The Beast of Revelation -- Myth, Metaphor or Reality?

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Chapter 3

The Beast of Revelation Revealed

Napoleon, Hitler and Saddam Hussein have something in common. So also do
Mikhail Gorbachev, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Roosevelt and various popes.
All of them, along with numerous other public figures, have been labeled by
some of their contemporaries as the mysterious "Beast" of the book of
Revelation. The League of Nations, the United Nations, international
Communism and even the United States government have also been labeled the
Beast by some in this 20th century.

Others argue, however, that the book of Revelation is an allegory of the
battle between good and evil--in which the Beast is the personification of
evil, not a historical figure or power structure.

It seems that most would-be interpreters start with what they see on the
world scene and then attempt to read that into the Bible. For example, many
Bible prophecy commentators in the 1950s and 60s identified the "scarlet
beast" of Revelation as the Communist Soviet empire. A few years ago it was
Saddam Hussein. Today, many Fundamentalist commentators identify the Beast
as the "New World Order" or the United Nations. There seem to be just about
as many interpretations as there are interpreters!

But remember, the Bible interprets its own symbols. Just what does
Scripture reveal about the Beast? Does secular history agree?

The Beast from the Sea

Near the end of the first century A.D., the now-elderly Apostle John gazed
out over the Mediterranean Sea across the sandy shore of the Isle of
Patmos. As dark clouds lowered and the sea seemed to churn, a very strange
creature appeared to rise up out of the water. It had the body of a
leopard, the mouth of a lion and the feet of a bear. It thus embodied the
strongest characteristics of the first three creatures Daniel had seen in
his visionrecordedinDaniel7. However, the Beast that John saw had
seven heads and ten horns (Rev. 13:1-2). We are told that the
"dragon" gave this Beast its power and authority. Finally, we are
told that one of the creature's heads was wounded to death. But this fatal
wound was healed and the Beast continued for 42 months (vv. 2-5).

This is strikingly similar to the scenedescribedinDaniel7.In Daniel's
vision, remember, four creatures--a lion, a bear, a four-headed leopard and
another terrible creature with ten horns--emerge from a dark, stormy sea
(vv. 1-7). These four beasts have a sum total of seven heads. The creatures
that Daniel saw clearly represented the succession of empires from
Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon to Media-Persia, then to Alexander's Hellenistic
Empire (which split four ways after his death) and finally to the Roman
Empire. It is from the fourth creature, symbolizing Rome--the seventh
head--that the "ten horns" arise.

Notice the similarity of the two accounts. In each case there are seven
heads. In Revelation 13, John saw one creature, not four distinct ones as
Daniel did. But both prophets saw seven heads and ten horns and both saw
likenesses of a lion, a bear, a leopard and a terrible creature. So with
all these similarities, why are there also differences in the visions?

When Daniel received his vision, virtually all of what he saw was yet
future. Babylon, symbolized by a lion, was on the scene, but the others
were yet to come. When John wrote, more than 600 years later, Babylon,
Persia and Greece had all been swallowed up by Rome. Where Daniel focused
upon four empires, John saw one continuous system that had begun with
Babylon. He saw the various empires as merely different heads of the same
creature--the seven heads of prophetic "Babylon." From Daniel's vision, we
know the system continues until the return of Christ, when the saints will
take over and possess the kingdom (Dan. 7:18).

So just what is all this symbolism? Once again, the Bible interprets its
own symbols. As we've seen, Daniel 7:23 makes plain that the seven heads
among the four creatures represent kingdoms. Similarly, the seven heads of
the scarlet Beast of Revelation 17 are identified as "seven mountains" or
"seven kings" (vv. 9-10). And according to Daniel 7:24 and Revelation
17:12, horns too are symbolic of kings or kingdoms. In prophecy, horns are
used to represent power or ruling authority. So it is clear that the heads
and the horns of Revelation 13 represent kings or kingdoms. Supporting this
conclusion, John saw each of these horns bearing a crown (v. 1).

