Revelation · Chapter 13
And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
John Wesley
2. That he alone can depose bishops, or receive them again.
Adam Clarke
Verse 2. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard] This similitude of the beast to a leopard appears to be an allusion to the third beast of Daniel, which is well known to represent the empire of the Greeks. The Latin empire greatly resembled the modern empire of the Greeks; for that the power of the Greeks was still said to be like a leopard, even after its subjugation by the Romans, is evident from Daniel 7:12: “As concerning the rest of the beasts, they had their dominion taken away; yet their lives were prolonged for a season and time.” The Latin empire was, in the first place, like to its contemporary, because both adhered to an idolatrous system of worship, professedly Christian, but really antichristian; and it is well known that the Greek and Latin Churches abound in monstrous absurdities. Secondly, Both empires were similar in their opposition to the spread of pure Christianity; though it must be allowed that the Latins far outstripped the Greeks in this particular. Thirdly, Both empires were similar in respect to the civil authority being powerfully depressed by the ecclesiastical; though it must be granted the authority of the Latin Church was more strongly marked, and of much longer continuance. The excommunication of the Greek emperor by the Patriarch Arsenius, and the consequences of that excommunication, afford a remarkable example of the great power of the Greek clergy. But the beast of St. John, though in its general appearance it resembles a leopard, yet differs from it in having feet like those of a bear. The second beast of Daniel was likened to a bear, and there can be no doubt that the kingdom of the Medes and Persians was intended; and it is very properly likened to this animal, because it was one of the most inhuman governments that ever existed, and a bear is the well known Scripture emblem of cruelty. See 2 Samuel 17:8, and Hosea 13:8. Is not cruelty a striking characteristic of the papal Latin empire? Have not the subjects of this empire literally trampled to death all those in their power who would not obey their idolatrous requisitions? In Fox’s Book of Martyrs, and other works which treat upon this subject, will be found a melancholy catalogue of the horrid tortures and most lingering deaths which they have obliged great numbers of Christians to suffer. In this sense the feet of the beast were as the feet of a bear. Another particular in which the beast differed from a leopard was, in having a mouth like a lion. “It is,” says Dr. More, “like the Babylonish kingdom (the first beast of Daniel, which is likened to a lion) in its cruel decrees against such as will not obey their idolatrous edicts, nor worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Their stubbornness must be punished by a hot fiery furnace; fire and fagot must be prepared for them that will not submit to this new Roman idolatry.”
And the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.] It was said of the dragon, in Revelation 12:8, that his place was found no more in heaven; the dragon here cannot therefore be the heathen Roman empire, as this was abolished previously to the rising up of the beast. It must then allude to the restoration of one of the DRACONIC heads of the beast, as will be seen in the explanation of the following verse, and more fully in the notes on Revelation 17:1-18.
Joseph Benson
Verses 1-4. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, &c. — Here the beast is described at large, who was only mentioned before, Revelation 11:7; and a beast, in the prophetic style, is a tyrannical idolatrous empire. The kingdom of God and of Christ is never represented under the image of a beast. As Daniel (Daniel 7:2, 3) beheld four great beasts, representing the four great empires, come up from a stormy sea, that is, from the commotions of the world; so St. John (verse 1) saw this beast in like manner rise up out of the sea. He was said before (Revelation 11:7) to ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and it is said afterward, (Revelation 17:8,) that he shall ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and here he is said to ascend out of the sea; so that the sea and abyss, or bottomless pit, are in these passages the same. No doubt is to be made that this beast was designed to represent the Roman empire; for thus far both ancients and moderns, Papists and Protestants, are agreed: the only controversy is, whether it was Rome, pagan or Christian, imperial or papal. St. John saw this beast rising out of the sea, but the Roman empire was risen and established long before St. John’s time; and therefore this must be the Roman empire, not in its then present, but in some future shape and form; and it arose in another shape and form after it was broken to pieces by the incursions of the northern nations. The beast hath seven heads and ten horns — Which are the well-known marks of the Roman empire, the seven heads alluding to the seven mountains whereon Rome was seated, and to the seven forms of government which successively prevailed there; and the ten horns signifying the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided. It is remarkable that the dragon had seven crowns upon his heads, but the beast hath upon his horns ten crowns — So that there had been, in the mean while, a revolution of power from the heads of the dragon to the horns of the beast, and the sovereignty, which before was exercised by Rome alone, was now transferred and divided among ten kingdoms; but the Roman empire was not divided into ten kingdoms till after it was become Christian. Although the heads had lost their crowns, yet still they retained the names of blasphemy — In all its heads, in all its forms of government, Rome was still guilty of idolatry and blasphemy. Imperial Rome was called, and delighted to be called, The eternal city; the heavenly city; the goddess of the earth; the goddess: and had her temples and altars, with incense and sacrifices offered up to her: and how the papal Rome likewise hath arrogated to herself divine titles and honours will be shown hereafter.
As Daniel’s fourth beast (Daniel 7:6) was without a name, and devoured and brake in pieces the three former; so this beast (verse 2) is also without a name, and partakes of the nature and qualities of the three former; having the body of a leopard — Which was the third beast, or Grecian empire; and the feet of a bear — Which was the second beast, or Persian empire; and the mouth of a lion — Which was the first beast, or Babylonian empire: and consequently this must be the same as Daniel’s fourth beast, or the Roman empire. But still it is not the same beast, the same empire entirely, but with some variation. And the dragon gave him his power — Dunamin, or his armies; and his seat — Oronon, or his imperial throne; and great authority — Or jurisdiction over all the parts of his empire. The beast, therefore, is the successor and substitute of the dragon, or of the idolatrous heathen Roman empire: and what other idolatrous power hath succeeded to the heathen emperors in Rome, all the world is a judge and a witness. The dragon, having failed in his purpose of restoring the old heathen idolatry, delegates his power to the beast, and thereby introduces a new species of idolatry, nominally different, but essentially the same, the worship of angels and saints, instead of the gods and demigods of antiquity.
Another mark, whereby the beast is peculiarly distinguished, is, (verse 3,) one of his heads as it were wounded to death — It will appear hereafter, that this head was the sixth head, for five were fallen (Revelation 17:10) before St. John’s time: and the sixth head was that of the Cesars, or emperors, there having been before, kings, and consuls, and dictators, and decemvirs, and military tribunes, with consular authority. The sixth head was as it were wounded to death, when the Roman empire was overturned by the northern nations, and an end was put to the very name of emperor in Momyllus Augustulus; or rather, as the government of the Gothic kings was much the same as that of the emperors, with only a change of the name, this head was more effectually wounded to death, when Rome was reduced to a poor dukedom, and made tributary to the exarchate of Ravenna. But not only one of his heads was, as it were, wounded to death, but his deadly wound was healed — If it was the sixth head which was wounded, that wound could not be healed by the rising of the seventh head; the same head which was wounded must be healed: and this was effected by the pope and people of Rome revolting from the exarch of Ravenna, and proclaiming Charles the Great Augustus and emperor of the Romans. Here the wounded imperial head was healed again, and hath subsisted ever since. At this time, partly through the pope, and partly through the emperor, supporting and strengthening each other, the Roman name again became formidable: and all the world wondered after the beast; and (verse 4) they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? — No kingdom or empire was like that of the beast; it had no parallel upon earth; and it was in vain for any to resist or oppose it; it prevailed and triumphed over all; and all the world, in submitting thus to the religion of the beast, did in effect submit again to the religion of the dragon, it being the old idolatry with new names. For the worshipping of demons and idols is in effect the worshipping of devils.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 2. The beast was like unto a leopard. Impetuous, cruel, and of various colours, like the Grecians. His feet were as the feet of a bear, the Persian bear, to tear and to destroy. His mouth as the mouth of a lion, the Assyrian lion, to roar against nations. The Romans had all that was terrific combined in their government and wars. To him the great dragon conceded his power.
Daniel Whedon
2. Leopard… bear… lion—The first three beasts in Daniel’s vision, (Daniel 7;) here given in reverse order as tracing them backward. Hence this beast, while identical with Daniel’s fourth beast, takes in all the previous three. Nay, its seven heads go still farther back, Revelation 17:10. Horns were observed by the primitive races of men to be not only the outgrowth of the strength of the animal that bore them, but also his instrument of defense, power, and supremacy; and so horns became the emblem of human power—of a ruler, and even of an empire. “My horn hast thou exalted,” said David; Job’s horn was defiled in the dust; and Christ is “a horn of salvation,” Luke 1:69. Hence, in prophetic symbol a horn is a kingdom, or of a king, as embodying a kingdom; never, perhaps, a king as a single individual. In Daniel 8:5, Alexander the Great is symbolized as a goat with “one notable horn;” and a horned goat was the national symbol of Macedon. The coins presented the head of Alexander himself as horned. In the apocalypse the ten horns are the ten nations of Europe which arose out of the Roman empire—which had no developed nationalities as yet—which would for awhile identify themselves with the antichristic harlot, and then finally destroy her. See notes on Revelation 17:10-17.
And as Daniel’s beasts are not single kings, but kingdoms, empires, through their whole duration, so of this beast, the seven heads are not single kings, but great historic monarchies. Daniel’s golden image, by his own interpretation, with an equal vastness, covers the course of empires; its head, trunk, and limbs standing for individual races. Even the word “kings,” in Daniel, means kingdoms. See note on Revelation 17:10. Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, (Daniel 2:37, 38,) “Thou, O king, art a king of kings… after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom.” And so in Daniel 7:17, “These great beasts, which are four, are four kings;” and yet further: “The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom.” Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom were one. But as Daniel’s development of the course of empires retained no traces of Nebuchadnezzar’s personality, so John’s prophetic history had nothing to do with the history of Nero or either of the emperors of Rome personally. Dragon gave him his power—The dragon is Satan, the personal antichrist; in the beast he wore a new guise. With our notes on this chapter compare our whole comment on 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12. The beast became a visible representative antichrist because Satan became its real soul. See note on 2 Thessalonians 2:6, 9.
And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
John Wesley
3. That he alone has power to make new laws in the church.
Adam Clarke
Verse 3. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death] This is the second and last place where the heads of the beast are mentioned with any description; and therefore the meaning here must be forms of government, as these were noticed last in the angel’s double explanation. The head that was wounded to death can be no other than the seventh draconic head, which was the sixth head of the beast, viz,, the imperial power; for “this head,” as Bishop Newton observes, “was, as it were, wounded to death when the Roman empire was overturned by the northern nations, and an end was put to the very name of emperor in Momyllus Augustulus.” It was so wounded that it was wholly improbable that it could ever rise again to considerable power, for the western empire came into the possession of several barbarous nations of independent interests. And his deadly wound was healed] This was effected by Charlemagne, who with his successors assumed all the marks of the ancient emperors of the west, with the titles of Semper Augustus, Sacred Majesty, First Prince of the Christian World, Temporal Chief of the Christian People, and Rector or Temporal Chief of the Faithful in Germany; Mod. Universal History, vol. xxxii., p. 79. But it is said in Revelation 13:2 that the dragon gave the beast his power, dunamin, his armies or military strength; i.e., he employed all his imperial power in defense of the Latin empire, which supported the Latin Church. He also gave his seat, qronon, literally his throne, to him: that is, his whole empire formed an integral part of the Latin empire, by its conversion to the Roman Catholic faith. He also gave him great authority. This is literally true of the Roman empire of Germany, which, by its great power and influence in the politics of Europe, extended the religion of the empire over the various states and monarchies of Europe, thus incorporating them as it were in one vast empire, by uniting them in one common faith.
And all the world wondered after the beast.] olh h gh. All the earth. As the original word signifies earth, and not world as in our translation, the Latin world, which is the earth of the beast, is here intended; and the meaning of the passage consequently is, that the whole body of the Roman Catholics were affected with great astonishment at the mighty sway of the Latin empire, considering it as a great and holy power.
Joseph Benson
Verses 1-4. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, &c. — Here the beast is described at large, who was only mentioned before, Revelation 11:7; and a beast, in the prophetic style, is a tyrannical idolatrous empire. The kingdom of God and of Christ is never represented under the image of a beast. As Daniel (Daniel 7:2, 3) beheld four great beasts, representing the four great empires, come up from a stormy sea, that is, from the commotions of the world; so St. John (verse 1) saw this beast in like manner rise up out of the sea. He was said before (Revelation 11:7) to ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and it is said afterward, (Revelation 17:8,) that he shall ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and here he is said to ascend out of the sea; so that the sea and abyss, or bottomless pit, are in these passages the same. No doubt is to be made that this beast was designed to represent the Roman empire; for thus far both ancients and moderns, Papists and Protestants, are agreed: the only controversy is, whether it was Rome, pagan or Christian, imperial or papal. St. John saw this beast rising out of the sea, but the Roman empire was risen and established long before St. John’s time; and therefore this must be the Roman empire, not in its then present, but in some future shape and form; and it arose in another shape and form after it was broken to pieces by the incursions of the northern nations. The beast hath seven heads and ten horns — Which are the well-known marks of the Roman empire, the seven heads alluding to the seven mountains whereon Rome was seated, and to the seven forms of government which successively prevailed there; and the ten horns signifying the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided. It is remarkable that the dragon had seven crowns upon his heads, but the beast hath upon his horns ten crowns — So that there had been, in the mean while, a revolution of power from the heads of the dragon to the horns of the beast, and the sovereignty, which before was exercised by Rome alone, was now transferred and divided among ten kingdoms; but the Roman empire was not divided into ten kingdoms till after it was become Christian. Although the heads had lost their crowns, yet still they retained the names of blasphemy — In all its heads, in all its forms of government, Rome was still guilty of idolatry and blasphemy. Imperial Rome was called, and delighted to be called, The eternal city; the heavenly city; the goddess of the earth; the goddess: and had her temples and altars, with incense and sacrifices offered up to her: and how the papal Rome likewise hath arrogated to herself divine titles and honours will be shown hereafter.
As Daniel’s fourth beast (Daniel 7:6) was without a name, and devoured and brake in pieces the three former; so this beast (verse 2) is also without a name, and partakes of the nature and qualities of the three former; having the body of a leopard — Which was the third beast, or Grecian empire; and the feet of a bear — Which was the second beast, or Persian empire; and the mouth of a lion — Which was the first beast, or Babylonian empire: and consequently this must be the same as Daniel’s fourth beast, or the Roman empire. But still it is not the same beast, the same empire entirely, but with some variation. And the dragon gave him his power — Dunamin, or his armies; and his seat — Oronon, or his imperial throne; and great authority — Or jurisdiction over all the parts of his empire. The beast, therefore, is the successor and substitute of the dragon, or of the idolatrous heathen Roman empire: and what other idolatrous power hath succeeded to the heathen emperors in Rome, all the world is a judge and a witness. The dragon, having failed in his purpose of restoring the old heathen idolatry, delegates his power to the beast, and thereby introduces a new species of idolatry, nominally different, but essentially the same, the worship of angels and saints, instead of the gods and demigods of antiquity.
Another mark, whereby the beast is peculiarly distinguished, is, (verse 3,) one of his heads as it were wounded to death — It will appear hereafter, that this head was the sixth head, for five were fallen (Revelation 17:10) before St. John’s time: and the sixth head was that of the Cesars, or emperors, there having been before, kings, and consuls, and dictators, and decemvirs, and military tribunes, with consular authority. The sixth head was as it were wounded to death, when the Roman empire was overturned by the northern nations, and an end was put to the very name of emperor in Momyllus Augustulus; or rather, as the government of the Gothic kings was much the same as that of the emperors, with only a change of the name, this head was more effectually wounded to death, when Rome was reduced to a poor dukedom, and made tributary to the exarchate of Ravenna. But not only one of his heads was, as it were, wounded to death, but his deadly wound was healed — If it was the sixth head which was wounded, that wound could not be healed by the rising of the seventh head; the same head which was wounded must be healed: and this was effected by the pope and people of Rome revolting from the exarch of Ravenna, and proclaiming Charles the Great Augustus and emperor of the Romans. Here the wounded imperial head was healed again, and hath subsisted ever since. At this time, partly through the pope, and partly through the emperor, supporting and strengthening each other, the Roman name again became formidable: and all the world wondered after the beast; and (verse 4) they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? — No kingdom or empire was like that of the beast; it had no parallel upon earth; and it was in vain for any to resist or oppose it; it prevailed and triumphed over all; and all the world, in submitting thus to the religion of the beast, did in effect submit again to the religion of the dragon, it being the old idolatry with new names. For the worshipping of demons and idols is in effect the worshipping of devils.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 3, 4. All the world wondered after the beast, saying, Who is able to make war with him? Here the papal hierarchy appears, in the exercise of power, and in blasphemous titles, while sitting in the temple of God, and speaking as though he were himself a god. This papal beast is that new power foretold by Daniel, in Daniel 8:24. And after, or behind the back of the imperial dragon, shall another power rise among the ten horns, and he shall be diverse from the first beast, and he shall subdue three kings; viz. Ravenne, and two other Gothic states in the north of Italy. Such was the rise of the papal power, behind or slyly on the back of the imperial beast.
Daniel Whedon
3. One of his heads as it were wounded—The head was the Roman head. It was not wounded and healed, as some suppose, by ceasing to be pagan and becoming Christian under Constantine; for that event is symbolized by the downfall of the dragon. It was wounded, or rather slain, for so the word imports, by the cessation of the imperial Rome and its revival as papal Rome. The universal emperor expired, and revived in the universal bishop. To the secular empire there succeeded a spiritual empire of far greater extent and power. And that stupendous spiritual Roman empire exists to the present hour. And this cessation and renovation of the ruling power is essentially contemporaneous and identical with the death of ancient Rome under the blows of the northern barbarians, and the rise of the modern Rome and of the modern system of Europe. On the cessation of the old system a brief interregnum took place, upon which the rule fell into the hands of the Pope of Rome, in whom a new domination became impersonated. Healed—Compare with our notes, Revelation 17:8-11, where the image of the wounded head, afterwards healed, becomes the death and resurrection of the beast. Stuart, and most rationalistic commentators, apply this to Nero. See our Introduction. Nero was driven from the throne and had committed suicide; but the baser rabble, with whom the bloody despot was popular, cherished the hope that he had escaped, was truly alive, and would yet reascend the throne. On this John is imagined by these commentators to have founded the image that one head of the beast received a deadly wound; that the wound was healed, that he shall “ascend out of the bottomless pit and go into perdition.” That is, the resurrection of the beast is to be identified with Nero’s escape and return. And they labor to misdate the writing of the apocalypse to suit this theory. But in point of fact, the idea of a resurrection from the dead by Nero formed no part of the popular notion even of the Roman rabble, at the time of the writing of the apocalypse. All that the historians of the day or the contemporaneous literature say is, that the fancy was current that Nero had escaped, would return, and would take a terrible revenge on Rome. It was not until a later generation, especially of Christians remembering Nero as the typical bloody persecutor, identified him with the antichrist, and found him in the apocalypse. Augustine first mentions the idea of his resurrection; and later still, Primasius is the first commentator who connects the idea of a resurrect Nero with the sacred texts. Gebhardt, admitting this discordance between John’s conception of the beast’s resurrection and the Neronian rumour of a mere return, nevertheless maintains that John modifies the rumour to his own purposes. The modification, we reply, is much the largest part of the modified subject. And if the nucleus were a miserable falsity, the modification enlarges it to an enormity. We cheerfully admit that John does often take a nucleus of fact and modify it to his own needs. We may admit that chapter xii abounds in such modifications. But we call attention to the most decisive fact, that every nucleus John appropriates for such modification in his apocalypse is drawn from the sacred records. Hengstenberg has well shown, in discussing another point, that John never goes to classic or profane literature for any of his conceptions. He forcibly denies, on that ground, that the “palms” of chap. vii, where see our notes, are borrowed from pagan customs. All John’s imageries arise from within the sacred domain. Perfectly unendurable, then, is the thought that John goes to the slums of Rome and picks out from the very dregs of heathendom a base canard, overlays it with a wretched, lying superstition of his own, and brings it into the sublimest of all prophecies. We pity the moral taste of the critic who, on a full survey of the case, does not repel such a notion. All the world wondered—And to this day an all the world, larger than the then Roman world, and now embracing in full universality the ten horns, wonders after the beast in his papal development.
And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
John Wesley
4. That he alone ought to use the ensigns of royalty.
Adam Clarke
Verse 4. And they worshipped the dragon] Worshipping the dragon here evidently means the voluntary religious subjection of the members of the Latin Church to the revived western empire, because of the eminent part it has taken in the support of their faith.
And they worshipped the beast] Not only the dragon or revived western empire was worshipped; the beast, the whole Latin empire, is a partaker in the adoration. The manner in which it is worshipped consists in the subjects of it:—
Saying, Who is like unto the beast?] Is it not the only holy power in the universe? Is it possible for any person not a subject of it to be saved? Who is able to make war with him?] Can any nation successfully fight with it? Is not the Roman empire, which is its principal bulwark, invictissimum, most invincible? Invictissimus, most invincible, was the peculiar attribute of the emperors of Germany. See modern Universal History, vol. xxxii., p. 197.
Joseph Benson
Verses 1-4. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, &c. — Here the beast is described at large, who was only mentioned before, Revelation 11:7; and a beast, in the prophetic style, is a tyrannical idolatrous empire. The kingdom of God and of Christ is never represented under the image of a beast. As Daniel (Daniel 7:2, 3) beheld four great beasts, representing the four great empires, come up from a stormy sea, that is, from the commotions of the world; so St. John (verse 1) saw this beast in like manner rise up out of the sea. He was said before (Revelation 11:7) to ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and it is said afterward, (Revelation 17:8,) that he shall ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and here he is said to ascend out of the sea; so that the sea and abyss, or bottomless pit, are in these passages the same. No doubt is to be made that this beast was designed to represent the Roman empire; for thus far both ancients and moderns, Papists and Protestants, are agreed: the only controversy is, whether it was Rome, pagan or Christian, imperial or papal. St. John saw this beast rising out of the sea, but the Roman empire was risen and established long before St. John’s time; and therefore this must be the Roman empire, not in its then present, but in some future shape and form; and it arose in another shape and form after it was broken to pieces by the incursions of the northern nations. The beast hath seven heads and ten horns — Which are the well-known marks of the Roman empire, the seven heads alluding to the seven mountains whereon Rome was seated, and to the seven forms of government which successively prevailed there; and the ten horns signifying the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided. It is remarkable that the dragon had seven crowns upon his heads, but the beast hath upon his horns ten crowns — So that there had been, in the mean while, a revolution of power from the heads of the dragon to the horns of the beast, and the sovereignty, which before was exercised by Rome alone, was now transferred and divided among ten kingdoms; but the Roman empire was not divided into ten kingdoms till after it was become Christian. Although the heads had lost their crowns, yet still they retained the names of blasphemy — In all its heads, in all its forms of government, Rome was still guilty of idolatry and blasphemy. Imperial Rome was called, and delighted to be called, The eternal city; the heavenly city; the goddess of the earth; the goddess: and had her temples and altars, with incense and sacrifices offered up to her: and how the papal Rome likewise hath arrogated to herself divine titles and honours will be shown hereafter.
As Daniel’s fourth beast (Daniel 7:6) was without a name, and devoured and brake in pieces the three former; so this beast (verse 2) is also without a name, and partakes of the nature and qualities of the three former; having the body of a leopard — Which was the third beast, or Grecian empire; and the feet of a bear — Which was the second beast, or Persian empire; and the mouth of a lion — Which was the first beast, or Babylonian empire: and consequently this must be the same as Daniel’s fourth beast, or the Roman empire. But still it is not the same beast, the same empire entirely, but with some variation. And the dragon gave him his power — Dunamin, or his armies; and his seat — Oronon, or his imperial throne; and great authority — Or jurisdiction over all the parts of his empire. The beast, therefore, is the successor and substitute of the dragon, or of the idolatrous heathen Roman empire: and what other idolatrous power hath succeeded to the heathen emperors in Rome, all the world is a judge and a witness. The dragon, having failed in his purpose of restoring the old heathen idolatry, delegates his power to the beast, and thereby introduces a new species of idolatry, nominally different, but essentially the same, the worship of angels and saints, instead of the gods and demigods of antiquity.
