802. It is said that as a result of the form of religion that is understood by 'the city Babylon' there is the adulteration and profanation of every truth of the Word, and consequently of every holy thing of the Church; and it is said many times in the things preceding that that form of religion has not only adulterated the goods and truths of the Word but has also profaned them, and that therefore 'Babel' in the Word signifies the profanation of what is holy. It shall now be said how that profanation has been and is effected. It was said above that the love, derived from the love of self, of dominating over the holy things of the Church and over heaven, thus over all the Divine things of the Lord, is the devil. Now because that dominion as the end in view has occupied the minds of all those who fashioned that form of religion, they could not do otherwise than profane the holy things of the Word and the Church. Suppose that that love, which is the devil, occupies the mind of anyone interiorly, as does every ruling love; then place some Divine Truth exteriorly before its eyes; will it not tear it in pieces, cast it to the earth and trample upon it, and in place of it summon an untruth in accord with itself? [2] The love of possessing all the things of the world is satan, and the devil and satan act as one, as if joined by a covenant, with such as from the one love are in the other. It can be concluded from these considerations whence it is that by 'Babylon' in the Word is signified profanation. For example: place before that love which is the devil this Divine Truth, that the Only God is to be worshipped and adored, and not any man; and that the Vicariate is an invention and figment that must be rejected. In like manner this truth, that to invoke dead men, to fall down before their images, to kiss them and their bones, is an utterly and disgustingly idolatrous practice that also must be rejected. Would not that love which is the devil reject these two truths in the vehemence of its anger, fulminate against them, and tear them to bits? [3] But if anyone should say to that love which is the devil, that to open and shut heaven, or to loose and to bind, thus to remit sins, which is the same as to reform and regenerate and thus to redeem and save a man, is purely Divine; and that a man cannot claim anything Divine to himself without profanation; and that Peter did not claim any such thing to himself nor had he exercised any such authority; moreover that the succession is a thing invented by that love, as also the transference of the Holy Spirit from man to man; on hearing these things would not that love which is the devil belabour the speaker with anathemas, and in the fire of its fury order him to be delivered to the inquisitors and cast into the condemned cell? If anyone should say further, How can the Lord's Divine authority be transferred into you? How can the Lord's Divinity be separated from His Soul and Body? Is it not in accordance with your faith that it cannot? How can God the Father being His own Divine Power into the Son, if not into His Divinity which is the receptacle? How can this be transcribed into a man so as to be his? Besides other similar things. On hearing them would not that love which is the devil be silent, burn with rage inwardly, gnash the teeth and cry out, 'Bring him forth, crucify him, crucify him, go forth, let all go forth, let them see the great heretic and entertain themselves'?