Mark of the Beast

The book of Revelation begins with the words "That which was, which is and which is to come" so I suppose from that we have past, present and future with John writing in approximately 96 AD being the axis. Thus that which "was" has already past, that which "is" speaks of the time of John and that which "is to come" speaks of all that which proceeds John. As John was the last of the twelve apostles it seems reasonable that he would have been the one chosen of the Lord Himself to make these things available to the church in that authority as one who was with the Lord, beginning at the baptism of John and being witnesses of His death and resurrection etc.

As far as who the beast is John says that he is, was, is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss. So again we can easily see that the beast (who is a man) was no longer alive though he had lived before John writing in 96 AD, that he was not alive in 96 AD and that he will come up out of the abyss at some unspecified date after 96 AD.

Again as for the more biographical information we have of this man (the beast) we read that he is one of seven kings, and will be an eight king as well. So he was a king, being one of seven kings, and he will become an eight king. There are seven kings but one of these kings reigns twice. Finally we are told biographically that the number of his name is 666. Given that John clearly expected the reader at that time to comprehend who he was speaking about and that the term king is derived from the latin "Caesar" it isn't too difficult to accept that John was writing about one of seven men who were Caesars (kings). Nor is it difficult to know which one of these Caesars he was writing about.

Augustus (Imp. Caesar Augustus)\t 27 BC-AD 14
Tiberius (Ti. Caesar Augustus)\t AD 14-37
Gaius / Caligula (C. Caesar Augustus Germanicus)\t 37-41
Claudius (Ti. Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus)\t 41-54
Nero (Imp. Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus)\t 54-68
Galba (Ser. Sulpicius Galba Imp. Caesar Augustus)\t 68-69
Otho (Imp. M. Otho Caesar Augustus)\t 69
Vitellius (A. Vitellius Augustus Germanicus Imp.)\t 69
Vespasian (Imp. Caesar Vespasianus Augustus)\t 69-79
Titus (Imp. Titus Caesar Vespasianus Augustus)\t 79-81
Domitian (Imp. Caesar Domitianus Augustus)\t 81-96

Of the twelve Caesars who reigned up to and including 96 AD, Julius Caesar was the first, and in 44 BC, the year he was assassinated, he declared himself god. His adopted son Octavian didn't become Caesar until he had fought a number of civil wars and so there was a gap of 17 years between the death of Julius Caesar and the declaration of Augustus Caesar (Octavian). Thereafter the Caesars reigned until the end of the first century, technically ending with Domitian as the last (Prophetic) Caesar and the one who sentenced John to the labour mine on Patmos where he wrote the book of Revelation in his last year of imprisonment. Of the twelve (Prophetic) line of Caesars seven spoke as god and five did not speak as god. The sixth (measured from Julius) or the fifth (measured from Augustus) was Nero and he is the last of the Julio-Claudian line. After Nero there were four men who became Caesar in a single 12 month period, the last of which was Vespasian. who was Caesar for ten years and was replaced by Domitian was the last of the (prophetic) caesars.

Therefore when John was writing from his imprisonment on the Island of Patmos he was writing in the reign of Domitian who had banished him there. Thus when it is written:

""The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come. "Here is the mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits, and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while. "The beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is one of the seven, and he goes to destruction. "The ten horns which you saw are ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they receive authority as kings with the beast for one hour. "These have one purpose, and they give their power and authority to the beast.” (Revelation 17:8”“13, NASB95)

.....we are told plainly (at the time John was writing) that of these seven kings, five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. I will leave you to work out who he is then from this information. The key is that he is a prophetic king because he speaks as god. It is clear and cannot be shaken. The key to understanding who the beast of Revelation 17:8 is as a future event from the time of John (after the destruction of Jerusalem of course) is that not only is he one of the seven, the seventh of which had not yet come, but he was the fifth of these seven and also an eighth.

Just to add a curious fact, this prophecy which John says attends to wisdom also mentions ten kings. At the moment there are nine reigning Monarchs in Europe in the dominion of the old Roman Empire. The tenth and the oldest Monarch in Europe is of course The Pope.

From The Vatican State Official Website:

Vatican City State is governed as an absolute monarchy. The Head of State is the Pope who holds full legislative, executive and judicial powers.

On the basis of this the Pope cannot be the beast of revelations 17:8. Still he is a curious fella!

Oh I know that John. It is an easy thing to dismiss most things if we intellectualise them too much. On the other hand we have The Spirit of God by which to comprehend these things if we have a need to comprehend them.

