Beast

Beast (wild). The symbol of a tyrannical usurping power or monarchy, that destroys its neighbours or sub­jects, and preys upon all about it, and persecutes the Church of God.

The four beasts in Dan 7:3, are explained in Dan 7:17, of four kings or kingdoms, as the word king is inter­preted, Dan 7:23.

In several other places of Scripture, wild beasts are the symbols of tyrannical powers; as in Eze 34:28, and Jer 2:9, where the beasts of the field are explained by the Targum, of the kings of the heathen and their armies.

Amongst profane authors, the comparison of cruel governors to savage beasts, is obvious. And Horace calls the Roman people a many-headed beast, Lib. 1. Ep i. ver 76 And as for the Oneirocritics,^f1 wild beasts are generally the symbols of enemies, whose malice and power is to be judged of, in proportion to the nature and magnitude of the wild beasts they are represented by. Pro 28:15.

The Head of a beast answers to the supreme power, and that whether the supreme power be in one single per­son or in many. For as the power abstractedly is not considered, so neither the persons abstracted from their power; but both, in concreto, make up this head politic. And therefore, if the supreme power be in many, those many are the head, and not the less one bead for consist­ing of many persons, no more than the body is less one body for consisting of many persons.

It is important to distinguish between the body of a symbolical beast and its appendages. The body of a monarchy in the symbolic style, is the seat of its power; as Italy of the Roman Empire: its horns are those king­doms and countries, which, by conquest, by marriage, or otherwise, may be united with it, and give it strength. These may remain united with it, be multiplied, or detached, but the body of the monarchy may still continue essentially the same.

BEAR,

Bear according to the Persian Interpreter in ch. 274, signifies a rich, powerful, and fool-hardy enemy. (See Pro 17:12.) According to Aristotle the bear is παμφάγον, a greedy animal, as well as silly and fool-hardy.

A Bear with three ribs in its month, denotes the kingdom of the Medes and Persians. It was said unto it, "Arise, devour much flesh." This was to shew the cruelty of those people, and their greediness after blood and plunder. Their character was that of an all-devouring bear, which has no pity. The ribs in the mouth of it represent those nations which they especially made a prey of. Dan 7:5.

DRAGON

according to the Oneirocritics, ch. 283, is the symbol of a king that is an enemy; and, according to Artemidorus, Lib 3 ch 2 the symbol of a pirate, mur­derer, or some such sort of person. Isa 51:9; Psa 74:13-14; Rev 12:3. In Eze 29:3-4, it is used as the symbol of the Egyptian king: and the dragon there mentioned is called the dragon in the rivers, and represented with scales; and is therefore a crocodile, a creature which is ranked among the serpents by Horus Apollo;^f2 and is called by the Arabians Pharoah,^f3 and which was held by the Egyp­tians as the symbol of all mischief. ^f4 And therefore Typho being, in their belief, the author of all evil,^f5 was supposed to have transformed himself into a crocodile, or dragon.^f6 So that the principle of all evil, or Typho, was, in the sym­bolical character represented by a crocodile or dragon; and under this symbol was the said principle worshipped. Agreeably whereunto in the Chaldean theology the prin­ciple of evil was called Arimanius;^f7 i.e. the crafty serpent, from H6191 crafty, and H5172 serpent.

Again, according to Artemidorus, lib. 2. c. 13, the ser­pent is the symbol of disease and enmity; and all the oriental Oneirocritics, in c. 283, say that serpents, in pro­portion to their size, are to be interpreted of great and little enemies; and in this sense is the symbol used in Isa 14:29; Isa 27:1; and very often by the poets. ^f8

The Roman emperors wore, among other things to distinguish them, silken robes, embroidered with gold, in which dragons were represented, as is affirmed by Chry­sostom.

LEOPARD, as a symbol, is used in the prophets upon the account of three qualities; viz. cruelty,^f9 swiftness,^f10 and the variety of the skin.^f11 These qualities of the leopard are also taken notice of by profane authors, as Oppian and others. Upon the account of the first quality the Persian and Egyptian interpreters^f12 explain the leopard as an implacable enemy. Dan 7:6; Rev 13:2.

