A STUDY OF REVELATION Chapter Thirteen

This first beast in Rev 13 expresses Rome’s world power united with Christianity attacking the Church from without; the persecutions The leopard beast is seen as the Holy Roman Empire which is the union of church and state. Constantine is accredited as uniting the Roman church and state. The whole passage seems to teach the transition from a pagan Roman Empire to a so-called Holy Roman Empire.

Jerome and Prosper give it as their opinion that the name of blasphemy consists in the appellation urbs aeterna, eternal city, applied to Rome; and modern commentators refer it to the idolatrous worship of the Romans and papists.

In Dan 7:2-7 the lion is introduced as the symbol of the Babylonian power; the bear, as the symbol of the Medo-Persian; the leopard, as the symbol of the Macedonian; and a nondescript animal, fierce, cruel, and mighty, with two horns as the symbol of the Roman. In John there is one animal representing the Roman power, as if it were made up of all these: a leopard with the feet of a bear, and the mouth of a lion, with two horns, and with the general description of a fierce monster.

The phrase “wounded to death” means that it received a mortal wound. We see pagan Rome dying in this verse. The deadly wound which brought death to pagan Rome was healed by another head. Pure idolatry was to be replaced by a false form of Christianity.

The dragon is the devil – who is seen as giving power to the beast through false worship. In reality they were actually worshipping Satan; Through idols, images, angels, the virgin Mary and saints departed. "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?" That is the government, who is able to stand up and battle against Rome which had the whole world under her sway at that time.

And power was given unto him to continue forty and two months Forty-two months are prophetic, 1 Day = 1year 1260 Years of turmoil = Dark Ages (250 A.D. – 1510 A.D.)

The remnant of the woman's seed, Rev_12:17, Saints are those whom God has set apart for himself, Christ has cleansed from sin by his blood, and the Holy Spirit has sanctified by his grace; and who under the influence of it live holy lives and conversations; against such Satan always bore an enmity; and it is an aggravation of the wickedness of the Romish antichrist (John Gill)

The beast has already been shown to be the symbol of a kingdom or empire, the rising up of this second beast represents the rising up of another empire. This empire is totally different from the preceding. This beast is the spiritual empire, or, in other words, the Roman hierarchy, the papacy or Catholic church. The pagan head of Rome was wounded to death. But that deadly wound was healed by Catholicism. This is where the beast was brought back to life, it exercised all of the power of the first beast or pagan empire.

In 1054 AD, a formal split occurred between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox (Greek Orthodox) churches. This division remains in effect today.

SECTION TWO THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH CHAPTER TWO THE SACRAMENTS OF HEALING 1420 Through the sacraments of Christian initiation, man receives the new life of Christ. Now we carry this life "in earthen vessels," and it remains "hidden with Christ in God." 1 We are still in our "earthly tent," subject to suffering, illness, and death. 2 This new life as a child of God can be weakened and even lost by sin The Lord Jesus Christ, physician of our souls and bodies, who forgave the sins of the paralytic and restored him to bodily health, 3 has willed that his Church continue, in the power of the Holy Spirit, his work of healing and salvation, even among her own members. This is the purpose of the two sacraments of healing: the sacrament of Penance and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.

These letters which make up a name have a numerical value. Every Greek letter has a numerical value. Verse eighteen says this man has a number, and it is the number of his name. That number is six hundred threescore and six.

Lateinos was considered to be the first king and ruler of the ancient Roman Empire. The name ‘Lateinos’ (the Greek form of the Latin word ‘Latinos’, by which the Romans called themselves), is also the name of the beast. The earliest church fathers understood it to refer to the name of the ‘fourth empire upon earth’ (Daniel 7:23), since the beast of the sea in Revelation 13 is clearly the same as the fourth beast of Daniel 7. Latin is the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. Church Documents are usually published first in Latin, and then translated from the Latin into other languages. The association of "Lateinos" with 666 was believed by Irenæus (ca A.D.) who proposed in his Against Heresies that it was the name of the fourth kingdom in Daniel 7:7.

L = 30 lambda A = 1 alpha T = 300 tau E = 5 epsilon I = 10 iota N = 50 nu O = 70 omicron S = 200 sigma 666