Another mark, whereby the beast is peculiarly distinguished, is, (verse 3,) one of his heads as it were wounded to death — It will appear hereafter, that this head was the sixth head, for five were fallen (Revelation 17:10) before St. John’s time: and the sixth head was that of the Cesars, or emperors, there having been before, kings, and consuls, and dictators, and decemvirs, and military tribunes, with consular authority. The sixth head was as it were wounded to death, when the Roman empire was overturned by the northern nations, and an end was put to the very name of emperor in Momyllus Augustulus; or rather, as the government of the Gothic kings was much the same as that of the emperors, with only a change of the name, this head was more effectually wounded to death, when Rome was reduced to a poor dukedom, and made tributary to the exarchate of Ravenna. But not only one of his heads was, as it were, wounded to death, but his deadly wound was healed — If it was the sixth head which was wounded, that wound could not be healed by the rising of the seventh head; the same head which was wounded must be healed: and this was effected by the pope and people of Rome revolting from the exarch of Ravenna, and proclaiming Charles the Great Augustus and emperor of the Romans. Here the wounded imperial head was healed again, and hath subsisted ever since. At this time, partly through the pope, and partly through the emperor, supporting and strengthening each other, the Roman name again became formidable: and all the world wondered after the beast; and (verse 4) they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? — No kingdom or empire was like that of the beast; it had no parallel upon earth; and it was in vain for any to resist or oppose it; it prevailed and triumphed over all; and all the world, in submitting thus to the religion of the beast, did in effect submit again to the religion of the dragon, it being the old idolatry with new names. For the worshipping of demons and idols is in effect the worshipping of devils.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 3, 4. All the world wondered after the beast, saying, Who is able to make war with him? Here the papal hierarchy appears, in the exercise of power, and in blasphemous titles, while sitting in the temple of God, and speaking as though he were himself a god. This papal beast is that new power foretold by Daniel, in Daniel 8:24. And after, or behind the back of the imperial dragon, shall another power rise among the ten horns, and he shall be diverse from the first beast, and he shall subdue three kings; viz. Ravenne, and two other Gothic states in the north of Italy. Such was the rise of the papal power, behind or slyly on the back of the imperial beast.
Daniel Whedon
4. Worshipped the dragon—In retaining many of the forms and practices of old paganism. As the dragon is the impersonation of the pagan empire, so the beast is the impersonation of the nominally Christianized empire, and personal attributes and acts are ascribed to both alike. But the latter is made to individualize itself through the second beast and the image, as a sort of triunity, a three yet one. So that the official acts of the representative “image” are spoken of as the acts of the beast, the antichristic empire and vice versa. Who is like—Claim unique authority for the spiritual empire.
And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
John Wesley
5. That all princes ought to kiss his foot.
Adam Clarke
Verse 5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things] That is, There was given to the rulers of the Latin empire, who are the mouth of the beast, (and particularly the Roman emperors of Germany,) power to assume great and pompous titles, indicative of their mighty sway over many subjugated countries, (see the imperial instruments of the middle centuries in the Corps Diplomatique,) and also to utter against their opponents the most terrible edicts.
And blasphemies] The system of worship supported by the beast is a system of blasphemy, as there will be occasion to show presently. And power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.] As these forty-two months are prophetic, they must mean so many years as there are days contained in them; viz., 1260, each month containing 30 days. The beast, therefore, will continue in existence at least 1260 years; but when the termination of this period will take place is difficult to say, as the beginning cannot be at present indubitably ascertained.
Joseph Benson
Verses 5-8. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things — This expression seems to be taken from the description of the little horn in Daniel’s vision, (Daniel 7:8,) and is explained, verse 11, by the voice of the great words which the horn spake. It must be observed, however, that it is of the secular empire that this is spoken, which empire is here considered as under the influence of the ecclesiastical power of Rome, and as being merely its agent, and especially the agent of the pope, the speaking image of the beast. And it is well known what blasphemous and extravagant claims of authority and power have been made by him, who has been styled, His Holiness — Infallible — Sovereign of kings and kingdoms — Christ’s Vicegerent — yea, God upon earth. Power also has been given unto him to continue — Greek, poihsai, to practise, prevail, and prosper, forty and two months — It doth not follow from this that the beast is to continue to exist for no longer a term, but he is to practise, to prosper, and prevail, for that term: as the holy city (chap. 11:2) is to be trodden under foot of the Gentiles forty and two months, which are the twelve hundred and sixty days, or years, of the reign of antichrist. But if by the beast were understood the heathen Roman empire, that empire, instead of subsisting twelve hundred and sixty, did not subsist four hundred years after the date of this prophecy. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy, &c. — This newly-erected government of Rome used the authority it had obtained in making and publishing constitutions for the establishment of idolatry, in contempt of God and his true worship, and by all methods of oppression and persecution, forcing the church to comply with them, and yield obedience to them. “Any acts of idolatrous worship,” says Lowman, “may well be expressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to creatures, whether to images, saints, or angels. The church, as it is called the temple of God, the place of God’s presence, is properly also called his tabernacle.” By them that dwell in heaven, Grotius understands all saints, all Christians, whose conversation is in heaven. The Christian Church is called, the Jerusalem which is above, Galatians 4:26; and the governors of it are styled angels, Revelation 1:20. To blaspheme them, therefore, that dwell in heaven, will signify the contempt and injurious manner with which the new government of Rome shall treat the true worshippers of God, as well as God himself and his name. So much for his blasphemies; nor are his exploits less extraordinary. It was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them — The power of this new Roman government became so great, by divine permission, that it prevailed against the worshippers of God, either to force them to a compliance with the corruptions established by its authority, or to persecute them for their constancy; and this oppressive power was extended far and wide, even over all, or many, kindreds, and tongues, and nations — Even in all the countries of the western Roman empire. And who can make any computation, or even frame any conception of the numbers of pious Christians who have fallen a sacrifice to the bigotry and cruelty of Rome, or this new Roman government? Mede, upon the place, hath observed from good authority, that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses, there perished of these poor creatures in France alone a million! From the first institution of the Jesuits to A.D. 1480, that is, in little more than thirty years, nine hundred thousand orthodox Christians were slain. In the Netherlands alone the duke of Alva boasted that within a few years he had despatched to the amount of thirty thousand persons, and those all by the hands of the common executioner. In the space of scarce thirty years, the inquisition destroyed, by various kinds of torture, one hundred and fifty thousand Christians. Sanders himself confesses that an innumerable multitude of Lollards and Sacramentarians were burned throughout all Europe, who yet, he says, were not put to death by the pope and bishops, but by the civil magistrates; which perfectly agrees with this prophecy, for it is of the secular beast that it is said, He shall make war with the saints, and overcome them. No wonder that by these means he should obtain a kind of universal authority over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. Let the Romanists boast, therefore, that theirs is the catholic church, and universal empire: this is so far from being any evidence of the truth, that it is the very brand infixed by the Spirit of prophecy. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him — All the inhabitants of the earth, to which this new power shall reach, shall be prevailed upon to receive his idolatrous constitutions, and yield obedience to his tyrannical authority: whose names are not written in the book of life, &c. — Except such true and faithful servants of God as are enrolled in the registers of heaven, according to the promises of Christ’s gospel, who from the beginning was the true propitiation and mediator of acceptance with God, and of the blessings consequent thereon. It has been justly observed by Mr. Faber, that there is a great inaccuracy in Bishop Newton’s exposition of the above paragraph, in that he seems to confound this beast, or the secular empire, in all the ten kingdoms, with the little horn predicted by Daniel, which accords with the second beast afterward mentioned. As the secular power, however, executed the persecuting decree of the ecclesiastical power, and gave its power to that beast, the things represented by Bishop Newton as accomplishing this prophecy did indeed accomplish it, though he has not marked the manner in which this was done.
Daniel Whedon
5. Speaking great things—Words from Daniel 7:8, spoken of the fourth, or Roman beast, here claiming to be the sole Church of God on earth, out of which is no salvation; and in the person of its spokesman and pontiff claiming to be God on earth. Forty and two months—Or 1260 days. See note on Revelation 12:14. Elliott measures this beast-period from the year A.D. 529, when the Emperor Justinian conferred the title and power of universal bishop on the pope. This starting-point will bring the close of the period at 1789. That year was the birth-year of the French Revolution, by which the despoliation of the power of the pope was inaugurated. The Church properties in France were confiscated, the monasteries were suppressed, and the clergy were compelled to a solemn abjuration of their allegiance to the pope. The other countries of Europe followed the French example. When Bonaparte came into power he deprived Pope Pius VII. of his territories, and imprisoned him. The pope continued stripped of his powers until the restoration of the old regimen on the downfall of Bonaparte. Popery never recovered its ancient persecuting supremacy. Since that day the decline of the politico-ecclesiastical power of the papacy has been constant, under the growth of the primitive principles of Christian toleration. The Protestant States have increased in intelligence and power, and the Romanistic have waned. The battle of Sadowa humbled the power of Austria, and the battle of Sedan prostrated France. The creation of the kingdom of Italy deprived the pope of his temporal kingdom, and Protestant missions are defying the pontiff in sight of the Vatican.
And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
John Wesley
6. That the name of Pope is the only name under heaven; and that his name alone should be recited in the churches.
Adam Clarke
Verse 6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name] The Latin empire is here represented as a blasphemous power in three respects. First, he blasphemes the name of God. This has been most notoriously the case with the different popish princes, who continually blaspheme the sacred names of God by using them in their idolatrous worship. The mouth of blasphemy against God cannot be more evident than in the following impious words which form a part of the Golden Bull published by Charles IV. in January, 1356: “But thou, envy, how often hast thou attempted to ruin by division the Christian empire, which God hath founded upon the three cardinal virtues, faith, hope, and charity, as upon a holy and indivisible Trinity, vomiting the old venom of discord among the seven electors, who are the pillars and seven principal members of the holy empire; by the brightness of whom the holy empire ought to be illuminated as by seven torches, the light of which is reinforced by the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit!”
And his tabernacle] Tabernacle is any kind of dwelling place, and in an eminent sense among the Jews was a kind of tent to take up and down as occasion required, which was as it were the palace of the Most High, the dwelling of the God of Israel. It was divided into two partitions, one called the holy place, and the other the most holy place, in the latter of which, before the building of the temple, the ark of the covenant was kept, which was a symbol of God’s gracious presence with the Jewish Church. All this the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in the eighth and ninth chapters, explains to prefigure the human nature of Christ. The beast’s blasphemy of the tabernacle of God is, therefore, as Dr. More and others properly observe, his impious doctrine of transubstantiation, in which it is most blasphemously asserted that the substance of the bread and wine in the sacrament is literally converted by the consecration of the priest, into the very body and blood of Jesus Christ! This doctrine was first advanced among the Latins in the tenth century; and in 1215, fully received as an article of the Roman Catholic faith. It is for the pages of ecclesiastical history to record the incredible numbers which have been martyred by the papists for their non-reception of this most unscriptural and antichristian doctrine.
And them that dwell in heaven.] By heaven is here meant the throne of God, and not the throne of the beast, because it is against God the beast blasphemes. This must therefore allude to his impious adoration of the saints and angels, whose residence is in heaven. He blasphemes against God by paying that adoration to the celestial inhabitants which belongs to God alone. That this sort of worship has been and still is kept up among the Roman Catholics, their mass book is a sufficient evidence.
Joseph Benson
Verses 5-8. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things — This expression seems to be taken from the description of the little horn in Daniel’s vision, (Daniel 7:8,) and is explained, verse 11, by the voice of the great words which the horn spake. It must be observed, however, that it is of the secular empire that this is spoken, which empire is here considered as under the influence of the ecclesiastical power of Rome, and as being merely its agent, and especially the agent of the pope, the speaking image of the beast. And it is well known what blasphemous and extravagant claims of authority and power have been made by him, who has been styled, His Holiness — Infallible — Sovereign of kings and kingdoms — Christ’s Vicegerent — yea, God upon earth. Power also has been given unto him to continue — Greek, poihsai, to practise, prevail, and prosper, forty and two months — It doth not follow from this that the beast is to continue to exist for no longer a term, but he is to practise, to prosper, and prevail, for that term: as the holy city (chap. 11:2) is to be trodden under foot of the Gentiles forty and two months, which are the twelve hundred and sixty days, or years, of the reign of antichrist. But if by the beast were understood the heathen Roman empire, that empire, instead of subsisting twelve hundred and sixty, did not subsist four hundred years after the date of this prophecy. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy, &c. — This newly-erected government of Rome used the authority it had obtained in making and publishing constitutions for the establishment of idolatry, in contempt of God and his true worship, and by all methods of oppression and persecution, forcing the church to comply with them, and yield obedience to them. “Any acts of idolatrous worship,” says Lowman, “may well be expressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to creatures, whether to images, saints, or angels. The church, as it is called the temple of God, the place of God’s presence, is properly also called his tabernacle.” By them that dwell in heaven, Grotius understands all saints, all Christians, whose conversation is in heaven. The Christian Church is called, the Jerusalem which is above, Galatians 4:26; and the governors of it are styled angels, Revelation 1:20. To blaspheme them, therefore, that dwell in heaven, will signify the contempt and injurious manner with which the new government of Rome shall treat the true worshippers of God, as well as God himself and his name. So much for his blasphemies; nor are his exploits less extraordinary. It was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them — The power of this new Roman government became so great, by divine permission, that it prevailed against the worshippers of God, either to force them to a compliance with the corruptions established by its authority, or to persecute them for their constancy; and this oppressive power was extended far and wide, even over all, or many, kindreds, and tongues, and nations — Even in all the countries of the western Roman empire. And who can make any computation, or even frame any conception of the numbers of pious Christians who have fallen a sacrifice to the bigotry and cruelty of Rome, or this new Roman government? Mede, upon the place, hath observed from good authority, that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses, there perished of these poor creatures in France alone a million! From the first institution of the Jesuits to A.D. 1480, that is, in little more than thirty years, nine hundred thousand orthodox Christians were slain. In the Netherlands alone the duke of Alva boasted that within a few years he had despatched to the amount of thirty thousand persons, and those all by the hands of the common executioner. In the space of scarce thirty years, the inquisition destroyed, by various kinds of torture, one hundred and fifty thousand Christians. Sanders himself confesses that an innumerable multitude of Lollards and Sacramentarians were burned throughout all Europe, who yet, he says, were not put to death by the pope and bishops, but by the civil magistrates; which perfectly agrees with this prophecy, for it is of the secular beast that it is said, He shall make war with the saints, and overcome them. No wonder that by these means he should obtain a kind of universal authority over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. Let the Romanists boast, therefore, that theirs is the catholic church, and universal empire: this is so far from being any evidence of the truth, that it is the very brand infixed by the Spirit of prophecy. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him — All the inhabitants of the earth, to which this new power shall reach, shall be prevailed upon to receive his idolatrous constitutions, and yield obedience to his tyrannical authority: whose names are not written in the book of life, &c. — Except such true and faithful servants of God as are enrolled in the registers of heaven, according to the promises of Christ’s gospel, who from the beginning was the true propitiation and mediator of acceptance with God, and of the blessings consequent thereon. It has been justly observed by Mr. Faber, that there is a great inaccuracy in Bishop Newton’s exposition of the above paragraph, in that he seems to confound this beast, or the secular empire, in all the ten kingdoms, with the little horn predicted by Daniel, which accords with the second beast afterward mentioned. As the secular power, however, executed the persecuting decree of the ecclesiastical power, and gave its power to that beast, the things represented by Bishop Newton as accomplishing this prophecy did indeed accomplish it, though he has not marked the manner in which this was done.
Daniel Whedon
6. Blasphemy against God—By assuming the divine attribute of infallibility; by appropriating the title of God; and by the worship of Mary and the wafer.
The idolatrous aspect of popery is remarkably visible in the inauguration of the pope, that of Pius IX. included. He is first arrayed in his pontifical apparel, five articles of which are scarlet; with a single vestment covered with pearls; and with his mitre adorned with gold and precious stones. He is led to the altar, before which he kneels and prays, as before the seat of God. He then rises, wearing his mitre, and is lifted up by the cardinals and seated on the very same altar. A bishop, kneeling, commences the Te Deum. The cardinals meantime kiss his feet and hands. This ceremony is regularly styled, both in conversation and authoritative writings, “the Adoration of the Pope.” “At Rome,” says Heideggar, (quoted by Wordsworth,) “this phrase, to adore the pope, is in daily use.” Says a French “History of the Clergy,” dedicated to Pope Clement XI., Amst., 1716, “When the election is finished the pope is conducted to the chapel, where he receives the adoration of the cardinals. Then he is carried, seated in the pontifical seat, to the Church of St. Peter, and placed upon the altar… where he receives again, publicly, the adoration.” “Various books,” says Wordsworth, “have been written by Romish divines, such as Mazaroni, Stevanus, and Diana, concerning the adoration of the pope.” A specimen of this adoration, performed by Cardinal Colonna on his knees to Pope Innocent X., A.D. 1644, is authentically given by Wordsworth in the following words: “Most holy and blessed father, head of the Church, ruler of the world… to whom are committed the keys of the kingdom of heaven, whom angels in heaven revere, whom the gates of hell fear, and all the world adores, thee we solely venerate, worship, and adore, and we submit all things that are ours to thy paternal and more than divine disposition and care.”
His tabernacle—By creating a pantheon of saints to be adored. Continue—Rather, to practice or perform, referring not to duration of existence but of successful action. This seems to cover the period of something more than a thousand years of nearly undisputed papal supremacy.
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
John Wesley
7. That he has a power to depose emperors.
Adam Clarke
Verse 7. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them] “Who can make any computation,” says Bishop Newton, “or even frame any conception, of the numbers of pious Christians who have fallen a sacrifice to the bigotry and cruelty of Rome? Mede upon the place hath observed, from good authorities, that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses there perished of these poor creatures in France alone a million. From the first institution of the Jesuits to the year 1580, that is, in little more than thirty years, nine hundred thousand orthodox Christians were slain, and these all by the common executioner. In the space of scarce thirty years the inquisition destroyed, by various kinds of torture, a hundred and fifty thousand Christians. Sanders himself confesses that an innumerable multitude of Lollards and Sacramentarians were burnt throughout all Europe, who yet, he says, were not put to death by the pope and bishops, but by the civil magistrates.” The dragon in a new shape, or Roman empire of Germany, acted a very conspicuous part in this nefarious warfare against the remnant of the woman’s seed, who kept the commandments of God, and had the testimony of Jesus Christ. See the imperial edict of Frederic II. against heretics, in Limborch’s History of the Inquisition.
And power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.] As the book of the Revelation is a prophecy of all that should come upon the Christian world till the end of time, all kindreds, and tongues, and nations, must imply the whole Christian world. That the Latin empire in the course of its reign has had the extensive power here spoken of, is evident from history. It is well known that the profession of Christianity was chiefly confined within the limits of the Greek and Latin empires, till the period of the Reformation. By means of the crusades the Latins extended their empire over several provinces of the Greeks. In 1097 Baldwin extended his conquests over the hills of Armenia and the plain of Mesopotamia, and founded the first principality of the Franks or Latins, which subsisted fifty-four years, beyond the Euphrates. In 1204 the Greeks were expelled from Constantinople by the Latins, who set up an empire there which continued about fifty-seven years. The total overthrow of the Latin states in the east soon followed the recovery of Constantinople by the Greeks; and in 1291 the Latin empire in the east was entirely dissolved. Thus the Latins have had power over the whole world professedly Christian: but it is not said that the whole world was in utter subjection to him, for we read in the following verse:—
Joseph Benson
Verses 5-8. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things — This expression seems to be taken from the description of the little horn in Daniel’s vision, (Daniel 7:8,) and is explained, verse 11, by the voice of the great words which the horn spake. It must be observed, however, that it is of the secular empire that this is spoken, which empire is here considered as under the influence of the ecclesiastical power of Rome, and as being merely its agent, and especially the agent of the pope, the speaking image of the beast. And it is well known what blasphemous and extravagant claims of authority and power have been made by him, who has been styled, His Holiness — Infallible — Sovereign of kings and kingdoms — Christ’s Vicegerent — yea, God upon earth. Power also has been given unto him to continue — Greek, poihsai, to practise, prevail, and prosper, forty and two months — It doth not follow from this that the beast is to continue to exist for no longer a term, but he is to practise, to prosper, and prevail, for that term: as the holy city (chap. 11:2) is to be trodden under foot of the Gentiles forty and two months, which are the twelve hundred and sixty days, or years, of the reign of antichrist. But if by the beast were understood the heathen Roman empire, that empire, instead of subsisting twelve hundred and sixty, did not subsist four hundred years after the date of this prophecy. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy, &c. — This newly-erected government of Rome used the authority it had obtained in making and publishing constitutions for the establishment of idolatry, in contempt of God and his true worship, and by all methods of oppression and persecution, forcing the church to comply with them, and yield obedience to them. “Any acts of idolatrous worship,” says Lowman, “may well be expressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to creatures, whether to images, saints, or angels. The church, as it is called the temple of God, the place of God’s presence, is properly also called his tabernacle.” By them that dwell in heaven, Grotius understands all saints, all Christians, whose conversation is in heaven. The Christian Church is called, the Jerusalem which is above, Galatians 4:26; and the governors of it are styled angels, Revelation 1:20. To blaspheme them, therefore, that dwell in heaven, will signify the contempt and injurious manner with which the new government of Rome shall treat the true worshippers of God, as well as God himself and his name. So much for his blasphemies; nor are his exploits less extraordinary. It was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them — The power of this new Roman government became so great, by divine permission, that it prevailed against the worshippers of God, either to force them to a compliance with the corruptions established by its authority, or to persecute them for their constancy; and this oppressive power was extended far and wide, even over all, or many, kindreds, and tongues, and nations — Even in all the countries of the western Roman empire. And who can make any computation, or even frame any conception of the numbers of pious Christians who have fallen a sacrifice to the bigotry and cruelty of Rome, or this new Roman government? Mede, upon the place, hath observed from good authority, that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses, there perished of these poor creatures in France alone a million! From the first institution of the Jesuits to A.D. 1480, that is, in little more than thirty years, nine hundred thousand orthodox Christians were slain. In the Netherlands alone the duke of Alva boasted that within a few years he had despatched to the amount of thirty thousand persons, and those all by the hands of the common executioner. In the space of scarce thirty years, the inquisition destroyed, by various kinds of torture, one hundred and fifty thousand Christians. Sanders himself confesses that an innumerable multitude of Lollards and Sacramentarians were burned throughout all Europe, who yet, he says, were not put to death by the pope and bishops, but by the civil magistrates; which perfectly agrees with this prophecy, for it is of the secular beast that it is said, He shall make war with the saints, and overcome them. No wonder that by these means he should obtain a kind of universal authority over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. Let the Romanists boast, therefore, that theirs is the catholic church, and universal empire: this is so far from being any evidence of the truth, that it is the very brand infixed by the Spirit of prophecy. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him — All the inhabitants of the earth, to which this new power shall reach, shall be prevailed upon to receive his idolatrous constitutions, and yield obedience to his tyrannical authority: whose names are not written in the book of life, &c. — Except such true and faithful servants of God as are enrolled in the registers of heaven, according to the promises of Christ’s gospel, who from the beginning was the true propitiation and mediator of acceptance with God, and of the blessings consequent thereon. It has been justly observed by Mr. Faber, that there is a great inaccuracy in Bishop Newton’s exposition of the above paragraph, in that he seems to confound this beast, or the secular empire, in all the ten kingdoms, with the little horn predicted by Daniel, which accords with the second beast afterward mentioned. As the secular power, however, executed the persecuting decree of the ecclesiastical power, and gave its power to that beast, the things represented by Bishop Newton as accomplishing this prophecy did indeed accomplish it, though he has not marked the manner in which this was done.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 7-10. Power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations: and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him. This is not true of the Germanic empire; but it is really true, that the christian world in general submitted to the pontificate. — Power was given unto him to continue, polemon, to make war, forty and two months: ver. 5. God limits the time of the wicked. This is exactly the same as the duration of Daniel’s little horn, twelve hundred and sixty days, which, according to the manner of calculating prophecy, implies so many years. Then he shall surely be destroyed. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.
Daniel Whedon
7. Make war with the saints—By bloody wars, inquisitions, and burnings at the stake of all who would reform. Overcome them—Subjecting them, by blood and terror, to her despotic authority, denying all “right of private judgment.” All kindreds—The Roman beast styles herself solely catholic, that is, universal. She claims that every human being is bound to obey her. “You all belong to me,” said Pope Pius IX. to the Emperor William. She claims every American as her rightful subject, and the only reason at this hour that she does not force the claim by the same war and bloodshed, is want of power.
And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
John Wesley
8. That no general synod can be convened but by him.
Adam Clarke
Verse 8. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb] The earth here is the Latin world, as has been observed before in similar cases. The meaning therefore is, that all the corrupt part of mankind who are inhabitants of the Latin world shall submit to the religion of the empire, except, as Bishop Newton expresses it, “those faithful few whose names, as citizens of heaven, were enrolled in the registers of life.”
