§ 1. The other Beast is treated from verse 11 to the end of the chapter, which our prophet maintains is the Pontiff or the Pontificate. But the Holy Spirit, who opened the mouth of John the Evangelist, added such symbols to each Beast that from them it is certainly established that neither the former is the Emperor nor the latter the Pontiff.
§ 2. The first argument. The second Beast exercises all the power of the first in its sight, verse 12. The Pope does not exercise that power before the Emperor; therefore he is not the other Beast, nor is the first Beast the Emperor.
§ 3. The second argument. “And it caused the earth and those dwelling in it to worship the first Beast, whose mortal wound was healed.” The Pontiff did not do this; therefore he is not the other Beast. Graser answers that the Pontiff keeps men in the worship of the former Beast, even though it now no longer exists.
I answer in turn that this is as manifest a lie as it is manifest that the sun shines at midday. For the Roman Empire still exists, and all its princes both call themselves such and are so called by everyone. I answer, second, that what is worshiped is not a Beast which does not exist, but one which truly exists; for the Holy Spirit opposes it to the lying spirit: “whose mortal wound,” he says, “was healed.” I answer, third, that even in the judgment of their own men the princes of the Empire owe much to the Pontiff, who endeavors so diligently to procure authority for them. For Aretius maintains that to cause the Beast to be worshiped means nothing other than to desire that the Empire be sacrosanct, august, and venerable, as it formerly was under the Gentiles. The Pontiff desires this, yet he does not desire the blindness of the Gentiles or the ἀποθεώσεως, “deification,” of the Emperors to be introduced.
If we who desire the Empire to be sacrosanct, august, and venerable are evil; if for that reason we are Antichristian and condemned to death by men who live under that same Empire, what do those men deserve who do not desire it to be august, sacrosanct, and venerable—who desire it to be lowly, profane, and contemptible? Their hatred of the German-Roman Majesty is so great that they desire those who wish the Empire well to be worthy of the most extreme examples of punishment. Do we suppose that different wishes are conceived and pronounced in the mosques of the Muhammadans? Yet our Calvinist Turks act with greater criminality, because they are citizens and because they are bound to the Empire by the sanctity of an oath.
I cannot pass over in this place the ridiculous delirium of Illyricus. He interprets “to exercise power before the Beast, so that the Beast itself is worshiped” as: “to exercise power against the will of the Emperors and to subject the Emperors.”
§ 4. The third argument. “And it performed great signs, so that it even caused fire to descend from heaven to earth in the sight of men,” verse 13. No Pontiff, by calling fire down from heaven, procured worship for the Emperors; therefore the Pope is not the second Beast, nor the Emperor the first. For what Pontiff compelled anyone to worship the title of the Empire? If “to worship” is to call it august and unconquered, Waser too worships a title of the British kingdom, for he calls its auspices “most august,” and the king himself unconquered.
§ 5. The fourth argument. Verse 14: the second Beast “said that they should make an image of the Beast which has the wound of the sword and lived.” What image of the Emperor did the Pontiff order to be made and worshiped? To what image did he give life? Illyricus interprets the image of the Beast as the form of the state; others interpret it as the Golden Bull of Charles IV, an enfeebled shadow of the Empire; others interpret it as something else. If matters stand thus, we no longer have a living and true Empire, but shadowy magistrates. Then the image is of the Beast which came to life again; therefore it is the image of a living Beast.
Thus Aretius says that the image of the Beast is the elected Emperor, while its life is confirmation. But this is blasphemous and foolish. For the second Beast compels both the Beast and the image to be worshiped together; and there is both the image of the Beast and afterward the Beast itself. Then the living and speaking image is not the Beast itself, but the image of the Beast; for it was a new thing for an image to speak, since the Beast had already uttered blasphemies against God and the Saints in verse 5.
§ 6. The fifth argument. The second Beast will cause everyone to have the mark of the first Beast, or its name, or the number of its name. The Pontiff did not procure this for the Emperor; therefore the former is not the second Beast, nor the latter the first. For who has been forbidden to buy or sell without an imperial mark?
While we seek the mark, Bullinger says it is chrism; Chytraeus, the oath of fidelity; Aretius, both of these, and also that of doctors and masters when they are inaugurated. Illyricus extends it to the tonsure and the mark of orders; Graser, to the mark of orders, exorcism, and the sacrament of confirmation; Sutcliffe, to the common manner of life of the Papists. These interpretations mutually destroy one another and have often been refuted by our men. For me it is sufficient to display the remarkable instability of the sectarians in their abuse; for none of all these things accomplishes anything against the Pontiff, as I demonstrate in the following manner by an irrefragable ἀποδείξει, “proof.”
