541. [verse 4] 'And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to earth' signifies that by means of falsifications of the truth (veritas) of the Word they have alienated all the spiritual cognitions of good and truth from the Church, and by applications to untruths they have quite destroyed it. By the tail', where it treats of those who have confirmed heretical things out of the Word, are signified the truths of the Word falsified (n. 438). By 'the stars' are signified spiritual cognitions of good and truth (n. 51, 420); by 'a third part' all are signified (n. 400, 505); and by 'drawing them out of heaven and casting them to earth' is signified to alienate them from the Church and quite destroy them; for when they are drawn out of heaven they are also drawn down from the Church, because everything true of the Word is insinuated into the man of the Church by the Lord through heaven. Nor are truths drawn down by means of anything else but the falsifications of them in the Word, since there and thence are the truths of heaven and the Church. [2] That all the truths of the Word have been destroyed by those who are understood by 'the dragon' mentioned above (n. 537) cannot be believed by anyone in the world, and yet they have been so destroyed that not one doctrinal truths is left. This was investigated in the spiritual world with the learned of the clergy and found to be so. The causes I know but here I shall mention only one. They assert that whatever proceeds out of man's will and judgment is not good, and that therefore goods of charity or good works, because they are done by man, contribute nothing to salvation, but faith alone does so when, nevertheless, the one and only thing by virtue of which man is man, and by means of which he is conjoined to the Lord, is the fact that he is able to do what is good and believe what is true as if of himself that is, as if of his own will in accordance with his own judgment. If this one and only thing were taken away from man, everything conjunctive of man with the Lord and the Lord with man would be taken away at the same time; for this is love's reciprocality, which the Lord gives to everyone who is born a man and also preserves with him even to the end of his life and afterwards into eternity. If this were taken away from man, every truths and good of the Word would also be taken away from him, to such an extent that the Word would be nothing but a dead letter and an empty volume. For the Word teaches nothing else but the conjunction of man with the Lord by means of charity and faith, both being from man as if from himself. [3] Those who are understood by 'the dragon' mentioned above (n. 537) have broken this one and only bond of conjunction by asserting that the goods of charity, or good works, that proceed from man and by his will and judgment are only moral, civil and political works through which man has conjunction with the world, but absolutely no conjunction with God and heaven. And when that bond has thus been broken, then there is not any doctrinal truth of the Word left; and if the truths of the Word are applied for confirming faith alone as saving without the works of the law, then all things are falsified, and if the falsification proceeds as far as the affirmation that the Lord in the Word has not commanded good works for the sake of man's conjunction with Himself, but only for the sake of a conjunction with the world, then the truths of the Word are profaned. For thus the Word becomes no longer the Holy Book, but a profane book. But concerning this the experience at the end of the chapter may he seen. Similar things are signified by these [words] concerning the he-goat in Daniel:-
The he-goat of the she-goats with his horn cast down some of the army of heaven and of the stars to earth, and trampled upon them; and he cast down the truth (veritas) to earth Dan. viii 10, 12.