The dragon, who empowers this system, is plainly identified in Revelation
12:9: "the great dragon... [is] that serpent of old, called the Devil and
Satan." Satan himself is symbolically pictured as a "great, fiery red
dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems [royal crowns]
on his heads" (v. 3). Here the heads and horns of prophetic Babylon are
seen as springing from the Devil himself, the real "ruler of this world"
(John 12:31; 14:30). It is perhaps significant that, around the time of its
greatest extent, the Roman Empire adopted the red or purple dragon as one
of its main military emblems--and it eventually became the ceremonial
standard of the later East Roman emperors!

What of the head John saw that was "wounded to death" and then healed?
Which head was it? Remember, of the Beast's seven heads described in
Revelation 13, only the final one, the Roman Empire, was still thriving in
John's day. The previous six heads--Babylon, Persia and the four
Hellenistic kingdoms--had already passed into history at the time of his
writing. None of them had come back to life. Nor could they after the Roman
Empire of John's day. Otherwise, there would be yet another humanly
conceived, world-ruling empire--contrary to the succession outlined in the
book of Daniel. So the Roman Empire was the head that would be fatally
wounded and later come back to life for 42 prophetic "months." As we will
see, this did in fact happen.

For centuries, the date used as the line of demarcation between ancient and
medieval history has been A.D. 476. This date, the traditional "fall" of
the Roman Empire, marks the conquest of Rome by "barbarians" from the north
and the murder of the last emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus. In the
next chapter, we will examine this empire's subsequent revival--the
"healing" of the deadly wound.

But first, let's notice another matter about the Beast's seven heads,
described in both Daniel 7 and Revelation 13. Daniel explains that the ten
horns (i.e. kings or kingdoms, 7:24) spring from the last head--Rome. So
ten kings or kingdoms were to come from the Roman Empire. But would they be
contemporaneous or sequential?

Daniel tells us that "there was another horn, a little one, coming up among
[the ten horns], before whom three of the first horns were plucked out by
the roots" (v. 8)--i.e. the first three kingdoms "fell" before the little
horn, "whose appearance was greater than his fellows" (v. 20). Verse 24
says he would be "different" from the other kings and would "subdue three
kings." What does this mean? Apparently the ten horns are successive
kingdoms that come from the Roman system, the first three of which are
removed at the behest of a comparatively smaller, yet in some ways greater,
power structure emerging from Rome. Let's look at Roman history to see the
fulfillment of this prophecy!

The Story of the First Three Horns

In A.D. 286, Emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire into West and East
for administrative purposes. The Western Empire retained Rome as capital
while the Eastern Empire would come to be headquartered at the city of
Byzantium. Emperor Constantine the Great dedicated it in 326 as New Rome,
but those after him called it Constantinople. It is today the city of
Istanbul, Turkey. The two divisions, usually having separate emperors, were
symbolized by the two "legs" described in Daniel 2. At times, a single
emperor would reign over both until 395, when the separation became
permanent. After this, serious trouble lay ahead for the Western leg. By
the 400s, the Empire in the West was in its death throes. There had been
barbarian incursions on the frontiers for years, until finally Rome itself
was sacked and looted for the first time in eight centuries! This was
accomplished by the Visigoths under Alaric in 409.

As the Roman Empire in the West collapsed, the leaders of three groups of
barbarian invaders--the Vandals, the Heruli and the Ostrogoths--sought to
succeed the Western emperors. As we shall see, each barbarian group sought
and received official recognition of its kingdom from the emperor in the
East as a continuation of legitimate Roman government in the West. There
was another emerging ruler in the West, however, who eventually effected
their overthrow and ouster.

This leading figure was the bishop of Rome--known now as the pope. (This
title of papa, meaning "father," had been held by many bishops, though, and
would not exclusively apply to the bishop of Rome until the 800s.) While
the Western emperors grew weaker, he conversely emerged with increased
power and stature. This involved not only greater religious power over the
professing Christian community, but increased civil and political power as
well. But how did a "Christian" leader come to dominate a pagan empire?