Slain from the foundation of the world.] That is, of the Christian world; for this has been shown to be the meaning of all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. The year of the crucifixion is properly the commencement of Christianity, as the apostles then first began to promulgate the religion of Christ with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. But as Jesus Christ was in the Divine purpose appointed from the foundation of the world to redeem man by his blood, he therefore is, in a very eminent sense, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, i.e., from the creation.
Joseph Benson
Verses 5-8. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things — This expression seems to be taken from the description of the little horn in Daniel’s vision, (Daniel 7:8,) and is explained, verse 11, by the voice of the great words which the horn spake. It must be observed, however, that it is of the secular empire that this is spoken, which empire is here considered as under the influence of the ecclesiastical power of Rome, and as being merely its agent, and especially the agent of the pope, the speaking image of the beast. And it is well known what blasphemous and extravagant claims of authority and power have been made by him, who has been styled, His Holiness — Infallible — Sovereign of kings and kingdoms — Christ’s Vicegerent — yea, God upon earth. Power also has been given unto him to continue — Greek, poihsai, to practise, prevail, and prosper, forty and two months — It doth not follow from this that the beast is to continue to exist for no longer a term, but he is to practise, to prosper, and prevail, for that term: as the holy city (chap. 11:2) is to be trodden under foot of the Gentiles forty and two months, which are the twelve hundred and sixty days, or years, of the reign of antichrist. But if by the beast were understood the heathen Roman empire, that empire, instead of subsisting twelve hundred and sixty, did not subsist four hundred years after the date of this prophecy. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy, &c. — This newly-erected government of Rome used the authority it had obtained in making and publishing constitutions for the establishment of idolatry, in contempt of God and his true worship, and by all methods of oppression and persecution, forcing the church to comply with them, and yield obedience to them. “Any acts of idolatrous worship,” says Lowman, “may well be expressed by blaspheming God and his name, as they deny to the true God his distinguishing honour, and give it to creatures, whether to images, saints, or angels. The church, as it is called the temple of God, the place of God’s presence, is properly also called his tabernacle.” By them that dwell in heaven, Grotius understands all saints, all Christians, whose conversation is in heaven. The Christian Church is called, the Jerusalem which is above, Galatians 4:26; and the governors of it are styled angels, Revelation 1:20. To blaspheme them, therefore, that dwell in heaven, will signify the contempt and injurious manner with which the new government of Rome shall treat the true worshippers of God, as well as God himself and his name. So much for his blasphemies; nor are his exploits less extraordinary. It was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them — The power of this new Roman government became so great, by divine permission, that it prevailed against the worshippers of God, either to force them to a compliance with the corruptions established by its authority, or to persecute them for their constancy; and this oppressive power was extended far and wide, even over all, or many, kindreds, and tongues, and nations — Even in all the countries of the western Roman empire. And who can make any computation, or even frame any conception of the numbers of pious Christians who have fallen a sacrifice to the bigotry and cruelty of Rome, or this new Roman government? Mede, upon the place, hath observed from good authority, that in the war with the Albigenses and Waldenses, there perished of these poor creatures in France alone a million! From the first institution of the Jesuits to A.D. 1480, that is, in little more than thirty years, nine hundred thousand orthodox Christians were slain. In the Netherlands alone the duke of Alva boasted that within a few years he had despatched to the amount of thirty thousand persons, and those all by the hands of the common executioner. In the space of scarce thirty years, the inquisition destroyed, by various kinds of torture, one hundred and fifty thousand Christians. Sanders himself confesses that an innumerable multitude of Lollards and Sacramentarians were burned throughout all Europe, who yet, he says, were not put to death by the pope and bishops, but by the civil magistrates; which perfectly agrees with this prophecy, for it is of the secular beast that it is said, He shall make war with the saints, and overcome them. No wonder that by these means he should obtain a kind of universal authority over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. Let the Romanists boast, therefore, that theirs is the catholic church, and universal empire: this is so far from being any evidence of the truth, that it is the very brand infixed by the Spirit of prophecy. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him — All the inhabitants of the earth, to which this new power shall reach, shall be prevailed upon to receive his idolatrous constitutions, and yield obedience to his tyrannical authority: whose names are not written in the book of life, &c. — Except such true and faithful servants of God as are enrolled in the registers of heaven, according to the promises of Christ’s gospel, who from the beginning was the true propitiation and mediator of acceptance with God, and of the blessings consequent thereon. It has been justly observed by Mr. Faber, that there is a great inaccuracy in Bishop Newton’s exposition of the above paragraph, in that he seems to confound this beast, or the secular empire, in all the ten kingdoms, with the little horn predicted by Daniel, which accords with the second beast afterward mentioned. As the secular power, however, executed the persecuting decree of the ecclesiastical power, and gave its power to that beast, the things represented by Bishop Newton as accomplishing this prophecy did indeed accomplish it, though he has not marked the manner in which this was done.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 7-10. Power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations: and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him. This is not true of the Germanic empire; but it is really true, that the christian world in general submitted to the pontificate. — Power was given unto him to continue, polemon, to make war, forty and two months: ver. 5. God limits the time of the wicked. This is exactly the same as the duration of Daniel’s little horn, twelve hundred and sixty days, which, according to the manner of calculating prophecy, implies so many years. Then he shall surely be destroyed. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.
Daniel Whedon
8. All… shall worship him—Millions on the earth are now paying that homage. Names… not written—Who are not justified by faith in Christ.
If any man have an ear, let him hear.
John Wesley
9. That no book is canonical without his authority.
Adam Clarke
Verse 9. If any man have an ear, let him hear.] These words are evidently introduced to impress the reader with the awfulness of what has just been spoken-all shall worship him whose names are not written in the book of life, as well as to fix his attention upon the following words:-
Joseph Benson
Verses 9, 10. If any man have an ear, let him hear — It was customary with our Saviour, when he would have his auditors to pay a particular attention to what he had been saying, to add, He who hath ears to hear, let him hear. St. John repeats the same admonition at the end of each of the seven epistles to the seven churches of Asia, and here in the conclusion of his description of the beast, If any man have an ear, let him hear: and certainly the description of the beast is deserving of the highest attention upon many accounts, and particularly because the right interpretation of this book turns upon it, as one of its main hinges. It is added, by way of consolation to the church, that these enemies of God and of Christ, represented under the character of the beast, shall suffer the law of retaliation, and be as remarkably punished and tormented themselves, as they punished and tormented others, verse 10. He who leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity; he who killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword — Such a promise might administer some comfort; and indeed it would be wanted, for the patience and the faith of the saints would be tried to the utmost during the reign of the beast. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints — Of all the trials and persecutions of the church this would be the most severe, and exceed those of the primitive times, both in degree and in duration.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 7-10. Power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations: and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him. This is not true of the Germanic empire; but it is really true, that the christian world in general submitted to the pontificate. — Power was given unto him to continue, polemon, to make war, forty and two months: ver. 5. God limits the time of the wicked. This is exactly the same as the duration of Daniel’s little horn, twelve hundred and sixty days, which, according to the manner of calculating prophecy, implies so many years. Then he shall surely be destroyed. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.
Daniel Whedon
9. Have an ear—John here repeats the solemn injunction usual with our Lord when some momentous point was uttered. This predominance and cruelty of antichrist was of immense moment. Its importance is immense to us at this hour, for even now the beast is practising and purposing and hoping for a full verification of his claim to universal subjection.
He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
John Wesley
10. That none upon earth can repeal his sentence, but he alone can repeal any sentence.
Adam Clarke
Verse 10. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity] The Latin empire here spoken of must go into captivity, because it has led into captivity, by not only propagating among the various nations its abominable antichristian system, but also in compelling them to embrace it under the penalty of forfeiting the protection of the empire. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.] The Latin empire must be also broken to pieces by the sword, because it has killed the saints of God. This prophecy will not receive its full accomplishment till the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.
Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.] By these words, as Dr. Mitchell observes, “God calls upon his saints to keep in view, under all their persecutions, his retributive justice; there is no violence that has been exercised upon them but what shall be retaliated upon the cruel and persecuting government and governors of the Latin empire.”
Joseph Benson
Verses 9, 10. If any man have an ear, let him hear — It was customary with our Saviour, when he would have his auditors to pay a particular attention to what he had been saying, to add, He who hath ears to hear, let him hear. St. John repeats the same admonition at the end of each of the seven epistles to the seven churches of Asia, and here in the conclusion of his description of the beast, If any man have an ear, let him hear: and certainly the description of the beast is deserving of the highest attention upon many accounts, and particularly because the right interpretation of this book turns upon it, as one of its main hinges. It is added, by way of consolation to the church, that these enemies of God and of Christ, represented under the character of the beast, shall suffer the law of retaliation, and be as remarkably punished and tormented themselves, as they punished and tormented others, verse 10. He who leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity; he who killeth with the sword, must be killed with the sword — Such a promise might administer some comfort; and indeed it would be wanted, for the patience and the faith of the saints would be tried to the utmost during the reign of the beast. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints — Of all the trials and persecutions of the church this would be the most severe, and exceed those of the primitive times, both in degree and in duration.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 7-10. Power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations: and all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him. This is not true of the Germanic empire; but it is really true, that the christian world in general submitted to the pontificate. — Power was given unto him to continue, polemon, to make war, forty and two months: ver. 5. God limits the time of the wicked. This is exactly the same as the duration of Daniel’s little horn, twelve hundred and sixty days, which, according to the manner of calculating prophecy, implies so many years. Then he shall surely be destroyed. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword.
Daniel Whedon
10. He that leadeth—This verse is very incorrectly translated. It should be: He that is (destined) into captivity goeth into captivity; he that is (destined) to be slain by the sword must be slain by the sword. For the despot is relentless, and the martyr must suffer. And so it is well added, Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
The second (earth-born) or two-horned beast=The hierarchy of the spiritual empire=Clergy, 11-14.
And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
John Wesley
11. That he is subject to no human judgment.
Adam Clarke
Verse 11. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth] As a beast has already been shown to be the symbol of a kingdom or empire, the rising up of this second beast must consequently represent the rising up of another empire. This beast comes up out of the earth; therefore it is totally different from the preceding, which rose up out of the sea. Earth here means the Latin world, for this word has been shown to import this already in several instances; the rising up of the beast out of this earth must, consequently, represent the springing up of some power out of a state of subjection to the Latin empire: therefore the beast, here called another beast, is another LATIN empire. This beast is the spiritual Latin empire, or, in other words, the Romish hierarchy; for with no other power can the prophetic description yet to be examined be shown to accord. In the time of Charlemagne the ecclesiastical power was in subjection to the civil, and it continued to be so for a long time after his death; therefore the beast, whose deadly wound was healed, ruled over the whole Latin world, both clergy and laity; these, consequently, constituted but one beast or empire. But the Latin clergy kept continually gaining more and more influence in the civil affairs of the empire, and in the tenth century their authority was greatly increased. In the subsequent centuries the power of the Romish hierarchy ascended even above that of the emperors, and led into captivity the kings of the whole Latin world, as there will be occasion to show in commenting upon the following verses. Thus the Romish hierarchy was at length entirely exempted from the civil power, and constituted another beast, as it became entirely independent of the secular Latin empire. And this beast came up out of the earth; that is, the Latin clergy, which composed a part of the earth or Latin world, raised their authority against that of the secular powers, and in process of time wrested the superintendence of ecclesiastical affairs from the secular princes. And he had two horns] As the seven-headed beast is represented as having ten horns, which signify so many kingdoms leagued together to support the Latin Church, so the beast which rises out of the earth has also two horns, which must consequently represent two kingdoms; for if horns of a beast mean kingdoms in one part of the Apocalypse, kingdoms must be intended by this symbol whenever it is used in a similar way in any other part of this book. As the second beast is the spiritual Latin empire, the two horns of this beast denote that the empire thus represented is composed of two distinct spiritual powers. These, therefore, can be no other, as Bishop Newton and Faber properly observe, than the two grand independent branches of the Romish hierarchy, viz., the Latin clergy, REGULAR and SECULAR. “The first of these comprehends all the various monastic orders, the second comprehends the whole body of parochial clergy.” These two grand branches of the hierarchy originally constituted but one dominion, as the monks as well as the other clergy were in subjection to the bishops: but the subjection of the monks to their diocesans became by degress less apparent; and in process of time, through the influence and authority of the Roman pontiffs, they were entirely exempted from all episcopal jurisdiction, and thus became a spiritual power, entirely independent of that of the secular clergy.
Like a lamb] As lamb, in other parts of the Apocalypse, evidently means Christ, who is the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world, it must have a similar import in this passage; therefore the meaning here is evidently that the two horns of the beast, or the regular and secular clergy, profess to be the ministers of Christ, to be like him in meekness and humility, and to teach nothing that is contrary to godliness. The two-horned beast, or spiritual Latin empire, has in reality the name, and in the eyes of the Latin world the appearance, of a CHRISTIAN power. But he is only so in appearance, and that alone among his deluded votaries; for when he spake:—
He spake as a dragon.] The doctrines of the Romish hierarchy are very similar to those contained in the old heathen worship; for he has introduced “a new species of idolatry, nominally different, but essentially the same, the worship of angels and saints instead of the gods and demi-gods of antiquity.”
Joseph Benson
Verses 11, 12. And I beheld another beast, &c. — From the description of the ten-horned beast, or Roman state in general, the prophet passeth to that of the two-horned beast, or Roman Church in particular. The beast with ten crowned horns is the Roman empire, as divided into ten kingdoms; the beast with two horns like a lamb is the Roman hierarchy, or body of the clergy, regular and secular. This beast is otherwise called the false prophet; than which there cannot be a stronger or plainer argument to prove that false doctors or teachers were particularly designed. For the false prophet, no more than the beast, is a single man, but a body or succession of men, propagating false doctrines, and teaching lies for sacred truths. As the first beast rose up out of the sea, that is, out of the wars and tumults of the world, so this beast groweth up out of the earth — Like plants, silently and without noise; and the greatest prelates have often been raised from monks, and men of the lowest birth. He had two horns like a lamb — He had, both regular and secular, the appearance of a lamb; he derived his powers from the lamb, and pretended to be like a lamb, all meekness and mildness; but he spake as a dragon — He had a voice of terror, like Roman emperors, in usurping divine titles, in commanding idolatry, and in persecuting and slaying the true worshippers of God and faithful servants of Jesus Christ. He is an ecclesiastical person, but intermixeth himself much in civil affairs. He is the prime minister, adviser, and mover of the first beast, or the beast before mentioned. He exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him — He holdeth imperium in imperio, an empire within an empire; claimeth a temporal authority as well as a spiritual, and enforceth his canons and decrees with the sword of the civil magistrate. As the first beast concurs to maintain his authority, so he in return confirms and maintains the sovereignty and dominion of the first beast over his subjects; and causeth the earth, and them who dwell therein, to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed — He supports tyranny, as he is by tyranny supported. He enslaves the consciences, as the first beast subjugates the bodies of men. This ecclesiastical power, as Whiston observes, is the common centre and cement which unites all the distinct kingdoms of the Roman empire; and, by joining with them, procures them a blind obedience from their subjects: and so he is the occasion of the preservation of the old Roman empire in some kind of unity, and name, and strength, which otherwise would have been quite dissolved by the inundations and wars succeeding the settlement of the barbarous nations in that empire. “Here,” says Mr. Faber, “we have a plain prediction of some spiritual power, which should arrogate to itself universal or catholic authority in religious matters; which should coexist, upon the most friendly terms, with the ten-horned temporal empire, instigating it to persecute, during the space of forty-two prophetic months, all such as should dare to dispute its usurped domination; and which, in short, should solve the symbolical problem of two contemporary beasts, by exhibiting to the world the singular spectacle of a complete empire within an empire. Where we are to look for this power, since the great Roman beast was divided into ten horns, let the impartial voice of history determine. Daniel, who fully delineates the character of the little horn, is silent respecting the two-horned beast; and John, who as fully delineates the character of the two-horned beast, is entirely silent respecting the little horn. The little horn and the two-horned beast act precisely in the same capacity; each exercising the power of the first beast before him, and each perishing in one common destruction with him.” — Vol. 2. pp. 291-293.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 11. I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. The clerical empire rose out of the earth, as a wild beast leaves his den in the dark, and arrived at the highest glory and power. The two horns represent the two swords, or their temporal and spiritual power. The decretals or bulls of the church illustrate this; they are issued in the high tone of superior majesty.
Daniel Whedon
11. Two horns like a lamb—As the lamb is contrasted with the beast, antichrist, so is this two-horned, as a corrupt ministry, contrasted with the elders, the true ministry. And as this beast is called “false prophet,” so it is clear that he is an ecclesiastical symbol. And his two horns very well represent the double power, ecclesiastical and secular, wielded by the Roman clerical hierarchy. Spake as a dragon—As if he were a second dragon. He mimics the lamb in appearance, but he equals the dragon in speech. That is, he pretends to be as Christ while he talks like Satan. This emblem suits nothing in history but a corrupt clergy.
And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
John Wesley
12. That no power dare to pass sentence on one who appeals to the Pope.
Adam Clarke
Verse 12. And he exercised all the power of the first beast before him] In the preceding verse the two-horned beast was represented as rising out of the earth, that is, obtaining gradually more and more influence in the civil affairs of the Latin world. Here he it represented as having obtained the direction and management of all the power of the first beast or secular Latin empire before him, enwpion autou, in his presence. That the Romish hierarchy has had the extensive power here spoken of, is evident from history; for the civil power was in subjection to the ecclesiastical. The parochial clergy, one of the horns of the second beast, have had great secular jurisdiction over the whole Latin world. Two-thirds of the estates of Germany were given by the three Othos, who succeeded each other, to ecclesiastics; and in the other Latin monarchies the parochial clergy possessed great temporal power. Yet extraordinary as the power of the secular clergy was in all parts of the Latin world, it was but feeble when compared with that of the monastic orders which constituted another horn of the beast. The mendicant friars, the most considerable of the regular clergy, first made their appearance in the early part of the thirteenth century. These friars were divided by Gregory X., in a general council which he assembled at Lyons in 1272, into the four following societies or denominations, viz., the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, and the Hermits of St. Augustine. “As the pontiffs,” observes Mosheim, “allowed these four mendicant orders the liberty of travelling wherever they thought proper, of conversing with persons of all ranks, of instructing the youth and the multitude wherever they went; and as these monks exhibited, in their outward appearance and manner of life, more striking marks of gravity and holiness than were observable in the other monastic societies; they arose all at once to the very summit of fame, and were regarded with the utmost esteem and veneration throughout all the countries of Europe. The enthusiastic attachment to these sanctimonious beggars went so far that, as we learn from the most authentic records, several cities were divided, or cantoned out, into four parts, with a view to these four orders; the first part was assigned to the Dominicans, the second to the Franciscans, the third to the Carmelites, and the fourth to the Augustinians. The people were unwilling to receive the sacraments from any other hands than those of the mendicants, to whose churches they crowded to perform their devotions while living, and were extremely desirous to deposit there also their remains after death; all which occasioned grievous complaints among the ordinary priests, to whom the cure of souls was committed, and who considered themselves as the spiritual guides of the multitude. Nor did the influence and credit of the mendicants end here: for we find in the history of this (thirteenth century) and the succeeding ages, that they were employed, not only in spiritual matters, but also in temporal and political affairs of the greatest consequence; in composing the differences of princes, concluding treaties of peace, concerting alliances, presiding in cabinet councils, governing courts, levying taxes, and other occupations not only remote from, but absolutely inconsistent with, the monastic character and profession. We must not, however, imagine that all the mendicant friars attained to the same degree of reputation and authority; for the power of the Dominicans and Franciscans surpassed greatly that of the two other orders, and rendered them singularly conspicuous in the eyes of the world. During three centuries these two fraternities governed, with an almost universal and absolute sway, both state and Church, filled the most eminent posts, ecclesiastical and civil; taught in the universities and churches with an authority before which all opposition was silent; and maintained the pretended majesty and prerogatives of the Roman pontiffs against kings, princes, bishops, and heretics, with incredible ardour and equal success. The Dominicans and Franciscans were, before the Reformation, what the Jesuits have been since that happy and glorious period, the very soul of the hierarchy, the engines of state, the secret springs of all the motions of the one and the other, and the authors and directors of every great and important event in the religious and political world.” Thus the Romish hierarchy has exercised all the power of the first beast in his sight, both temporal and spiritual, and therefore, with such astonishing influence as this over secular princes, it was no difficult matter for him to cause:— The earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.] That is, he causes the whole Latin world to submit to the authority of the Latin empire, with the revived western empire at its head, persuading them that such submission is beneficial to their spiritual interests, and absolutely necessary for their salvation. Here it is observable that both beasts have dominion over the same earth; for it is expressly said that the second beast causeth THE EARTH and them that dwelt therein, to worship the first beast; therefore it is, as Bishop Newton and others have observed, imperium in imperio, “an empire within an empire.” We have, consequently, the fullest evidence that the two beasts consist in the division of the great Latin empire, by the usurpation of the Latin clergy, into two distinct empires, the one secular, the other spiritual, and both united in one antichristian design, viz., to diffuse their most abominable system of idolatry over the whole earth, and to extend the sphere of their domination. Here we have also an illustration of that remarkable passage in Revelation 16:10, the kingdom of the beasts, i.e., the kingdom of the Latin kingdom; which is apparently a solecism, but in reality expressed with wonderful precision. The fifth vial is poured out upon the throne of the beast, and HIS KINGDOM is darkened, i.e., the Latin kingdom in subjection to the Latin kingdom or the secular Latin empire.
Joseph Benson
Verses 11, 12. And I beheld another beast, &c. — From the description of the ten-horned beast, or Roman state in general, the prophet passeth to that of the two-horned beast, or Roman Church in particular. The beast with ten crowned horns is the Roman empire, as divided into ten kingdoms; the beast with two horns like a lamb is the Roman hierarchy, or body of the clergy, regular and secular. This beast is otherwise called the false prophet; than which there cannot be a stronger or plainer argument to prove that false doctors or teachers were particularly designed. For the false prophet, no more than the beast, is a single man, but a body or succession of men, propagating false doctrines, and teaching lies for sacred truths. As the first beast rose up out of the sea, that is, out of the wars and tumults of the world, so this beast groweth up out of the earth — Like plants, silently and without noise; and the greatest prelates have often been raised from monks, and men of the lowest birth. He had two horns like a lamb — He had, both regular and secular, the appearance of a lamb; he derived his powers from the lamb, and pretended to be like a lamb, all meekness and mildness; but he spake as a dragon — He had a voice of terror, like Roman emperors, in usurping divine titles, in commanding idolatry, and in persecuting and slaying the true worshippers of God and faithful servants of Jesus Christ. He is an ecclesiastical person, but intermixeth himself much in civil affairs. He is the prime minister, adviser, and mover of the first beast, or the beast before mentioned. He exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him — He holdeth imperium in imperio, an empire within an empire; claimeth a temporal authority as well as a spiritual, and enforceth his canons and decrees with the sword of the civil magistrate. As the first beast concurs to maintain his authority, so he in return confirms and maintains the sovereignty and dominion of the first beast over his subjects; and causeth the earth, and them who dwell therein, to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed — He supports tyranny, as he is by tyranny supported. He enslaves the consciences, as the first beast subjugates the bodies of men. This ecclesiastical power, as Whiston observes, is the common centre and cement which unites all the distinct kingdoms of the Roman empire; and, by joining with them, procures them a blind obedience from their subjects: and so he is the occasion of the preservation of the old Roman empire in some kind of unity, and name, and strength, which otherwise would have been quite dissolved by the inundations and wars succeeding the settlement of the barbarous nations in that empire. “Here,” says Mr. Faber, “we have a plain prediction of some spiritual power, which should arrogate to itself universal or catholic authority in religious matters; which should coexist, upon the most friendly terms, with the ten-horned temporal empire, instigating it to persecute, during the space of forty-two prophetic months, all such as should dare to dispute its usurped domination; and which, in short, should solve the symbolical problem of two contemporary beasts, by exhibiting to the world the singular spectacle of a complete empire within an empire. Where we are to look for this power, since the great Roman beast was divided into ten horns, let the impartial voice of history determine. Daniel, who fully delineates the character of the little horn, is silent respecting the two-horned beast; and John, who as fully delineates the character of the two-horned beast, is entirely silent respecting the little horn. The little horn and the two-horned beast act precisely in the same capacity; each exercising the power of the first beast before him, and each perishing in one common destruction with him.” — Vol. 2. pp. 291-293.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 12. He exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. Pagan Rome endeavoured to subjugate all nations to her unlimited controul, and christian Rome has endeavoured by every means to do the same. She has healed the wounded imperial power by presiding as the queen mother over her ten reigning sons. Mr. Faber says, “Here we have a plain prediction of some spiritual power… which should arrogate to itself universal authority in religious concerns, and which should coëxist on the most friendly terms with the ten-horned temporal empire, instigating it to persecute, during the space of forty two months, all such as should dare to dispute its domination; and which, in short, should devise the problem of the two contemporary beasts, by exhibiting to the world the singular spectacle of a complete empire within itself.