They key is not in the date of 96 AD or as early as the reign of Nero. However the understanding lays in the man and not in the date. Think about it!

Just to make my point a little further.

Clearly I believe in the late date for the book of Revelation. This is primarily because of Justin Martyr (c. 100”“165 AD), Irenaeus (c. 115”“202) Theophilus (died c. 183), and Tertullian (c. 160”“220).

I have come to see that the understanding does not lay in the date however. It lays in the character of the man himself. Apart from this there are two beasts of Revelation and we need to differentiate between them. The job of the second beast is essentially to provide a prophetic office for the acceptance and worship of the beast who comes into visibility as the anti-christ during the latter part of the tribulation.

This does not change however that the first beast who is the anti-christ has a definite pedigree and character. His biographical pedigree is that he is one who comes up out of the abyss. As such he is in effect in death. The only two men who qualify in history generally at this time of the first century for a part in this blasphemy are Judas and Nero. Both committed suicide and therefore cut their lives short by their own hand. Judas as the prophetic voice and Nero as the blasphemous man. It is the blasphemous man who is the one that matters. The false prophet doesn't requires anyone to worship him. He simply displays supernatural power as though heaven itself were answering him, in order to deceive the nations into receiving the blasphemous man himself.

It is that man who is a king. Not only a king, but a king who lived in the first century, and died in the first century, as a king. Regardless as to the date of Revelation this man is the fifth of seven kings who lived and died in the first century, and he is also an eighth king. That of being an eighth points to coming up out of the abyss.

Speaking of the second beast we read:

"He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed.” (Revelation 13:12, NASB95)

The term in his presence cannot be figurative it can only mean that they exist at some point in time together. It is the personal character of the first beast which identifies him and that character is essentially blasphemous. The character of the false prophet on the other hand is to blaspheme. These are two very different things. Not only this we cannot change the scripture. If the scripture tells us that the beast is a man, then we cannot change that to mean something figurative. Remember that it is a man and the number of his name simply speaks of his name. Who he is in reality is unimportant. What matters is that he is a man. Likewise if the false prophet (the second beast) is a blasphemer because he incites others to worship the first beast, then it is the first beast who is blasphemous by receiving the worship of god to himself.

Taking that distinction and applying it to the Caesars makes the name of the man less important than the fact that he is a man and one who has lived, died and comes up out of the abyss. If we remove the symbolism where it needs to be removed then the name of the man is unimportant to us today. Its importance was relevant to the day in which it was written. In this sense Nero qualifies on both counts. Whether he was the 6th Caesar from Julius or the fifth from Augustus (Octavius) he qualifies. You have to realise that even if the book of Revelation was written just one year after the death of Nero, then Nero qualifies. Not only this but there has been just one historical early source which has informed the earlier date and this attends to the Old Syriac Texts from the second century.

For me at least the one certainty is that the beast is a man. He is not a picture of something or a symbol of something. The scriptures state explicitly that he is a man. As Revelation has these two beasts acting in concert, the one inciting worship and the other receiving worship then it seem just as likely that the second beast is also a man. Whether the first beast is Nero and the second is Judas rests not on a date, but on that which was known about him in his lifetime. He is the only Caesar who was worshipped as a god, and was also called in his own day the beast. Judas in the books of Acts is said to have gone unto his own place when he killed himself. How many men have their own place reserved for them in death? No doubt the really difficult thing in all of this is to comprehend how either Nero or Judas could be found on the earth at the end of the age as living breathing men.

Thank you Andrew for your insight into these matters; why has no-one ever explained these things before so clearly regarding the seven prophetic kings? Have we all been blinkered?

When I was writing the comment, (which incidentally is the first time I have used that term), my thought was simply a common sense idea. There were seven Caesars who were blasphemous men in the sense that they gave themselves titles and declared themselves to be a god. To be more specific it was the adopted son of Julius Caesar (Octavian) who became Augustus Caesar who claimed that Julius Caesar had entered heaven as god as evidenced by a star which shone over Rome for seven days in 44 BC. Halley later on during the time of Isaac Newton did the astronomical calculations which gave this star (comet) it present day name. In this context of being the son of a god, Augustus declared himself Pontifex Maximus or High Priest of all Rome. It also conferred on him the status of "son of a god". It has to be remembered that this is the man who ordered the census which led the infant Christ out of Egypt into the land of Israel. So Augustus Caesar just prior to the time Christ was born, had declared himself, in effect, to be the son of a god. On his death Augustus was declared to be a god.

