The Identification of the Beast as the Roman 10th Legion and Titus: An Example of Context Replacement

I recently had a brief interaction with Peter Pike, who contributes over at Triablogue, concerning my post on Domitian. He is a Preterist who had a rather imaginative interpretation of the beast in Revelation and the 10 horns that were upon the beast’s heads. I argued that what he was doing committed all sorts of fallacies, especially that of context replacement, but he seems to have doubled-down to continue this line of argument in a post here. I go through this now because it is a good demonstration of the types of errors that people make in their effort to interpret texts. Methodology is extremely important. Paying close attention to the text is not only good methodology though. It is also ethically responsible to treat a text in accordance to what it supplies itself, and to minimize anything that needs to be supplied that is not being referenced clearly by the text.

“Previously, I have presented some evidence for why I think the beast in Revelation 13 could have referred to the Roman X Legion Fretensis.  To give a brief overview of some of the evidence for context in this post: it was the X Legion and the beast in Revelation was said to have "ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns"; "Fretensis" means "of the sea strait" and the beast was said to have come "out of the sea"; the X Fretensis had auxillaries from seven different legions assigned to it (seven heads)--one of which, the XII Fulminata, had been ambushed and routed to the point of losing it's aquila and one of the heads of the beast was said "to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed"; despite losing the aquila (which normally resulted in a legion being disbanded), the XII Fulminata was not disbanded and in fact was used as the primary force in the siege of Jerusalem; the X Fretensis was headed by General Titus and, according to Irenaeus, the Aramaic form of "Titus" numerologically added up to six hundred sixty-six; Roman legions carried images (literally: imago) of either the current emperor or the emperor who founded the legion, and the beast in Revelation was said to set up an image that it forced people to worship--something that Titus did when he destroyed the temple in 70 AD and set up the legion's image there; if that image was of the current emperor it would have been Vespasian, the father of General Titus and who's real name was also Titus and thus would have also added up to six hundred sixty-six; the beast was "allowed to make war on the saints and conquer them" which the X Fretensis literally did; and finally, it was "allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months" which is how long it took the X Frentensis from the time it landed in Judea until the fall of the Temple.”

The federal head represents what is owned, i.e., the city and empire in this case, what is owned does not represent the federal head. Likewise, the royal city can represent the empire over which it rules. 

I’m not aware of an army representing the federal head, but one could argue that Antiochus’ brutality references the brutality of the armies he unleashes. 

The bigger issue here is the interpretive methodology used. This is a case of context replacement via familiarization. In other words, these words sound like something with which we are familiar. For some interpreters its 10 kingdoms throughout the  history of the church that support the one Holy Roman Empire, for others its 10 divisions within the empire, for yet others, as Pike’s view here, it’s the 10^th Legion. Assuming a Preterist paradigm, it is too juicy of a coincidence to pass up if Titus used the 10^th Legion in the destruction of Jerusalem. Of course, many legions were used, not just the 10^th, but it makes for interesting speculation. The problem is that it is just that. 