Where we are to look for this power, since the great Roman beast was divided into ten horns, let the impartial voice of history determine. — Daniel, who fully delineates the character of the little horn, is entirely silent respecting the two-horned beast. John, who as fully delineates the character of the two-horned beast, is entirely silent respecting the little horn. Yet the little horn, and the two-horned beast, act precisely in the same capacity, each exercising the power of the first beast, and each persisting in the same common destruction with him,” of all opposing power. — Faber on Daniel, Daniel 7:7-14. 8:9-12. Bishop Newton’s testimony is pertinent here. “The pope is the principle of unity to the ten kingdoms of the beast; and he causeth, as far as he is able, all who will not acknowledge his supremacy, to be put to death. In short, he is the most perfect resemblance of the ancient Roman emperors; is as great a tyrant in the christian church, as they were in the heathen world. He presides in the same city, usurps the same powers, affects the same titles, and requires the same homage and adoration; so that the prophecy descends more and more into particulars, from the Roman state to the Roman clergy, and thence to the pope, the head of the state, as well as the head of the church; the king of kings, as well as bishop of bishops.”
Daniel Whedon
12. Exerciseth all the power of the first beast—As the spiritual empire inherited all the power of the secular empire, so the clergy exerciseth all the power of the spiritual empire. To worship—To bow before in religious reverence. Whose deadly wound was healed—That is, the clergy require this homage to be paid, not to the empire preceding the spiritual empire, but to the spiritual empire itself; which was the restored empire after the deadly wounding.
And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
John Wesley
13. That all weighty causes everywhere ought to be referred to him.
Adam Clarke
Verse 13. And he doeth great wonders] That we may have the greatest assurance possible that the two-horned beast is the spiritual Latin empire, it is called in Revelation 19:20, a passage illustrative of the one now under consideration, the false prophet, “than which,” as Bishop Newton observes, “there cannot be a stronger or plainer argument to prove that false doctors or teachers were particularly designed;” for prophet, in the Scripture style, is not unfrequently used for a preacher or expounder of God’s word. See 1 Corinthians 14:1-5. It hence follows that the two-horned beast is an empire of false doctors or teachers. In order to establish the Latin Church upon a foundation that can never fail, the false prophet doth great wonders-he attempts the most wonderful and prodigious exploits, and is crowned with incredible success. He has the art to persuade his followers that the clergy of the Church of Rome are the only true ministers of Christ; that they have such great influence in the court of heaven as to be able not only to forgive sins, but also to grant indulgences in sin, by paying certain stipulated sums. He persuades them too that they can do works of supererogation. He pretends that an incredible number of miracles have been wrought and are still working by the Almighty, as so many evidences of the great sanctity of the Latin Church; and the false prophet has such an astonishing influence over his flock, as to cause them to believe all his fabulous legends and lying wonders. He pretends also (and is believed!) that his power is not confined to this world; that he is able by his prayers to deliver the souls of the deceased from what he calls purgatory, a place which he has fabled to exist for the purification of sinful souls after their departure from this world. His wonderful exploits, in being able to induce men possessed of reasoning faculties to believe his monstrous absurdities, do not end here; he even:— Maketh fire come down from heaven-in the sight of men] Fire, in Scripture, when it signifies wrath, represents that species of indignation which is attended with the destruction of whatever is the cause of it. Thus the wrath of God is likened to fire, Psalms 18:7Psalm 18:7, 8; Jeremiah 4:4. Therefore the fire which the false prophet bringeth down from heaven upon the earth, is the fiery indignation which he causes to come down from the heaven or throne of the Latin empire upon all those of the earth or Latin world who rebel against his authority. All this has been fulfilled in the Romish hierarchy; the Latin clergy have denominated all those that oppose their authority heretics, they have instituted tribunals to try the cause of heresy, and all those that would not submit to their idolatry they have condemned to various kinds of tortures and deaths. It is said of the false prophet that he bringeth fire FROM HEAVEN upon the earth; that is to say, he will only try the cause of heresy, and pass the sentence of condemnation; he will not suffer an ecclesiastic to execute the sentence of the court; the destroying fire he causeth to come down from the heaven or throne of the Latin empire; secular princes and magistrates must execute the sentence of death upon all that are capitally condemned by the spiritual power. He MAKETH fire come down from heaven; he compels secular princes to assist him against heretics; and if any rebel against his authority he immediately puts them under the ban of the anathema, so that they are deprived of their offices, and exposed to the insults and persecution of their brethren. Thus the false prophet deceives the Latin world by the means of those miracles which he had power try do in the sight of the beast. Under the appearance of great sanctity he persuades men to believe all his lying doctrines, and enforces his canons and decretals with the sword of the civil magistrate.
Joseph Benson
Verses 13-17. And he doeth great wonders — We have seen the greatness of the power and authority of the beast, and we shall now see what course he pursues to establish it. He pretends, like other false prophets, to show great signs and wonders, and even to call for fire from heaven, as Elias did, 2 Kings 1:11, 12. His impostures, too, are so successful, that he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, &c. — In this respect he perfectly resembles St. Paul’s man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2:9; or rather they are one and the same character, represented in different lights, and under different names. It is further observable, that he is said to perform his miracles in the sight of men, in order to deceive them, and in the sight of the beast, in order to serve him: but not in the sight of God, to serve his cause, or promote his religion. Now miracles, visions, and revelations, are the mighty boast of the Church of Rome; the contrivances of an artful, cunning clergy, to impose upon an ignorant, credulous laity. Even fire is pretended to come down from heaven, as in the case of St. Anthony’s fire, and other instances, cited by Brightman and other writers on the Revelation: and in solemn excommunications, which are called the thunders of the church, and are performed with the ceremony of casting down burning torches from on high, as symbols and emblems of fire from heaven. Miracles are thought so necessary, that they are reckoned among the notes of the Catholic Church. But if these miracles were all real, we learn from hence what opinion we ought to frame of them; and what then shall we say, if they are all fictions and counterfeits? They are indeed so far from being any proofs of the true church, that they are rather a proof of a false one; and, as we see, the distinguishing mark of antichrist. The influence of the two-horned beast, or corrupted clergy, is further seen in persuading and inducing mankind to make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live — That is, an image and representative of the Roman empire, which was wounded by the sword of the barbarous nations, and revived in the revival of a new emperor of the west. He had also power to give life and activity unto the image of the beast — It should not be a dumb and lifeless idol, but should speak and deliver oracles, as the statues of the heathen gods were feigned to do, and should cause to be killed as many as would not worship and obey it — This image and representation of the beast is, most probably, the pope. He is properly the idol of the church. He represents in himself the whole power of the beast, and is the head of all authority, temporal as well as spiritual. He is nothing more than a private person, without power and without authority, till the two-horned beast, or the corrupted clergy, by choosing him pope, give life unto him, and enable him to speak and utter his decrees, and to persecute even to death as many as refuse to submit to him and to worship him. As soon as he is chosen pope, he is clothed with the pontifical robes, and crowned, and placed upon the altar, and the cardinals come and kiss his feet, which ceremony is called adoration. They first elect, and then they worship him; as in the medals of Martin V., where two are represented crowning the pope, and two kneeling before him, with this inscription, Quem creant aclorant, Whom they create they adore. He is the principle of unity to the ten kingdoms of the beast, and causeth, as far as he is able, all who will not acknowledge his supremacy to be put to death. In short, he is the most perfect likeness and resemblance of the ancient Roman emperors, is as great a tyrant in the Christian world as they were in the heathen, presides in the same city, usurps the same power, affects the same titles, and requires the same universal homage and adoration. So that the prophecy descends more and more to particulars, from the Roman state or ten kingdoms in general, to the Roman Church or clergy in particular, and still more particularly to the person of the pope, the head of the state, as well as of the church, the king of kings, as well as bishop of bishops. Other offices the false prophet performs to the beast in subjecting all sorts of people to his obedience, by imposing certain terms of communion, and excommunicating all who dare in the least article to dissent from him. He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, of whatsoever rank and condition they be, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads — We must remember, that it was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the mark of their master, and soldiers of their general, and those who were devoted to any particular deity, of the particular deity to whom they were devoted. These marks were usually impressed on their right hand, or on their foreheads; and consisted of some hieroglyphic characters, or of the name expressed in vulgar letters, or of the name disguised in numerical letters, according to the fancy of the imposer. It is in allusion to this ancient practice and custom, that the symbol and profession of faith in the Church of Rome, as subserving superstition, idolatry, and tyranny, is called the mark or character of the beast; which character is said to be received in their forehead when they make an open profession of their faith, and in their right hand when they live and act in conformity to it. If any dissent from the stated and authorized forms, they are condemned and excommunicated as heretics; and in consequence of that they are no longer suffered to buy or sell — They are interdicted from traffic and commerce, and all the benefits of civil society. Thus Hovedon relates, that William the Conqueror would not permit any one in his power to buy or sell any thing, whom he found disobedient to the apostolic see. So the canon of the council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander the Third, made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, enjoins, upon pain of anathema, that “no one presume to entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.” The synod of Tours, in France, under the same pope, ordered, under the like intermination, that “no man should presume to receive or assist them, no, not so much as to hold any communion with them in selling or buying, that, being deprived of the comfort of humanity, they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way.” So did Pope Martin V. in his bull after the council of Constance. In this respect the false prophet spake as the dragon: for the dragon Dioclesian published a like edict, that no one should sell or administer any thing to the Christians, unless they had first burned incense to the gods. Popish excommunications are therefore like heathen persecutions, and how large a share the corrupted clergy, and especially the monks of former, and the Jesuits of later times, have had in framing and enforcing such cruel interdicts, and in reducing all orders and degrees to so servile a state of subjection, no man of the least reading can want to be informed.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 13. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. The pope, and the princes of the church, represent the sun and stars of heaven, and his anathemas have frequently set whole kingdoms in a flame of discord and civil war.
Daniel Whedon
13. Doeth great wonders—The Romanists to-day teach us that one of the marks of a true Church is miracles; and they claim a continual train of miracles as existing in their own Church. Chief among these is the act of transubstantiation, by which every priest is able to “create the Son of God.” But as this miracle is an invisible process, it is of no use in converting those who do not already believe. Romish books are full of transcendental marvels, narrating miraculous performances, sometimes ludicrous, often monstrous, and not seldom altogether surpassing those of Christ and his apostles in their prodigious character. The Bollandist volumes, more than sixty in number, approved by the pope, are full of tales written with a free inventive fancy, producing great wonders by the mere flourish of an unrestrained pen.
In modern times the “Holy Coat of Treves” was pronounced by Pope Gregory, predecessor of Pius IX., to be the true coat of Christ on which the soldiers cast lots, and for a time hundreds of thousands of pilgrims paid their visit to it.
Another specimen miracle is the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius, which is exhibited thrice a year at Naples. A red mass is first shown in a vial, and then this gradually melts, and the process is considered miraculous! Probably it is a red substance liquefied by the warmth of the priest’s hands. The classic Addison saw it and said, “So far from thinking it a miracle, I look upon it as one of the most bungling tricks I ever saw.” The mechanical miracles of the moving eyes of the saints’ images could be easily repeated by the manufacturers of our Christmas toys, but they were once powerful aids to Romish superstition. True miracles may, indeed, be the marks of a true Church; but false miracles are the marks of a false Church, especially as fulfilling predictions like this verse. Fire come down from heaven—Said Pope Pius IX., “I cannot, like St. Peter, launch certain thunders which reduce bodies to ashes; but I can, nevertheless, launch the thunders which reduce souls to ashes.” Lightnings and thunderbolts are the terms under which excommunication is conceived. Gregory VII. pronounced the Emperor Henry IV. to be “struck with lightning,” afflatum fulmine, by his excommunication. Says Ducange, “To fulminate an excommunication is the established phrase of the present day.” So also we are told, in a work on the “Glories of Mary,” that she once descended with torches in her hands and consumed a church building, at which she was offended, with fifteen hundred guilty occupants. See “Medieval Miracles,” p. 138.
Living image of the first beast—the Popedom, 14-18.
And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
John Wesley
14. That the Roman church never did, nor ever can, err.
Adam Clarke
Verse 14. Saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.] The image of the beast must designate a person who represents in himself the whole power of the Latin empire, therefore it cannot be the emperor; for though he was, according to his own account, supremum caput Christianitatis, the supreme head of Christendom, yet he was only the chief of the Germanic confederation, and consequently was only sovereign of the principal power of the Latin empire. The image of the beast must be the supreme ruler of the Latin empire, and as it is through the influence of the false prophet that this image is made for the first beast, this great chief must be an ecclesiastic. Who this is has been ably shown by Bishop Newton in his comment on the following verse.
Joseph Benson
Verses 13-17. And he doeth great wonders — We have seen the greatness of the power and authority of the beast, and we shall now see what course he pursues to establish it. He pretends, like other false prophets, to show great signs and wonders, and even to call for fire from heaven, as Elias did, 2 Kings 1:11, 12. His impostures, too, are so successful, that he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, &c. — In this respect he perfectly resembles St. Paul’s man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2:9; or rather they are one and the same character, represented in different lights, and under different names. It is further observable, that he is said to perform his miracles in the sight of men, in order to deceive them, and in the sight of the beast, in order to serve him: but not in the sight of God, to serve his cause, or promote his religion. Now miracles, visions, and revelations, are the mighty boast of the Church of Rome; the contrivances of an artful, cunning clergy, to impose upon an ignorant, credulous laity. Even fire is pretended to come down from heaven, as in the case of St. Anthony’s fire, and other instances, cited by Brightman and other writers on the Revelation: and in solemn excommunications, which are called the thunders of the church, and are performed with the ceremony of casting down burning torches from on high, as symbols and emblems of fire from heaven. Miracles are thought so necessary, that they are reckoned among the notes of the Catholic Church. But if these miracles were all real, we learn from hence what opinion we ought to frame of them; and what then shall we say, if they are all fictions and counterfeits? They are indeed so far from being any proofs of the true church, that they are rather a proof of a false one; and, as we see, the distinguishing mark of antichrist. The influence of the two-horned beast, or corrupted clergy, is further seen in persuading and inducing mankind to make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live — That is, an image and representative of the Roman empire, which was wounded by the sword of the barbarous nations, and revived in the revival of a new emperor of the west. He had also power to give life and activity unto the image of the beast — It should not be a dumb and lifeless idol, but should speak and deliver oracles, as the statues of the heathen gods were feigned to do, and should cause to be killed as many as would not worship and obey it — This image and representation of the beast is, most probably, the pope. He is properly the idol of the church. He represents in himself the whole power of the beast, and is the head of all authority, temporal as well as spiritual. He is nothing more than a private person, without power and without authority, till the two-horned beast, or the corrupted clergy, by choosing him pope, give life unto him, and enable him to speak and utter his decrees, and to persecute even to death as many as refuse to submit to him and to worship him. As soon as he is chosen pope, he is clothed with the pontifical robes, and crowned, and placed upon the altar, and the cardinals come and kiss his feet, which ceremony is called adoration. They first elect, and then they worship him; as in the medals of Martin V., where two are represented crowning the pope, and two kneeling before him, with this inscription, Quem creant aclorant, Whom they create they adore. He is the principle of unity to the ten kingdoms of the beast, and causeth, as far as he is able, all who will not acknowledge his supremacy to be put to death. In short, he is the most perfect likeness and resemblance of the ancient Roman emperors, is as great a tyrant in the Christian world as they were in the heathen, presides in the same city, usurps the same power, affects the same titles, and requires the same universal homage and adoration. So that the prophecy descends more and more to particulars, from the Roman state or ten kingdoms in general, to the Roman Church or clergy in particular, and still more particularly to the person of the pope, the head of the state, as well as of the church, the king of kings, as well as bishop of bishops. Other offices the false prophet performs to the beast in subjecting all sorts of people to his obedience, by imposing certain terms of communion, and excommunicating all who dare in the least article to dissent from him. He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, of whatsoever rank and condition they be, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads — We must remember, that it was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the mark of their master, and soldiers of their general, and those who were devoted to any particular deity, of the particular deity to whom they were devoted. These marks were usually impressed on their right hand, or on their foreheads; and consisted of some hieroglyphic characters, or of the name expressed in vulgar letters, or of the name disguised in numerical letters, according to the fancy of the imposer. It is in allusion to this ancient practice and custom, that the symbol and profession of faith in the Church of Rome, as subserving superstition, idolatry, and tyranny, is called the mark or character of the beast; which character is said to be received in their forehead when they make an open profession of their faith, and in their right hand when they live and act in conformity to it. If any dissent from the stated and authorized forms, they are condemned and excommunicated as heretics; and in consequence of that they are no longer suffered to buy or sell — They are interdicted from traffic and commerce, and all the benefits of civil society. Thus Hovedon relates, that William the Conqueror would not permit any one in his power to buy or sell any thing, whom he found disobedient to the apostolic see. So the canon of the council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander the Third, made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, enjoins, upon pain of anathema, that “no one presume to entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.” The synod of Tours, in France, under the same pope, ordered, under the like intermination, that “no man should presume to receive or assist them, no, not so much as to hold any communion with them in selling or buying, that, being deprived of the comfort of humanity, they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way.” So did Pope Martin V. in his bull after the council of Constance. In this respect the false prophet spake as the dragon: for the dragon Dioclesian published a like edict, that no one should sell or administer any thing to the Christians, unless they had first burned incense to the gods. Popish excommunications are therefore like heathen persecutions, and how large a share the corrupted clergy, and especially the monks of former, and the Jesuits of later times, have had in framing and enforcing such cruel interdicts, and in reducing all orders and degrees to so servile a state of subjection, no man of the least reading can want to be informed.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 14-16. And deceiveth them — by means of those miracles — saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword, and did live. The pontificate is but an image of the ancient Roman power. The emperors had their senators, generals, prefects and governors: and the popes have their cardinals, legates, metropolitans, and bishops. These are the princes of the antichristian empire, who have power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should speak, in lying and ambiguous oracles, as well as the images in the pagan temples; and they have power to cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. The accomplishment of this prophecy is sufficiently obvious from the wars of extermination which the pontificate has prosecuted against all who would not submit to its tyranny; and from the cruel and bloody procedures of the courts of inquisition. Indeed, so rigorous and cruel have been those proceedings, that they have caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, as the slaves had that of their masters. The adherents of antichrist have been compelled to receive badges of slavery; to receive the sign of the cross, and the chrism, on their forehead. They carry the crucifix, the rosary and chaplet, in their right hand; and are obliged to confess at least once a year to their proper priest, or be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.
On the image of the beast we must again remark, that the emperor Phocas, frequently called a tyrant in our books, declared the Pope universal bishop. He restored the image of the beast, for all the ten kingdoms submitted to the pontificate; and all the clergy hailed the day, for this son of the dragon, the ninety sixth pope, “could give them fields and vineyards.” This was in the year of our Lord 606. The following is copied from Mr. Whiston. Of this title our archbishop Laud (a prelate not hostile to dignity) gives the following account. “About this time broke out the ambition of John, patriarch of Constantinople, affecting to be universal bishop. He was supported by Mauritius, then emperor [of the east.] But was bitterly opposed by Pelagius, and by St. Gregory; and in such sort, that Gregory plainly says, his pride shows that the time of Antichrist is near. So as yet, there was no universal bishop, no monarch over the militant church. But Mauritius being deposed and murdered by Phocas, anno Domini 602, this very Phocas conferred on pope Boniface the third, the very title which two of his predecessors had so warmly opposed, as monstrous and blasphemous, not to say, antichristian! Where, by the way, those two popes, Pelagius and St. Gregory, either erred in this weighty affair, respecting a universal bishop over the whole church; or if they did not err, Boniface and his successors, who assumed the title, were in the judgment of both their predecessors, antichristian.” — Laud against Fisher, the jesuit, p. 116.
Laud gives next ten extracts in Latin, of original correspondence, most mortifying indeed to papal pride. Similar arguments occur in bishop Stillingfteet’s vindication, part 2. chap. 6.
The seventh chapter of Daniel, ver. 8-20, should be read here; and we must hence conclude that the Pontificate was the image which healed the wound, and gave life to what is here plainly called “the image of the beast,” a vast empire firmly united in pride, interest, and tyranny, never surpassed by any monarch whose sceptre swayed the world.
Daniel Whedon
14. Deceiveth—All these miracles were deceptions. Power to do—Either by aid of Satan or by ample means of combination and juggling machinery. In the sight of the beast—For his benefit and great approval. Saying— The clergy are the counsellors of submission to the spiritual empire. They should make—The pope is elected, indeed, by the clergy; but the popedom, and so every pope, is created by the popular superstition under the teachings of the clergy. That it is by the two-horned lamb, the clergy, that this is effected, is notorious. Says Mosheim, on the second century, “The monks, who from their supposed sanctity had the greatest influence with the multitude, held up the pope to their [the people’s] veneration, even as a god.” And of a later date he says, “The Jesuits have turned the Roman pontiff into a terrestrial deity, and put him almost on a footing with the divine Saviour.” He adds, “It may be easily proved that the Jesuits did no more in this than to propagate the doctrines as they found them to have been before the Reformation.” Down to our own hour Pius IX. claimed all the two-horned beast conferred on the image. To a Belgian delegation, who presented him a tiara, That pope said, “You offer me gifts—a tiara, a symbol of my threefold royal dignity in heaven, upon earth, and in purgatory.” He denounced the Old Catholics as heretics, “for they refuse to recognise the divine prerogatives of the vicar of Jesus Christ on earth, and to obey his supreme jurisdiction.” To another set of visitors he said, “The voice which now sounds in your ears is the voice of Him whom I represent on earth.”
All the power which the pope once possessed of dethroning monarchs and disposing of kingdoms arose from the fact that the popular mind, under the clerical influence, firmly supported the pope as above emperor or king, being the representative of God and entitled to be called God. An image—A concentrated representative of, and likeness to, the spiritual empire. He was to be its living executive miniature. At the same time he was to be an idol to be worshipped. The symbol of an image is supposed to be based upon the custom of the Roman emperors to place their statues in a temple or other public place requiring divine honors to be paid to them. But here, 1. It is the spiritual empire itself that is to be imaged, and no individual person. 2. Powers and actions of a great living agent are attributed to it. 3. The images of the emperor were multitudinous, and set up in all parts of the empire; this is a single image. If the seer had intended the countless images, for instance, of Nero, he would naturally have used the plural, and expatiated on their great number.
An image to the beast, which… did live—As an image, all the qualities and powers of the pontifical empire are gathered and impersonated in him. He is symbol and representative executive; and so ruler; not as hereditary sovereigns are, by natural inheritance, for he is made, not born, an image. And so most of the predicates made applicable to the beast are also applicable to the pope, and vice versa. The pope is one of the clergy, and so goes to make up the two-horned lamb. He is part of the papal empire, and so is one with the beast. The name, whether Latinus, Latin, or otherwise, belongs to beast and image—that is to pope or papal Church alike. The image fitted to the beast after he did live from his deadly wound, and his persecutions and exploits, are after his living from his death. If the beast therefore be, as some think, Nero, then most of Nero’s persecutions were after his imaginary resurrection. But the resurrection never took place, and so the persecutions could never take place. The persecutions, though predicted, were as imaginary as the resurrection. If the beast was the supreme Roman power, then it was after its death in the Emperor and revival in the Pope that the persecutions took place. That is, the persecutions were papal, not pagan. The persecutor was not the emperor but the pope.