As to swiftness, a leopard will overtake thrice or oftener the swiftest horse, though it draw back after the first or second overtaking; and therefore the leopard, in Daniel, expresses very well the speed of the conquests of Alexander the Great in Persia and the Indies, which were performed in ten or twelve years’ time: (his way being μηδέν άναβαλόμενος never delaying.) And by the variety of the spots were represented those various nations, by whose help lie became the conqueror of the world.

By the variety of the spots in the leopard, is denoted also, according to Artemidorus, lib. 1., wickedness and deceit.

Amongst the Egyptians a leopard was the symbol of a crafty pernicious person:^f13 and by the Oneirocritics, in ch. 272, the leopard is explained of a powerful fraudulent enemy.

A leopard with four heads and four wings of a fowl, denotes the kingdom of the Macedonians or Gre­cians. The leopard being remarkable for its swift­ness; hence, especially with wings on its back, it is a fit emblem of the conquests of the Macedonians under the command of Alexander. As the lion had two wings to represent the rapidity of the Babylonian conquests, so this leopard has four, to signify the swifter progress of the Macedonians.

The four heads also are significant. Fifteen years after the death of Alexander, his brother and two sons being murdered, his kingdom was divided by Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus, into four lesser king­doms, which they seized for themselves. Dan 7:6.

LION. A lion with eagles’ wings represents the Baby­lonian empire. Dan 7:4.

F1 Oneir. c. 132, 217, 232.

F2 Hieroglyph. 31. L. ii.

F3 Vid. Bochart. Phaleg. L. i. c. 15. Gol. Lex. Arab. Cot 1789.

F4 Vid. Diodor. Sic. L. iii.

F5Vide Plutarch. de Iside & Osir. p. 409, & iElian. de Animal. L. x. c. 81.

F6 Strab. Geogr. L. xvi. p. 750.

F7 Plut. de Is. & Osir. p. 407. Ed. Ald. Diog. Laert. Proem. § 8.

F8 Æschyl. Choeph. ver. 246, 928. Suppl. ver. 902. Eurip. Ion. ver. 1262.

F9 Isa 11:6; Jer 5:6; Hos 13:7.    

F10 Hab. i. s.

F11 Jer 13:23.

F12 C. 272

F13 Hor. Ap. Hierogl. 86, Lib. ii

Representing two distinct Hebrew words, bihemah and chay, "cattle" and "living creature," or "animal." Beir means either collectively all cattle (Exo 22:4; Psa 78:48) or specially beasts of burden (Gen 45:17). The "beheemah" answer to the hoofed animals. In Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 some principal divisions of the animal kingdom are given; the cloven footed, chewing the cud, ruminantia. The aim of Scripture is not natural science, but religion. Where system is needful for this, it is given simple and effective for the purposes of religion. If Scripture had given scientific definitions, they would have been irrelevant and even marring to the effect designed. The language is therefore phenomenal, i.e. according to appearances.

Thus the hare and hyrax have not the four stomachs common to ruminant animals, but they move the jaw in nibbling like the ruminants. The hare chews over again undigested food brought up from the aesophagus though not a genuine ruminant. The teeth of the rodentia grow during life, so that they necessarily have to be kept down by frequent grinding with the jaws; this looks like rumination. The hare and the coney represent really the rodentia; (the Coney, or Hyrax, though a pachyderm, is linked with the hare, because externally resembling the rodentia;) swine, pachydermata; "whatsoever goeth upon his paws," "all manner of beasts that go on all four," carnivora: only those of a limited district, and those at all possible to be used as food, are noticed, it is noteworthy that it is only "every animal of the field" that Jehovah brought to Adam to name, namely, animals in any way useful to man (Gen 2:19), mainly the herbivora. (See CONEY; HYRAX.) Dominion is not specified as given over the (wild, savage) "beasts of the earth" (mainly carnivora), but only "over all the earth."

