CHAP. XIII. And I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns diadems. Here he set 'sea,' where before he had said 'abyss,' out of which that beast was to rise. In both, however, a people is signified: for he sees a people rise from a people, and a beast arise from a people. Now 'beast' is a general name, opposed to the Lamb, but in the narrative it must be understood according to the places which part of the beast he means. For sometimes he calls the devil a beast, sometimes his body, sometimes one of the heads of that very beast, which rose as though slain unto death — this being the counterfeit of the true faith; sometimes he calls only the rulers a beast.
But now, by the beast rising out of the sea he means the body of the devil, having ten horns and seven heads, and upon its horns diadems, and upon its heads a name of blasphemy, in that it wishes itself to be held as God — rightly is it said to be entitled with the name of blasphemy. Concerning the ten horns and seven heads it is spoken of in a more fitting later place, for what pertains to both suffices everywhere. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and its feet as the feet of a bear, and its mouth as the mouth of a lion. It is compared to a leopard because of the variety of nations, to a bear because of its bestial malice, to a lion because of bodily strength and the arrogance of the tongue. And the dragon gave it his power, and his throne, and great authority.
So the Apostle, speaking of the devil's body, says (2 Thess. 2): Whose coming is according to the working of Satan, with all power and signs and lying wonders, to those who perish. And one of the seven heads was as though slain unto death, and its death-wound was healed. By one of its heads he means Antichrist, since the seven are not a number but a signification of the totality of the earthly kingdom opposed to the Lamb. It is certain that the dragon, that is, the devil, gives to this one his power and his throne.
For just as in good the soul of the just is the seat of wisdom, so in evil the enemy is said to give a throne to those whom, possessing them most fully, he uses to seduce others, frequently working through them, by God's permission, wonders to be marvelled at — he who advances with such great impiety, in order to mock the minds of the little ones, that he dares to present one of the seven heads, in imitation of the true Head, as though slain and risen again, and to be received in place of Christ, who truly accomplished this. And the nations dwelling on the earth marvelled. He made a transference of names from the beast, lest he should say, 'the marvelling beast followed the beast.'
For he set 'earth' for the earthly ones, who preferred both to follow and to worship him — that is, his own, who in Antichrist, as in an idol, are said to worship the devil. This is what he says: And they worshipped the dragon, because he had handed over all his power to the beast. Again they worshipped the beast, saying: Who is like the beast? And who is able to make war with it? When he is praised by his followers as eminent — as we read — and to open the mouth of the nations and the virtues of the good, and to hold the animal thing in wonder toward the earth: when, I say, he is praised by his own and exalted in grandiloquence, the whole body of the beast is fully described. And there was given to it power to act for forty-two months.
By these months are fulfilled three years and six months, by which above indeed the harshness of the present persecution, but now especially of the last persecution, is foretold: for on account of the four most-known parts of the world, if you multiply the legal Decalogue fourfold — in which there is the sign of perfection — you complete forty; when to these you add the two precepts of charity to be fulfilled in act, they make forty-two complete. For the things declared in words would have profited nothing, had they not been perfected in works; for by these the Church is said to be fortified for a time as with the wings of an eagle, fleeing into the wilderness from the snares of the dragon, to be nourished twelve hundred and sixty days, by which the forty-
two months are supplied, so that the same number may shine forth as reckoned by no empty signification. And it opened its mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and those who dwell in heaven — that is, against God and the Church which dwells in heaven, on account of which the Apostle says (Phil. 3): Our conversation is in heaven; and (Rom. 8): But now you are not in the flesh. Otherwise: I think that by 'temple' here is signified also the glorified trophy of Christ's body, which Antichrist is then said to blaspheme when he shall have dared to assign to himself the dignity specially owed to it. Hence in the Gospel the Lord says: So that, if it were possible, even the elect might be seduced; yet immediately follows:
But for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened (Matt. 24): And there was given to it power to make war with the saints, and to overcome them. By saying 'it opened its mouth,' it is shown that it broke forth damnably into this presumption, so that what before was secret it now dares publicly to blaspheme, when it shall have dared to assign to itself the dignity specially owed to it, and to speak iniquity on high, so that, being opposed to Christ, it wishes to be received in His place, either forcing itself in by violence or slipping in by fraud: it will receive power for a time, which it, using ill and wishing to harm the body of Christ — like the persecutors against the suffering Christ — is the more exalted, and with its own is the more sharply tormented: of which the Lord says (John 19):
You would have no power over me, unless it had been given you from above. If then, concerning His passion, Christ had given this power for a moment to His persecutors (John 14), when in Him the prince of this world found nothing worthy of death, what wonder if in His own Church He permits the wicked thus to rage for a time, so that He says they have overcome them? — although from the whole a part ought to be understood, namely such as can be overcome. And there was given to it power over every tribe and people and tongue and nation; and all who dwell on the earth worshipped it, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain, who is from the foundation of the world. For it would seem too little, if of that beast which is so often set as opposed to the Lamb, it were said:
'It is not the Lamb' or 'it is not Christ,' which it feigns itself to be — but rather that no one has deserved to be written in the Lamb's book, neither he himself nor those who consent to him; although the body of the beast may also be understood, on account of which he premised: 'All who dwell on the earth worshipped it' — that is, the earthly ones worship the devil, to whom it was said: 'Earth shalt thou eat' (Gen. 3); of whom Jeremiah says: 'Those who depart from thee shall be written in the earth' (Jer. 17); or the Psalm: 'And let them not be written with the just' (Ps. 68). If any man have ears, let him hear. He who leads into captivity shall himself be led captive. As often as the Spirit here says those things which must be heard more attentively, thus does he premise it.