This blasphemy and development of a man being a living god eventually culminated in Nero in his own life time demanding worship as god. In this sense he was exceptional because he had done nothing to warrant the claim, it was simply a conference of benefit passes down from his Julian ancestors. Yet he carried it off through oratory skills and musical abilities, in a prophetic gift. That is where my understanding comes from. Nero was said to have been a gifted musician, but his utter vanity meant that his gift became oppressive rather than genuinely entertaining. He was the last direct descendant of Julius Caesar to rule in Rome and he was depraved beyond words both in his private life and in the streets of Rome. In short he was a physical prophet led by Satan. Julius was assassinated because of his declaration to the title and privilege of Caesar for life in 44 BC. This is the beginning of the foundation of hereditary kingship in Rome. The heredity whilst it was in the blood line, never meant father to son, it always means blood relative to adopted son. Nero was the personification of all that effort and its eventual meaning. Satan simply needed the blood line through which he found a man willing to pursue that blasphemy of a man declaring himself god. This was Nero who heard the gospel by the hand of the apostle Paul directly and yet rejected the truth.

Again we need to remember that Jesus is of the blood line of David, and therefore a true king. So when Augustus was laying the foundation for the future Nero, leading up to the time that Christ was born, it was a foundation written in blood, which is the only true basis for earthly kingship. In the Lord of course this means a righteous reign. In the case of the Julio-Claudian line it meant unrighteousness. In Nero that blood line came to an end. Because Christ is raised from the dead His reign will have no end. The Julio-Claudian blood line runs from Julius through to Nero. But it was not a bloodline of father to son it began with Julius and passed to the great nephew Octavian (Augustus). To accomplish this in legal terms Octavian became the adopted son of Julius. As did Nero become the adopted son of Claudius through marriage.

It has to be said though that the really important meaning is none of these things. The important thing is to make the proper separation, between the ambitions of Satan and the heredity of men. The sixth king who followed the fifth king, and the seventh king who was to follow the sixth king were not of the Julio-Claudian blood line. Nero killed his only child in the womb when he kicked his second wife in the stomach whilst she was pregnant with his child. His first child either died in childbirth or shortly thereafter. This means that it is the "spiritual" relationship between these kings, in their specific characteristic and ambitions, especially their desire to be worshiped and to be called god, as well as their claim to being the son of a god, which sets them apart. In Christ the true King, the complete opposite attitude is presented. The Lord did not seek to be as God, but humbled Himself even unto death. Yet the Lord of course could claim equality with God.

That man-god which Satan was establishing as a basis for the anti-christ was Julius Caesar, as declared by his great nephew, the first Emperor of Rome, Augustus Caesar. In July of 44 BC a star was seen to shine brightly over Rome for seven days and this became associated through Octavian (Augustus) with the persona of Julius Caesar. Eventually he erected a temple in which he set up a blasphemous statue of Julius Caesar with a dish shaped canopy over his head, showing the "Julian Star" of 44 BC. Therefore the thing which connects the fifth king to the eight king is not the bloodline, it is the character of the fifth king specifically fulfilling in his person and life, the ambition of Augustus to worship a man as god. Nero became in his own day that man. It is a man who claims to be the son of a god and therefore a god himself.

According to Scripture the fifth king is also an eight king, therefore although the physical line was destroyed, the personality and experience which characterises the end time anti-christ is fully manifest in Nero Caesar himself. That is why I emphasise the prophetic character of the seven kings rather than concerning myself with the name of a man by means of a number. If I spent my time seeking to ratify prophecy and end time events based on anything other than a simple understanding I would regard that to be wrong. Best to keep it simple.

The beast ascends out of the sea. 1143. The forty-two months begin. 1810. The forty-two months end. 1832. The beast ascends out of the bottomless pit. 1836. The beast finally overthrown. The fall of those five kings seems to imply, not only the death of the Popes who reigned on those hills, but also such a disannulling of all they had done there, that it will be said, The beast is not; the royal power, which had so long been lodged in the Pope, being then transferred to the city.

Thanks for the link. The above is taken from that link. It presents to me the precise problem with over stating the meaning of things. We become lost and forget where we have been, what we have said and why we said it.

In this interpretation it is necessary to suspend the precise relevance of the central meaning of who the beast is. Although in this instance of Wesley's notes the beast being spoken of is more relevant to the false prophet than to the anti-christ himself. Which is to say that it has something perhaps to do with a pope confirming another man as the Christ of God, rather than the pope himself being the Christ or another Christ (anti-christ). In any event Wesley looses sight of the fact that the hills are a way of speaking of Rome as a city, whereas the kings have to do with the kings which reign over that city at the time John was writing. None of the popes existed at the time John was writing and so the kings cannot be popes no matter how much we want to attribute to the Roman Church that which has to do with Israel.