So in Psa 8:7 man’s dominion is over "the beasts of the field." Noah is not said to take into the ark beasts of the earth; but in Gen 9:9-10, "beasts of the earth" are distinguished from "all that go out of the ark." Next to fear of a deluge was their fear of the beasts of the earth; but God assures men "the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth" (Gen 9:2). Symbolically, man severed from God and resting on his own physical or intellectual strength, or material resources, is beastly and brutish. He is only manly when Godly, for man was made in the image of God. So Asaph describes himself, when envying the prosperous wicked," I was as a beast before Thee" (Psa 73:22). "Man in honor (apart from God) abideth not, he is like the beasts that perish" (Psa 49:12).

The multitude opposing Messiah are but so many "bulls" and "calves" to be stilled by His "rebuke" (Psa 68:30). Those "that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, as natural brute beasts, are made only to be taken and destroyed" (2Pe 2:12). So persecutors of Christians, as Paul’s opponents at Ephesus (1Co 15:32). The "beast" (Revelation 13; Revelation 15; Revelation 17; Revelation 19) is the combination of all these sensual, lawless, God opposing features. The four successive world empires are represented as beasts coming up out of the sea whereon the winds of heaven strove (Daniel 7). The kingdom of Messiah, on the contrary, is that of "the Son of MAN," supplanting utterly the former, and alone everlasting and world wide. In Revelation 4; 5, the four cherubic forms are not "beasts" (as KJV), but "living creatures" (zoa).

The "beast" (theerion) is literally the wild beast, untamed to the obedience of Christ and God (Rom 8:7). The "harlot" or apostate church (compare Rev 12:1, etc., with Rev 17:1, etc.; Isa 1:21) sits first on the beast, which again is explained as "seven mountains upon which she sitteth"; probably seven universal God-opposed empires (contrast Jer 51:25 with Isa 2:2) of which the seven-hilled Rome is the prominent embodiment, namely, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Mede Persia, Greece, Rome (including the modern Latin kingdoms), and the Germano-Sclavonic empire.

The woman sitting on them is the church conformed to the world; therefore the instrument of her sin is retributively made the instrument of her punishment (Ezekiel 23; Jer 2:19; Rev 17:16). "The spirit of man," even as it normally ascends to God, whose image he bore, so at death "goeth upward"; and the spirit of the beast, even as its desires tend downward to merely temporal wants, "goeth downward" (Ecc 3:21). God warns against cruelty to the brute (Deu 22:6-7). He regarded the "much cattle" of Nineveh (Jon 4:11). He commanded that they should be given the sabbath rest. As to the creature’s final deliverance, see Rom 8:20-23.

the translation of בְּהֵמָה, behemah’, dumb animals, quadrupeds, the most usual term; also of בִּעִיר, beir’, grazing animals, locks or herds, Exo 22:5; Num 20:4; Num 20:8; Num 20:11; Psa 78:48; once beasts of burden, Gen 45:17; חִי, chay, Chaldee חִיָּא, chaya’, a wild beast, frequently occurring; נֶפֶשׁ, ne’phesh, creature or soul, only once in the phrase “beast for beast,” Lev 24:18; טֶבִח, to’bach, slaughter, once only for eatable beasts, Pro 9:2; and כִּרְכָּרוֹת, kirkaroth’,

“swift beasts,” i.e. dromedaries, Isa 9:20, SEE CATTLE; in the New Test. properly ζῶον, an animal; θηρίον, a wild beast, often; κτῆνος, a domestic animal, as property, for merchandise, Rev 18:13; for food, 1Co 15:39; or for service, Luk 10:34; Act 23:24; and σφάγιον, an animal for sacrifice, a victim, Act 7:42. In the Bible, this word, when used in contradistinction to man (Psa 36:6), denotes a brute creature generally; when in contradistinction to creeping things (Lev 11:2-7; Lev 27:26), it has reference to four-footed animals; and when to wild mammalia, as in Gen 1:25, it means domesticated cattle. TSIYIM’, צִיִּים (“wild beasts,” Isa 13:21; Isa 34:14; Jeremiah 40:39), denotes wild animals of the upland wilderness. OCHIM’, חִים (“doleful creatures,” Isa 13:21), may, perhaps, with more propriety be considered as “poisonous and offensive reptiles.” SEIRIM’, שְׂעִירִים, shaggy ones, is a general term for apes — not satyrs (Isa 13:21; Isa 34:14; much less “devils,” 2Ch 11:15), a pagan poetical creation unfit for Scriptural language; it includes SHEDIM’, שֵׁדִים(“devils,” Deu 32:17; Psa 106:37), as a species. SEE APE. TANNIM’, תִּנִּים, are monsters of the deep and of the wilderness — boas, serpents, crocodiles, dolphins, and sharks. SEE ANIMAL.

