natural man. In man there are three degrees of natural affections, and the same is true of beasts. In the lowest degree are insects of various kinds, in a higher degree are the flying things of heaven, and in a still higher degree are the beasts of the earth which were created from the beginning.
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