| rdfs:comment
| - In Christian belief, The Beast (sometimes called the Beast of the Apocalypse or the Beast of Revelations, but most commonly, simply The Beast) is a hellish monster from the Book of Revelations in the New Testament. The Beast (of Revelations) is separate from the Dragon (of Revelations) and the Beast from the Earth (more commonly called the False Prophet, a person who metaphorically resembles a lamb, but speaks like a dragon), though all 3 of these entities formed the Unholy Trinity. The Beast emerges from the sea as the Devil's (the Dragon's) minion. It has 7 heads and 10 horns total. It also had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. The Beast is also identified with the number 666. Apparently, the Devil gives the Beast his power, throne, and authority, allowing the Beast to be the D
|
| abstract
| - In Christian belief, The Beast (sometimes called the Beast of the Apocalypse or the Beast of Revelations, but most commonly, simply The Beast) is a hellish monster from the Book of Revelations in the New Testament. The Beast (of Revelations) is separate from the Dragon (of Revelations) and the Beast from the Earth (more commonly called the False Prophet, a person who metaphorically resembles a lamb, but speaks like a dragon), though all 3 of these entities formed the Unholy Trinity. The Beast emerges from the sea as the Devil's (the Dragon's) minion. It has 7 heads and 10 horns total. It also had the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. The Beast is also identified with the number 666. Apparently, the Devil gives the Beast his power, throne, and authority, allowing the Beast to be the Devil's earthly incarnation to wage war against the saints and virtuous imprisoning them or killing them and forcing everyone else to go along and obey the Devil's dictates for a span of 42 months during the End Times. The False Prophet gives glory to The Beast and sets up a false religion where the people of Earth worship The Dragon. The Beast is supposed to embody political power while the False Prophet embodies religious power. With the False Prophet in power, he sets up it where no business can be conducted without the Mark of the Beast, which was a symbol on either their forehead or right hand. The Whore of Babylon also becomes an ally of The Beast. The Beast, the False Prophet, and the Kings of Earth and their armies would fight against Christ (having arrived in the Second Coming) and an army of angels at Armageddon (Megiddo, a tell [artifical hill] in modern-day Israel). The Beast and the False Prophet, the Earthly agents of The Dragon, would be cast into a lake of burning brimstone for eternity after they lose the battle and the rest of the lot are killed by the sword. The Dragon would be cast into a bottomless pit (the pit Apollyon had the key to) for 1000 years (after that Millennium, the Dragon/Satan will return leading armies of wicked mortals directly, try to attack the saints and the blessed, but be destroyed by God's fire with Satan cast into the same lake of burning brimstone for eternity and God's fire purifying the Earth of all sin, created a New Heaven, New Jerusalem, and New Earth, free from sin and evidently with no oceans or seas). The Book of Revelations was written by St. John of Patmos around 96CE. The book is rife with coded symbolism of the then current geopolitical situation. The Beast's 7 heads are thought to represent 7 regimes which persecuted Christianity, namely the 7 Roman Emperors up to the time John of Patmos wrote Revelations: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Titus. The enigmatic 8th head which exists yet doesn't exist is Domitian (it should be noted this index leaves out the emperors who only reigned for a few months in 69CE, the Year of Four Emperors: Galba, Otho, Vitellius). Christians at the time believed Nero didn't die and he was still out there (due to Nero's death being witnessed by only a few people). It is important to remember Christians of that era thought they were living in the End Times. In their eschatological state of mind, they believed Nero would return leading a powerful army to avenge himself on those who opposed him. Nero was the first major persecutor of Christians in the Roman Empire (Domitian was the second). Nero's persecution was limited to core of the Roman Empire, but Domitian's was found in every province of the Empire (which would aptly describe the persecution depicted in Revelations). The passage "the one that was, that is not, and that is to return" apparently describes Nero and Domitian-- the description of The Beast says it has 8 heads, yet 7, and the 8th head (Domitian) doesn't exist because it is the same as the 5th head (Nero). The 5th head (Nero) is the one which was wounded and killed, yet was healed and came back to life (as the 8th head, Domitian). The 10 horns supposedly describe the 10 kings who rule the provinces of the Roman Empire, who only have the power to rule because it comes from The Beast. The number 666 is a coded reference to Nero involving Jewish numerology, where when spelled in Hebrew, "Nero Caesar" (which translated back into Latin/Greek would spell NRON QSR), where N has a value of 50, R has a value of 200, O a value of 6, Q a value of 100, S a value of 60, and when all letters are added up, they sum to 666. The Mark of the Beast derives from the Roman Empire where Roman currency needed to be used for any business transactions and all coins were marked with the image of the Emperor. The False Prophet represents the Cult of the Emperor, who set up the system of worship for the Roman Emperor. A note on apocalypse: while the word is usually used in the context as being a religious-themed doomsday, the equivalent of Ragnarok for Christianity, the word is a Greek word (the language of the New Testament) referring to an unveiling of something hidden (a revelation basically).
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)