The zoology of Scripture may, in a general sense, be said to embrace the whole range of animated nature; but, after the first brief notice of the creation of animals recorded in Genesis, it is limited more particularly to the animals found in Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, and the countries eastward, in some cases to those beyond the Euphrates. It comprehends mammilla, birds, reptiles, fishes, and invertebrate animals. See each animal in its alphabetical order. Thus, in animated nature, beginning with the lowest organized in the watery element, we have first שֶׁרֶוֹ, SHE’RETS, “the moving creature that hath life,” animalcula, crustacea, insecta, etc.; second, תִּנִּינִם, TANNINIM’, fishes and amphibia, including the huge tenants of the waters, whether they also frequent the land or not, crocodiles, python- serpents, and perhaps even those which are now considered as of a more ancient zoology than the present system, the great Saurians of geology; and third, it appears, birds, עו ֹŠOPH, “flying creatures” (Gen 1:20); and, still advancing (cetaceans, pinnatipeds, whales, and seals being excluded), we have quadrupeds, forming three other divisions or orders:

(1st.) cattle, בֵּהֵמָה, BEHEMAH’, embracing the ruminant herbivora, generally gregarious and capable of domesticity;

(2d.) wild beasts, חִיּה, CHAYAH’, carnivora, including all beasts of prey; and

(3d.) reptiles, רֶמֶשׂ, RE’MES, minor quadrupeds, such as creep by means of many feet, or glide along the surface of the soil, serpents, annelides, etc.; finally, we have man, אָדָם, ADAM’, standing alone in intellectual supremacy.

The classification of Moses, as it may be drawn from Deuteronomy, appears to be confined to Vertebrata alone, or animals having a spine and ribs, although the fourth class might include others. Taking man as one, it forms five classes:

(1st.) Man;

(2d.) Beasts;

(3d.) Birds;

(4th.) Reptiles;

(5th.) Fishes.

It is the same as that in Leviticus 11, where beasts are further distinguished into those with solid hoofs, the solipedes of systematists, and those with cloven feet (bisulci), or ruminantia. But the passage specially refers to animals that might be lawfully eaten because they were clean, and to others prohibited because they were declared unclean, although some of them, according to the common belief of the time, might ruminate; for the Scriptures were not intended to embrace anatomical disquisitions aiming at the advancement of human science, but to convey moral and religious truth without disturbing the received opinions of the time on questions having little or no relation to their main object. The Scriptures, therefore, contain no minute details on natural history, and notice only a small proportion of the animals inhabiting the regions alluded to. Notwithstanding the subsequent progress of science, the observation of Dr. Adam Clarke is still in a great measure true, that “of a few animals and vegetables we are comparatively certain, but of the great majority we know almost nothing. Guessing and conjecture are endless, and they have on these subjects been already sufficiently employed. What learning — deep, solid, extensive learning and judgment could do, has already been done by the incomparable Bochart in his Hierozoicon. The learned reader may consult this work, and, while he gains much general information, will have to regret that he can apply so little of it to the main and grand question.” The chief cause of this is doubtless the general want of a personal and exact knowledge of natural history on the part of those who have discussed these questions SEE ZOOLOGY.

The Mosaic regulations respecting domestic animals exhibit a great superiority over the enactments of other ancient nations (for those of the Areopagus, see Quintil. Justit. 5, 9, 13; for those of the Zend-avesta, see Rhode, Heil. Sage, p. 438, 441, 445), and contain the following directions:

1. Beasts of labor must have rest on the Sabbath (Exo 20:10; Exo 23:12), and in the sabbatical year cattle were allowed to roam free and eat whatever grew in the untilled fields (Exo 23:11; Lev 25:7). SEE SABBATH.