The book does not make these connections at all. Chapter 17 is the interpretation of the beast, the seven heads, and the ten horns (17:7). The woman is the city of Rome (vv. 9, 15, 18), the seven heads are the seven hills and seven kings upon which the city is geographically and politically established (v. 9). The seven kings can be understood by seeing the beast as Nero, the head that was slain, and the name that historically is linked to the number 666. The fact that christological language is used of him (was, is not, and is coming), the fact that the number is that of a man, and hence, John wants his readers to identify him (13:18; 17:9), and the fact that the beast kills Christians, not Jews in Jerusalem (17:6; 20:4) displays that this king can only refer to two emperors in the first century (Nero and Domitian). The author further tells us that the “beast” “was, and is not, and is about to come up from the abyss to go to destruction” (v. 8), and what he means by this is that five kings have fallen of the seven, the sixth is, and the seventh will only come for a little while. The beast is actually an eighth king that was one of the seven (vv. 9-11). So putting this all together, the author explicitly tells us that the beast here is dead and he now anticipates the false resurrection of the beast as it manifests in an eighth king. If Nero is the first beast-king, as only he could be, then he is one of the five fallen kings. That means that one either has to count the three usurpers (as they were considered such in the Flavian Dynasty, and commit treason by counting them in a work written during the Flavian Dynasty), and end up with Vitellius as the eighth beast who fights the Lamb and kills the saints because they do not worship him or his image, something that is completely lost to history if true; or one must throw out the usurpers from the list, as a writer during the Flavian Dynasty would likely do, and conclude that Vespasian is the sixth king, Titus is the seventh king who only reigns for a little while (2 years, the shortest reign of all of the recognized emperors), and Domitian is the eighth. But they all must be kings, not regiments, legions, guards, states, etc., as they are spoken of as individual kings who have died or are living. This means that the beast in Revelation with whom the author is actually concerned is either Vitellius, which removes any relevance to Vespasian or Titus who take down Jerusalem, or he is Domitian, who we know persecutes Christians and demands to be worshiped while living, especially from those in the region of Asia Minor (as that is historically how they showed their allegiance to the emperors).

Hence, the image not being worshiped by Christians and causing their persecutions is either that of Vitellius (doubtful), or Domitian. It cannot be that of Vespasian or Titus, and thus the attempt to connect the number 10 in the book to them is dubious.

Furthermore, we are told by the author to what the number 10 refers. It refers to 10 kings who do not currently at the time of the author’s writing have their power over a kingdom. They are installed by the beast and then give their authority back to the beast to do his will (vv. 12-14). Their work is solely given for the purpose of making war with the Lamb (vv. 13-14), after which they will turn on the city of Rome and destroy it themselves (v. 16). It is these kings who do the destruction, not any legion led by the emperor unless one wants to very loosely make that connection once removed from the emperor. There is certainly no direct connection as though one of the emperors, like Titus is leading it himself (of course, Titus would have led armies against Jerusalem before he was emperor, so he was not even the beast to be worshiped at that point).

“Now the first question that could be asked here is whether or not this is even the same beast as in Revelation 13.  And that brings up more discussion.  After all, in Revelation 13 there are actually two beasts mentioned: "I saw a beast rising out of the sea" (verse 1); "Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth" (verse 11).  Finally, Revelation 17 describes the beast in that chapter as: "I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast" (verse 3).  Many have concluded the scarlet beast is the same as the beast from the sea because both are said to have "seven heads and ten horns" but this is not a necessary conclusion.  However, even granting they are the same beast (as I do lean toward), it is clear that the horns on the scarlet beast have multiple meanings, standing both for seven mountains and for seven kings even within chapter 17.  Furthermore, in chapter 17, the horns, heads, and beast itself all stand for kings at various times.”

It is clear that the beast that comes out of the abyss of Chapter 13 is the same beast described in Chapter 17 for numerous reasons. For one, the beast comes up from the sea/abyss, i.e., places of chaos, in both texts (13:1; 17:8), and although they are not exactly parallel in terminology are parallel in reference. It does at least mean that he is not the land beast, i.e, land being a place of creation and order, of Chapter 13. However, he also has seven heads and ten horns in both texts. The wounded head of the seven that is then healed (13:3) is no doubt parallel to the beast who was and is not and is to come (v.8), i.e., a false resurrection (notice that the world is astounded and follows the beast because of it in both texts). The blasphemies are no doubt the case in which the emperor takes upon himself divine names in both texts and opposes Christ as Lord by doing so. Even more so, however, there is a major exegetical reason to link them and that is the practice of assuming the unmarked meaning, in this case, the previous meaning assigned to the specific symbol. If a beast with seven heads and ten horns is presented in one text, and then a beast with seven heads and ten horns is presented in the same work later without any distinguishing factors made explicit in the new context that would cause the reader to think that they were different beasts, the assumption of the unmarked meaning, i.e., that both beasts are the same beast, should be taken for granted by the reader.

