Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

17:11-12
destiny is utter destruction, and he cannot succeed in
destroying the Church.
But the Dragon/Beast will be successful in carrying off
apostate Israel into his idolatrous cult. Those who
dwell on the Land will wonder . . . when they see the
Beast, that he was and is not and will come. The word
used earlier for the Beast’s rise from the Abyss is
anabaino – , in mimicry of Christ’s Resurrection/Ascension;
the word come here is pariste – mi (the verb form of
parousia), in imitation of Christ’s Coming in power and
glory, bringing judgment and salvation (the definitive
Parousia occurred at the Ascension, resulting in
Christ’s Parousia against Jerusalem in A.D. 70). Thus,
just as the first-century Christians lived in expectation
of their Lord’s near Parousia, so the apostate Jews
looked to the Beast for deliverance and salvation. The
“second coming” of the Dragon, after his apparent (and
real) defeat by Christ, was an occasion of wonder,
astonishment, and worship by the Christ-rejecting
Jews. The rise of the total state, in opposition to the
Kingdom of Christ, was for rebellious Israel an
ascension to glory, a parousia, a day of the lord. The
Beast was their Messiah, and his Anti-Parousia
delivered them – into the hands of Apollyon, the
perdition and destruction of the Abyss. The only
ultimate issue of the Beast’s ascension from the Abyss is
the greater damnation of himself and his worshipers.
Why, ultimately, did the Jews reject Christ and worship
the Dragon? Because, in contrast to Christ’s elect, who
were “chosen in Him before the foundation of the
world” (Eph. 1:4) apostate Israel’s name has not been
written in the Book of Life from the foundation of
the world (cf. 13:8). St. Peter wrote that Jesus Christ,
the great Cornerstone, was for the Jews “a Stone of
stumbling and a rock of offense; for they stumble
because they are disobedient to the Word, and to this
doom they were also appointed” (1 Peter 2:8). 13
Instead, the Church has inherited the former status
(Ex. 19:6) held by Israel: “But you are a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own
possession . . .” (1 Pet. 2:9).
9-10 The angel turns to speak of the Dragon’s
incarnation in the Beast from the Sea. Here is the
mind which has wisdom. The seven heads are seven
mountains on which the woman sits. The “seven
mountains” again identify the Beast as Rome, famous
for its “seven hills”; 14 but these also correspond to the
line of the Caesars, for they are seven kings; five have
fallen: The first five Caesars were Julius, Augustus,
Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius. 15 One is: Nero, the
sixth Caesar, was on the throne as St. John was writing
the Revelation. The other has not yet come; and
when he comes, he must remain a little while: Galba,
the seventh Caesar, reigned for less than seven months.
11 But the fall of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the
severe political chaos attending it must not be
interpreted by Christians to mean the end of troubles.
For their real enemy is the Beast, who will become
incarnated in other Caesars as well. He is also an
eighth king, yet is of the seven: the antichristian
brutality of succeeding tyrants will mark them as being
of the same stripe as their predecessors. Eight is the
number of resurrection in the Bible; St. John is warning
that even though the Empire will seem to disintegrate
after the rule of the seven kings, it will be “resurrected”
again, to live on in other persecutors of the Church. Yet
the Empire’s comeback will not result in victory for the
Beast, for even the eighth, the resurrected Beast, goes
to destruction. The Church will have to exercise
patience during the period of the Beast’s ascendancy,
but she has the assurance that her enemies will not
succeed. Their King will be victorious; His servants
have been predestined to share in His triumph.
12 The ten horns which St. John saw on the Beast are
ten kings. The number 10 in the Bible, as we have
noted on other occasions, is related to the concept of
“manyness,” of quantitative or numerical fullness. That
these “kings” are associated with the Beast, adorning
his heads as “crowns,” and that they receive authority
with the Beast (i.e., by virtue of their relationship with
him) indicates that they are rulers subject to, or allied
with, the Empire. Rome actually had ten imperial
provinces, and some have read this as a reference to
them. 16 It is not necessary, however, to attempt a
precise definition of these ten subject kings; the symbol
simply represents “the totality of those allied or subject
kings who aided Rome in her wars both on Judaism and
Christianity.” 17 The burden of the text is to point to
these kings, with whom the Harlot has plied her trade
13. In context (v. 6-8), St. Peter is quoting from Isaiah’s prophecies of the Jews’
rejection of Christ (Isa. 8:14; 28:16; see Matt. 28:12-15). John Brown of
Edinburgh commented on 1 Peter 2:8: “The direct reference in the term
disobedient is, no doubt, to the unbelieving Jews. When God proclaimed to
them, ‘Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious
corner-stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not make haste,’ –
they disbelieved the declaration. They disobeyed the command. They
rejected the stone. They would not build on it. They would not receive Jesus
as the Messiah; on the contrary, they ‘took him, and with wicked hands they
crucified and slew him.’” (Expository Discourses on 1 Peter, two vols.;
Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, [1848] 1975, Vol. 1, p. 314).
14. It is not at all necessary, with Russell (The Parousia, p. 492), to seek seven
mountains in Jerusalem as the fulfillment of this statement. The Harlot is
seated on the Beast, and thus on the seven hills of Rome; in other words,
apostate Judaism, centered in the City of Jerusalem, is supported by the
Roman Empire.
15. This has been called into question by some, since, in a technical sense, the
Empire began with Augustus, not Julius (cf. Tacitus, The Annals, i.1). Yet that
was a technicality which, as far as the normal conversation and writing of the
first century were concerned, was irrelevant. For all practical purposes, Julius
Caesar was Emperor: He claimed the title imperator, and most early Roman,
Christian, and Jewish writers count him as the first Emperor. Suetonius
begins his Lives of the Twelve Caesars with Julius as the first Emperor, as does
Dio Cassius in his Roman History. Book 5 of the Sibylline Oracles calls Julius
“the first king: and 4 Ezra 12:15 speaks of Augustus as “the second” of the
emperors. For our purposes, Josephus seems to provide the most convincing
testimony, since he wrote for both a Roman and a Jewish audience, in the
common parlance of the day. In his Antiquities of the Jews he clearly speaks of
Augustus and Tiberius as the second and third emperors (xviii. ii.2), of
Caligula as the fourth (xviii.vi.10), and of Julius as the first (xix. i.11). The
most extensive discussion of all the evidence is in Moses Stuart, Commentary
on the Apocalypse, two vols. (Andover: Allen, Merrill, and Wardwell, 1845),
Vol. 2, pp. 445-52; cf. Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John: Studies in
Introduction with an Exegetical and Critical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker
Book House, [1919] 1979), pp. 701f.
16. These were: Italy, Achaia, Asia, Syria, Egypt, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain,
and Germany. See F. W. Farrar, The Early Days of Chrtitianity (Chicago and
New York: Belford, Clarke & Co., 1882), p. 532.
17. Terry, p. 433.
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