2. No animal could be castrated (Lev 22:24); for that this is the sense of the passage (which Le Clerc combats) is evident not only from tie interpretation of Josephus (Ant. 5, 8, 10), but also from the invariable practice of the Jews themselves. SEE OX. The scruples that may have led to the disuse of mutilated beasts of burden are enumerated by Michaelis (Mos. Recht, 3, 161 sq.). The prohibition itself must have greatly subserved a higher and different object, namely, the prevention of eunuchs; but its principal ground is certainly a religious, or, at least, a humane one (see Hottinger, Leges Hebr. p. 374 sq.).

3. Animals of different kinds were not to be allowed to mix in breeding, nor even to be yoked together to the plough (Lev 19:19; Deu 20:10). SEE DIVERSE.

4. Oxen in threshing were not to be muzzled, or prevented from eating the provender on the floor (Deu 25:4; 1Co 9:9). SEE THRESHING.

5. No (domestic) animal should be killed on the same day with its young (Lev 22:28), as this would imply barbarity (see Jonathan’s Targum in loc.; Philo, Opp. 2, 398). The Jews appear to have understood this enactment to apply to the slaughtering (שָׁחִט) of animals for ordinary use as well as for sacrifice (Mishna, Chollin, ch. v). Respecting the ancient law referred to in Exo 23:19, SEE VICTUALS. (Comp. generally Schwabe, in the Kirchenzeit. 1834, No. 20). Other precepts seem not to have had the force of civil statutes, but to have been merely injunctions of compassion (e.g. Exo 23:5; Deu 22:4; Deu 22:6-7). The sense of the former of these last prescriptions is not very clear in the original (see Rosenmuller in loc.), as the Jews apply it to all beasts of burden as well as the ass (see Josephus, Ant. 4, 8, 30; comp. Philo, Opp. 2, 39). Deu 6:7 sq., however, appears to be analogous to the other regulations under this class (Winer, 2:610). SEE FOWL.

The word “beast” is sometimes used figuratively for brutal, savage men. Hence the phrase, “I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus,” alluding to the infuriated multitude, who may have demanded that Paul should be thus exposed in the amphitheatre to fight as a gladiator (1Co 15:32; Act 19:29). A similar use of the word occurs in Psa 22:12; Psa 22:16; Ecc 3:18; Isa 11:6-8; and in 2Pe 2:12; Jud 1:10, to denote a class of wicked men. A wild beast is the symbol of a tyrannical, usurping power or monarchy, that destroys its neighbors or subjects, and preys upon all about it. The four beasts in Dan 7:3; Dan 7:17; Dan 7:23, represent four kings or kingdoms (Eze 34:28; Jer 12:9). Wild beasts are generally, in the Scriptures, to be understood of enemies, whose malice and power are to be judged of in proportion to the nature and magnitude of the wild beasts by which they are represented; similar comparisons occur in/profane authors (Psa 74:14). In like manner the King of Egypt is compared to the crocodile (Psa 68:31). The rising of a beast signifies the rise of some new dominion or government; the rising of a wild beast, the rise of a tyrannical government; and the rising out of the sea, that it should owe its origin to the commotions of the people. So the waters are interpreted by the angel (Rev 17:15). In the visions of Daniel, the four great beasts, the symbols of the four great monarchies, are represented rising out of the sea in a storm: “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea, and four great beasts came up from the sea” (Dan 7:2-3). In various passages of the Revelation (4:6, etc.) this word is improperly used by our translators to designate the living creatures (ζῶα) that symbolize the providential agencies of the Almighty, as in the vision of Ezekiel (ch. i). The “beast” elsewhere spoken of with such denunciatory emphasis in that book doubtless denotes the heathen political power of persecuting Rome. See Wemys’s Symbol. Dict. s.v.