“But beyond even that, I would maintain that all three of the beasts (if they are three distinct entities, or both of them if there's just two) are actually referencing different aspects of the same structure.  After all, in historical times, kings and kingdoms were synonymous, as were generals and their armies.  In the case of the X Fretensis, since General Titus moved on to become emperor after the death of his father, you could have army, general, king, and kingdom all wrapped up in the same entity.”

Again, although it may be true that one could wrap them all up into one entity, the identification of that one entity as being X Fretensis and Titus is not a legitimate interpretation from the context itself. A context and the new referents it brings, must be supplied. This is why this is eisegesis and not exegesis. There is nothing in the text that links itself to the historical background presented. Instead, what is supplied in the context links to a very different historical background than the one presented here.

“To give some more credence to this view we can look at Daniel.  In Daniel 7, the prophet also had a vision of four beasts.  The last beast "had great iron teeth" and "was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns" (Daniel 7:7).  The fact that this beast had ten horns, like the beasts mentioned in Revelation, is an indication that it might be referring to the same beast as in Revelation 13 and/or 17.  Additionally, the "great iron teeth" gives a callback to Daniel 2, where Nebuchadnezzar had the dream of the statue with iron legs and feet made of iron mixed with clay--a reference to the Roman Empire, which would be "a divided kingdom" (Daniel 2:41, Rome being divided between the East and West) destroyed by a rock "cut out by no human hand" which destroyed all empires forever.  And indeed, after the Roman Empire collapsed, there has been no empire since.  Even those that wished to be empires (e.g., the Holy Roman Empire, Ottoman Empire, etc.) were hardly like the previous empires that have been destroyed by the rock, which is Christianity.”

I’m not sure where to begin with this one. For one, Daniel does not mention Rome, except in a brief comment in Chapter 11 about the Kittim (v. 18). The empire that crushes Jerusalem is the Seleucid Empire under Antiochus IV. So Rome is not predicted by Daniel as the last empire. This is made clear by the parallel passages in the book when one compares the antagonist of the final kingdom in all of them. Furthermore, Daniel 2 does not say that either the Seleucid Empire or the Roman Empire is the last empire. It says the last empire is God’s and it crushes all other kingdoms so that there is no kingdom left for any other people group beside the kingdom of God for His people (2:44). There seems to be quite a whittling down what constitutes a kingdom. Surely, the Holy Roman Empire or the Ottomon Empire or the British Empire would at least be as strong and big as the Seleucid or Median Empires. There are actually lots of empires after these that would qualify. Each of these are seen as rather weak in the symbolism of Daniel 2, and yet, they still make up what the author considers empires. This is a case, I think, of attempting to define away facts. The only reason interpreters have made the final kingdom about Rome is because they think the text says that the kingdom of God is set up during it, but that is not what the text says at all. The text says that the kingdom of God shatters and destroys all of the kingdoms, including the last one, and then grows and takes over the world. It does not exist side-by-side with any of them, including the last one. In fact, Rome is not destroyed by Christianity at all. It is destroyed by numerous other factors (e.g. expansion, invasion, internal rivalries, etc.). Christianity merely takes Rome over, but it is not what destroys it. If anything, it saves it for another two hundred years. Hence, there is no need to identify the last kingdom as Rome because it doesn’t fit with it either. The author of Daniel is using apocalyptic speech that ties the macrocosmic end of the world with the end of a microcosmic, socio-political event or structure in history. He is not telling the future as it will unfold, nor is the author of John’s Apocalypse.

“The fact that this beast had ten horns, like the beasts mentioned in Revelation, is an indication that it might be referring to the same beast as in Revelation 13 and/or 17.”

