The Beasts from the Earth and Sea

While the word “beast” can sometimes be used morally to describe beastly men, false teachers, or corrupt religious leaders, the apocalyptic beast imagery in Daniel and Revelation is governed first by Daniel’s prophetic pattern. In Daniel, beasts represent kingdoms or kingdom-systems, while horns, heads, and speaking mouths reveal ruling powers, offices, or voices operating within those systems. For that reason, the Beast from the Earth should not be reduced merely to one man or one modern office. Particular offices, leaders, or religious orders may express its character, but the symbol itself is broader.

The Beast from the Sea (Revelation 13:1–10) symbolizes Papal Rome, which arose from the “sea,” representing the chaos and multitude of nations. It is also identified as the “Little Horn” that emerged from among the ten horns of the fourth beast in Daniel 7. This beast represents the religious-political system that gained dominance over the former Western Roman Empire, using both spiritual authority and political power to enforce its rule and suppress dissent.

The Beast from the Earth (Revelation 13:11–18) represents a secondary power that assists the first beast by deceiving those who dwell on the earth and directing their allegiance back to the first beast. It has a lamb-like appearance, suggesting a religious or Christianized character, but it speaks like a dragon, revealing the same spirit of coercion, deception, and opposition to Christ. It is best understood as the false-prophetic and enforcing apparatus by which Papal authority was preached, defended, legitimized, and imposed.

At the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, it wasn’t just the Pope but also the clergy and civil authorities, working together, that imposed the mark of allegiance on Protestants, demanding conformity and obedience to Papal authority. This alliance between the Papacy and political powers in countries like France embodied the very essence of what the Beast from the Earth represented: an unholy combination of spiritual and temporal authority, enforcing submission to a system that would not tolerate dissent.

The Two Horns of the Earth Beast

The Beast from the Earth is described as having two horns, which may be understood as the dual instruments of Papal enforcement: religious authority and civil authority. These two powers worked together to uphold the first beast. One shaped the conscience; the other enforced conformity. One taught submission to the Papal system as a spiritual duty; the other punished resistance through law, social pressure, economic exclusion, imprisonment, exile, or death.

The first horn represents the religious power of the Papal system: priests, clergy, theologians, confessors, and other spiritual authorities who taught the people to view submission to Rome as obedience to God. Through preaching, confession, doctrine, ritual, and ecclesiastical discipline, they shaped the religious imagination of the people and promoted Papal allegiance as a matter of faith.

The second horn represents the civil power that enforced Papal authority through kings, rulers, magistrates, courts, armies, and laws. This temporal power ensured that those who resisted Rome did not merely face church discipline, but also social, legal, economic, and physical consequences.

Together, these two horns formed the complete mechanism of control. The religious authority directed belief and worship, while the civil authority carried out the legal and physical enforcement of Papal decrees. This union of spiritual deception and temporal coercion allowed the Papal system to exercise immense power over both conscience and society, compelling allegiance and punishing those who refused to submit with extreme economic and social consequences.