For having made mention of that power which the devil and the beast are to receive, lest we should think the momentary haughtiness of a ruinous summit to be greatly esteemed, as though meeting human thoughts, he instructs us, saying: 'He who leads into captivity shall himself be led captive' — as if he said, The devil and the beast, who now with their nets seem to capture the nations, shall soon themselves with their own be captives. And he who kills with the sword, he himself must be killed with the sword. Knowing such things are to be avenged at once at the Lord's coming, he therefore says: 'And he himself must be killed with the sword,' setting down absolutely the person of the devil and of Antichrist, as one dwelling with his dwelling: therefore indefinitely: 'He who leads into captivity,' he says, 'shall himself be led captive';
and he who kills with the sword, he himself must be killed with the sword: hence the Apostle, speaking, says (2 Thess. 2): Then shall that wicked one be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming. Then indeed, when death shall have been swallowed up in victory (1 Cor. 15), when all the saints must patiently and long-sufferingly wait; therefore he subjoined: Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. Whence the same Apostle (Gal. 6): Brethren, he says, let us not fail: for in due season we shall reap, not failing. And I saw another beast rising up out of the earth, having two horns like a lamb, and it spoke as a dragon: and it exercised all the power of the former beast in the earth.
Two horns like a lamb — namely the two Testaments belonging to the true Lamb — it attempted to usurp for itself after its own manner. Yet it is said to speak as a dragon, because in hypocrisy, that is, in the counterfeit of truth, it deceives those whom it seduces. For it would not be like a lamb, if it spoke openly as a dragon. But now it feigns a lamb in order to attack the Lamb, that is, the body of Christ; it speaks as a dragon, because it drives away those seeking Him, deluded, from the way of truth; and it exercised all the power of the former beast in the earth. He said 'former,' which he premised he had seen rising out of the sea, to which the devil had given his great power. This power he said the beast exercised in the presence of the beast.
For in the rulers whom it distributes lies all the power of the people, as of the locusts and horses in their tails. For with the people standing by, the rulers do what furthers the will of the devil, under the veil of the Church's hypocrisy. And to such a degree is it clear that both beasts are one body, and exercise the worship of one wickedness, that even the hypocrisy of the latter beast is said to serve that former beast. Therefore he subjoined: That those dwelling on the earth might worship the beast, that former one, whose death-wound had been healed. And it did signs, so that it even made fire come down from heaven before the eyes of men; and it seduced those who dwell on the earth; or, as another translation has it, The earth and those who dwell in it.
Again he makes a transference of names. That beast with the heads he called 'earth,' and its head 'beast.' For he had said that the wound of its head was healed. Now, he says, 'the beast whose wound is healed' — showing that he calls all the parts of the beast 'beast,' because in all its functions there is the devil, who is the beast. The beast then with the two horns, which is a part of the beast, causes the beast to worship the beast, because he said also 'the earth,' so as to transfer the name of the beast onto the slain head of the old one, and not to say: 'The beast made the beast worship the beast.' For beast is one thing, earth another; since the beast is the people, the earth had slain. But he said 'the earth and those who dwell in it' not without reason.
