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A land beast:
Revelation 13:1. 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.
A sea beast:
Revelation 13:11. 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.
These beasts
have been an enigma for centuries. Who are they? Are they coming or have
they come and gone? There is more than one answer! But when understood
in the context of history, the identities of the two beasts and their
heads and horns are quite certain. Revelation 17 clearly tells the
identity of the first beast.
Revelation 17:3. I
saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast which was full of blasphemous
names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. … 18. “And the woman that
you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth.”
If this lewd woman
is Rome, then the beast she is astride of is the Roman Empire of the first
century.
Revelation
17:6. And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her I marveled greatly. 7.
But the angel said to me, "Why marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the
woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her.
That the beast is the Roman Empire is
confirmed in
Revelation
13:2. 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.
This is an empire in succession to and
incorporating the
four beast / empires of Daniel 7:3ff., 7:17ff. –
-
Beast 1 Babylon: Lion /
Eagle / Man; King Nebuchadnezzar.
-
Beast 2 Media: Bear; King
Astyages (or Darius).
-
Beast 3 Persia: Leopard with
wings and heads; King Cyrus.
-
Beast 4 Macedonia: Iron
teeth, ten horns; King Alexander the Great.
The Roman Empire is never foreseen in
Daniel; many popular prophecy teachers mistake beast 4 for Rome.
The Roman Republic
Revelation
17:9. This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven
mountains on which the woman is seated; 10. they are also seven kings,
five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he
comes he must remain only a little while.
Rome was a republic up until after
the reign of Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 B.C.).
Republic:
A political order in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens
who are entitled to vote for officers and representatives responsible
to them.
Caesar was assassinated by republicans
because of the mandate given him by the people to rule (rather than the
Senate). This is why Julius Caesar doesn’t
 qualify
as one of the heads – the Roman Republic was not yet the beastly Empire.
But Julius’ heir, Octavian, was
able, during his long reign, to wrest complete power from the
republicans. Rome became an Empire under Octavian, who was also known as
Caesar Augustus.
Empire: A political unit having an extensive
territory or comprising a number of territories or nations and ruled by
a single supreme authority.
The Seven Heads / Kings
Head #1: Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus “Augustus”
(reigned 27 BC - AD 14) “Roman statesman who established the Roman
 Empire
and became emperor in 27 BC; defeated Mark Anthony and Cleopatra in 31 BC
at Actium.”[1]
Jesus was born during his reign (Luke 2:1). After a successful, even
“august,” forty-year reign, Augustus became feeble, ill and nearly 80
years old – a very ripe age at that time. Though it’s uncertain,
Augustus may have been poisoned or smothered by a family member.
Head #2: “Tiberius” Claudius Nero
Caesar Augustus (AD 14 - 37) was
 “son-in-law
of Augustus who became a suspicious tyrannical Emperor of Rome after a
brilliant military career.” Jesus was crucified during his reign.
Tiberius spent most of his final years in his palace on the Isle of Capri,
living a very hedonistic and immoral life-style. Caligula was his adopted
heir and the victim of his pederasty. Tiberius was finally smothered.
The Sea of Galilee was named after him (“Sea of Tiberias”).
Head #3: Gaius Claudius Caesar Germanicus “Caligula,”
adopted son of Tiberius (reigned 37 - 41) “whose uncontrolled
 passions
resulted in manifest insanity; noted for his cruelty and tyranny; was
assassinated.” Caligula ordered his statue to be set up and worshiped in
the Jerusalem Temple, but was murdered before it came to pass.
Revelation 13: 4. And they worshipped the dragon
(i.e. the devil) which gave power unto the beast (i.e. the empire): and
they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able
to make war with him? (The religion of the Roman Empire was the worship
of a variety of gods, including the “genius” of Roman Emperor, who was
deified. In the Roman Empire, a person could generally worship as they
pleased as long as that person first worshiped the genius of the Emperor.
There was only one other power that could take on the Roman Empire – that
is, the Parthian Empire, or Persia.)
5. And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great
things and blasphemies (Caligula was a friend to the Herods and would have
his image worshiped in the Holy of Holies); and power was given unto him
to continue forty and two months. (6, the number of man x 7, the number
of fulfilled time. Caligula reigned about three and a half years.)
6. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to
blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
(Caligula, and other Emperors, such as Nero, proclaimed himself deity with
many blasphemous names.)
Suetonius, in his
Life of Caligula LII,
writes of him:
In his clothing, his
shoes, and the rest of his attire he did not follow the usage of his
country and his fellow-citizens; not always even that of his sex; or in
fact, that of an ordinary mortal. He often appeared in public in
embroidered cloaks covered with precious stones, with a long-sleeved tunic
and bracelets; sometimes in silk a and in a woman's robe; now in slippers
or buskins; again in boots, such as the emperor's body-guard wear, and at
times in the low shoes which are used by females. But oftentimes he
exhibited himself with a golden beard, holding in his hand a thunderbolt,
a trident, or a caduceus, emblems of the gods, and even in the garb of
Venus. He frequently wore the dress of a triumphing general, even before
his campaign, and sometimes the breastplate of Alexander the Great, which
he had taken from his sarcophagus.
