Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

13:3-4
of the ten imperial provinces, while the seven heads are
explained as the line of the Caesars (17:9-11): Nero is
one of the “heads.” We must keep in mind the logical
distinction already drawn between sense (the meaning
and associations of a symbol) and referent (the special
significance of the symbol as it is used in a particular
case). The connotations of heads and horns are the
same in both the Dragon and the Beast, but they refer
to different objects.
In a nightmarish parody of the Biblical High Priest,
who wore the divine Name on his forehead (Ex. 28:36-
38), the Beast displays on his heads blasphemous
names: According to the Roman imperial theology, the
Caesars were gods. Each emperor was called Augustus or
Sebastos, meaning One to be worshiped; they also took on
the name divus (god) and even Deus and Theos (God).
Many temples were erected to them throughout the
Empire, especially, as we have noted, in Asia Minor.
The Roman Caesars received honor belonging only
to the one true God; Nero commanded absolute
obedience, and even erected a 120-foot-high image of
himself. For this reason St. Paul called Caesar “the man
of sin”; he was, St. Paul said, “the son of destruction,
who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called
god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the
temple of God, displaying himself as being God” (2
Thess. 2:3-4). St. John emphasizes this aspect of the
Beast: And there was given to him a mouth speaking
arrogant words and blasphemies. . . . And he opened
his mouth in blasphemies against God (13:5-6). The
Christians were persecuted because they refused to join
in this idolatrous Emperor-cult.
The Roman Empire is further symbolized as a ravenous,
ferocious animal, untamed and under the Curse. St.
John says the appearance of the Beast was like a
leopard, with feet like those of a bear, and a mouth
like the mouth of a lion: “The three animals, thus
combined by the writer, symbolize swiftness and
ferocity in springing upon the prey, tenacity in holding
it and dragging it away, and a ravenous appetite for
devouring.” 3 These are also the very animals (listed in
reverse order) used to describe the first three of the four
great world empires in Daniel 7:1-6 (Babylon, Medo-
Persia, and Greece; cf. Daniel’s description of the same
empires under a different symbol, in Dan. 2:31-45).
The fourth empire, Rome, partakes of the evil, beastlike
characteristics of the other empires, but it is much
worse: “Behold, a fourth Beast, dreadful and terrifying
and extremely strong; and it had large iron teeth. It
devoured and crushed, and trampled down the
remainder with its feet; and it was different from all the
beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns” (Dan.
7:7). 4 This, as we noted at 12:3, is the origin of the
Dragon’s (and thus the Beast’s) ten horns and seven
heads (the three heads of beasts 1, 2, and 4, plus the
four heads of beast 3: Dan. 7:6). The Beast of
Revelation is clearly the Roman Empire, which
“combined in itself all the elements of the terrible and
the oppressive, which had existed in the aggregate in
the other great empires that preceded it; its extension
too was equal to them all united.” 5
This Beast, however, is not just an institution, but a
person; specifically, as we shall see, it is the Emperor
Nero. This is because, particularly the way the Bible
looks at things, the two could be considered as one.
Rome was, to some extent, covenantally identified with
its leader, as the human race was with Adam; the
Empire was embodied and represented in the reigning
Caesar (Nero). Thus St. John’s prophecy can shift back
and forth between them, or consider them both
together, under the same designation. And both Nero
and the Empire were sunk in degrading, degenerate,
bestial activities. Nero, who murdered numerous
members of his own family (including his pregnant
wife, whom he kicked to death); who was a
homosexual, the final stage in degeneracy (Rom. 1:24-
32); whose favorite aphrodisiac consisted of watching
people suffer the most horrifying and disgusting
tortures; who dressed up as a wild beast in order to
attack and rape male and female prisoners; who used
the bodies of Christians burning at the stake as the
original “Roman candles” to light up his filthy garden
parties; who launched the first imperial persecution of
Christians at the instigation of the Jews, in order to
destroy the Church; this animalistic pervert was the
ruler of the most powerful empire on earth. And he set
the tone for his subjects. Rome was the moral sewer of
the world. 6
3-4 And I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain,
and his fatal wound was healed. Some have pointed
out that, after Nero was killed, the rumor began to
spread that he would rise again and recapture the
throne; in some way, they suppose, St. John must be
referring to this Nero redivivus myth. This, it seems to
me, is a very unsatisfactory method of dealing with
Scripture. St. John mentions the Beast’s “death-wound”
three times in this passage (see v. 12, 14); clearly, this is
much more than a casual symbol, and we should
attempt a Biblical explanation for it. 7
The Beast, as we saw, resembles the Dragon. The fact
3. Moses Stuart, A Commentary on the Apocalypse (Andover: Allen, Merrill and
Wardwell, two vols., 1845), Vol. 2, p. 276.
4. According to Moses Stuart and Milton Terry, Daniel’s beasts are Babylon,
Media, Persia, and Greece. Even if this were the case (which I doubt), its
“rebirth” in the imagery of Revelation would mean simply that Rome
combines the worst characteristics of the four preceding world empires.
5. Ibid.
6. See Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, Robert Graves, trans. (New York:
Penguin Books, revised cd., 1979), pp. 213-46; Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial
Rome, Michael Grant, trans. (New York: Penguin Books, revised cd., 1977),
pp. 252-397; Miriam T. Griffin, Nero: The End of a Dynasty (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1984).
7. This point is brought up by virtually every commentary that espouses (or
even takes notice of) the preterist interpretation. It is generally considered to
be a crucial argument; the impression is given that the case as a whole stands
or falls with the Nero redivivus myth. My objections to its use as the
interpretive crux are, briefly, as follows: John was writing while Nero was still
alive, and could not have been appealing to a myth which had not yet arisen;
more importantly, such an approach is flawed since it uses pagan fables rather
than Scripture as its primary source for interpretation. The Bible itself is the
broad hermeneutical context for the canonical books. The value of
extrabiblical literature is, at best, secondary. (Thus the redivivus myth may be
of some minor importance as a historical complement to the theological
perspective; indeed, it is possible that a mistaken interpretation of John’s
prophecy gave rise to the myth in the first place.)
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