For it would have sufficed to say 'the earth,' or 'those who dwell in the earth'; but he shows the force of the seduction, and that it has miserably enslaved to itself both soul and body. For he who falls by force, without lament, is captive in body only. But he who is seduced is captured both in body and in mind. Therefore he said: 'It makes the earth and those who dwell in it worship the beast, whose death-wound was healed, and it lived.' Let us look more attentively. Our Lord Jesus Christ has a wound from the sword, and He lived; but here he called it a beast, which has a wound made by the sword, and it lived. He speaks of the dragon being worshipped and the beast being worshipped. I was withdrawing when the dragon alone is worshipped by his own.
For not as the Church has a mediator bodily between herself and God, so also the devil has one between himself and his own, but only in name, from the imitation of Christ. That beast of which he spoke has no person between the devil and his own, because it is only a word, by which they say they worship Christ, who died and rose again (Rom. 8). In which word they worship the devil, who devised this counterfeit for his own. For Satan himself transforms himself as it were into an angel of light (2 Cor. 11), deceitfully presenting Christ to his own in name only. Moreover, he himself fills both his own place and that of the mediator, because he has no mediator except a counterfeit of Christ. This very pretence he says the beast has, having the wound of the sword, and yet living.
For it is the beast which under this name dwells between himself and his own. Therefore, whenever he said the beast is worshipped, which has the wound from the sword and lived, he pointed to the devil, concerning whom the Apostle says (2 Thess. 2): Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshipped, so that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as though he were God. There are therefore three: the devil, the beast as it were slain, the people with their rulers — but there are two with an image in the middle. And whenever he says the middle one is worshipped, the matter falls upon the devil, who fills both his own place and that of this middle name, when he sets himself before his own to be damnably worshipped, from an imitation of theft, under a feigned overshadowing of the word.
And it did great signs, so that it made fire come down from heaven before the eyes of men. Although he says it will do many signs, this memorable sign he set before the rest. This translation speaks as it were of the past, though it announces the future. Elsewhere, however, signifying the future, he says: 'So that it makes fire come down from heaven' — that is, from the Church down to the earthly ones — when, whether from the variety of nations or from the cunning of the deceiving enemy, it makes its ministers speak with new and many tongues, so that by this as it were a token they may chatter that they have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is truly read to have declared Christ's disciples in the form of fiery tongues over each one of old (Acts 2).
For this sign in particular the Lord also commends to believers, saying (Mark 16): And these signs shall follow those who believe: In my name they shall cast out demons, they shall speak with new tongues, and so forth. It is therefore no wonder if that beast, which deceitfully usurps for itself the name of the Lamb slain and living, should also fraudulently claim, in outward appearance, this bounty of the Holy Spirit through imitation, and should counterfeit for its ministers what leads to damnation — as we remember Simon of old aspired to and could not attain. For concerning the expulsion of demons and many signs, when the very ministers of Satan, enumerating them, shall have said (Matt. 7): Did we not prophesy in thy name, and in thy name cast out demons?
and so forth — the Lord does not approve those who boast, but condemns and reproves the obstinate. And therefore perhaps he wished specially to name this excellent sign of fire, by which the Holy Spirit is figured, because none mightier than it could be found. For although heresy seems to have many things in common with us, this gift in particular the Church of Christ alone boasts to possess. Finally, when the magicians of Pharaoh worked miracles like those of Moses (Exod. 8), the Holy Spirit is read to have frustrated them, when, succumbing in their assertions and overcome by a true confession, they said: 'This is the finger of God.' That the finger of God means the Holy Spirit, the Gospel attests, when one says (Matt. 12): 'By the Spirit of God I cast out demons'; another (Luke 11):
'By the finger of God I cast out demons.' Wherefore the vehemence of the seduction is here shown, so that the beast is thought to have that Spirit by whose resistance the fraud of the magicians was emptied out. On account of this it follows: And it seduced those who dwell on the earth by reason of the signs which were given it to do in the presence of the beast, and it tells the inhabitants of the earth to make an image of the beast, which has the wound made by the sword, and lived. As if he were to say:
This pretence so far prevailed, that the earthly ones, seduced by the signs of the beast, favoring the wretched beast with miserable assent, mutually encourage one another with reciprocal devotion to fabricate an image of the beast in the phantasm of the heart — like those who no longer think it must be doubted, confirmed as it were by the certain judgment of the aforesaid fire, that it truly is Christ Himself, when in Antichrist there is the devil, and that same malignant spirit in the image, who sets forth (by God's permission) such pits of seduction, so that he is said to give a spirit to the image of that beast, and that the image of the beast may speak.