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
John Wesley
15. That the Roman bishop, canonically ordained, is immediately made holy, by the merits of St. Peter.
Adam Clarke
Verse 15. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.] I would just observe that the Brahmins, by repeating incantations, profess to give eyes and a soul to an image recently made, before it is worshipped; afterwards, being supposed to be the residence of the god or goddess it represents, it has a legal right to worship. On this verse the learned bishop observes: “The influence of the two-horned beast, or corrupted clergy, is farther seen in persuading and inducing mankind to make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword, and did live. This image and representative of the beast is the pope. He is properly the idol of the Church. He represents in himself the whole power of the beast, and is the head of all authority, temporal as well as spiritual. He is nothing more than a private person, without power and without authority, till the two-horned beast or corrupted clergy, by choosing him pope, give life unto him, and enable him to speak and utter his decrees, and to persecute even to death as many as refuse to submit to him and to worship him. As soon as he is chosen pope he is clothed with the pontifical robes, and crowned and placed upon the altar, and the cardinals come and kiss his feet, which ceremony is called adoration. They first elect and then they worship him, as in the medals of Martin V., where two are represented crowning the pope, and two kneeling before him, with this inscription, Quem creant adorant; ‘Whom they create they adore.’ He is THE PRINCIPLE OF UNITY TO THE TEN KINGDOMS OF THE BEAST, and causeth, as far as he is able, all who will not acknowledge his supremacy to be put to death.” The great ascendency which the popes have obtained over the kings of the Latin world by means of the Romish hierarchy is sufficiently marked in the history of Europe. As long as the great body of the people were devoted to the Roman Catholic idolatry, it was in vain for the kings of the different Roman Catholic countries to oppose the increasing usurpations of the popes. They ascended, in spite of all opposition, to the highest pinnacle of human greatness; for even the authority of the emperors themselves was established or annulled at their pleasure. The high sounding tone of the popes commenced in Gregory VII., A.D. 1073, commonly known by the name of Hildebrand, who aimed at nothing less than universal empire. He published an anathema against all who received the investiture of a bishopric or abbacy from the hands of a layman, as also against those by whom the investiture should be performed. This measure being opposed by Henry IV., emperor of Germany, the pope deposed him from all power and dignity, regal or imperial. See Corps Dlplomatique, tom. i. p. 53. Great numbers of German princes siding with the pope, the emperor found himself under the necessity of going, (in January, 1077,) to the bishop of Rome to implore his forgiveness, which was not granted him till he had fasted three days, standing from morning to evening barefooted, and exposed to the inclemency of the weather! In the following century the power of the pope was still farther increased; for on the 23d of September, 1122, the Emperor Henry V. gave up all right of conferring the regalia by the ceremony of the ring and crosier, so that the chapters and communities should be at liberty to fill up their own vacancies. In this century the election of the Roman pontiffs was confined by Alexander III. to the college of cardinals. In the thirteenth century the popes (Dr. Mosheim observes) “inculcated that pernicious maxim, that the bishop of Rome is the supreme lord of the universe, and that neither princes nor bishops, civil governors nor ecclesiastical rulers, have any lawful power in Church or state but what they derive from him. To establish their authority both in civil and ecclesiastical matters upon the firmest foundation, they assumed to themselves the power of disposing of the various offices of the Church, whether of a higher or more subordinate nature, and of creating bishops, abbots, and canons, according to their fancy. The first of the pontiffs who usurped such an extravagant extent of authority was Innocent III., (A.D. 1198-1216,) whose example was followed by Honorius III., (A.D. 1216,) Gregory IX., (A.D. 1227,) and several of their successors.” Thus the plenitude of the papal power (as it is termed) was not confined to what was spiritual; the Romish bishops “dethroned monarchs, disposed of crowns, absolved subjects from the obedience due to their sovereigns, and laid kingdoms under interdicts. There was not a state in Europe which had not been disquieted by their ambition. There was not a throne which they had not shaken, nor a prince who did not tremble at their presence.” The point of time in which the Romish bishops attained their highest elevation of authority was about the commencement of the fourteenth century. Boniface VIII., who was pope at this time, outstripped all his predecessors in the high sounding tone of his public decrees. According to his famous bull Unam Sanctam, published Nov. 16, 1302, “the secular power is but a simple emanation from the ecclesiastical; and the double power of the pope, founded upon Holy Scripture, is even an article of faith. God,” said he, “has confided to Saint Peter, and to his successors, two swords, the one spiritual, the other temporal. The first ought to be exercised by the Church itself; and the other, by secular powers for the service of the Church, and according to the will of the pope. The latter, that is to say, the temporal sword, is in subjection to the former, and the temporal authority depends indispensably on the spiritual power which judges it, white God alone can judge the spiritual power. Finally,” he adds, “it is necessary to salvation for every human creature to be in subjection to the Roman pontiff.” The false prophet SAID “to them that dwell upon the earth, that they should make an image to the beast that had the wound by a sword, and did live;” that is, the Romish priesthood PREACHED UP the pope’s supremacy over temporal princes; and, through their astonishing influence on the minds of the people, the bishop of Rome at last became the supreme sovereign of the secular Latin empire, and thus was at the head of all authority, temporal and spiritual.
The papists have in their various superstitions professed to worship God. But they are said, in the unerring words of prophecy, to worship the dragon, beast, and image of the beast, and to blaspheme God; for they received as holy those commandments of men that stand in direct opposition to the sacred Scriptures, and which have been imposed on them by the Romish bishops, aided by the secular powers. “God is a Spirit, and they who worship him must worship him in SPIRIT and in TRUTH.”
Joseph Benson
Verses 13-17. And he doeth great wonders — We have seen the greatness of the power and authority of the beast, and we shall now see what course he pursues to establish it. He pretends, like other false prophets, to show great signs and wonders, and even to call for fire from heaven, as Elias did, 2 Kings 1:11, 12. His impostures, too, are so successful, that he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, &c. — In this respect he perfectly resembles St. Paul’s man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2:9; or rather they are one and the same character, represented in different lights, and under different names. It is further observable, that he is said to perform his miracles in the sight of men, in order to deceive them, and in the sight of the beast, in order to serve him: but not in the sight of God, to serve his cause, or promote his religion. Now miracles, visions, and revelations, are the mighty boast of the Church of Rome; the contrivances of an artful, cunning clergy, to impose upon an ignorant, credulous laity. Even fire is pretended to come down from heaven, as in the case of St. Anthony’s fire, and other instances, cited by Brightman and other writers on the Revelation: and in solemn excommunications, which are called the thunders of the church, and are performed with the ceremony of casting down burning torches from on high, as symbols and emblems of fire from heaven. Miracles are thought so necessary, that they are reckoned among the notes of the Catholic Church. But if these miracles were all real, we learn from hence what opinion we ought to frame of them; and what then shall we say, if they are all fictions and counterfeits? They are indeed so far from being any proofs of the true church, that they are rather a proof of a false one; and, as we see, the distinguishing mark of antichrist. The influence of the two-horned beast, or corrupted clergy, is further seen in persuading and inducing mankind to make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live — That is, an image and representative of the Roman empire, which was wounded by the sword of the barbarous nations, and revived in the revival of a new emperor of the west. He had also power to give life and activity unto the image of the beast — It should not be a dumb and lifeless idol, but should speak and deliver oracles, as the statues of the heathen gods were feigned to do, and should cause to be killed as many as would not worship and obey it — This image and representation of the beast is, most probably, the pope. He is properly the idol of the church. He represents in himself the whole power of the beast, and is the head of all authority, temporal as well as spiritual. He is nothing more than a private person, without power and without authority, till the two-horned beast, or the corrupted clergy, by choosing him pope, give life unto him, and enable him to speak and utter his decrees, and to persecute even to death as many as refuse to submit to him and to worship him. As soon as he is chosen pope, he is clothed with the pontifical robes, and crowned, and placed upon the altar, and the cardinals come and kiss his feet, which ceremony is called adoration. They first elect, and then they worship him; as in the medals of Martin V., where two are represented crowning the pope, and two kneeling before him, with this inscription, Quem creant aclorant, Whom they create they adore. He is the principle of unity to the ten kingdoms of the beast, and causeth, as far as he is able, all who will not acknowledge his supremacy to be put to death. In short, he is the most perfect likeness and resemblance of the ancient Roman emperors, is as great a tyrant in the Christian world as they were in the heathen, presides in the same city, usurps the same power, affects the same titles, and requires the same universal homage and adoration. So that the prophecy descends more and more to particulars, from the Roman state or ten kingdoms in general, to the Roman Church or clergy in particular, and still more particularly to the person of the pope, the head of the state, as well as of the church, the king of kings, as well as bishop of bishops. Other offices the false prophet performs to the beast in subjecting all sorts of people to his obedience, by imposing certain terms of communion, and excommunicating all who dare in the least article to dissent from him. He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, of whatsoever rank and condition they be, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads — We must remember, that it was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the mark of their master, and soldiers of their general, and those who were devoted to any particular deity, of the particular deity to whom they were devoted. These marks were usually impressed on their right hand, or on their foreheads; and consisted of some hieroglyphic characters, or of the name expressed in vulgar letters, or of the name disguised in numerical letters, according to the fancy of the imposer. It is in allusion to this ancient practice and custom, that the symbol and profession of faith in the Church of Rome, as subserving superstition, idolatry, and tyranny, is called the mark or character of the beast; which character is said to be received in their forehead when they make an open profession of their faith, and in their right hand when they live and act in conformity to it. If any dissent from the stated and authorized forms, they are condemned and excommunicated as heretics; and in consequence of that they are no longer suffered to buy or sell — They are interdicted from traffic and commerce, and all the benefits of civil society. Thus Hovedon relates, that William the Conqueror would not permit any one in his power to buy or sell any thing, whom he found disobedient to the apostolic see. So the canon of the council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander the Third, made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, enjoins, upon pain of anathema, that “no one presume to entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.” The synod of Tours, in France, under the same pope, ordered, under the like intermination, that “no man should presume to receive or assist them, no, not so much as to hold any communion with them in selling or buying, that, being deprived of the comfort of humanity, they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way.” So did Pope Martin V. in his bull after the council of Constance. In this respect the false prophet spake as the dragon: for the dragon Dioclesian published a like edict, that no one should sell or administer any thing to the Christians, unless they had first burned incense to the gods. Popish excommunications are therefore like heathen persecutions, and how large a share the corrupted clergy, and especially the monks of former, and the Jesuits of later times, have had in framing and enforcing such cruel interdicts, and in reducing all orders and degrees to so servile a state of subjection, no man of the least reading can want to be informed.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 14-16. And deceiveth them — by means of those miracles — saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword, and did live. The pontificate is but an image of the ancient Roman power. The emperors had their senators, generals, prefects and governors: and the popes have their cardinals, legates, metropolitans, and bishops. These are the princes of the antichristian empire, who have power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should speak, in lying and ambiguous oracles, as well as the images in the pagan temples; and they have power to cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. The accomplishment of this prophecy is sufficiently obvious from the wars of extermination which the pontificate has prosecuted against all who would not submit to its tyranny; and from the cruel and bloody procedures of the courts of inquisition. Indeed, so rigorous and cruel have been those proceedings, that they have caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, as the slaves had that of their masters. The adherents of antichrist have been compelled to receive badges of slavery; to receive the sign of the cross, and the chrism, on their forehead. They carry the crucifix, the rosary and chaplet, in their right hand; and are obliged to confess at least once a year to their proper priest, or be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.
On the image of the beast we must again remark, that the emperor Phocas, frequently called a tyrant in our books, declared the Pope universal bishop. He restored the image of the beast, for all the ten kingdoms submitted to the pontificate; and all the clergy hailed the day, for this son of the dragon, the ninety sixth pope, “could give them fields and vineyards.” This was in the year of our Lord 606. The following is copied from Mr. Whiston. Of this title our archbishop Laud (a prelate not hostile to dignity) gives the following account. “About this time broke out the ambition of John, patriarch of Constantinople, affecting to be universal bishop. He was supported by Mauritius, then emperor [of the east.] But was bitterly opposed by Pelagius, and by St. Gregory; and in such sort, that Gregory plainly says, his pride shows that the time of Antichrist is near. So as yet, there was no universal bishop, no monarch over the militant church. But Mauritius being deposed and murdered by Phocas, anno Domini 602, this very Phocas conferred on pope Boniface the third, the very title which two of his predecessors had so warmly opposed, as monstrous and blasphemous, not to say, antichristian! Where, by the way, those two popes, Pelagius and St. Gregory, either erred in this weighty affair, respecting a universal bishop over the whole church; or if they did not err, Boniface and his successors, who assumed the title, were in the judgment of both their predecessors, antichristian.” — Laud against Fisher, the jesuit, p. 116.
Laud gives next ten extracts in Latin, of original correspondence, most mortifying indeed to papal pride. Similar arguments occur in bishop Stillingfteet’s vindication, part 2. chap. 6.
The seventh chapter of Daniel, ver. 8-20, should be read here; and we must hence conclude that the Pontificate was the image which healed the wound, and gave life to what is here plainly called “the image of the beast,” a vast empire firmly united in pride, interest, and tyranny, never surpassed by any monarch whose sceptre swayed the world.
Daniel Whedon
15. Life unto the image—He was not to be a dead statue, like an image of an emperor; he should speak; and he, the image, should cause the refusers of worship to be killed. Worship the image—To the pope the attributes of the Deity are ascribed, the name God is given, and the worship, due to God, is offered the papal theocracy. See note on 2 Thessalonians 2:7. The Canon also declared, “It is certain that the pope was styled God by Constantine, and it is manifest that God cannot be judged by men.” And so Pope Urban II. maintained that he was judge of all men, but that he could be judged by no man, and he was acquitted of an accusation on that ground. And, under Pope Symmachus, at the beginning of the sixth century, it was declared that the pope was judge in the place of God, and could himself be judged by none. He was above all human jurisdiction. And, at the fifth Lateran Council, the orator announced, with all acceptance, “Thou art finally a second God on earth.” See our notes on 2 Thessalonians 2:4-10. Killed—No domination ever existed on earth so bloody and so cruel, in every form of infliction, as the popedom, from its first establishment to the present hour. Religious wars waged by its instigation, massacres and exterminations, inquisitions and dragonades, tortures by rack and by burning, form the staple of the history. The Spanish inquisition, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Smithfield fagots, are exploits of this infernal image. Every country in western Europe is stained by this antichrist with blood. It has ruined South America. In our Protestant North America its devotees are numerous and menacing, but impotent as yet.
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
John Wesley
16. That he can absolve subjects from their allegiance.
These the most eminent Romish writers own to be his genuine sayings. And his actions agree with his words. Hitherto the Popes had been subject to the emperors, though often unwillingly; but now the Pope began himself, under a spiritual pretext, to act the emperor of the whole Christian world: the immediate dispute was, about the investiture of bishops, the right of which each claimed to himself. And now was the time for the Pope either to give up, or establish his empire forever: to decide which, Gregory excommunicated the emperor Henry IV.; "having first," says Platina, "deprived him of all his dignities." The sentence ran in these terms: "Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, incline, I beseech thee, thine ears, and hear me thy servant. In the name of the omnipotent God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I cast down the emperor Henry from all imperial and regal authority, and absolve all Christians, that were his subjects, from the oath whereby they used to swear allegiance to true kings. And moreover, because he had despised mine, yea, thy admonitions, I bind him with the bond of an anathema."
The same sentence he repeated at Rome in these terms: "Blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, and thou Paul, teacher of the Gentiles, incline, I beseech you, your ears to me, and graciously hear me. Henry, whom they call emperor, hath proudly lifted up his horns and his head against the church of God,-who came to me, humbly imploring to be absolved from his excommunication,-I restored him to communion, but not to his kingdom,-neither did I allow his subjects to return to their allegiance. Several bishops and princes of Germany, taking this opportunity, in the room of Henry, justly deposed, chose Rodulph emperor, who immediately sent ambassadors to me, informing me that he would rather obey me than accept of a kingdom, and that he should always remain at the disposal of God and us. Henry then began to be angry, and at first intreated us to hinder Rodulph from seizing his kingdom. I said I would see to whom the right belonged, and give sentence which should be preferred. Henry forbad this. Therefore I bind Henry and all his favourers with the bond of an anathema, and again take from him all regal power. I absolve all Christians from their oath of allegiance, forbid them to obey Henry in anything, and command them to receive Rodulph as their king. Confirm this, therefore, by your authority, ye most holy princes of the apostles, that all may now at length know, as ye have power to bind and loose in heaven, so we have power to give and take away on earth, empires, kingdoms, principalities, and whatsoever men can have."
When Henry submitted, then Gregory began to reign without control. In the same year, 1077, on September 1, he fixed a new era of time, called the Indiction, used at Rome to this day.
Thus did the Pope claim to himself the whole authority over all Christian princes. Thus did he take away or confer kingdoms and empires, as a king of kings. Neither did his successors fail to tread in his steps. It is well known, the following Popes have not been wanting to exercise the same power, both over kings and emperors. And this the later Popes have been so far from disclaiming, that three of them have sainted this very Gregory, namely, Clement VIII., Paul V., and Benedict XIII. Here is then the beast, that is, the king: in fact such, though not in name: according to that remarkable observation of Cardinal Bellarmine, "Antichrist will govern the Roman empire, yet without the name of Roman emperor." His spiritual title prevented his taking the name, while he exerciseth all the power. Now Gregory was at the head of this novelty. So Aventine himself, "Gregory VII was the first founder of the pontifical empire."
Thus the time of the ascent of the beast is clear. The apostasy and mystery of iniquity gradually increased till he arose, "who opposeth and exalteth himself above all." 2 Thessalonians 2:4. Before the seventh trumpet the adversary wrought more secretly; but soon after the beginning of this, the beast openly opposes his kingdom to the kingdom of Christ. PROP 8. The empire of Hildebrand properly began in the year 1077. Then it was, that upon the emperor's leaving Italy, Gregory exercised his power to the full. And on the first of September, in this year, he began his famous epocha.
This may be farther established and explained by the following observations:
OBS. 1. The beast is the Romish Papacy, which has now reigned for some ages.
OBS. 2. The beast has seven heads and ten horns.
OBS. 3. The seven heads are seven hills, and also seven kings. One of the heads could not have been, "as it were, mortally wounded," had it been only a hill.
OBS. 4. The ascent of the beast out of the sea is different from his ascent out of the abyss; the Revelation often mentions both the sea and the abyss but never uses the terms promiscuously.
OBS. 5. The heads of the beast do not begin before his rise out of the sea, but with it.
OBS. 6. These heads, as kings, succeed each other.
OBS. 7. The time which they take up in this succession is divided into three parts. "Five" of the kings signified thereby "are fallen: one is, the other is not yet come."
OBS. 8. "One is:" namely, while the angel was speaking this. He places himself and St. John in the middlemost time, that he might the more commodiously point out the first time as past, the second as present, the third as future.
OBS. 9. The continuance of the beast is divided in the same manner. The beast "was, is not, will ascend out of the abyss," Revelation 17:8, 11. Between these two verses, that is interposed as parallel with them, "Five are fallen, one is, the other is not yet come."
OBS. 10. Babylon is Rome. All things which the Revelation says of Babylon, agree to Rome, and Rome only. It commenced "Babylon," when it commenced "the great." When Babylon sunk in the east, it arose in the west; and it existed in the time of the apostles, whose judgment is said to be "avenged on her."
OBS. 11. The beast reigns both before and after the reign of Babylon. First, the beast reigns, Revelation 13:1, &c.; then Babylon, Revelation 17:1, &c.; and then the beast again, Revelation 17:8, &c.
OBS. 12. The heads are of the substance of the beast; the horns are not. The wound of one of the heads is called "the wound of the beast" itself, Revelation 13:3; but the horns, or kings, receive the kingdom "with the beast," Revelation 17:12. That word alone, "the horns and the beast," Revelation 17:16, sufficiently shows them to be something added to him.
OBS. 13. The forty-two months of the beast fall within the first of the three periods. The beast rose out of the sea in the year 1077. A little after, power was given him for forty-two months. This power is still in being. OBS. 14. The time when the beast "is not," and the reign of "Babylon," are together. The beast, when risen out of the sea, raged violently, till "his kingdom was darkened" by the fifth phial. But it was a kingdom still; and the beast having a kingdom, though darkened, was the beast still. But it was afterwards said, "the beast was," (was the beast, that is, reigned,) "and is not;" is not the beast; does not reign, having lost his kingdom. Why? because "the woman sits upon the beast," who "sits a queen," reigning over the kings of the earth: till the beast, rising out of the abyss, and taking with him the ten kings, suddenly destroys her.
OBS. 15. The difference there is between Rome and the Pope, which has always subsisted, will then be most apparent. Rome, distinct from the Pope, bears three meanings; the city itself, the Roman church, and the people of Rome. In the last sense of the word, Rome with its dutchy, which contained part of Tuscany and Campania, revolted from the Greek emperor in 726, and became a free state, governed by its senate. From this time the senate, and not the Pope, enjoyed the supreme civil power. But in 796, Leo III., being chosen Pope, sent to Charles the Great, desiring him to come and subdue the senate and people of Rome, and constrain them to swear allegiance to him. Hence arose a sharp contention between the Pope and the Roman people, who seized and thrust him into a monastery. He escaped and fled to the emperor, who quickly sent him back in great state. In the year 800 the emperor came to Rome, and shortly after, the Roman people, who had hitherto chosen their own bishops, and looked upon themselves and their senate as having the same rights with the ancient senate and people of Rome, chose Charles for their emperor, and subjected themselves to him, in the same manner as the ancient Romans did to their emperors. The Pope crowned him, and paid him homage on his knees, as was formerly done to the Roman emperors: and the emperor took an oath "to defend the holy Roman church in all its emoluments." He was also created consul, and styled himself thenceforward Augustus, Emperor of the Romans. Afterwards he gave the government of the city and dutchy of Rome to the Pope, yet still subject to himself.
What the Roman church is, as distinct from the Pope, appears,
1. When a council is held before the Pope's confirmation;
2. When upon a competition, judgment is given which is the true Pope;
3. When the See is vacant;
4. When the Pope himself is suspected by the Inquisition. How Rome, as it is a city, differs from the Pope, there is no need to show. OBS. 16. In the first and second period of his duration, the beast is a body of men; in the third, an individual. The beast with seven heads is the Papacy of many ages: the seventh head is the man of sin, antichrist. He is a body of men from Revelation 13:1-17:7; he is a body of men and an individual, Revelation 17:8-17:11; he is an individual, Revelation 17:12Revelation
Adam Clarke
Verse 16. And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark] To ascertain the meaning of the mark which the two-horned beast causes all orders and degrees of men in the Latin world to receive, we need only refer to Revelation 14:11, where the mark imposed by the two-horned beast is called the mark of his name. The name of the beast is the Latin empire: the mark of his name must therefore be his LATIN worship: for this very reason, that it is the two-horned beast, or false prophet, who causes all descriptions of persons to receive it. Now it is well known that the continual employment of the Latin clergy is to enforce the Latin idolatry upon their flocks. The mass and offices of the Church, which are in Latin, and contain the sum and substance of their idolatrous worship, are of different kinds, and abound in impious prayers to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and angels. In a word, the LATIN worship is the universal badge of distinction of the LATIN Church, from all other Churches on the face of the earth; and is therefore the only infallible MARK by which a genuine papist can be distinguished from the rest of mankind. But the two-horned beast causes all to receive this mark:—
In their right hand, or in their foreheads] Right hand in Scripture language, when used figuratively, represents the physical power of the person of whom it is spoken; and when applied to God designates a signal manifestation of Divine power against his enemies, and in behalf of his people. See Psalms 17:7Psalm 17:7; 20:6; 21:8; 45:3, 4, &c. The reception of the mark in the right hand must therefore mean, that all so receiving it devote the whole powers of their mind and body to the propagation of the Latin worship, and to the eradication of all they denominate heresies out of their Church. But some receive the mark in their foreheads. By any thing being impressed upon the forehead, is meant the public profession of whatever is inscribed or marked upon it. See Revelation 9:4; 14:1; 22:4, &c. The mark of the beast being received on the forehead, therefore, means that all those so marked make a public profession of the Latin worship; whereby it is evident to all that they form a part of the Latin Church. Many may be marked in the right hand who are also marked on their foreheads, but it does not follow that those marked on their foreheads are also marked in their right hand; that is to say, it is not every individual that complies with the Latin worship who, to the utmost of his power, endeavours to propagate his religious system. Hence the propriety of the words, “He causeth all-to receive a mark in their right hand, OR in their foreheads.”
