The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 4

VII. The Prophetic Symbols of Revelation 13

1. BOTH BEASTS OF Revelation 13 SYMBOLIZE PAPACY

In Section II, further discussing Antichrist from Paul and John, Davis says that- PFF4 220.1

“Antichrist was to rise in the very period which embraced this account of Daniel, and that the exact date of Daniel designated the seventh form of the Roman government, when the sixth head was mortally wounded, and the empire divided into ten (or several) kingdoms.” ⁴⁷ PFF4 220.2

He asserts that Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2, uses “covert language, that the persecuting power of Rome might not be exasperated to greater rigor in persecuting the church for predicting the downfall of the glory of the Roman Empire.” The civil Roman Empire hindered the rise of the ecclesiastical Man of Sin, and “when the imperial government is taken from the Romans, the Pope will appear, and set up his blasphemous government over the church.” The Man of Sin would therefore rise “out of the church, and not out of the civil department,” when Rome lost her government. So Davis concludes, “This fixes the rise of the pope in the period which comprehends the precise date of Daniel.” ⁴⁸ PFF4 220.3

In Revelation 13 the seven heads of the beast from the sea are familiarly interpreted as forms of government-kings, consuls, dictators, decemvirs, military tribunes, emperors, and the exarchate of Ravenna. The ten horns are the several kingdoms into which the empire is divided: “Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, etc.” The imperial sixth head was wounded. The healing began when, during the seventh form of government, “the Bishop of Rome rose to the dignity of universal Bishop,” and was complete when the pope became a temporal prince and “the seat of government was restored to the city of Rome.” ⁴⁹ PFF4 220.4

2. DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE Two SYMBOLS

Davis sees the second beast as the “dignified state, hierarchy, and secular power of popery,” with two horns-the pope’s “two swords,” or “his temporal and spiritual authority”-rising at the time of the donation of the papal states under Pepin of France. PFF4 221.1

“Thus the little horn, as Daniel says, (Daniel 7:8, 24.) subdued three horns, or kingdoms, Italy, Ravenna, and Pentapolis, which ever afterwards were claimed as St. Peter’s patrimony, and belonged to his successor in the Roman See, or papal chair.” ⁵⁰ PFF4 221.2

Thus he distinguishes between the two beasts: the first as the pope rising as Universal Bishop, and the second as the pope putting on his two horns in 755. But the first beast came up during the time of the mortal wound, that is, between 566 and 755 ⁵¹ PFF4 221.3

Such were Davis’ clearly expressed convictions, published in 1811 on the South Carolina frontier. PFF4 221.4