Since the days of the first Caesars, the state pagan religion was no longer
focused on the worship of Jupiter and the old Roman gods. It centered,
instead, on worship of the emperor as a god on earth. The title of the high
priest of Jupiter, Pontifex Maximus ("supreme bridge builder" between men
and the gods), was conferred on Julius Caesar and later Augustus--from
which point it was borne by the Roman emperors. Conquered societies were
allowed to practice their own religions as long as they also worshipped the
emperor. This naturally posed a problem for adherents of Judaism and
Christianity, who recognized only the one Creator God.

Consequently, the Jewish state was destroyed by the Romans (A.D. 66-70).
And for 250 years, all who were called Christians faced severe persecution.
Yet despite that, their religion continued to grow.

Finally Constantine the Great became the first emperor to profess
Christianity in 312. The next year, he issued the Edict of Milan, granting
freedom of religion to Christians. Paganism was still tolerated, but
Constantine encouraged everyone to become Christian. The emperor gave
Rome's pope the lavish Lateran Palace and had him clad in imperial raiment
and crowned as an earthly ruler. Government offices were filled with
Christians, and the church grew in power--allied with the Empire!

Constantine saw the growing religion of Christianity as a way to unify the
various peoples of the Empire. But this first required unity within the
various sects of nominal Christianity itself. In 321, he upheld the Roman
Church's idea of keeping "the venerable day of the sun" (Sunday) instead of
the seventh-day Sabbath that Christ and the original apostles had kept
(more on this later). In 324, Constantine declared Christianity the
official religion of the Empire. The next year, he convened the famous
Council of Nicea to settle some raging doctrinal controversies.

One dispute concerned when to keep the Christian Passover--either the
specific Jewish date that Christ and the apostles had observed or the day
the Roman Church kept, later called Easter Sunday. The Council ruled in
favor of Easter--those who persisted in the original practice were
subsequently executed (as seventh-day Sabbath keepers would also be later).
Thus the formerly persecuted had now become the persecutors!

Another dispute, the Arian controversy, was about the nature of God. Arius,
a priest in Egypt, had been teaching that Christ was a created being,
subordinate to the Father. Roman Catholicism favored the Trinity--the idea
of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three coeternal and coequal Persons
in one God. (For the amazing truth on this subject, write for our free
booklet, The God You Can Know!) The Trinity was adopted as official
"orthodox" doctrine by the Council. Yet Arianism, though now outlawed,
persisted in many regions. In fact, when invading barbarians would convert
to Christianity, it was often to Arianism.

In 337, Constantine himself finally received a deathbed baptism. Despite a
short-lived attempt to return to paganism by his nephew Julian,
Christianity grew in power until, during the reign of Theodosius the Great,
paganism was outlawed and conversion to Christianity became mandatory.
Moreover, Theodosius made Roman Catholicism the official religion of the
entire Empire. In fact, prior to his ruling a united Empire--when he was
emperor of only the East--he and Gratian, his co-emperor in the West, both
rejected their pagan priestly title of Pontifex Maximus. They did so in
deference to the Catholic Church, whose bishop of Rome now went by that
same title! This is why the pope, even today, is called the pontiff.

Of course, the fall of Rome in the West was a severe blow to the power of
the papacy. The invading Vandals, Heruli and Ostrogoths professed
Christianity, but it was the Arian form. Their "unorthodoxy" was viewed by
Roman Catholics as a threat to the religious unity of the West under the
bishop of Rome.