This is actually the exegetical fallacy of illegitimate referential transference. John is using the imagery of Daniel, but he is repurposing it. In Daniel, it refers to the Seleucid Empire with Antiochus IV as its head. In Revelation, John uses the imagery to refer to Rome with Nero/Domitian as its head. One notices that John also bunches up all of the beasts of Daniel into one, so that Rome is Babylon, Persia, and Greece, along with the horrible beast that attacks God’s people, all rolled into one. This is not what Daniel envisions, but it is how the author of Revelation is using Daniel. Revelation, of course, adds the seven heads to the beast because it represents the seven hills and seven kings upon which Rome had been previously established in the author’s day.

“Additionally, the "great iron teeth" gives a callback to Daniel 2, where Nebuchadnezzar had the dream of the statue with iron legs and feet made of iron mixed with clay--a reference to the Roman Empire, which would be "a divided kingdom" (Daniel 2:41, Rome being divided between the East and West) . . .”

So here we have another case where we either let the text define the terms and provide the referents, or we provide our own via eisegesis. Where does the Book of Daniel say anything about this kingdom being divided between East and West? The divided kingdom in the immediate context and later in the book is interpreted as the breakup of the Greek Empire (8:1-8 and its interpretation in 11:1-4). The immediate context indicates this by presenting the mixed kingdom as a part of the substance representing the Greek Empire, i.e., iron, and part of a weaker substance that does not have the strength of the former kingdom, i.e., clay. In other words, it was part of the larger kingdom that broke up and became a weaker kingdom. That isn’t Rome. What comes after the Greek Empire, according to the book itself, is the Seleucid Empire that ends with Antiochus IV’s death.

“But there's something else in Daniel too which bears more directly on the identity of the beast.  The ten horns are also defined: "As for the ten horns, out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise, and another shall arise after them; he shall be different from the former ones, and shall put down three kings" (verse 24).  Additionally, we are told: "But the court shall sit in judgment, and his dominion shall be taken away, to be consumed and destroyed to the end" (verse 26).
What makes this interesting is that the 10th emperor of Rome was Titus.  After those ten, "another shall arise after them".  The 11th emperor was Domitian.  Domitian was also the third emperor of his family (the Flavian family), and after he was assassinated the Roman senate enacted "damnatio memoriae" on him--literally damning his memory as a form of dishonor.  Thus, one could say he brought down his family (three kings) and his dominion was taken away, consumed, and destroyed--literally.  And again, remember that each ruling member of the Flavian family was named "Titus" so each of them would have added up to six hundred sixty-six in numerology, to link it back to Revelation too.”

The 10 horns in Daniel are the kings that lead up to Antiochus IV. That’s made clear in what Epiphanes does throughout the book, and the timeline of the book itself. Daniel 7:7-8 actually describe 11 horns (vv. 7-8, 24), not just 10. The 11^th horn is the actual king who represents the horrible beast and persecutes the saints in the book. I could bolster my view that Domitian is the beast in Revelation by the same eisegesis, where the context of Revelation is read into Daniel, and then I include the illegitimate usurpers as emperors, but this would be to commit this same fallacy of context replacement. The 11^th horn in the book is Antiochus IV, who stops the daily sacrifices. We know this from the parallels of each passage in terms of what he does, as well as the fact that after he does it, the temple and the daily sacrifices are restored (8:13-14), which means this can only refer to someone that desecrates the Second Temple long before the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70. The temple and daily sacrifices are not restored after Titus demolishes it, but it is restored after Antiochus IV defiles it with the abomination of desolation.

“Not only that, but remember that Daniel was speaking to the king of Babylon of the statue and said that when the rock crashed into the feet of the statue: "it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold" (Daniel 2:45).  The gold head was Babylon itself. And what happens when the beast falls in Revelation?  "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!" (Revelation 14:8 and 18:2).”

The city isn’t the beast in Revelation. It’s the woman. The beast is the one who destroys the city through his rulers he sets in place, a likely image drawn from Nero burning the city of Rome. The beast actually doesn’t fall until Chapter 19 when Christ fights him in a war and throws him alive into the lake of fire. There seems to be a confusion of referents here.