Joseph Benson
Verses 13-17. And he doeth great wonders — We have seen the greatness of the power and authority of the beast, and we shall now see what course he pursues to establish it. He pretends, like other false prophets, to show great signs and wonders, and even to call for fire from heaven, as Elias did, 2 Kings 1:11, 12. His impostures, too, are so successful, that he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, &c. — In this respect he perfectly resembles St. Paul’s man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2:9; or rather they are one and the same character, represented in different lights, and under different names. It is further observable, that he is said to perform his miracles in the sight of men, in order to deceive them, and in the sight of the beast, in order to serve him: but not in the sight of God, to serve his cause, or promote his religion. Now miracles, visions, and revelations, are the mighty boast of the Church of Rome; the contrivances of an artful, cunning clergy, to impose upon an ignorant, credulous laity. Even fire is pretended to come down from heaven, as in the case of St. Anthony’s fire, and other instances, cited by Brightman and other writers on the Revelation: and in solemn excommunications, which are called the thunders of the church, and are performed with the ceremony of casting down burning torches from on high, as symbols and emblems of fire from heaven. Miracles are thought so necessary, that they are reckoned among the notes of the Catholic Church. But if these miracles were all real, we learn from hence what opinion we ought to frame of them; and what then shall we say, if they are all fictions and counterfeits? They are indeed so far from being any proofs of the true church, that they are rather a proof of a false one; and, as we see, the distinguishing mark of antichrist. The influence of the two-horned beast, or corrupted clergy, is further seen in persuading and inducing mankind to make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live — That is, an image and representative of the Roman empire, which was wounded by the sword of the barbarous nations, and revived in the revival of a new emperor of the west. He had also power to give life and activity unto the image of the beast — It should not be a dumb and lifeless idol, but should speak and deliver oracles, as the statues of the heathen gods were feigned to do, and should cause to be killed as many as would not worship and obey it — This image and representation of the beast is, most probably, the pope. He is properly the idol of the church. He represents in himself the whole power of the beast, and is the head of all authority, temporal as well as spiritual. He is nothing more than a private person, without power and without authority, till the two-horned beast, or the corrupted clergy, by choosing him pope, give life unto him, and enable him to speak and utter his decrees, and to persecute even to death as many as refuse to submit to him and to worship him. As soon as he is chosen pope, he is clothed with the pontifical robes, and crowned, and placed upon the altar, and the cardinals come and kiss his feet, which ceremony is called adoration. They first elect, and then they worship him; as in the medals of Martin V., where two are represented crowning the pope, and two kneeling before him, with this inscription, Quem creant aclorant, Whom they create they adore. He is the principle of unity to the ten kingdoms of the beast, and causeth, as far as he is able, all who will not acknowledge his supremacy to be put to death. In short, he is the most perfect likeness and resemblance of the ancient Roman emperors, is as great a tyrant in the Christian world as they were in the heathen, presides in the same city, usurps the same power, affects the same titles, and requires the same universal homage and adoration. So that the prophecy descends more and more to particulars, from the Roman state or ten kingdoms in general, to the Roman Church or clergy in particular, and still more particularly to the person of the pope, the head of the state, as well as of the church, the king of kings, as well as bishop of bishops. Other offices the false prophet performs to the beast in subjecting all sorts of people to his obedience, by imposing certain terms of communion, and excommunicating all who dare in the least article to dissent from him. He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, of whatsoever rank and condition they be, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads — We must remember, that it was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the mark of their master, and soldiers of their general, and those who were devoted to any particular deity, of the particular deity to whom they were devoted. These marks were usually impressed on their right hand, or on their foreheads; and consisted of some hieroglyphic characters, or of the name expressed in vulgar letters, or of the name disguised in numerical letters, according to the fancy of the imposer. It is in allusion to this ancient practice and custom, that the symbol and profession of faith in the Church of Rome, as subserving superstition, idolatry, and tyranny, is called the mark or character of the beast; which character is said to be received in their forehead when they make an open profession of their faith, and in their right hand when they live and act in conformity to it. If any dissent from the stated and authorized forms, they are condemned and excommunicated as heretics; and in consequence of that they are no longer suffered to buy or sell — They are interdicted from traffic and commerce, and all the benefits of civil society. Thus Hovedon relates, that William the Conqueror would not permit any one in his power to buy or sell any thing, whom he found disobedient to the apostolic see. So the canon of the council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander the Third, made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, enjoins, upon pain of anathema, that “no one presume to entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.” The synod of Tours, in France, under the same pope, ordered, under the like intermination, that “no man should presume to receive or assist them, no, not so much as to hold any communion with them in selling or buying, that, being deprived of the comfort of humanity, they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way.” So did Pope Martin V. in his bull after the council of Constance. In this respect the false prophet spake as the dragon: for the dragon Dioclesian published a like edict, that no one should sell or administer any thing to the Christians, unless they had first burned incense to the gods. Popish excommunications are therefore like heathen persecutions, and how large a share the corrupted clergy, and especially the monks of former, and the Jesuits of later times, have had in framing and enforcing such cruel interdicts, and in reducing all orders and degrees to so servile a state of subjection, no man of the least reading can want to be informed.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 14-16. And deceiveth them — by means of those miracles — saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword, and did live. The pontificate is but an image of the ancient Roman power. The emperors had their senators, generals, prefects and governors: and the popes have their cardinals, legates, metropolitans, and bishops. These are the princes of the antichristian empire, who have power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should speak, in lying and ambiguous oracles, as well as the images in the pagan temples; and they have power to cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. The accomplishment of this prophecy is sufficiently obvious from the wars of extermination which the pontificate has prosecuted against all who would not submit to its tyranny; and from the cruel and bloody procedures of the courts of inquisition. Indeed, so rigorous and cruel have been those proceedings, that they have caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads, as the slaves had that of their masters. The adherents of antichrist have been compelled to receive badges of slavery; to receive the sign of the cross, and the chrism, on their forehead. They carry the crucifix, the rosary and chaplet, in their right hand; and are obliged to confess at least once a year to their proper priest, or be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.
On the image of the beast we must again remark, that the emperor Phocas, frequently called a tyrant in our books, declared the Pope universal bishop. He restored the image of the beast, for all the ten kingdoms submitted to the pontificate; and all the clergy hailed the day, for this son of the dragon, the ninety sixth pope, “could give them fields and vineyards.” This was in the year of our Lord 606. The following is copied from Mr. Whiston. Of this title our archbishop Laud (a prelate not hostile to dignity) gives the following account. “About this time broke out the ambition of John, patriarch of Constantinople, affecting to be universal bishop. He was supported by Mauritius, then emperor [of the east.] But was bitterly opposed by Pelagius, and by St. Gregory; and in such sort, that Gregory plainly says, his pride shows that the time of Antichrist is near. So as yet, there was no universal bishop, no monarch over the militant church. But Mauritius being deposed and murdered by Phocas, anno Domini 602, this very Phocas conferred on pope Boniface the third, the very title which two of his predecessors had so warmly opposed, as monstrous and blasphemous, not to say, antichristian! Where, by the way, those two popes, Pelagius and St. Gregory, either erred in this weighty affair, respecting a universal bishop over the whole church; or if they did not err, Boniface and his successors, who assumed the title, were in the judgment of both their predecessors, antichristian.” — Laud against Fisher, the jesuit, p. 116.
Laud gives next ten extracts in Latin, of original correspondence, most mortifying indeed to papal pride. Similar arguments occur in bishop Stillingfteet’s vindication, part 2. chap. 6.
The seventh chapter of Daniel, ver. 8-20, should be read here; and we must hence conclude that the Pontificate was the image which healed the wound, and gave life to what is here plainly called “the image of the beast,” a vast empire firmly united in pride, interest, and tyranny, never surpassed by any monarch whose sceptre swayed the world.
Daniel Whedon
16. And he—That is, the living and supreme image. Causeth—On this word, here and in the previous verse, we may note, 1. The entire body of Romish clergy find their own supremacy over the people to be identified with the absoluteness of the pope over themselves. And hence a common self-interest makes them a unit. An intense rivalry thence arises, to raise the pope to the highest point of supremacy. Thereby the pope becomes the primal causative spring of all persecutions to maintain the papal power. 2. But when charged with these persecutions, the papist replies that it is not the spiritual power, but the temporal magistracy, that really executes the punishment. The priest condemns, and the magistrate inflicts. The pope, therefore, does not execute; he causeth others to execute the heretic. A mark—Slaves, soldiers, and sailors were often marked by masters and sovereigns in token of ownership. Note on Galatians 6:17. Ptolemy Philopater (3 Macc. 2:29) enrolled the Jews of Alexandria as soldiers, and had them branded with the ivy of Bacchus with hot iron. And Philo says that some idolaters had their bodies branded with hot iron as an indelible mark which could not be obscured by time. The mark was branded, says Augustine, sometimes on forehead to denote profession, sometimes on the hand to denote activity of service.
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
John Wesley
17:12-19:20.
OBS. 17. That individual is the seventh head of the beast, or, the other king after the five and one, himself being the eighth, though one of the seven. As he is a Pope, he is one of the seven heads. But he is the eighth, or not a head, but the beast himself, not, as he is a Pope, but as he bears a new and singular character at his coming from the abyss. To illustrate this by a comparison: suppose a tree of seven branches, one of which is much larger than the rest; if those six are cut away, and the seventh remain, that is the tree.
OBS. 18. "He is the wicked one, the man of sin, the son of perdition" usually termed antichrist.
OBS. 19. The ten horns, or kings, "receive power as kings with the wild beast one hour," Revelation 17:12; with the individual beast, "who was not." But he receives his power again, and the kings with it, who quickly give their new power to him.
OBS. 20. The whole power of the Roman monarchy, divided into ten kingdoms, will be conferred on the beast, Revelation 17:13, 16, 17. OBS. 21. The ten horns and the beast will destroy the whore, Revelation 17:16.
OBS. 22. At length the beast, the ten horns, and the other kings of the earth, will fall in that great slaughter, Revelation 19:19. OBS. 23. Daniel's fourth beast is the Roman monarchy, from the beginning of it, till the thrones are set. This, therefore, comprises both the apocalyptic beast, and the woman, and many other things. This monarchy is like a river which runs from its fountain in one channel, but in its course sometimes takes in other rivers, sometimes is itself parted into several streams, yet is still one continued river. The Roman power was at first undivided; but it was afterwards divided into various channels, till the grand division into the eastern and western empires, which likewise underwent various changes. Afterward the kings of the Heruli. Goths, Lombards, the exarchs of Ravenna, the Romans themselves the emperors, French and German, besides other kings, seized several parts of the Roman power. Now whatever power the Romans had before Gregory VII., that Daniel's beast contains; whatever power the Papacy has had from Gregory VII., this the apocalyptic beast represents, but this very beast (and so Rome with its last authority) is comprehended under that of Daniel.
And upon his heads a name of blasphemy-To ascribe to a man what belongs to God alone is blasphemy. Such a name the beast has, not on his horns, nor on one head, but on all. The beast himself bears that name, and indeed through his whole duration. This is the name of Papa or Pope; not in the innocent sense wherein it was formerly given to all bishops, but in that high and peculiar sense wherein it is now given to the bishop of Rome by himself, and his followers: a name which comprises the whole pre-eminence of the highest and most holy father upon earth. Accordingly among the above cited sayings of Gregory, those two stand together, that his "name alone should be recited in the churches;" and that it is "the only name in the world." So both the church and the world were to name no other father on the face of the earth.
V. 2. The three first beasts in Daniel are like "a leopard," "a bear," and "a lion." In all parts, except his feet and mouth, this beast was like a leopard or female panther; which is fierce as a lion or bear, but is also swift and subtle. Such is the Papacy, which has partly by subtilty, partly by force, gained power over so many nations. The extremely various usages, manners, and ways of the Pope, may likewise be compared to the spots of the leopard.
And his feet were as the feet of a bear-Which are very strong, and armed with sharp claws. And, as clumsy as they seem, he can therewith walk, stand upright, climb, or seize anything. So does this beast seize and take for his prey whatever comes within the reach of his claws. And his mouth was as the mouth of a lion-To roar, and to devour. And the dragon-Whose vassal and vicegerent he is.
Gave him his power-His own strength and innumerable forces. And his throne-So that he might command whatever he would, having great, absolute authority. The dragon had his throne in heathen Rome, so long as idolatry and persecution reigned there. And after he was disturbed in his possession, yet would he never wholly resign, till he gave it to the beast in Christian Rome, so called.
V. 3. And I saw one-Or the first.
Of his heads as it were wounded-So it appeared as soon as ever it rose. The beast is first described more generally, then more particularly, both in this and in the seventeenth chapter. The particular description here respects the former parts; there, the latter parts of his duration: only that some circumstances relating to the former are repeated in the seventeenth chapter. Revelation 17:1-18.
This deadly wound was given him on his first head by the sword, Revelation 13:14; that is, by the bloody resistance of the secular potentates, particularly the German emperors. These had for a long season had the city of Rome, with her bishop, under their jurisdiction. Gregory determined to cast off this yoke from his own, and to lay it on the emperor's shoulders. He broke loose, and excommunicated the emperor, who maintained his right by force, and gave the Pope such a blow, that one would have thought the beast must have been killed thereby, immediately after his coming up. But he recovered, and grew stronger than before. The first head of the beast extends from Gregory VII., at least to Innocent III. In that tract of time the beast was much wounded by the emperors. But, notwithstanding, the wound was healed.
Two deadly symptoms attended this wound: 1. Schisms and open ruptures in the church. For while the emperors asserted their right, there were from the year 1080 to the year 1176 only, five open divisions, and at least as many antipopes, some of whom were, indeed, the rightful Popes. This was highly dangerous to the papal kingdoms. But a still more dangerous symptom was, 2. The rising of the nobility at Rome, who would not suffer their bishop to be a secular prince, particularly over themselves. Under Innocent II. they carried their point, re-established the ancient commonwealth, took away from the Pope the government of the city, and left him only his episcopal authority. "At this," says the historian, "Innocent II. and Celestine II. fretted themselves to death: Lucius II., as he attacked the capitol, wherein the senate was, sword in hand, was struck with a stone, and died in a few days: Eugene III., Alexander III., and Lucius III., were driven out of the city: Urban III. and Gregory VIII. spent their days in banishment. At length they came to an agreement with Clement III., who was himself a Roman."
And the whole earth-The whole western world.
Wondered after the wild beast-That is, followed him with wonder, in his councils, his crusades, and his jubilees. This refers not only to the first head, but also to the four following.
V. 4. And they worshipped the dragon-Even in worshipping the beast, although they knew it not.
And worshipped the wild beast-Paying him such honour as was not paid to any merely secular potentate. That very title, "Our most holy Lord," was never given to any other monarch on earth.
Saying, Who is like the wild beast-"Who is like him?" is a peculiar attribute of God; but that this is constantly attributed to the beast, the books of all his adherents show.
V. 5. And there was given him-By the dragon, through the permission of God.
A mouth speaking great things and blasphemy-The same is said of the little horn on the fourth beast in Daniel. Nothing greater, nothing more blasphemous, can be conceived, than what the Popes have said of themselves, especially before the Reformation.
And authority was given him forty-two months-The beginning of these is not to be dated immediately from his ascent out of the sea, but at some distance from it.
V. 6. To blaspheme his name-Which many of the Popes have done explicitly, and in the most dreadful manner.
And his tabernacle, even them that dwell in heaven-(For God himself dwelleth in the inhabitants of heaven.) Digging up the bones of many of them, and cursing them with the deepest execrations.
V. 7. And it was given him-That is, God permitted him.
To make war with his saints-With the Waldenses and Albigenses. It is a vulgar mistake, that the Waldenses were so called from Peter Waldo of Lyons. They were much more ancient than him; and their true name was Vallenses or Vaudois from their inhabiting the valleys of Lucerne and Agrogne. This name, Vallenses, after Waldo appeared about the year 1160, was changed by the Papists into Waldenses, on purpose to represent them as of modern original. The Albigenses were originally people of Albigeois, part of Upper Languedoc, where they considerably prevailed, and possessed several towns in the year 1200. Against these many of the Popes made open war. Till now the blood of Christians had been shed only by the heathens or Arians; from this time by scarce any but the Papacy. In the year 1208 Innocent III. proclaimed a crusade against them. In June, 1209, the army assembled at Toulouse; from which time abundance of blood was shed, and the second army of martyrs began to be added to the first, who had cried "from beneath the altar." And ever since, the beast has been warring against the saints, and shedding their blood like water. And authority was given him over every tribe and people-Particularly in Europe. And when a way was found by sea into the East Indies, and the West, these also were brought under his authority.
V. 8. And all that dwell upon the earth will worship him-All will be carried away by the torrent, but the little flock of true believers. The name of these only is written in the Lamb's book of life. And if any even of these "make shipwreck of the faith," he will blot them "out of his book;" although they were written therein from (that is, before) the foundation of the world, Revelation 17:8.
V. 9. If any one have an ear, let him hear-It was said before, "He that hath an ear, let him hear." This expression, if any, seems to imply, that scarce will any that hath an ear be found.
Let him hear-With all attention the following warning, and the whole description of the beast.
V. 10. If any man leadeth into captivity-God will in due time repay the followers of the beast in their own kind. Meanwhile, here is the patience and faithfulness of the saints exercised: their patience, by enduring captivity or imprisonment; their faithfulness, by resisting unto blood. V. 11. And I saw another wild beast-So he is once termed to show his fierceness and strength, but in all other places, "the false prophet." He comes to confirm the kingdom of the first beast.
Coming up-After the other had long exercised his authority. Out of the earth-Out of Asia. But he is not yet come, though he cannot be far off for he is to appear at the end of the forty-two months of the first beast.
And he had two horns like a lamb-A mild, innocent appearance. But he spake like a dragon-Venomous, fiery, dreadful. So do those who are zealous for the beast.
V. 12. And he exerciseth all the authority of the first wild beast-Described in Revelation 13:2, 3, 5, 7.
Before him-For they are both together.
Whose deadly wound was healed-More throughly healed by means of the second beast.
V. 13. He maketh fire-Real fire.
To come down-By the power of the devil.
V. 14. Before the wild beast-Whose usurped majesty is confirmed by these wonders.
Saying to them-As if it were from God.
To make an image to the wild beast-Like that of Nebuchadnezzar, whether of gold, silver, or stone. The original image will be set up where the beast himself shall appoint. But abundance of copies will be taken, which may be carried into all parts, like those of Diana of Ephesus. V. 15. So that the image of the wild beast should speak-Many instances of this kind have been already among the Papists, as well as the heathens. And as many as will not worship-When it is required of them; as it will be of all that buy or sell.
Shall be killed-By this the Pope manifests that he is antichrist, directly contrary to Christ. It is Christ who shed his own blood; it is antichrist who sheds the blood of others. And yet, it seems, his last and most cruel persecution is to come. This persecution, the reverse of all that preceded, will, as we may gather from many scriptures, fall chiefly on the outward court worshippers, the formal Christians. It is probable that few real, inward Christians shall perish by it: on the contrary, those who "watch and pray always" shall be "accounted worthy to escape all these things, and to stand before the Son of man," Luke 21:36.
V. 16. On their forehead-The most zealous of his followers will probably choose this. Others may receive it on their hand.
V. 17. That no man might buy or sell-Such edicts have been published long since against the poor Vaudois.
But he that had the mark, namely, the name of the first beast, or the number of his name-The name of the beast is that which he bears through his whole duration; namely, that of Papa or Pope: the number of his name is the whole time during which he bears this name. Whosoever, therefore, receives the mark of the beast does as much as if he said expressly, "I acknowledge the present Papacy, as proceeding from God;" or, "I acknowledge that what St. Gregory VII. has done, according to his legend, (authorized by Benedict XIII.,) and what has been maintained in virtue thereof, by his successors to this day, is from God." By the former, a man hath the name of the beast as a mark; by the latter, the number of his name. In a word, to have the name of the beast is, to acknowledge His papal Holiness; to have the number of his name is, to acknowledge the papal succession. The second beast will enforce the receiving this mark under the severest penalties.
Adam Clarke
Verse 17. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark] “If any,” observes Bishop Newton, “dissent from the stated and authorized forms; they are condemned and excommunicated as heretics; and in consequence of that they are no longer suffered to buy or sell; they are interdicted from traffic and commerce, and all the benefits of civil society. So Roger Hoveden relates of William the Conqueror, that he was so dutiful to the pope that he would not permit any one in his power to buy or sell any thing whom he found disobedient to the apostolic see. So the canon of the council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander III., made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, enjoins, upon pain of anathema, that no man presume to entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them. The synod of Tours, in France, under the same pope, orders, under the like intermination, that no man should presume to receive or assist them, no, not so much as hold any communion with them, in selling or buying; that, being deprived of the comfort of humanity they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way.” In the tenth and eleventh centuries the severity against the excommunicated was carried to so high a pitch, that nobody might come near them, not even their own wives, children, or servants; they forfeited all their natural legal rights and privileges, and were excluded from all kinds of offices. The form of excommunication in the Romish Church is to take lighted torches, throw them upon the ground with curses and anathemas, and trample them out under foot to the ringing of the bells. It is in this and similar ways that the false prophet has terrified the Latin world, and kept it in subjection to the secular and spiritual powers. Those interdicted by the two-horned beast from all offices of civil life are also such as have not:— The name of the beast, or the number of his name.] See on the following verse.
Joseph Benson
Verses 13-17. And he doeth great wonders — We have seen the greatness of the power and authority of the beast, and we shall now see what course he pursues to establish it. He pretends, like other false prophets, to show great signs and wonders, and even to call for fire from heaven, as Elias did, 2 Kings 1:11, 12. His impostures, too, are so successful, that he deceiveth them that dwell on the earth, &c. — In this respect he perfectly resembles St. Paul’s man of sin, 2 Thessalonians 2:9; or rather they are one and the same character, represented in different lights, and under different names. It is further observable, that he is said to perform his miracles in the sight of men, in order to deceive them, and in the sight of the beast, in order to serve him: but not in the sight of God, to serve his cause, or promote his religion. Now miracles, visions, and revelations, are the mighty boast of the Church of Rome; the contrivances of an artful, cunning clergy, to impose upon an ignorant, credulous laity. Even fire is pretended to come down from heaven, as in the case of St. Anthony’s fire, and other instances, cited by Brightman and other writers on the Revelation: and in solemn excommunications, which are called the thunders of the church, and are performed with the ceremony of casting down burning torches from on high, as symbols and emblems of fire from heaven. Miracles are thought so necessary, that they are reckoned among the notes of the Catholic Church. But if these miracles were all real, we learn from hence what opinion we ought to frame of them; and what then shall we say, if they are all fictions and counterfeits? They are indeed so far from being any proofs of the true church, that they are rather a proof of a false one; and, as we see, the distinguishing mark of antichrist. The influence of the two-horned beast, or corrupted clergy, is further seen in persuading and inducing mankind to make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live — That is, an image and representative of the Roman empire, which was wounded by the sword of the barbarous nations, and revived in the revival of a new emperor of the west. He had also power to give life and activity unto the image of the beast — It should not be a dumb and lifeless idol, but should speak and deliver oracles, as the statues of the heathen gods were feigned to do, and should cause to be killed as many as would not worship and obey it — This image and representation of the beast is, most probably, the pope. He is properly the idol of the church. He represents in himself the whole power of the beast, and is the head of all authority, temporal as well as spiritual. He is nothing more than a private person, without power and without authority, till the two-horned beast, or the corrupted clergy, by choosing him pope, give life unto him, and enable him to speak and utter his decrees, and to persecute even to death as many as refuse to submit to him and to worship him. As soon as he is chosen pope, he is clothed with the pontifical robes, and crowned, and placed upon the altar, and the cardinals come and kiss his feet, which ceremony is called adoration. They first elect, and then they worship him; as in the medals of Martin V., where two are represented crowning the pope, and two kneeling before him, with this inscription, Quem creant aclorant, Whom they create they adore. He is the principle of unity to the ten kingdoms of the beast, and causeth, as far as he is able, all who will not acknowledge his supremacy to be put to death. In short, he is the most perfect likeness and resemblance of the ancient Roman emperors, is as great a tyrant in the Christian world as they were in the heathen, presides in the same city, usurps the same power, affects the same titles, and requires the same universal homage and adoration. So that the prophecy descends more and more to particulars, from the Roman state or ten kingdoms in general, to the Roman Church or clergy in particular, and still more particularly to the person of the pope, the head of the state, as well as of the church, the king of kings, as well as bishop of bishops. Other offices the false prophet performs to the beast in subjecting all sorts of people to his obedience, by imposing certain terms of communion, and excommunicating all who dare in the least article to dissent from him. He causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, of whatsoever rank and condition they be, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads — We must remember, that it was customary among the ancients for servants to receive the mark of their master, and soldiers of their general, and those who were devoted to any particular deity, of the particular deity to whom they were devoted. These marks were usually impressed on their right hand, or on their foreheads; and consisted of some hieroglyphic characters, or of the name expressed in vulgar letters, or of the name disguised in numerical letters, according to the fancy of the imposer. It is in allusion to this ancient practice and custom, that the symbol and profession of faith in the Church of Rome, as subserving superstition, idolatry, and tyranny, is called the mark or character of the beast; which character is said to be received in their forehead when they make an open profession of their faith, and in their right hand when they live and act in conformity to it. If any dissent from the stated and authorized forms, they are condemned and excommunicated as heretics; and in consequence of that they are no longer suffered to buy or sell — They are interdicted from traffic and commerce, and all the benefits of civil society. Thus Hovedon relates, that William the Conqueror would not permit any one in his power to buy or sell any thing, whom he found disobedient to the apostolic see. So the canon of the council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander the Third, made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, enjoins, upon pain of anathema, that “no one presume to entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.” The synod of Tours, in France, under the same pope, ordered, under the like intermination, that “no man should presume to receive or assist them, no, not so much as to hold any communion with them in selling or buying, that, being deprived of the comfort of humanity, they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way.” So did Pope Martin V. in his bull after the council of Constance. In this respect the false prophet spake as the dragon: for the dragon Dioclesian published a like edict, that no one should sell or administer any thing to the Christians, unless they had first burned incense to the gods. Popish excommunications are therefore like heathen persecutions, and how large a share the corrupted clergy, and especially the monks of former, and the Jesuits of later times, have had in framing and enforcing such cruel interdicts, and in reducing all orders and degrees to so servile a state of subjection, no man of the least reading can want to be informed.