Besides the ordinary use of this word - such as distinguishing all animals from man, Exo 9:10; Psa 36:6; and as specifying quadrupeds from fowls and creeping things, Gen 8:19 - the word is used symbolically for:

a. the ignorance of man, Psa 73:22; and for his acting as an irrational creature, that is, without conscience before God. The word is beir, translated ’brutish’ in Psa 94:8; Jer 10:8; Jer 10:14; Jer 10:21; Jer 51:17.

b. Great worldly powers, cheyva, θηρίον, having different characters according to the symbolic creature specified, but signifying in each case the absence of all moral connection with God: used by Daniel for the four great kingdoms, Dan 7:3-23; and in Rev 13:1 to Rev 20:10 for the revived Roman empire and for the Antichrist.

c. God’s executive powers in creation and providence, ζῶον, unhappily translated ’beasts’ in the A.V. in Rev 4:6-9, etc., where it should be ’living creatures,’ as in Ezekiel. See LIVING CREATURES.

BEAST (in Apocalypse).—In Revelation, particularly ch. 13, are symbolic pictures of two beasts who are represented as the arch-opponents of the Christians. The first beast demands worship, and is said to have as his number 666—a numerical symbol most easily referred to the Emperor Nero, or the Roman Empire. In the former case the reference would be undoubtedly to the myth of Nero redivivus, and this is, on the whole, the most probable interpretation.

If instead of 666 we read with Zahn, O. Holtzmann, Spitta, and Erbes, 616, the number would be the equivalent of Gaius Cæsar, who in a.d. 39 ordered the procurator Petronius to set up his statue in the Temple of Jerusalem. This view is, in a way, favoured not only by textual variations, but by the fact that Revelation has used so much Jewish apocalyptic material. However this may be, it seems more probable that the reference in Rev 17:10-11, as re-edited by the Christian writer, refers to Nero redivivus, the incarnation of the persecuting Roman Empire, the two together standing respectively as the Antichrist and his kingdom over against the Messiah and His kingdom. As in all apocalyptic writings, a definite historical ruler is a representative of an empire. Until the Messiah comes His subjects are at the, mercy of His great enemy.

The present difficulty in making the identification is due not only to the process of redaction, but also to the highly complex and, for the modern mind, all but unintelligible fusion of the various elements of the Antichrist belief (see Antichrist).

Shailer Mathews.

bēst: This word occurs often in both Old and New Testaments and denotes generally a mammal (though sometimes a reptile) in distinction to a man, a bird, or a fish. In this distinction the English is fairly in accord with the Hebrew and Greek originals. The commonest Hebrew words b^ehēmāh and ḥai have their counterpart in the Arabic as do three others less often used, b^e‛ı̄r (Gen 45:17; Exo 22:5; Num 20:8 the King James Version), nephesh (Lev 24:18), and ṭebhaḥ (Pro 9:2). B^ehēmāh and Arabic bahı̄mah are from a root signifying vagueness or dumbness and so denote primarily a dumb beast. Ḥai and Arabic ḥaiwān are from the root ḥāyāh (Arabic ḥaya), “to live,” and denote primarily living creatures. B^e‛ı̄r, “cattle,” and its root-verb, bā‛ar, “to graze,” are identical with the Arabic ba‛ı̄r and , ba‛ara, but with a curious difference in meaning. Ba‛ı̄r is a common word for camel among the Bedouin and the root-verb, ba‛ara, means “to drop dung,” ba‛rah being a common word for the dung of camels, goats, and sheep. Nephesh corresponds in every way with the Arabic nephs, “breath,” “soul” or “self” Ṭebhaḥ from ṭābhaḥ, “to slaughter,” is equivalent to the Arabic dhibḥ from dhabaḥa, with the same meaning. Both θηρίον, thērion (“wild beast”), and ζῷον, zō̇on (“living thing”), occur often in the Apocalypse. They are found also in a few other places, as mammals (Heb 13:11) or figuratively (Tit 1:12). Thērion is used also of the viper which fastened on Paul’s hand, and this has parallels in classic al Greek. Beasts of burden and beasts used for food were and are an important form of property, hence, κτῆνος, ktḗnos (“possession”), the word used for the good Samaritan’s beast (Luk 10:34) and for the beasts with which Lysias provided Paul for his journey to Caesarea (Act 23:24).

