The Seven Wandering Stars and the Heads of the Dragon

“…I
propose that the narrative of the struggle between the Red Dragon and
the Woman Adorned with the Sun in Rev 12 is a dramatisation of the signs
in the sky described at the opening of the sixth seal in Rev 6, and
that this narrative points to actual astronomical phenomena that is
observable in the heavens.”

By Emmeett O’Regan

The symbolism behind the seven heads of the Dragon and Beast is one of
the most enigmatic portions of the Apocalypse. The imagery of both the
Dragon and Beast of Revelation is lifted largely from the beast with ten
horns described in chapter seven of the Book of Daniel, and transposed
onto the template of the seven-headed water dragon found in the
mythology of the Ancient Near East. In the Ugaritic myths found in the
Ras Shamra literature of the early 2nd millennium BC, this seven-headed
creature was known as Lotan - which was equivalent to Levithan/Rahab in
Hebrew cosmology, and also associated with Tiamat of Babylonian
mythology. And if we look back to the Book of Daniel, we find that the
combined head count of the four beasts also gives seven (the beast like a
leopard has four heads, which along with the heads of the other three
beasts gives seven in total).  The Apocalypse combines the four beasts
of Daniel in order to form its own unique monstrous amalgam in the Beast
from the sea, which is heavily laden with symbolic import. The Beast
from the sea described in Rev 13 is a composite formed from each of the
beasts in Daniel. The beasts like a leopard, bear and lion are merged
together with that of the beast with ten horns to form a single entity:

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven
heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads.
And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a
bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave
his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed
to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole
earth marveled as they followed the beast.
(Rev 13:1-3)

The four empires represented by the four beasts in the Book of Daniel
are thus moulded together to form a single, all-encompassing world
empire. An empire which is at first controlled by the woman/Babylon (who
rides the Beast as if it were some kind of mounted steed  - to be
steered in the direction of her choosing). But the woman/Babylon is
then stripped of her authority by the ten kings (who are represented by
the ten horns) - whose purpose is to hand over their power to the Beast
itself (Rev 17:13, 17).

The Book of Revelation’s presentation of the Beast with seven heads was
undoubtedly originally intended as a critique of the imperial
cultus. Rome was famed in the ancient world as the city of the seven
hills. The limits of the ancient city was seated on the Aventine,
Caelian, Capitoline, Esquiline, Palatine, Quirinal and Viminal
hills (Vatican hill, situated across the Tiber, was not counted as one
of these – which confounds some recent Protestant interpretations
depicting the papacy as the Beast). So the city with seven hills was
almost certainly in mind here – a fact which is reinforced by the
Beast’s association with the whore of Babylon in the narrative of the
Apocalypse. Another canonical writing, the First Epistle of St.
Peter, also uses the term “Babylon” as a cipher for ancient Rome:

She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son…
(1Pet 5:13)

Just as ancient Babylon held the Jewish people in captivity, so too did
the Roman Empire hold control over the Holy Land at the dawn of
Christianity. So the term “Babylon” became synonymous with the current
ruling world power in the Judeo-Christian psyche - and it is this
sense of the word that we should bear in mind when attempting to
discern the eschatological implications of the term. “Babylon” is “the
great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth” (Rev 17:18) – a
symbol of the contemporary superpower. The identification of the Beast
with Rome can also be ascertained from the ordering of the four beasts
presented in the Book of Daniel.

The Apocalypse tells us that the seven heads of the Beast also represent seven kings – five who have
fallen, one who is (at the time of St. John’s writing), and one who is to come. The
Beast itself, who is an eighth king, and at the same time one of the seven, is
associated by scholars with the Nero redivivus legend:

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said
to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who
is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have
committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual
immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me
away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a
scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads
and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned
with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full
of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her
forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of
prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw the woman, drunk
with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
When I saw her, I marveled greatly.
And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.
When I saw her, I marveled greatly. But the angel said to me, “Why
do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the
beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that
you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit
and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not
been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will
marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come. This
calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on
which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have
fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he
must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not,
it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.
And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received
royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour,
together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their
power and authority to the beast. They will make war on the Lamb, and
the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings,
and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”
And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the
prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and
languages. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate
the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her
flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to
carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal
power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman
that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the
earth.”
(Rev 17:6-18)

So the Beast of Revelation – the eighth king who at the same time is one
of the seven (i.e. Nero), is clearly expounded as the appearance of a
future Nero-type figure. Nero was the first persecutor of Christians and
according to tradition, was responsible for the destruction of Rome by
fire and the deaths of Ss. Peter and Paul – which reflects the deaths of
the Two Witnesses at the hands of the Beast in Rev 11:7-8. It is for
this reason that Nero’s name is the numerical equivalent of 666 once
transliterated into Hebrew (see the earlier post Hebrew 666?).
Following this pattern, the Beast to come will be the last persecutor
of Christians, martyring the Two Witnesses who inaugurate the Second
Pentecost, and will ultimately be responsible for the destruction of the
world by fire.

So the seven heads of the Beast certainly represents seven Roman
emperors, one of whom is Nero – who foreshadows the Beast to come. But
the exact ordering of the emperors John refers to in the Apocalypse is
disputed, and largely hinges upon the date in which the Book of
Revelation was first written. If we are to assume that the five kings
who had already fallen refers to the first five Roman emperors, then the
sequence would begin with the first emperor, Caesar Augustus. The five
who had fallen would then be Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and
Nero - which would possibly identify the king who “now is” (at the time
of the writing of the Apocalypse) as the “caretaker” emperor Galba. This
is where the complications begin however, since there was a rapid
succession of emperors in the wake of Nero’s suicide. In the power
vacuum which followed Nero’s death, a number of contenders were left
vying for control over the empire – which they would pursue with
murderous intent. In January 69AD – known as the year of the four
emperors, Galba quickly seized power after the death of Nero, but
was assassinated after a reign of only four months in a coup led by
Otho. Otho was to reign as emperor for just three months, before
committing suicide after losing the Battle of Bedriacum to Vitellius.
Vitellius in turn was killed eight months later by Vespasian, in
December 69AD, before Rome once again settled into a more stable level
of leadership.

Some scholars (such as S.S Smalley) therefore suggest that the three
short-lived pretenders or “caretaker” emperors should be left out of
this sequence, making the sixth emperor who “now is” Vespasian, who
ruled between 69-79AD. The king who “has not yet come, and when he does
come he must remain only a little while” would then refer to Vespasian’s
son Titus, who was the commanding officer during the destruction of the
city and Temple of Jerusalem in 70AD. The significance of this “king”
who was yet to come, would thus lie in the fulfilment of the preterist
aspect of the prophecies related to the abomination of desolation in the
Book of Daniel:

“Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to
finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for
iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and
prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand
that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to
the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks.
Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat,
but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one
shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary.”
(Dan 9:24-26)

Note how the Book of Daniel similarly describes the person who is to
destined to destroy the city and Temple of Jerusalem as a “prince who is
to come”…

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Unveiling the Apocalypse: Prophecy in Catholic Tradition

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