African leopard at H4-2 Road North of Crocodile Bridge, Kruger NP, Mpumalanga, SOUTH AFRICA – photo by Bernard Dupont and used in Wikipedia “Leopard” under license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
(2) BIBLICAL MYTHOLOGY – VILLAIN: BEAST
“Let him that has understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.”
The Beast of the Apocalypse – or as I like to call it, that sixy beast.
The ultimate Biblical bad boy, bar one.
Biblical beasts are surprisingly prolific. Even the reference to Beast of the Apocalypse doesn’t exactly narrow it down as a significant number of those Biblical beasts ARE beasts of the Apocalypse.
Hell (heh), there’s even two beasts introduced in the very chapter in which the Beast of the Apocalypse makes debut appearance – the beast of the earth, “later revealed in the text to be a false prophet”, and the beast of the sea, “commonly identified as the Antichrist”.
It is the beast of the sea that is the one labelled the Great Beast or Beast of the Apocalypse, indeed the one that comes to mind most in popular consciousness upon reference to the Beast of the Apocalypse – and not just because it pops out of the sea like some swimsuit scene in the middle of the Book of Apocalypse.
“And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea”.
It’s not just because of its monstrous hybrid form.
“Having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion”.
It’s not just because it seems to have resurrected from death.
“And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed”.
It’s not even just because that death and resurrection among other trappings invoke it being identified as the Antichrist, the infernal inversion of Jesus.
“And the world wondered after the beast…They worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?”
It’s because of this Beast has its mystique – with the Image of the Beast, the Mark of the Beast, and above all, the Number of the Beast, that infamous 666. Or is that 616?
The text itself exhorts the reader that the Number of the Beast is essentially symbolic code for a man – “and the broad consensus in contemporary scholarship that the number of the beast refers to the Roman Emperor Nero”. As I understand it, that’s because 666 was alphanumeric code for “Nero Caesar” written in Hebrew letters. There was a variant code for 616, hence that Number of the Beast popped up in some manuscripts, but it just doesn’t have the same resonance of 666.
Well, Nero or some weird revenant superpowered uber-Nero, with one of the heads of the beast having healed from a fatal wound, matching the so-called Nero Redivivus Legend, or the widespread belief that Nero was either not dead after his apparent suicide or somehow would return.
ELDRITCH ABOMINATION RANKING
“Having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion”.
Yeah – we’re talking high eldritch abomination ranking.
FANTASY DARK LORD RANKING
We’re also talking high fantasy dark lord ranking, because the Beast of the Apocalypse actually reigns as fantasy dark lord in its own text. However, even during its reign it does seem to play the role of lieutenant to a higher or in this case lower power, a role TV Tropes dubs as the dragon, ironically enough to the figure in the Book of Apocalypse known as the Dragon or Great Red Dragon. If the Serpent is more akin to the Mouth of Sauron, the Beast is the muscle – more akin to the Witch-King or lord of the Nazgul.
RATING: 5 STARS*****
S-TIER (DEVIL TIER)