The Vandals invaded North Africa in 429, and several years of
fighting with Rome ensued. But through a treaty in 435, these
barbarians were "recognized" by the Romans as the legitimate
continuation of the Empire in North Africa (cf. Langer, p. 135).
Still not satisfied, the Vandals sought to expand their power as
Roman successors. In 455 they even pillaged the city of Rome itself--so
thoroughly that, to this day, the term "vandal" describes anyone who
maliciously defaces the property of others. The Vandals left Rome with the
Western emperor still on the throne--but they continued to exercise power
throughout Roman North Africa. Ultimately, however, they were uprooted. "In
Africa the Vandals were hated as Arians [by the Catholics]... but their
power was not broken until the 533-548 Vandalic Wars of [East Roman
Emperor] Justinian" (p. 159). In 533, Justinian would dispatch his
brilliant general, Belisarius, with 500 transport ships and 92 warships to
rid Africa of the Vandals. But first, two more kingdoms would be
established in Italy.

In 476, about 20 years after the Vandals sacked Rome, the Heruli
under Odoacer (or Odovacar) deposed the last West Roman emperor,
Romulus Augustulus. This official end of the Western imperial
monarchy--the end of the West Roman Empire--was Rome's "deadly
wound." Odoacer was "recognized" by Eastern Emperor Zeno in
Constantinople as the legitimate continuation of Roman government
in Italy (cf. p. 135). But he too was an Arian--a fact greatly
resented by the Roman pope, who appealed to Zeno. So Zeno sent Theodoric,
the leader of the barbarian Ostrogoths, as his "agent" to drive out the
Heruli in 488 (p. 135). "The orthodox bishops of Italy, disliking Odoacer's
Arianism, supported the Arian invader [Theodoric] as representing an almost
orthodox emperor. With their help Theodoric broke Odoacer's sturdy
resistance in five years of war, and persuaded him to a compromise peace
[in 493]. He invited Odoacer and his son to dine with him in Ravenna, fed
them generously, and slew them with his own hand" (Will Durant, The Story
of Civilization, vol. 4, pp. 97-98). Thus, the Heruli were uprooted.

Ostrogothic rule of Italy was accepted for a while as a necessary
evil in getting rid of the Heruli. For Theodoric "maintained a
formal subordination to Byzantium.... He accepted the laws and
institutions of the Late Western Empire.... [And] though an
Arian, [he] protected the orthodox Church in her property and
worship" (p. 98). But over time, the Arian Ostrogoths became increasingly
unpopular with Rome's pope and the Catholic population. "The catholics were
attached to [East Emperor Justinian], who... trod the narrow path of
inflexible and intolerant orthodoxy" (Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, vol. 2, p. 477). And in 535, during Justinian's Vandalic
Wars (already mentioned), the Byzantine forces led by Belisarius arrived in
Italy to drive out the Ostrogoths. The Roman population "hailed Belisarius
as a liberator, the clergy welcomed him as a Trinitarian" (Durant, p. 109).
This began the Gothic Wars, which ended 18 years later when Justinian's
troops finally expelled the remaining Ostrogoths from Italy.

Thus ended the "transition age," as it's called by historian Philip Van
Ness Myers (Ancient History, 1904, p. 571). The first three "horns" had
been plucked up by Roman Catholic sanction. So the bishop of Rome and the
universal church he heads stand clearly identified as the little horn with
"eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking pompous words" (Dan.
7:8). But consider what this means. Daniel saw the little horn "making war
against the saints [true Christians], and prevailing against them" (v. 21).
And the prophet was told in his dream, concerning this horn, "He shall
speak pompous words against the Most High, shall persecute the saints of
the Most High, and shall intend to change times and law" (v. 25).

But how can this be? Isn't the Roman Catholic Church the "mother church" of
Christianity? Why is the papacy portrayed as acting against God, His people
and His "times and law"? These questions will be answered in due course.
Suffice it to say for now, the Roman Church has done these things--as we
will see.

Now with the three Arian kingdoms uprooted, the stage was set for the first
true revival of the Roman Empire in the West in 554. Unlike the first three
of the ten horns, the last seven horns or Roman revivals would all involve
the blessing of the Roman pope--just as in the Late Roman Empire itself. He
would be an intimate player in the various continuations of the empire of
ancient Rome in the West.


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