beast which arose out of the sea . But because a new part begins at the words, and stood , and at the beginning of this part the name of the dragon is not again expressed, this act of standing is better applied to John. Who indeed, though he saw such various objects, yet mentions no other going of his, except that which was done in the spirit, for instance, ch. xvii. 3 : but this standing also upon the sand of the sea, was done in vision. This vision is very remarkable, and hence John mentions his own standing upon the sand of the sea. On the visions at the waters, comp. Dan. viii. 2, x. 4 ; Ez. i. 3 ; Gen. xli. 1.
1. ’Ex rrig 6a\u<x<sriC) out of the sea) Three woes traverse the world from the east to the west. The first was in Persia : the second pro- ceeded from the Euphrates : the third, under the dragon, is sus- tained by the beast in the west. In the conclusion of my Ger- man commentarv, I have enumerated more than fortv laws and distinguishing marks of Apocalyptic interpretation. In these the quick unfolding of the three woes, and especially of the third woe, has no little weight. — Qvipiov, x.r.X., a beast , etc.) driplov is a diminutive in sound, but not in sense : for even elephants are called %>/« ; and in Homer /u.dXa fj/zya, driplov is a great stag slain by Ulysses.
The most ancient fathers determined that the seven heads of the beast were so many ages or kingdoms of the world, from its be- ginning to the end : from which interpretation that of D. Gebliard is not far removed, according to which the beast of the Apocalypse is the abuse of political power, the prop of the antichristian state : the seven heads, Pharaoh, Jeroboam, Assyrian Babel, Antiochus, the Sanhedrim of the Pharisees, then the Emperor of Rome, and the beast from the abyss. See Comm, on Twelve Prophets, pp. 508— 524 : comp. p. 217 and those which follow, 292. On the other hand, Victorinus took the head, or one king, to relate to Domitian, who was emperor in the time of John : the others, to refer to his five individual predecessors, and his immediate successor; and so Ham- mond, from Claudius to Domitian ; so Bossuet refers it to Maximin and his five consorts, whom he himself survived, and Licinius, who alone survived him : which also is not far removed from the Epilysis