Daniel Whedon
17. No man might buy—Says E.B. Elliott: “A canon of the Lateran Council, under Pope Alexander III., commanded that no man should entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them. The Synod of Tours, (just when the Waldenses and Albigenses had begun to excite attention,) under the same Pope Alexander, passed the law that no man should presume to receive or assist the heretics, no, not so much as to exercise commerce with them in selling or buying. And so, too, as expressed in Pope Martin’s Bull, the Constance Council. How the mass of the clergy urged its execution in other days throughout the popedom is notorious.”—Vol, iii, p. 217. We may add that to-day, in revising these notes, we find in a New York daily paper the report of a trial, in these United States, of a Roman priest for prohibiting his people from continuing their custom to an excommunicated parishioner, the damages being laid at ten thousand dollars, the jury’s verdict being over three thousand. Such is this persecuting power to this day.
Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
John Wesley
V. 18. Here is the wisdom-To be exercised. "The patience of the saints" availed against the power of the first beast: the wisdom God giveth them will avail against the subtilty of the second.
Let him that hath understanding-Which is a gift of God, subservient to that wisdom.
Count the number of the wild beast-Surely none can be blamed for attempting to obey this command.
For it is the number of a man-A number of such years as are common among men.
And his number is six hundred and sixty-six years-So long shall he endure from his first appearing.
Adam Clarke
Verse 18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.] In this verse we have the very name of the beast given under the symbol of the number 666. Before the invention of figures by the Arabs, in the tenth century, letters of the alphabet were used for numbers. The Greeks in the time of Homer, or soon after, are thought by some to have assigned to their letters a numerical value corresponding to their order in the alphabet: thus, a was 1, because the first letter; and w 24, being the last. It is in this manner that the books of the Iliad and Odyssey are numbered, which have been thus marked by Homer himself, or by some person who lived near his time. A system of representing numbers of great antiquity was used by the Greeks, very much resembling that afterwards adopted by the Romans. This consisted in assigning to the initial letter of the name of the number a value equal to the number. Thus c, the initial of cilia, stood for a thousand; d, the initial of deka, for ten; p, the initial of pente, for five, &c. Herodotus, the grammarian, is the only writer of antiquity who has noticed this system, and the chronological table of remarkable events on the Arundelian marbles the only work extant in which this method of representing numbers is exhibited. The system now in use cannot be traced to any very ancient source. What can be proved is, that it was in use before the commencement of the Christian era. Numerical letters, denoting the year of the Roman emperor’s reign, exist on great numbers of the Egyptian coins, from the time of Augustus Cæsar through the succeeding reigns. See Numi Ægyptii Imperatorii, a Geo. Zœga, edit. Rom. 1787. There are coins extant marked of the 2d, 3d, 14th, 30th, 35th, 38th, 39th, 40th, 41st, and 42d years of Augustus Cæsar, with the numerical letters preceded by L or L for lukabav, year, thus: LB, LG, LID, LL, LLE, LLH, LLQ, LM, LMA, and LMB. The following is the Greek alphabet, with the numerical value of each letter affixed, according to the generally received system:— a 1 i 10 r 100
b 2 k 20 s 200
g 3 l 30 t 300
d 4 m 40 u 400
e 5 n 50 f 500
z 7 x 60 c 600
h 8 o 70 y 700
q 9 p 80 w 800
The method just described of representing numbers or letters of the alphabet, gave rise to a practice among the ancients of representing names also by numbers. Examples of this kind abound in the writings of heathens, Jews, and Christians. Where the practice of counting the number in names or phrases began first to be used, cannot be ascertained; it is sufficient for the illustration of the passage under consideration, if it can be shown to have been in existence in the apostolic age. Seneca, who was contemporary with St. Paul, informs us, in his eighty-eighth epistle, that Apion, the grammarian, maintained Homer to have been the author of the division of his poems of the Iliad and Odyssey into forty-eight books; for a proof of which Apion produces the following argument: that the poet commenced his Iliad with the word mhnin, that the two first letters, whose sum is 48, might indicate such division. Leonidas of Alexandria, who flourished in the reigns of Nero, Vespasian, &c., carried the practice of computing the number in words so far as to construct equinumeral distichs; that is, epigrams of four lines, whose first hexameter and pentameter contain the same number with the other two. We will only notice two examples; the first is addressed to one of the emperors, the other to Poppæa, the wife of Nero.
Quei soi tode gramma geneqlaikaisin en wraiv,
Kaisar, neilaih mousa lewnidew.
Kalliophv gar akapnon aei quov. eiv de newta
Hn eqelhv, qusei toude perissotera.
“The muse of Leonidas of the Nile offers up to thee, O Cæsar, this writing, at the time of thy nativity; for the sacrifice of Calliope is always without smoke: but in the ensuing year he will offer up, if thou wilt, better things than this.”
From the numerical table already given, the preceding epigram may be shown to contain equinumeral distichs, as follows: quei 424, i.e., q 9, u 400, e 5, i 10; in all 424: soi contains 280, i.e., s 200, o 70, i 10. In like manner tode will be found to contain 379, gramma 185, geneqliakaisin 404, en 55, wraiv 1111, kaisar 332, neilaih 114, mousa 711, lewnidew 1704. The sum of all these is 5699, the number in the first distich. In the second distich, kalliophv contains 449, gar 104, akapnon 272, aei 16, quov 679, eiv 215, de 9, newta 1156, hn 58, eqelhv 267, (the subscribed iota being taken into theaccount,) qusei 624, toude 779, perissotera 1071. The sum of all 5699, which is precisely the same with that contained in the first distich.
Ouranion meimhma geneqliakaisin en wraiv
ToutaJpo neilogenouv dexo lewnidew,
Poppaia, diov euni, sebastiav. euade gar soi
Dwra, ta kai lektrwn axia kai sofihv.
“O Poppæa, wife of Jupiter (Nero) Augusta, receive from Leonidas of the Nile a celestial globe on the day of thy nativity; for gifts please thee which are suited to thy imperial dignity and wisdom.”
In this epigram each of the distichs contains the number 6422, viz., ouranion 751, (i.e., o 70, u 400, r 100, a 1, n 50, i 10, o 70, n 50, the sum of which is 751,) meimhma 144, geneqliakaisin 404, en 55, wraiv 1111, toutJ 1070, apo 151, neilogenouv 893, dexo 139, lewnidew 1704; the sum of all 6422. The numbers corresponding to the words of the second distich are, respectively, 322, 284, 465, 919, 415, 104, 280, 905, 301, 31, 1305, 72, 31, 988; the sum of which is also 6422. This poet did not restrict himself to the construction of equinumeral distichs. The following is one of his distichs in which the hexameter line is made equal in number to its corresponding pentameter:—
Eiv prov ena yhfoisin isazetai, ou duo doioiv,
Ou gar eti stergw thn dolicografihn.
“One line is made equal in number to one, not two to two; for I no longer approve of long epigrams.”
In this distich the words of the hexameter line contain, respectively, the numbers 215, 450, 56, 1548, 534, 470, 474, and 364; the sum of which is 4111. The numbers corresponding to the words of the pentameter line are, respectively, 470, 104, 315, 1408, 358, and 1456; the sum of which is also 4111. The equinumeral distichs of Leonidas are contained in the second volume of Brunck and Jacob’s edition of the Greek Anthology. It appears from ancient records that some of the Greeks in the early part of the second century, if not in the apostolic age, employed themselves in counting the numbers contained in the verses of Homer to find out what two consecutive lines were isoyhfoi or equinumeral. Aulus Gellius, the grammarian, who lived in the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, gives us an account (lib. xiv., cap. 6) of a person who presented him with a book filled with a variety of information collected from numerous sources, of which he was at liberty to avail himself in writing his Attic Nights. Among the subjects treated of in this book, we are informed by Gellius, was that of Homeric equinumeral verses. None of the examples are given by the grammarian; but Labbeus says, in his Bibl. Nov. MSS., p. 284, that the equinumeral verses are marked in the Codex 2216, in the French king’s library. Gronovius, in his notes on Gellius, p. 655, has copied what he found in a MS. (No. 1488) upon this subject, viz., two examples out of the Iliad, and one in the Odyssey. The examples in the Iliad are lines 264 and 265 of book vii., each line containing 3508; and lines 306 and 307 of book xix., each containing 2848. The verses in the Odyssey (w, 110, 111) stated to be equinumeral in the MS. cited by Gronovius have not now this property, owing possibly to some corruption that may have taken place in the lines from frequent transcription.
For other examples of the computation of the number in words or phrases, the reader is referred to the Oneirocritica of Artemidorus, lib. ii. c. 75; lib. iii. c. 34: and lib. iv. c. 26. See also Martiani Minei Felicis Capelhæ Africarthaginensis, Deuteronomy Nuptiis Philologiæ et Mercurii, lib. ii. and vii.; Irenæus adversus Hæreses, lib. i., ii., and v.; Tertullian. de Præscriptionibus Hæret., tom. ii., p. 487; Wirceburgi, 1781; Sibyll. Oracul., lib. i., &c.
Having thus shown that it was a practice in the apostolic age, and subsequently, to count the number in words and phrases, and even in whole verses, it will be evident that what is intended by 666 is, that the Greek name of the beast (for it was in the Greek language that Jesus Christ communicated his revelation to St. John) contains this number. Many names have been proposed from time to time as applicable to the beast, and at the same time containing 666. We will only notice one example, viz., that famous one of Irenæus, which has been approved of by almost all commentators who have given any sort of tolerable exposition of the Revelation. The word alluded to is lateinov, the letters of which have the following numerical values: l 30, a 1, t 300, e 5, i 10, n 50, o 70, v 200; and if these be added together, the sum will be found to be equivalent to the number of the beast. This word was applied by Irenæus, who lived in the second century, to the then existing Roman empire; “for,” says he, “they are LATINS who now reign.” Though it is evident, from the notes on the preceding part of this chapter, that the conjecture of Irenæus respecting the number 666 having some way or other a reference to the empire of the Latins is well founded; yet his production of the word lateinov, as containing 666, is not a proof that it has any such reference. Bellarmin the Jesuit objected against lateinov being the name intended in the prophecy from its orthography; for, says he, it should be written latinov. That the objection of the learned Jesuit has very great force is evident from every Greek writer extant, who has used the Greek word for Latinus, in all of whom it is uniformly found without the dipthong. See Hesiod, Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Strabo, Plutarch, Dio Cassius, Photius, the Byzantine historians, &c., &c. It hence follows that if the Greek word for Latinus had been intended, the number contained in latinov, and not that in lateinov, would have been called the number of the beast. We have already observed that the beast is the Latin kingdom or empire; therefore, if this observation be correct, the Greek words signifying the Latin kingdom must have this number. The most concise method of expressing this among the Greeks was as follows, hJ latinh basileia, which is thus numbered:—
No other kingdom on earth can be found to contain 666. This is then h sofia, the wisdom or demonstration. A beast is the symbol of a kingdom; THE beast has been proved, in the preceding part of this chapter, to be the LATIN kingdom; and JH Latinh Basileia, being shown to contain, exclusively, the number 666, is the demonstration.
Having demonstrated that hJ latinh basileia, The Latin kingdom, is the name of the beast, we must now examine what is intended by the phrase in the 17th verse, {Revelation 13:17,} the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Bishop Newton supposes that the name of the beast, and the number of his name, mean the same thing; but this opinion is totally irreconcilable with Revelation 15:2, where St. John informs us that he “saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over the number of his name, stand upon the sea of glass, having the harps of God.” In this passage it is evident that the beast, his image, and the number of his name, are perfectly distinct; and therefore no two of them can mean the same thing. Hence what is meant by the name of the beast is entirely different from that intended by the number of his name. But how can this be, when it is expressly declared that the number of the beast is 666, which number is declared to be that of his name? The solution of the whole mystery is as follows: Both beasts of the Apocalypse, we have already shown, have the same appellation; that it to say, the name of the first and second least is equally JH Latinh Basileia, the Latin kingdom; therefore, by the name of the beast is meant the Latin kingdom, and by the number of his name is also meant the Latin kingdom. Hence only one of the beasts is numbered; the name of that which is not numbered is termed the name of the beast, and the numbered Latin empire is denominated the number of his name, or 666, exactly agreeable to an ancient practice already noticed, of representing names by the numbers contained in them. Therefore the meaning of the whole passage is, that those whom the false prophet does not excommunicate, or put out of the pale of his Church, have the mark of the beast, that is, are genuine papists, or such as are actively or passively obedient to his Latin idolatry. Those also escape his ecclesiastical interdicts who have the name of the beast, or the number of his name. By a person having the name of the beast is evidently meant his being a Latin, i.e., in subjection to the Latin empire, and, consequently an individual of the Latin world; therefore those that have the name of the beast, or the number of his name, are those that are subjects of the Latin empire, or of the numbered Latin empire, viz., who are in subjection to the Latin empire, secular or spiritual. All that were in subjection to the secular or spiritual power were not papists in heart; hence the propriety of distinguishing those which have the mark from those which have the name of the beast or the number of his name. But which of the two beasts it is which God has numbered has been not a little contested. That it is the first beast which is numbered has been the prevailing opinion. On this side are Lord Napier, Whiston, Bishop Newton, Faber, and others. Among those that have supposed the second beast to be the one which is numbered are, Dr. Henry More, Pyle, Kershaw, Galloway, Bicheno, Dr. Hales, &c. Drs. Gill and Reader assert that both beasts have the same number, and that the name is Lateinov. Though it has been demonstrated that the name of the beast is the Latin kingdom, it is impossible from the mere name to say whether it is the Latin empire, SECULAR or SPIRITUAL; hence the necessity of determining which of the two beasts God has computed. That it is the second beast which is numbered is evident from three different passages in the Apocalypse. The first is in Revelation 13:17, where it is said, “that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Here the name of the beast is mentioned before the number of his name, which is a presumptive evidence that the name of the beast refers to the first beast, and the number of his name to the second. The second passage is in Revelation 15:2, where mention is made of “them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over the number of his name.” That here styled the beast is evidently the secular Latin empire, for it was to this that the two-horned beast made an image; consequently there can be no doubt that the number of his name, or the numbered Latin empire, is the two-horned beast or false prophet. To feel the full force of this argument, it must be considered that the saints of God are represented as getting the victory over the beast as well as over the number of his name, which is a proof that two distinct antichristian empires are here spoken of, for otherwise it would be tautology. That the two-horned beast is the one which is numbered, is farther evident from a comparison of this passage with Revelation 19:20. In the latter passage the words are: “And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image.” Here nothing is said of the number of his name, which is so particularly mentioned in Revelation 15:2, and in that chapter nothing is mentioned of the false prophet, the reason of which can only be, that what is termed in one passage the number of his name, is in its parallel one called the false prophet. Hence the two-horned beast, or false prophet, is also designated by the phrase the number of his name; and consequently it is this beast which is numbered. But what adds the last degree of certainty to this argument is the passage in Revelation 13:18: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath a mind count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man: and his number is six hundred threescore and six.” Here is the solution of this mystery: let him that hath a mind for investigations of this kind, find out a kingdom which contains precisely the number 666, for this must be infallibly the name of the beast. JH Latinh Basileia, THE LATIN KINGDOM, has exclusively this number. But both beasts are called by this name; which is, therefore, the one that is numbered? It is said the number of the beast is the number of a man; consequently the numbered beast must be A MAN, that is, it must be represented elsewhere in the Revelation under this emblem, for in no other sense can an empire be denominated a man. Therefore, it is not the ten-horned beast, for this is uniformly styled The Beast in every part of the Apocalypse where there has been occasion to mention this power. It can therefore be no other than the two-horned beast, or Romish hierarchy; which, on account of its preaching to the world its most antichristian system of doctrines, and calling it Christianity, is likewise named in Revelation 16:13; 19:20; and Revelation 20:10, THE FALSE PROPHET.
JOHN EDWARD CLARK.
REVELATION
Joseph Benson
Verse 18. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast — In saying, Here is wisdom, the apostle shows that it is not a vain and ridiculous attempt to search into this mystery, but, on the contrary, that it is recommended to us on divine authority. For it is the number of a man — It is a method of numbering practised among men, as the measure of a man (Revelation 21:17) is such a measure as men commonly use. It was a practice among the ancients to denote names by numbers; of which many instances might be given, if it were necessary to prove it. It has likewise been the usual method in all God’s dispensations, for the Holy Spirit to accommodate his expressions to the customs, fashions, and manners of the several ages. Since then this art and mystery of numbers was so much used among the ancients, it is less wonderful that the beast also should have his number; and there was this additional reason for this obscure manner of characterizing him in the time of St. John, that no other manner would have been safe. Several names possibly might be cited, which contain this number; but it is evident that it must be some Greek or Hebrew name, and with the name also the other qualities and properties of the beast must all agree. The name alone will not constitute an agreement; all other particulars must be perfectly applicable, and the name also must comprehend the precise number of six hundred threescore and six. No name appears more proper and suitable than that famous one mentioned by Irenæus, who lived not long after St. John’s time, and was the disciple of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John. He saith, that “the name Lateinos contains the number of six hundred and sixty-six; and it is very likely, because the last kingdom is so called, for they are Latins who now reign: but in this we will not glory:” that is, as it becomes a modest and pious man in a point of such difficulty, he will not be too confident of his explication. Lateinos with ei is the true orthography, as the Greeks wrote the long i of the Latins, and as the Latins themselves wrote in former times. No objection therefore can be drawn from the spelling of the name, and the thing agrees to admiration. For after the division of the empire, the Greeks and other orientalists called the people of the western church, or Church of Rome, Latins: and they Latinize in every thing. Mass, prayers, hymns, litanies, canons, decretals, bulls, are conceived in Latin. The papal councils speak in Latin. Women themselves pray in Latin. Nor is the Scripture read in any other language under Popery than Latin. Wherefore the council of Trent commanded the vulgar Latin to be the only authentic version. Nor do their doctors doubt to prefer it to the Hebrew and Greek text itself, which was written by the prophets and apostles. In short, all things are Latin; the pope having communicated his language to the people under his dominion, as the mark and character of his empire. They themselves indeed choose rather to be called Romans, and, more absurdly still, Roman Catholics: and probably the apostle, as he hath made use of some Hebrew names in this book, as Abaddon, (ix. 11,) and Armageddon, (xvi. 16,) so might in this place likewise allude to the name in the Hebrew language. Now Romiith is the Hebrew name for the Roman beast, or Roman kingdom: and this word, as well as the former word Lateinos, contains the just and exact number of six hundred and sixty-six.
LATEINOS.
L 30
A 1
T 300
E 5
I 10
N 50
O 70
S 200
666
ROMIITH.
r 200
w 6
m 40
y 10
y 10
t 400
666
It is really surprising that there should be such a fatal coincidence in both names in both languages. And perhaps no other word, in any language whatever, can be found to express both the same number and the same thing. See Bishop Newton.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Ver. 18. Here is wisdom — count the number of the beast — and his number is six hundred threescore and six. This number is found in several Greek words, but which are quite irrelevant to the text. Irenæus visited Asia and talked with old men, disciples of John, as before stated in chap. 11:3. Now, as he gives the number expressly appropriate to the Latin church, we ought not to seek it elsewhere. Take the three examples below as quite sufficient.
Irenæus.
L 30
A 1
T 300
E 5
I 10
N 50
O 70
S 200
Total 666
Eighteen French Kings.
L 50
U 5
D 500
O
The Pope’s title.
V 5
I 1
C 100
A
R
I 1
U 5
S
D 500
E
I 1
G
E
N
E
V 5
I 1
C 100
U 5
D
Total 666
R
A
L 50
I 1
S
I 1
N
T
E
R
R
I 1
S
Total 666
Daniel Whedon
18. Here is wisdom… understanding—The here means, in the true solution of this problem. The man who tries must bring his intellect to it; and the man who succeeds has brought here a true wisdom; a wisdom which not only involves a good many questions of history and literature, but is pregnant with very important conclusions. Number of the beast— That is, of his name. To understand this, we must know that the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans used not our now numerical Arabic figures in arithmetic, but the letters of their alphabets. The first ten letters in Hebrew and Greek stood for our figures from 1 to 10. Then the next ten designated the tens, repeated to a hundred; the rest designated thousands. By a little ingenuity both a number and a name might then be found in a certain arrangement of letters. This not only furnished room for play of fancy among Christians, but among cabalists a pretence of deep meanings. Thus the Greek Jesus, Jesous: J=10, e=8, s=200, o=70, u=400, s=200=888; quite an antithesis to 666. Number of a man—A number which a man would use, and therefore calculable by a man. See note on 21:17. Six hundred threescore and six—When a problem of this kind is proposed and recorded for centuries, it might be expected that a great number of names would, in the course of centuries, be produced as the solution. We might at first imagine, too, that a plenty of fitting names would be furnished, and so the problem be really swamped. Numerous names have indeed been furnished, but scarce one meeting the obvious conditions. Puerile as a problem based on the position of letters and numerals may at first seem, the present problem includes elements and conditions tasking the most vigorous wisdom. The only name that seems to meet all the conditions, is one of the oldest, adduced by Irenaeus, the grand-pupil of St. John himself, Lateinos, Latinus, Latin. Some conditions of the problem may be as follows:
1. The proposed name should be a true proper name, and not a mere descriptive phrase, or word, or title. Lateinos meets this condition, being a true proper name, whether as adjective or substantive. America, for instance, is a proper name of a whole country or territory. American is an adjective proper name, applicable to the country, the people, or the individual. So Latin is the proper name of the Roman State, or ruler, or citizen. Such words, on the contrary, as apostathv, apostate, kakov odhgov, wicked guide, etc., are to be rejected as descriptive phrases, and not proper names. So Ewald’s Hebrew terms for Cesar of Rome are hardly one name, but two, or else a title and a name. And so Ferdinand Benary’s solution, in Hebrew, Nero Cesar, is a name and title, and is excluded. This excludes such descriptive phrases as The Latin Kingdom, Italic Church, etc.
2. The orthography of the name should be the orthography of good authority and use. If the name be made out by mutilations, by giving false letters, or abstracting true ones, almost any name can be made to fit. Lateinos, all scholars allow to be unexceptionable in this respect. But the name of Mohammed, in the Greek form, as Moametis, given by some commentators, has no authority, and, after a thorough investigation by scholars, is shown to be spurious.
3. The proposed name must be not in the Saxon, Latin, or Hebrew language, but in the Greek. Says E.B. Elliott, (vol. iii, p. 205,) “There is the highest probability of the language and number of the word being Greek, and not Hebrew, because the apocalypse was intended for the use of the Gentiles, to whom Hebrew was scarcely known; because the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet are expressly selected by Christ in the apocalypse, and not those of the Hebrew, to express his eternity. ‘I am a and w, saith the Lord,’ (Revelation 1:8,) because the numerals in which the enigma is expressed are Greek numerals, and because Irenaeus directly asserts, and all the other early fathers imply, by making their solutions in Greek, that that was understood by them to be the language intended by the Divine Spirit.” This again excludes Prof. Benary’s Hebrew Nero Cesar, the Hebrew, cwn[mr, Romanus; and such names as Luther, Calvin, and others, adduced, as retort, by the papists.
These principles, if valid, effectually exclude all the plausibly proposed names except the one furnished by Irenaeus, namely, Lateinos. And the distinctive name of the Romish communion is THE LATIN CHURCH. Says Dr. Henry Moore: “They Latinize every thing. Mass, prayers, hymns, litanies, canons, decretals, bulls, are conceived in Latin. The papal councils speak in Latin. Women themselves pray in Latin. The Scriptures are read in no other language than the Latin. In short all things are Latin.” The most formidable rival, however, in spite of the several points of exclusion, is the Hebrew name, Nero Cesar. This name seems to have dawned upon the minds of four eminent scholars almost simultaneously, in 1836; namely, Fritzsche, in Rostock; Hitzig, in Zurich; Benary, in Berlin; and Reuss, in Strasburg. With a certain class of thinkers it seemed to carry all before it.