This passage can be understood in a twofold manner: either because, at the compulsion of the judgment of that power, it is already persuaded in the whole body of the malignant — as though the devil were working, and the rulers pressing upon the people — that there might be one and the same profession for all, so that a uniform observance be brought forth by all, so that if anyone did not speak this through the image of the beast, that is, through mutual imitation, he should be killed. Thus finally he says: That the image of the beast might speak and act, so that whoever did not worship the image of the beast should be killed. Or otherwise, that just as by the mouth of the serpent he addressed the woman to seduce the first man (Gen. 3), so then by a like fraud he deludes many when through an idol he makes his consultants receive answers:
that is, through Antichrist, to whom they think honor must be paid as to God, though he is the man of sin and the son of perdition (2 Thess. 2) — as if this were it: And it was given to it to give a spirit to the image of that beast, and that the image of the beast might speak, and might cause that whoever did not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And it made all, great and small, rich and slaves, to have a mark in the right hand or on the foreheads. He wished to divide by single members those whom he more often embraces confusedly in one body and in the name of the beast. In the hand it signifies works, in the right hand the counterfeit of truth, on the forehead the profession of faith. And because they are defrauded of both goods, therefore they are said to be marked in both.
So that no one might be able to buy or sell, save he who has the mark of the name of the beast or the number of its name. In this mention of buying and selling he taught that, just as in good the Church hands down a symbol profitable for our salvation, so also they in evil are as it were aware that they are constrained and bound by such a defense, so that they are not allowed even to have license of buying or selling — like merchants who seem to be carried in one ship and are recognized to be held by a uniform sign; save he who has the mark of the name of the beast and the number of its name. Here is wisdom: he who has understanding, let him compute the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man, and its number is six hundred sixty-six.
But it is one thing: 'He who has the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of its name.' Above, finally, he mentioned the mark alone; afterward, by synonyms, he shows it — he calls it both mark and name and number of the name — 'Here is wisdom: he who has understanding, let him compute the number of the beast. For it is the number of a man,' he says. We shall therefore make the number which he mentioned to be understood, so that in the number we may recognize also the name and the mark. 'Its number,' he says, 'is six hundred sixty-six,' which we shall reckon according to the Greeks, especially since, writing to a Greek and according to the idiom of their tongue: 'I am,' he says (below, 22), 'Alpha and Omega.'
Having set forth, as far as he could, the pretences of the adverse party, by which the devil strives to usurp for himself the honor of Deity not owed him, so as to express Antichrist as opposed to divine honor, whether by the mark or by the number of its name — that is, of that most wicked will and action of the beast itself — he forewarns that the quality is to be investigated. For there is a name which, if it be reckoned by its characters by which the Greeks read numbers, you will assuredly find to fill up six hundred sixty-six; and interpreted it is also said to mean 'contrary to honor,' whereby he is called unfit, importunate, unbecoming: for not honor, but anathema, befits him.
Wherefore the name is found through the number, and the number is reckoned from the name, and by the very interpretation of the name the quality of merits is recognized. Likewise another name, which comprises the sum of the same number, can prudently be observed, which added together make six hundred and six. Its interpretation is understood to mean 'I deny.' And no wonder that Antichrist is said to be worthy of this appellation, that is, of denial, since to Christ befits the name of belief, He Himself testifying when He says (John 6): 'This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent'; and again (John 14): 'You believe in God; believe also in me.' And by this, whether you have said 'contrary to honor,' which it is,
or 'I deny,' which it is, both can rightly be referred to Antichrist, so that by two parts of speech — namely, the noun and the verb — both the quality of the person and the harshness of the deed may be intimated. For the very name of Christ, which Antichrist desires to be received under a false imitation, properly completes that number of days which he here more often foretells will be present in the persecution of Antichrist — that is, twelve hundred and twenty-five days, in whose likeness adversity fraudulently sets itself in opposition. This is expressed in the mark, that is, in the monogram, which is made in this manner, where the whole name of Christ is included in abridgment.
But the aforesaid number of the name alone likewise completes again the sum of twelve hundred and twenty-five days, in that we remember the form of the Lord's body intimated to us in the number forty-six, which the second Adam, Christ, took from Mary for the correcting of the errors of the first Adam; on account of which He says in the Gospel (John 2): 'Destroy this temple, and after three days I will raise it up'; and to the Jews answering: 'Forty-six years was this temple in building, and thou sayest, In three days I will raise it up?' — which the evangelist, expounding, says: 'But He spoke of the temple of His body.' And not without cause.