  Head
#4: Tiberius “Claudius” Drusus Nero Germanicus (41 - 54): “He
succeeded Caligula. Though in general he treated the Jews, especially
those in Asia and Egypt, with great indulgence, yet about the middle of
his reign (A.D. 49) he banished them all from Rome
(Acts 18:2). In this edict the
Christians were included, as being, as was supposed, a sect of Jews. The
Jews, however soon again returned to Rome. During the reign of this
emperor, several persecutions of the Christians by the Jews took place in
the dominions of Herod Agrippa, in one of which the apostle James
(Zebedee) was ‘killed’ (12:2).”[2]
Claudius was poisoned by his wife, Valeria Messalina, a woman notorious
for her murders and adulteries, and perhaps the prophetic model for the
"Whore of Babylon."
Head #5: “Nero”: “He became emperor of
Rome when he was about seventeen years of age (A.D. 54), and soon began to
exhibit the character of a cruel tyrant and heathen debauchee. In May A.D.
64, a terrible conflagration broke out in Rome, which raged for six days
and seven nights, and totally destroyed a great part of the city. The
guilt of this fire was attached to him at the time, and the general
verdict of history accuses him of the crime.”
Revelation 17:16. And the ten horns that you saw (the Roman Legions),
they and the beast will hate the harlot; they will make her desolate and
naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire…
‘Hence, to suppress the
rumour,’ says Tacitus (Annals, xv. 44), ‘he falsely charged with
the guilt, and punished with the
 most
exquisite tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who are hated
for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death
as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of
Tiberius; but the pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out
again, not only throughout Judea, where the mischief originated, but
through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful
flow, from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are
encouraged. Accordingly, first three were seized, who confessed they were
Christians. Next, on their information, a vast multitude were convicted,
not so much on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race.
And in their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport; for they
were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs,
or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and, when day declined, burned to
serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that
spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with
the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in his
chariot; whence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers, though
guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital punishment, because
they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but victims to the
ferocity of one man.’
“Another Roman historian, Suetonius (Nero,
xvi.), says of him: ‘He likewise inflicted punishments on the Christians,
a sort of people who hold a new and impious superstition’ (Forbes's
Footsteps of St. Paul, p. 60). Nero was the emperor before whom Paul
was brought on his first imprisonment at Rome, and the apostle is supposed
to have suffered martyrdom during this persecution. He is repeatedly
alluded to in Scripture (Acts 25:11; Phil. 1:12, 13; 4:22).”[3]
Revelation 13:7. 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. 8. 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. 9. If any man
have an ear, let him hear.
Nero, with the Praetorian Guard in hot pursuit,
stabbed himself in the head and died.
Revelation 13:3. 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. More on this below.
As to the wound being healed and all marveling, this is explained in
Part 2.
Head #6: Titus Flavius Sabinus “Vespasianus”
(69 - 79) “founder of the Flavian dynasty who consolidated Roman rule in
 Germany
and Britain and reformed the army and brought prosperity to the empire;
began the construction of the Coliseum.” Vespasian was a military general
sent by Nero to quell the Jewish revolt (67 – 70).
Revelation 17:10. they are also seven kings,
five of whom have fallen, one is …. Head #6 is ruling when John
has his vision. This dates the Revelation – not to the 90s, but to the
70s. This makes John not in his 90s, which never made sense.
Perhaps John is 60 – 70 years of age. My guess is that he was exiled by
the fiend Nero, who we’ll identify with the name of the beast below.
More on this when we cover the Sea Best below.
Head #7: “Titus” Flavius Vespasianus
Augustus (79 - 81) (Revelation 17:10 - "to remain a little while") was one
of the sons
 of
Vespasian and fought under his father in Israel. When Vespasian was
called back to Rome in the middle of the siege, Titus took his place and
eventually conquered Jerusalem. Note also that Titus’ mistress is a
biblical figure – Bernice, the sister of King Herod Agrippa – Acts 25.
Bernice is another type for the Whore of Babylon, since she was one of the
last descendants of the Maccabees. Titus’ interpreter was Josephus, the
historian. So we have the complete history of the death of James the Just
and the fall of Jerusalem from his hand.
Head #8? Titus Flavius “Domitianus”
(81-96) “Emperor of Rome; son of Vespasian who succeeded his brother
Titus;
 instigated
a reign of terror and was assassinated as a tyrant.
Rev 17:11. As for the beast
that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs
to the seven, and it goes to perdition.
The angel identifies
Domitian as the prototype of the final Antichrist through an ancient
numerical trick. How takes a mind of wisdom.
Revelation 13:18. 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.
Everyone knows that the
mark of the beast is 666, and this will be made clear in the next
installment. But Domitianus in and eight – an ancient number trick
used to identify him that you can try today. Here’s how you can prove
your wisdom.
1. Add all the numbers from 1 to 8. (1 + 2 + 3 .. 8, etc.)
2. Add all the numbers in the sum you got in #1. (again, 1 + 2 + 3 ..
??).
3. What is an eighth equivalent to?
(See
“Now
Approaching: The Fourth Reich” by J. Snyder, 1998.)
Go to Part 2 – the Land Beast
Go to Part 3 – The Mark of the Beast
I recommend the book
Chronicle of the Roman Emperors, by Chris Scarre. This is a
tremendous resource for Bible times with lots of pictures and maps.
[1]
Descriptions from WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University.
[2]
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary.
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