An almost conclusive proof of this name being the true solution, arose from a very peculiar coincidence. Irenaeus tells us that there were in the then extant manuscripts two different readings of the numbers; the older and more accurate was 666, but a later 616. Now there were also two forms of the name Nero, both used in Hebrew; one, after the Greek, was Neron, the other, after the Latin, was Nero, and the former of these made the 666, and the latter exactly 616! Should not that settle the question? To this one might reply that Irenaeus tells us that the 616 was found only in later manuscripts, and so they could not have come from John. And how could copyists have adjusted their codices to Nero’s name, and Irenaeus never have heard of that name as a candidate? Indeed, Irenaeus’s omission of that name in discussing the candidates is a powerful argument against its claims.
But the French Professor Godet (in his Studies of the New Testament) denies that 666 is the true number of the Hebrew name Nero Cesar. Its true number is really 676, according to the spelling in St. John’s day. The number 666 is spelled with the three Hebrew consonants, K, S, R; the needed E of the first syllable being supplied by a vowel point; whereas the true orthography of the word Cesar, as identified by contemporary record, has four letters; requiring the E to be, not a vowel point, but a full letter, thereby increasing the number by a ten, making 676. This would entirely destroy the identification of the number with Nero. It is, indeed, given up by such rationalistic scholars as De Wette, Lucke, Bunsen, and Dusterdieck. We consider the Neronian solution of this name, like the Neronian date of the apocalypse, a very plausible, yet entirely preposterous, fable.
But there are some points of peculiar significance, both in the figures 666 and in the combination of the Greek letters that form the number, as they present themselves to the eye.
First, as to the significance of the 666. As seven is the perfect number, 7, 7, 7, thus trinally taken, would be the symbol of divine perfection, the Trinity. Three half sevens would be the reverse of perfection, the directly bad. Three sixes are an attempt to attain or display the divine perfection, but are a failure, a falling short, and that, perhaps, by a divinely-imposed limitation. And thus in this 666 is numerically figured the would-be Christ—the antichrist.
And as to the combination of Greek letters that form the number 666, they are in John’s Greek text, cxv, that is, chi, xi, and st. But, striking out the middle letter, the remaining two, c—v, are the customary abbreviation in the manuscripts of the name Christ. Now let the serpentine x crawl in between these two letters, and what have we in cxv? A central serpent wearing the externals of Christ; a serpent-Christ; an anti-Christ! Nor, says Godet, must this be promptly dismissed as a puerility. The Orientals were thus accustomed to express conceptions in figured forms to the eye, as even in our modern west we have the coat of arms, and in our America the “stars and stripes.” An ingenious, reflective people, before books are printed, are inclined to shape a momentous thought into an impressive mnemonic form. Thereby we get coin stamps, monograms, signet rings, abraxases, symbols pregnant with impressive import.
There is certainly presented here a curious combination of agreements. They are a numerical name, Lateinos, that points to Rome; a trinal number, 666, that suggests the pseudo-divine; and a monogrammic triplet of letters, cxv, that imports a Satanic Christ. It has taken centuries of thought to develop this combination, indicating that nouv has, indeed, been exerted here in large amount. We leave the reader to decide whether the combination was really planned by the nouv of John.
John Wesley
V. 1. And I stood on the sand of the sea-This also was in the vision. And I saw-Soon after the woman flew away.
A wild beast coming up-He comes up twice; first from the sea, then from the abyss. He comes from the sea before the seven phials; "the great whore" comes after them. O reader, this is a subject wherein we also are deeply concerned, and which must be treated, not as a point of curiosity, but as a solemn warning from God! The danger is near. Be armed both against force and fraud, even with the whole armour of God. Out of the sea-That is, Europe. So the three woes (the first being in Persia, the second about the Euphrates) move in a line from east to west. This beast is the Romish Papacy, as it came to a point six hundred years since, stands now, and will for some time longer. To this, and no other power on earth, agrees the whole text, and every part of it in every point; as we may see, with the utmost evidence, from the propositions following:—
PROP. 1. It is one and the same beast, having seven heads, and ten horns, which is described in this and in the seventeenth chapter. Of consequence, his heads are the same, and his horns also.
PROP. 2. This beast is a spiritually secular power, opposite to the kingdom of Christ. A power not merely spiritual or ecclesiastical, nor merely secular or political but a mixture of both. He is a secular prince; for a crown, yea, and a kingdom are ascribed to him. And yet he is not merely secular; for he is also a false prophet.
PROP. 3. The beast has a strict connexion with the city of Rome. This clearly appears from the seventeenth chapter.
PROP. 4. The beast is now existing. He is not past. for Rome is now existing; and it is not till after the destruction of Rome that the beast is thrown into the lake. He is not altogether to come: for the second woe is long since past, after which the third came quickly; and presently after it began, the beast rose out of the sea. Therefore, whatever he is, he is now existing.
PROP. 5. The beast is the Romish Papacy. This manifestly follows from the third and fourth propositions; the beast has a strict connexion with the city of Rome; and the beast is now existing: therefore, either there is some other power more strictly connected with that city, or the Pope is the beast.
PROP. 6. The Papacy, or papal kingdom, began long ago. The most remarkable particulars relating to this are here subjoined; taken so high as abundantly to show the rise of the beast, and brought down as low as our own time, in order to throw a light on the following part of the prophecy:—
A.D. 1033. Benedict the Ninth, a child of eleven years old, is bishop of Rome, and occasions grievous disorders for above twenty years. A.D. 1048. Damasus II. introduces the use of the triple crown. A.D. 1058. The church of Milan is, after long opposition, subjected to the Roman.
A.D. 1073. Hildebrand, or Gregory VII., comes to the throne. A.D. 1076. He deposes and excommunicates the emperor.
A.D. 1077. He uses him shamefully and absolves him.
A.D. 1080. He excommunicates him again, and sends a crown to Rodulph, his competitor.
A.D. 1083. Rome is taken. Gregory flees. Clement is made Pope, and crowns the emperor.
A.D. 1085. Gregory VII. dies at Salerno.
A.D. 1095. Urban II. holds the first Popish council, at Clermont and gives rise to the crusades.
A.D. 1111. Paschal II. quarrels furiously with the emperor. A.D. 1123. The first western general council in the Lateran. The marriage of priests is forbidden.
A.D. 1132. Innocent II declares the emperor to be the Pope's liege-man, or vassal.
A.D. 1143. The Romans set up a governor of their own, independent on Innocent II.
He excommunicates them, and dies. Celestine II. is, by an important innovation, chosen to the Popedom without the suffrage of the people; the right of choosing the Pope is taken from the people, and afterward from the clergy, and lodged in the Cardinals alone.
A.D. 1152. Eugene II. assumes the power of canonizing saints. A.D. 1155. Adrian IV. puts Arnold of Brixia to death for speaking against the secular power of the Papacy.
A.D. 1159. Victor IV. is elected and crowned. But Alexander III. conquers him and his successor.
A.D. 1168. Alexander III. excommunicates the emperor, and brings him so low, that,
A.D. 1177. he submits to the Pope's setting his foot on his neck. A.D. 1204. Innocent III. sets up the Inquisition against the Vaudois. A.D. 1208. He proclaims a crusade against them.
A.D. 1300. Boniface VIII. introduces the year of jubilee. A.D. 1305. The Pope's residence is removed to Avignon.
A.D. 1377. It is removed back to Rome.
A.D. 1378. The fifty years' schism begins.
A.D. 1449. Felix V., the last Antipope, submits to Nicholas V. A.D. 1517. The Reformation begins.
A.D. 1527. Rome is taken and plundered.
A.D. 1557. Charles V. resigns the empire; Ferdinand I. thinks the being crowned by the Pope superfluous.
A.D. 1564. Pius IV. confirms the Council of Trent.
A.D. 1682. Doctrines highly derogatory to the Papal authority are openly taught in France.
A.D. 1713. The constitution Unigenitus.
A.D. 1721. Pope Gregory VII. canonized anew.
He who compares this short table with what will be observed, Revelation 13:3, and Revelation 17:10, will see that the ascent of the beast out of the sea must needs be fixed toward the beginning of it; and not higher than Gregory VII., nor lower than Alexander III. The secular princes now favoured the kingdom of Christ; but the bishops of Rome vehemently opposed it. These at first were plain ministers or pastors of the Christian congregation at Rome, but by degrees they rose to an eminence of honour and power over all their brethren till, about the time of Gregory VII. (and so ever since) they assumed all the ensigns of royal majesty; yea, of a majesty and power far superior to that of all other potentates on earth.
We are not here considering their false doctrines, but their unbounded power. When we think of those, we are to look at the false prophet, who is also termed a wild beast at his ascent out of the earth. But the first beast then properly arose, when, after several preludes thereto, the Pope raised himself above the emperor.
PROP. 7. Hildebrand, or Gregory VII., is the proper founder of the papal kingdom. All the patrons of the Papacy allow that he made many considerable additions to it; and this very thing constituted the beast, by completing the spiritual kingdom: the new maxims and the new actions of Gregory all proclaim this.
Some of his maxims are,
1. That the bishop of Rome alone is universal bishop.
Adam Clarke
Verse 1. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea] Before we can proceed in the interpretation of this chapter, it will be highly necessary to ascertain the meaning of the prophetic symbol beast, as the want of a proper understanding of this term has probably been one reason why so many discordant hypotheses have been published to the world. In this investigation it is impossible to resort to a higher authority than Scripture, for the Holy Ghost is his own interpreter. What is therefore meant by the term beast in any one prophetic vision, the same species of thing must be represented by the term whenever it is used in a similar manner in any other part of the sacred oracles. Having therefore laid this foundation, the angel’s interpretation of the last of Daniel’s four beasts need only be produced, an account of which is given in the seventh chapter of this prophet. Daniel being very desirous to “know the truth of the fourth beast which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, and of the ten horns that were on his head,” the angel thus interprets the vision: “The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise,” &c. In this scripture it is plainly declared that the fourth beast should be the fourth kingdom upon earth; consequently, the four beasts seen by Daniel are four kingdoms: hence the term beast is the prophetic symbol for a kingdom.
As to the nature of the kingdom which is represented by the term beast, we shall obtain no inconsiderable light in examining the most proper meaning of the original word hyj chaiyah. This Hebrew word is translated in the Septuagint by the Greek word qhrion, and both words signify what we term a wild beast; and the latter is the one used by St. John in the Apocalypse. Taking up the Greek word qhrion in this sense, it is fully evident, if a power be represented in the prophetical writings under the notion of a wild beast, that the power so represented must partake of the nature of a wild beast. Hence an earthly belligerent power is evidently designed. And the comparison is peculiarly appropriate; for as several species of wild beasts carry on perpetual warfare with the animal world, so most governments, influenced by ambition, promote discord and depopulation. And, also, as the carnivorous wild beast acquires its strength and magnitude by preying upon the feebler animals; so most earthly monarchies are raised up by the sword, and derive their political consequence from the unsuccessful resistance to the contending nations. The kingdom of God, on the other hand, is represented as “a stone cut out of the mountain without hands;” and is never likened to a beast, because it is not raised up by the sword as all other secular powers are, but sanctifies the persons under its subjection; in which last particular it essentially differs from all other dominations.
This beast is said to rise up out of the sea, in which particular it corresponds with the four beasts of Daniel; the sea is therefore the symbol of a great multitude of nations, as has already been proved; and the meaning is, that every mighty empire is raised upon the ruins of a great number of nations, which it has successfully contended against and incorporated with its dominions. The sea, here, is doubtless the same against the inhabiters of which a wo was denounced, Revelation 12:12; for St. John was standing upon the sand of the sea when the vision changed from the woman and the dragon to that recorded in this chapter. It therefore follows that the kingdom or empire here represented by the beast, is that which sprung up out of the ruins of the WESTERN Roman empire.
Having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns] The beast here described is the Latin empire, which supported the Romish or Latin Church; for it has upon his horns ten crowns, i.e., is an empire composed of ten distinct monarchies in the interest of the Latin Church. See the heads and horns fully explained in the notes on Revelation 17:10, 12, 16.
As the phrases Latin Church, Latin empire, &c., are not very generally understood at present, and will occur frequently in the course of the notes on this and the xviith chapter, it will not be improper here to explain them. During the period from the division of the Roman empire into those of the east and west, till the final dissolution of the western empire, the subjects of both empires were equally known by the name of Romans. Soon after this event the people of the west lost almost entirely the name of Romans, and were denominated after their respective kingdoms which were established upon the ruins of the western empire. But as the eastern empire escaped the ruin which fell upon the western, the subjects of the former still retained the name of Romans, and called their dominion hJ Jrwmaikh basileia, the Roman empire; by which name this monarchy was known among them till its final dissolution in 1453, by Mohammed II., the Turkish sultan. But the subjects of the eastern emperor, ever since the time of Charlemagne or before, (and more particularly in the time of the crusades and subsequently,) called the western people, or those under the influence of the Romish Church, Latins, and their Church the Latin Church. And the western people, in return, denominated the eastern Church the Greek Church, and the members of it Greeks. Hence the division of the Christian Church into those of the Greek and Latin. For a confirmation of what has just been said the reader may consult the Byzantine writers, where he will find the appellations Jrwmaioi and latinoi, Romans and Latins, used in the sense here mentioned in very numerous instances. The members of the Romish Church have not been named Latins by the Greeks alone; this term is also used in the public instruments drawn up by the general popish councils, as may be instanced in the following words, which form a part of a decree of the council of Basil, dated Sept. 26, 1437: Copiosissimam subventionem pro unione GRÆCORUM cums LATINIS, “A very great convention for the union of the Greeks with the Latins.” Even in the very papal bulls this appellation has been acknowledged, as may be seen in the edict of Pope Eugenius IV., dated Sept. 17, 1437, where in one place mention is made of Ecclesiæ LATINORUM quæsita unio, “the desired union of the Church of the Latins;” and in another place we read, Nec superesse modum alium prosequendi operis tam pii, et servandi LATINÆ ECCLESIÆ honoris, “that no means might be left untried of prosecuting so pious a work, and of preserving the honour of the Latin Church.” See Corps Diplomatique, tom. iii., pp. 32, 35. In a bull of the same pontiff, dated Sept., 1439, we have Sanctissima LATINORUM et GRÆCORUM unio, “the most holy union of the Greeks with the Latins.” See Bail’s Summa Conciliorum, in loc. By the Latin empire is meant the whole of the powers which support the Latin Church.
And upon his heads the name of blasphemy.] onoua blasfhmiav. A name of blasphemy. This has been variously understood. Jerome and Prosper give it as their opinion that the name of blasphemy consists in the appellation urbs æterna, eternal city, applied to Rome; and modern commentators refer it to the idolatrous worship of the Romans and papists. Before we attempt to ascertain the meaning of this passage, it must be first defined what the Holy Spirit means by a name of blasphemy. Blasphemy, in Scripture, signifies impious speaking when applied to GOD, and injurious speaking when directed against our neighbour. A name of blasphemy is the prostitution of a sacred name to an unholy purpose. This is evident from the 9th verse of the second chapter of the Apocalypse, {Revelation 2:9,} where God says, “I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.” These wicked men, by calling themselves Jews, blasphemed the name, i.e., used it in an injurious sense; for he ONLY is a Jew who is one inwardly. Hence the term Jews applied to the synagogue of Satan is a name of blasphemy, i.e. a sacred name blasphemed. A name of blasphemy, or a blasphemous appellation, is said to be upon all the seven heads of the beast. To determine what this name is, the meaning of the seven heads in this place must be ascertained. If the reader refer to the notes on Revelation 17:9-11, he will find that the heads are explained to have a double meaning, viz., that they signify the seven electorates of the German empire, and also seven forms of Latin government. As this is the first place in which the heads of the beast are mentioned with any description, it is reasonable to expect that that signification of the heads which is first in order in the angel’s interpretation, Revelation 17:9, must be what is here intended. This is, “the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth;” the name of blasphemy will consequently be found upon the seven electorates of Germany. This, therefore, can be no other than that which was common, not only to the electorates but also to the whole empire of Germany, or that well known one of SACRUM Imperium Romanum, “The SACRED (or HOLY) Roman Empire.” Here is a sacred appellation blasphemed by its application to the principal power of the beast. No kingdom can properly be called holy but that of Jesus; therefore it would be blasphemy to unite this epithet with any other power. But it must be horridly blasphemous to apply it to the German empire, the grand supporter of antichrist from his very rise to temporal authority. Can that empire be holy which has killed the saints, which has professed and supported with all its might an idolatrous system of worship? It is impossible. Therefore its assumption of sacred or holy (which appellation was originally given to the empire from its being the main support of what is termed the holy catholic Church, the emperor being styled, on this account, Christ’s temporal vicar upon earth: see Cæsarini Furstenerii Tractatus Deuteronomy Suprematu Principum Germaniæ, cc. 31, 32) is, in the highest sense the word can be taken, a name of blasphemy. The name of blasphemy is very properly said to be upon the seven heads of the beast, or seven electorates of the German empire, because the electors are styled SACRI Imperii Principes Electores, Princes, Electors of the Holy Empire; SACRI Romani Imperii Electores, Electors of the Holy Roman Empire.
Joseph Benson
Verses 1-4. And I stood upon the sand of the sea, &c. — Here the beast is described at large, who was only mentioned before, Revelation 11:7; and a beast, in the prophetic style, is a tyrannical idolatrous empire. The kingdom of God and of Christ is never represented under the image of a beast. As Daniel (Daniel 7:2, 3) beheld four great beasts, representing the four great empires, come up from a stormy sea, that is, from the commotions of the world; so St. John (verse 1) saw this beast in like manner rise up out of the sea. He was said before (Revelation 11:7) to ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and it is said afterward, (Revelation 17:8,) that he shall ascend out of the abyss, or bottomless pit; and here he is said to ascend out of the sea; so that the sea and abyss, or bottomless pit, are in these passages the same. No doubt is to be made that this beast was designed to represent the Roman empire; for thus far both ancients and moderns, Papists and Protestants, are agreed: the only controversy is, whether it was Rome, pagan or Christian, imperial or papal. St. John saw this beast rising out of the sea, but the Roman empire was risen and established long before St. John’s time; and therefore this must be the Roman empire, not in its then present, but in some future shape and form; and it arose in another shape and form after it was broken to pieces by the incursions of the northern nations. The beast hath seven heads and ten horns — Which are the well-known marks of the Roman empire, the seven heads alluding to the seven mountains whereon Rome was seated, and to the seven forms of government which successively prevailed there; and the ten horns signifying the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided. It is remarkable that the dragon had seven crowns upon his heads, but the beast hath upon his horns ten crowns — So that there had been, in the mean while, a revolution of power from the heads of the dragon to the horns of the beast, and the sovereignty, which before was exercised by Rome alone, was now transferred and divided among ten kingdoms; but the Roman empire was not divided into ten kingdoms till after it was become Christian. Although the heads had lost their crowns, yet still they retained the names of blasphemy — In all its heads, in all its forms of government, Rome was still guilty of idolatry and blasphemy. Imperial Rome was called, and delighted to be called, The eternal city; the heavenly city; the goddess of the earth; the goddess: and had her temples and altars, with incense and sacrifices offered up to her: and how the papal Rome likewise hath arrogated to herself divine titles and honours will be shown hereafter.
As Daniel’s fourth beast (Daniel 7:6) was without a name, and devoured and brake in pieces the three former; so this beast (verse 2) is also without a name, and partakes of the nature and qualities of the three former; having the body of a leopard — Which was the third beast, or Grecian empire; and the feet of a bear — Which was the second beast, or Persian empire; and the mouth of a lion — Which was the first beast, or Babylonian empire: and consequently this must be the same as Daniel’s fourth beast, or the Roman empire. But still it is not the same beast, the same empire entirely, but with some variation. And the dragon gave him his power — Dunamin, or his armies; and his seat — Oronon, or his imperial throne; and great authority — Or jurisdiction over all the parts of his empire. The beast, therefore, is the successor and substitute of the dragon, or of the idolatrous heathen Roman empire: and what other idolatrous power hath succeeded to the heathen emperors in Rome, all the world is a judge and a witness. The dragon, having failed in his purpose of restoring the old heathen idolatry, delegates his power to the beast, and thereby introduces a new species of idolatry, nominally different, but essentially the same, the worship of angels and saints, instead of the gods and demigods of antiquity.
Another mark, whereby the beast is peculiarly distinguished, is, (verse 3,) one of his heads as it were wounded to death — It will appear hereafter, that this head was the sixth head, for five were fallen (Revelation 17:10) before St. John’s time: and the sixth head was that of the Cesars, or emperors, there having been before, kings, and consuls, and dictators, and decemvirs, and military tribunes, with consular authority. The sixth head was as it were wounded to death, when the Roman empire was overturned by the northern nations, and an end was put to the very name of emperor in Momyllus Augustulus; or rather, as the government of the Gothic kings was much the same as that of the emperors, with only a change of the name, this head was more effectually wounded to death, when Rome was reduced to a poor dukedom, and made tributary to the exarchate of Ravenna. But not only one of his heads was, as it were, wounded to death, but his deadly wound was healed — If it was the sixth head which was wounded, that wound could not be healed by the rising of the seventh head; the same head which was wounded must be healed: and this was effected by the pope and people of Rome revolting from the exarch of Ravenna, and proclaiming Charles the Great Augustus and emperor of the Romans. Here the wounded imperial head was healed again, and hath subsisted ever since. At this time, partly through the pope, and partly through the emperor, supporting and strengthening each other, the Roman name again became formidable: and all the world wondered after the beast; and (verse 4) they worshipped the dragon, which gave power unto the beast; and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him? — No kingdom or empire was like that of the beast; it had no parallel upon earth; and it was in vain for any to resist or oppose it; it prevailed and triumphed over all; and all the world, in submitting thus to the religion of the beast, did in effect submit again to the religion of the dragon, it being the old idolatry with new names. For the worshipping of demons and idols is in effect the worshipping of devils.
Joseph Sutcliffe
Verse 1. I saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns. This idea of the beast coincides with Daniel’s four beasts, which ascended out of the sea: Daniel 7:3. And what can we understand by the sea but a world troubled with storms of wars, and a succession of complicated calamities?
Daniel Whedon
1. Sea-risen beast—Christianized Roman empire, 1-10.
1. And—The Satanic symbol of Roman imperial pagan power has disappeared from its firmamental supremacy over the world, and is now succeeded by the shadow of a new system. I stood—The true reading is, doubtless, he (the dragon) stood. At the last verse the dragon means war; in this he is present, and perhaps superintends the rise of his instrument in the war, the beast; in next verse he endows the beast with all his own power and authority. The dragon is Satan himself, the real antichrist; the beast is his visible embodiment as representative antichrist. Henceforth the dragon, though real mover of the antichristic war, lurks on earth behind scenes until he reappears personally at Revelation 20:1. See note, Revelation 9:1. Just so the man child remains in heaven until he reappears first in his symbolic person in chap. 19, and then in his own literal person on the great white throne at Revelation 20:11. The sea— The beast is said in Revelation 11:7 and 17:8, to come up from the bottomless pit, or abyss. See note, Revelation 9:1. To this “pit” the dragon is consigned before the millennium, Revelation 20:3; and to the “lake of fire” after the millennium. The former must not, therefore, be confounded with the latter. The Greek word for “bottomless pit” appears also in Luke 8:31; Romans 10:7. It is the term for the under-world, where biblical thought locates the demoniac and dismal side of hades. There is the “deep” whither the demons dreaded to be sent from out the swine; the fire, where Dives was tormented; the Tartarus, where Peter assigns the first and falling angels; the smoking pit, whence issue our apocalyptist’s locustine-demons. From the same under-world or abyss the beast is here pictured as coming up through the sea, whose depths are based and merged in this same subterranean region. And (Revelation 17:15) these same “waters” are also said to be symbolically the peoples of the beast empire. That is, from the dark, demoniac under-world come up the vapory, shaping influences through the popular world, by which the profane character of this beast empire is formed.
Upon his horns ten crowns—The dragon, as a sole and single monarch, had his crowns upon his head; the beast has his crowns upon his horns, in view of the ten distinct kingdoms which the prediction takes into its scope. And this shows that the Christianized empire is included in the symbol; for the ten kingdoms did not rise until Rome became Christian. The dragon, beast, and the two-horned, come each from a different element. The first, from the firmament, where for centuries he has been assuming to rule as usurping god of this world; the second, from the sea, merging in the abyss; the third, from the earth, as a temporary servitor of both dragon and beast.