For the name Adam, through Greek letters, completes forty and six in this manner, which make forty-six. But when that same number has been resolved and written out and multiplied by itself — that is, forty-six — it nonetheless completes that number in Greek letters, in a way which, reduced into one, makes twelve hundred and twenty-five. Above, we spoke of the monogram. Now, the arranged series of the resolved name being set out, it is shown that the sum of the same number is concluded, so that, since both agree with each other, they may without doubt intimate the cause not of an empty, but of a certain mystery. To this perhaps pertains what the Apostle, speaking of the pretence of Antichrist, says (2 Thess. 2):
So that he sits in the temple of God, showing himself as though he were God — for in this book also: 'The temple of God was opened,' he says, 'in heaven,' namely born of the Virgin, so that just as the false imitation of the slain Lamb and of similar things, so also he may transfigure the temple of God by artifice, not by truth. But I do not doubt that some may be troubled about the number of twelve hundred and twenty-five, because three years and six months do not make up the same sum of number. But it must be known that Divine Scripture does not always intimate that same time in one way, nor under the definition of one and the same number. For in this very book, speaking of the woman suffering, it says (above, 12): 'And she shall be nourished for a time and times and half a time.'
But elsewhere, concerning the dragon and the beast (above, 11): 'There was given to it,' he says, 'power for forty-two months'; and likewise, 'I will give,' he says, 'to my two witnesses, that they may prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days' — since it is agreed that between forty-two months and twelve hundred and sixty days a number of seventeen days differs. Nor is it only in this book that we have known this number to be variously set down, since even in the visions of Daniel we have known this time to be signified by differing quantities of number. For he says (Dan. 9, 11, 12): 'A time of times,' that is, one and two years, signifying after the manner of the Hebrews. Likewise he says: 'Twelve hundred and ninety days.'
But elsewhere, in the tenth vision, he sets down thirteen hundred and thirty-five days — all of which things concerning the signification of that very time seem to be shown in such a way, both that the day of judgment or of the second coming might not be divulged to human knowledge, and that the opulence of the divine discourse and the diverse report might exercise the devout. To the disciples inquiring, therefore, if at this time He would restore the kingdom to Israel, the Lord thus responded: 'It is not for you to know the times which the Father has placed in His own power.' For even in the Greek — that is, forty-six — written by its characters, if it be subsumed under particular numbers, does not depart from the signification of that same time, for it makes thirteen hundred and seventeen. CHAP. XIV.
And behold, I saw the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand; and they have His name, and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. The likeness which adversity cultivates, and to which it makes itself like, having been shown, it was fitting that the unconquered camp of the Church also be declared, lest a weak mind should think that the same Church had either succumbed or perished under so vehement an onslaught of persecution, and lest it should suppose that any of the number of the elect had fallen; he preferred to make mention of those who resolved to take hold of the path of the narrower way and the straiter track, and in order to show that it belongs to imitation of the adversaries, not to truth, which he knew the good rightly bear as men of God:
They had, he says, his name (that is, of the Lamb) and the name of his Father written on their foreheads. This number, moreover, though finite, ought to be understood as standing for the infinite, and it is hallowed by the signification of a hidden mystery. For when the number three is tripled it becomes nine, and when four is multiplied fourfold it becomes sixteen. Nine times sixteen makes up a hundred and forty-four; and in this number the fullness of the virgin throng is mystically intimated, so that when so copious a multitude is spoken of concerning these, no doubt need be entertained concerning the remaining members of the Church.
And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters or of great thunder, and the voice which I heard was as of harpers harping on their harps, and they sang a new song in the sight of the throne and in the sight of the four living creatures and of the elders. And no one could utter the song save those hundred and forty-four thousand who had been redeemed from the earth. These are they who have not defiled themselves with women, for they remained virgins. These are they who follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes. To certain interpreters it seemed that this passage should be expounded thus: that it is to be understood not of those who are virgins in faith and in flesh alone, but also of those who have been able to use lawful wedlock with temperance;
adding the examples of the prophets and patriarchs, whom we know to have pleased God by the highest zeal for holiness, lest men of so excellent a life should be judged to be excluded, separated from the fellowship of those very virgins.