I just wanted to add that the term Pontifex Maximus broadly translates as high priest of else priest of priests. This title was first taken by Augustus Caesar when he became the first emperor of Rome. It corresponds in true meaning to Christ Who is our High Priest before the Father in heaven. The link therefore between Rome and Jerusalem is this term Pontifex Maximus.

"Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession;” (Hebrews 3:1, NASB95)

"When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them, and overcome them and kill them. And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.” (Revelation 11:7”“8, NASB95)

Unless anyone actually believes that the present day Pontifex Maximus or a Pope of any day will be king of Israel then it seems unlikely that the pope has much more to do with this end time blasphemy than a man who is called Vice Roy of Christ could have when he surrenders his office to another man who is called Christ by Israel at that time. When the Pharisees and the people cried "we have no king but Caesar" they were rejecting Christ as their High Priest and true King. They did so in Jerusalem not in Rome. When Nero decided to lay waste to Jerusalem just before he died he did so as king of Israel according to the right of Caesar and the will of Israel some 30 years earlier. I find it genuinely difficult to conceive of Israel receiving any Pope as their Pontifex Maximus and King today. Israel is looking for their Messiah and they are not ruled over by Rome. In that circumstance why would they receive a Roman King?

"And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion. And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed. And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?” There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is destined for captivity, to captivity he goes; if anyone kills with the sword, with the sword he must be killed. Here is the perseverance and the faith of the saints. Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon. He exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. And he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose fatal wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down out of heaven to the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who had the wound of the sword and has come to life. And it was given to him to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast would even speak and cause as many as do not worship the image of the beast to be killed.” (Revelation 13:1”“15, NASB95)

I think this passage more than any other passage demonstrates the difficulty with seeking to assert that the term beast means a man, or an empire or a city, one against the other mutually exclusive. If that division means that the beast is not a man then the beast becomes a city or an empire, in which case the beast is not a man, but is either a city or an empire. On the other hand if that thing to be asserted is that the beast is a man, then the beast ceases to be a city or an empire and so on. An empire may be represented by a city, either Rome, Jerusalem or Babylon, but in this case the empire is still the greater thing. If the empire is represented by a man (a king or a Caesar) then the king or the Caesar is not less representative of the city of his throne, or the empire of his influence, therefore the man is the greater.

The fact of the matter is rather less divisive because what this passage shows is that the beast is both representative of many things and in finality is one thing. The man is the greater reality not the city or the empire he rules over. In the passage of course their are two beasts and not one beast.

The passage shows this clearly because in the end the passage reduces the many parts to two men and the Dragon. The men are as distinguishable as the Dragon is distinguishable, as he stands on the shore of the Great Sea (Mediterranean). In the end another distinction is made which tells us that an idol which the second beast orders to be made and placed in the temple speaks with the voice of a man. Yet we know that the very characteristic of an idol is that it is not a god which can speak, but is dumb (Habakuk 2:18 & 1 Corinthians 12:2). Yet this idol can speak and so we know how it is that men are led astray at this time. A false prophet and an idol which speaks with the voice of a man are the instruments by which men are compelled to worship the beast.

God permits it. Therefore when I think about both Nero (the first beast) and Judas (the second beast) as experiencing a resuscitated life and end time participation, I see that God permits many things which in all other times He does not permit. The phrase "given to him" is used repeatedly to explain how these two men are able to do the things they do. Their power is given to them by Satan, but their authority is given to them by God Himself. We should not forget this sobering fact. Which is why none of these things really concern me one way or the other, and why I merely make a few points, with a view to establishing that both beasts are men. The one is a king, the other is a false prophet. The Dragon is who he is, and we know that the red dragon is called Satan.

To my mind far more important is the question as to why these things become possible in the first place. Why would God hand men over to these appalling things? That is where Babylon, both the great city, and the mystery begins to make sense. It represents in finality the one religion to which all men who reject Christ adhere to in finality. It is humanism. Everything that men do for themselves in defiance of God and in a mind to be god of their own lives in rejection of Christ crucified for sin, is Babylon, no matter what form it takes. To my mind there is no greater evidence of this than the embrace of homosexuality as a form of human relationship, which being declared equal to that which God has made between the man and the woman, is a setting aside the very creation of God, and an embracing of those things which men say are true. In the end they will worship a mere man as though he were true god.