5089. Such are cast down, in crowds, from heaven, where they first betake themselves. They who are dragons can defend whatever dogma they like; they oscillate amongst all. They can be Catholics, Reformed, Lutherans, Quakers; in a word, they are of unsettled faith. The reason is, because they do not think beyond sensual externals, and according to them in which there is no stability, and everything is worldly and terrestrial. They do not suffer themselves to be elevated [as to the understanding] into heaven, and thence to imbibe doctrine; for they are lovers of self and the world. They are exceedingly dangerous; for it is they who are meant by the serpent, whose head should be trampled, but which should yet wound the heel;* and by the one in David, which lifted up its head and drank of the river;** and in the prophecy of Israel, always lying in the way, and biting the horse's heel.*** * Genesis 3:15. ** The passage which seems to be meant is not in David but in Job (40:23). That passage, it is true, alludes not to the serpent, but to "behemoth;" which creature, however, has, according to Swedenborg's Apocalypse Explained no. 455, a spiritual significance so closely akin to that of the serpent that it may be said to he merely a "variety" of it. *** Genesis 49:17.