“So what to make of all this?  The beast motif used in Daniel is echoed in Revelation, so in both places probably refers to the same thing.”

That’s the core fallacy here. One author is using the imagery found in another book for another purpose. It is a non sequitur to argue that they both must refer to the same thing. Instead, the context in each book indicates that they are not both referring to the same thing, so the astounding coincidence is not at all that astounding.

 “There are very clear signs in both Daniel and Revelation that link the beast to Roman history, from the "seven mountains" being the seven hills of Rome, to Rome being the final empire, to the oddities of the X Legion, to the result of Domitian's end.”

Where does Daniel talk about seven hills or that Rome is the final empire? The same loose connections are being made between these texts and the X Legion. Daniel can in no way be talking about the 10^th Legion because he isn’t really talking about Rome at all.

“The beast stands in for the entire system of Rome, from its armies to its leaders.  There are certainly a lot of coincidences, far more than would happen by chance, in two different books of the Bible written six or seven hundred years apart not to treat Rome as the intended referent.”

It should be made clear, the beast is Rome and is personified in two specific kings in the book. Notice, it is two specific kings that are described as the beast, one that has died and the eighth king. Hence, all of the kings, and all of the army, and all of the other things are not personifying Rome in the book. In Daniel, Babylon is personified/characterized by the one king, Nebuchadnezzar. Likewise, the horrible beast is personified/characterized as the one king, Antiochus IV, as the kingdom of God/Israel is likely characterized by the Messianic/Davidic King, although this is assumed based on the analogy of the other two kingdoms that form an inclusio of the wicked kingdoms that come before it, and is not made explicit in the context. So the argument made here has failed to show that the beast in Revelation, which demands worship of its image, likely describes a Roman Legion led by Titus.

“Ultimately this means that we can broadly conclude that since Daniel and Revelation both reference the Roman Empire, the events that feature the beasts have a historical fulfillment already.  Of course many who agree that these are referring to Rome also claim that there will be a dual fulfillment in the future.  Is it possible for a future fulfillment?  Well, I suppose anything is possible.  But what reason do we have to suspect that these events will happen again?”

Actually, what this all means is that the symbols are not stuck in time, but can be applied to different rulers in the past and future. Even the things said of Rome do not ultimately occur. Rome and the beast itself stand in as representations of something else, as does Antiochus IV whose death brings about the end of all things and the resurrection of the dead in the book. These are microcosmic pictures that the Bible itself, by combining the macrocosmic end to each and repurposing them, indicates have larger referents to a yet unfulfilled event. They have been fulfilled on a smaller scale, and yet, they have not been fulfilled in the fullest sense.

“What will it affect for you, theologically, if it turns out that the preterist view is correct and only the final judgment depicted in Revelation 20 remains to be completed?”

Why stop there? The final judgment in Revelation 20 has the beast and false prophet thrown in. Immediately after the rest of the wicked are thrown in with them. If that is only Rome in the past, then that judgment has occurred. Why would that, as opposed to the rest, await a fulfillment? Because it is obviously not true. That reading is absurd. Likewise, it is obviously not true that Christ picked up one of the Roman emperors in history and threw him alive into the lake of fire after the city of Rome was destroyed in the first century. None of that happened. Perhaps, the author wishes us to see pictures of a future in his interpreted symbols, and not literal fulfillments of them in the past.

“So I think it's clear that the ancients did not differentiate between kings and their kingdoms, generals and their armies.  Indeed, this is the natural outworking of societies built on federal headship, where the federal head stands in place of everything that head oversees.”

I’ll end on a note of agreement that the empires are personified in a specific king with whom the author wishes to characterize the empire. I wouldn’t say that ancients don’t distinguish between them, but that a federal head can represent and characterize the empire over which he rules. The extension of that to a specific legion in an army representing the emperor would not necessarily follow. Either way, it doesn’t seem to be happening in Revelation, as the contextual referents are already supplied as referring to something else, and end up rejecting this interpretation once identified correctly.