5648. CONTINUATION ABOUT BABYLON AND THE SEVEN MOUNTAINS. There are many mountains there, which are in that part and northwards from it, as many as twenty; but they are all called in the Apocalypse [17:9], the seven mountains upon which dwells the beast;* because seven, in the opposite sense, signifies a profane [state]. And the majority who are there, are of the Italian nation. On that, about which something has been previously related, the Romans dwell, because they are in the love of governing more than all the rest; neither do they care so much for knowledges. Behind them dwell the rest of the Italians who are of such a character: as those who are higher up than Rome, for instance, those who belong to Tuscany, Genoa, Venice, Milan, and the Trans-alpine provinces. These dwell upon the middle mountains there. In the farthest [mountain] towards the north, are those who were from Naples, and farther on, from Sicily; for the worst dwell towards the north there. They who were from Sicily, are those who have been in the subtlety of falsity, and in falses, more than the rest; and not so much in the love of governing, like the Romans. * The passage in the Apocalypse speaks of the woman as sitting on the seven mountains; but as, according to verse 7 of the same chapter, the woman sat on the beast, the "beast" also was on them, as above represented. -ED.