There are five things which the Evangelist and Prophet John proposes as symbols of the Beast: the image of the Beast, the life of the image, the mark of the Beast, the name of the Beast, and the number of the Beast’s name. Everyone attributes the last three to the Pontiff, and our deceiver does so most of all. To prove that he is Antichrist, they devise and devise anew marvelous names, which are found in Luther, Chytraeus, Graser, and the prophet whom we now refute; for he fills the whole sixth book with the mark. He says that the mark of the Beast is its own proper name, either signified by numbers or enigmatic. I am weary of trifles, and so proceed to explain the argument.
He is Antichrist whose image, mark, name, and number of the name are described in Revelation; but these are not the Pontiff’s; therefore the Pontiff is not Antichrist. The proposition is not disputed, for each party attributes these things to Antichrist. The assumption is proved. The image, mark, name, and number of the name belong to the first or primary Beast, not to the second, which serves the first. But according to the sectarians’ abuse, the Pontiff is the second Beast, not the first; for they say that the Empire is the first Beast.
Therefore, if their heresy is true, the mark, name, and number of the name pertain not to the Pontiff but to the Emperor and the princes of the Empire. It must now be proved that these belong to the first Beast, not the second.
§ 7. First, the context itself teaches that the image belongs to the same Beast as the mark, name, and number of the name. The image is that of the first Beast: “Saying to those who dwell on the earth that they should make an image of the Beast which has the wound of the sword and lived,” verse 14. It continues in verse 15: “And it was given to it to give spirit to the image of the Beast, and that the image of the Beast should speak, and to cause all who did not worship the image of the Beast to be killed.” There is therefore no dispute concerning the image, for it is the image of the Beast which has the wound of the sword and lived. But the mark and name belong to the same Beast, which I prove from verse 16: “And it will cause all, small and great, rich and poor, free and slaves, to have a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads.” And verse 17: “And that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the Beast or the number of its name.” It is not said that the second Beast acts so that its own image or mark is possessed, but that of the Beast—namely, the first; nor does it say “the number of its own name,” but “the number of his name.”
Second, chapter 14:9–11: “If anyone worships the Beast and its image and receives the mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God,” and so forth. “Nor do they have rest by day or night who worshiped the Beast and its image, or if anyone received the number of its name.” The Holy Spirit could not have said more clearly that the image and the mark belong to the same Beast. The image is that of the former Beast; therefore so is the mark. According to the seditious opinion of the sectarians, the former Beast is the Empire. The mark is therefore that of the Empire, not of the Pontificate. Thus the whole pestilential exhalation of calumnies and abuse breathes upon the August Emperors, the Electors, and the princes of the Empire, which all subjects rightly abominate; but the Pontiff is free of it.
Third, chapter 15:2: “And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who had conquered the Beast and the image of the Beast and the number of its name, standing upon the sea of glass,” and so forth. The image does not belong to one Beast and the number of the name to another. By the agreement of the Pontiff’s enemies, the image is not that of the pontifical Beast; therefore neither is the number of the name. Thus the vanity of so many names invented against the Pontiffs strikes the princes, for the ungrateful and criminal Calvinist subjects falsely charge that the first Beast pertains to them.
Fourth, chapter 16:2. The punishment which followed the guilty indicates the same thing: “And a savage and exceedingly evil wound came upon the men who had the mark of the Beast and upon those who worshiped its image.” Whose image did they worship? The image of the one whose mark it was.
Fifth, chapter 19:20: “And the Beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who performed signs before it, by which he seduced those who received the mark of the Beast and who worshiped its image.” The false prophet is the second Beast, lesser than the Beast which is simply called “the Beast.” Therefore not even by the sectarians’ obstinate malice can the Pontiff be called the second Beast. For since they say that he exalts himself above every σέβασμα, “object of worship,” how does he, neglecting himself, act so as to procure for the first Beast an opinion of divinity?
In vain, therefore, with such great madness and such great apparatus, are the mark, the name, and the number of the name brandished against the Roman Church; in vain do they contrive wars and bloody slaughters. She is not the wild Beast which they pursue. They seek to strike their tooth against fragile flesh—that is, according to Graser’s interpretation, against the clergy—but they break it against the solid—that is, according to the same interpreter, against the laity.
The simplicity of many Germans, even Princes, is worthy of pity rather than persecution or laughter. When they heard that their men had found the number of the name 666 in some little word, such as רומיית, Rômîth, or λατεῖνος, Lateinos, or another, they immediately admired such ταχυσοφίαν, “ready cleverness,” and by an imperious ostracism ordered all adherents of the Pontiff to be exiled from the Christian state, unaware that by this subtlety they were casting the political magistracy, the Emperor, and the most noble lords of the Empire, as though they were the Beast, into the lake of sulfur and fire.