For “swift beast,” kirkārōth, “dromedary” (Isa 66:20 the King James Version), see CAMEL. For “swift beast,” rekhesh, see HORSE (Mic 1:13 the King James Version; 1Ki 4:28 the King James Version, margin; compare Est 8:10, Est 8:14). See also WILD BEAST.

The word appears with three references.-1. It signifies simply an irrational animal (2Pe_2:12); a beast of burden (Act_23:24); an animal used for food (Rev_18:13), or for sacrifice (Heb_13:11); or it is used as symbolizing Nature in its highest forms of nobility, strength, wisdom, and swiftness (Rev_4:6 ff.; cf. Ezekiel 1 and Isa 6).-2. St. Paul writes that he fought with ‘beasts’ at Ephesus (1Co_15:32). If these were actual beasts, then the Apostle, who had come off conqueror in the fight, instead of being handed over to the executioner, was set free by the provincial magistrate (cf. C. v. Weizsäcker, Das apostol. Zeitalter, 1886, p. 328 [Eng. translation , The Apostolic Age, i. (1894) 385]; A. C. McGiffert, The Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 280ff.). The uncertainties and difficulties of this position are, however, so serious that it is commonly abandoned in favour of a metaphorical interpretation, and for these reasons: (a) St. Paul was a Roman citizen; (b) neither in Acts nor in 2 Cor. is there any allusion to an actual conflict with beasts; (c) had he so fought, he would not have survived. Ignatius, referring to his journey to Rome where he was to suffer martyrdom, wrote, ‘I am bound to ten leopards, that is, a troop of soldiers …’ (ad Romans 5). Some explain St. Paul’s allusion by Acts 19; but this tumult was probably later, and such explanation disagrees with 1Co_16:8-9. Ramsay alleges a mixture of Greek and Roman ideas-in the Greek lecture-room St. Paul would become familiar with the Platonic comparison of the mob with a dangerous beast, and as a Roman citizen he would often have seen men fight with beasts in the circus (St. Paul, 1895, p. 230f.). Max Krenkel (Beiträge zur Aufhellung der Gesch. und der Briefe des Apost. Paulus, Brunswick, 1890, pp. 126-152) suggests that Christians used ‘beast’ (cf. Revelation 13) with a cryptic reference to Rome’s power (cf. the four beasts in Dan_8:3 ff.). We are certain only that St. Paul referred to some extreme danger from men through which he had passed in Ephesus, of which the Corinthians had heard (P. W. Schmiedel, Hand-Kommentar zum Neuen Testament, Freiburg i. B., 1893, p. 198).-3. In Rev. (Rev_11:7; Rev_13:1 ff.) two beasts are described, one (Rev_13:1-10; cf. Dan_7:17 ff.) symbolizing the hostile political world-power of Rome and the kings of Rome as vassals of Satan, the other (Rev_13:11-18) the hostile religious power of false prophecy (cf. Rev_16:13; Rev_19:20; Rev_20:10) and magic, enlisted as ally of the political power-a false Christ or Antichrist, by which the worship of the Caesar was imposed on the provinces. See, further, article Apocalypse.

C. A. Beckwith.

Dan 7:3 (a) These beasts represent four great kingdoms, all of them cruel, evil and Satanic in their power and influence. They caused great sorrow and desolation in the earth. These four kingdoms were the Babylonian, Medo-Persian, Grecian under Alexander the Great, and the Roman Empire.

1Co 15:32 (a) The word is used here by the servant of GOD to indicate the character of the men who opposed Paul and persecuted him in Ephesus. We often use the term "beast" to describe men who are unusually cruel, fierce and heartless.

Tit 1:12 (a) Paul used the word "beast" to describe selfish men who lived for their own comfort and pleasure and oppressed others in order to obtain what they wanted for themselves.

2Pe 2:12 (b) The animal here is typical of ungodly men who live lustful, fleshly lives. They are not interested in cultivating the refining, ennobling things of life, but seek to gratify the lusts of the flesh.