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out, nails of brass, etc. Again there are many things in the Apoca- lypse which are new : seven heads (when there is only one in Dan. vii. 20) ; a name of blasphemy ; the resemblance of the beast itself, its feet and mouth to the third, the second, and the first beast in Daniel; the assistance given by the dragon; the “ deadly wound” and its “healing;” the “wondering” of the earth; the “worship” of the inhabitants of the earth; the woman seated upon it; the ascent from the bottomless pit, etc. The ten horns themselves are de- scribed in one way by Daniel, in another by John.
Obs. 3. The beast is not entirely the same. — The Divine of Halle thinks that it is the same ; but similar things are not always the same, dissimilar things even more rarely so ; and identity is incon- sistent with such a dissimilarity as here exists, as far as relates, for instance, to the heads.
Obs. 4. The beast of the Apocalypse has its rise many ages later than that of Daniel. — It is doubted, whether the fourth beast of Daniel is the Grceco-Syrian kingdom, or the Roman empire. Each theory is laid down by no mean interpreters ; the former, for instance, by Franc. Junius, the latter by J. Lange. Take the Homan empire, and fix its rise as late as possible, under Augustus, who gained pos- session of Egypt, the last kingdom of the Grecian monarchy. That was, I will not say before the birth of John, but before his vision.
Moreover vision and prophecy belong to future events : whence, although the Babylonian monarchy, in the time of the prophet Daniel, was in the midst of its flourishing state ; yet in the vision its beginnings, as it were abruptly, are derived from the time then present: Dan. ii. 38, vii. 17. It is therefore certain that the beast of Daniel has an origin more ancient than that of the Apocalypse. But the order of John’s vision demonstrates that it arose after the departure of the second woe, namely, the Saracenic, and under the trumpet of the seventh angel, after the circumstances relating to the dragon mentioned in ch. xii., under the third woe, after the departure itself of the dragon to carry on war with the remnant of the seed of the woman. Lange, in his Germ. Comm, on the Apoc. fol. 92, ob- serves, on ch. ix. 1, that m^ruxora in the past, not n/xrovra in the present, is said of the star : although we are not now inquiring re- specting the time itself of the star which fell there. It is not less worthy of observation, that here Qqpiov is described, on the other hand, as a vafiamv in the present, not ava[3s[3rixbs in the perfect. The ascent of the beast out of the sea is under the third woe.
Obs. 5. The beast of the Apocalypse is the Roman Papacy. This