John prophesies ex eventu about the death of Nero Caesar, and predicts his revival as the eschatological tyrant. The ‘wild animal’ is John’s version of the chief villain from Daniel. In that book, five apocalyptic prophecies are found in chapters 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10–12. Each one begins with the ‘present day’ (of the character Daniel, not the pseudonymous author), and covers the rise and fall of a series of four gentile kingdoms, each of them ruling Judah in succession: Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece. This order is not historically accurate, but the author of Daniel insisted on this sequence (cf. Dan 2.37–38; 8.20–21; 10.13, 20; 11.2) by adapting a common division of history into four ages. In reality, Media rose to power before Babylon, and never ruled over Judah. Instead, the Persians conquered Media first, then Babylon. Daniel’s historical revisionism may be explained as an attempt to rescue a failed prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah, that Media would conquer Babylon (Jer 51.11, 28; cf. Dan 9.2). The Greek kingdom—which in the Book of Daniel comprised Alexander III of Macedon and his successors in the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties—was regarded by the author as the worst of the four gentile kingdoms. Daniel further identifies the Seleucid king Antiochus IV as the world-conqueror, a tyrant who would usher in the end times. God would then intervene, rewarding Israel with a restored kingdom, and punishing their enemies. The five prophecies are quite redundant, and only provide new information insofar as the author himself experienced the unfolding Maccabee Revolt against Antiochus IV. Daniel’s predictions did not come to pass, but the book received widespread popularity very early, which required further revisionist interpretations to keep it relevant and protect it from its own failure. Media and Persia were conflated as a single kingdom which followed Babylon, moving the Greeks up to become the third kingdom. Daniel’s rebuke of a world-conqueroring king became a cornerstone in apocalyptic imagination, even for writers who were not directly dependent on the book. The prophecy in Daniel 7 is presented as a symbolic vision, in which the four gentile kingdoms are monsters. The first three are each compared to an animal, while the fourth is described only as ‘terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong’. Apocalypses in the late first century CE only focused on Daniel’s fourth beast, which they identified with the Roman Empire. This is also the case for John, who introduced it as ‘a wild animal rising from the sea’. However, John then immediately imagined ‘another wild animal’, this one ‘rising from the earth’. John did not add this new monster into Daniel’s sequence as a previously unknown fifth empire. Rather, he depicted it as contemporary with, and subservient to, his version of the fourth and final empire. Compare the Psalms of Solomon, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Martyrdom of Isaiah, the Sibylline Oracles, and Lactantius’ Divine Institutes.

And I saw a wild animal rising from the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, and on its horns were ten diadems, and on its heads were defamatory names. And the wild animal I saw was like a leopard, and its feet were like a bear’s, and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And the dragon gave it his power and his throne and extensive authority.

And one of its heads was slaughtered to death, but its fatal wound was healed, and the whole earth was amazed by the wild animal. And they worshiped the dragon who had given authority to the wild animal, and they worshiped the wild animal, saying, ‘Who is like the wild animal, and who can wage war with it?’

And it was given a mouth speaking great and defamatory things. And it was given authority to act for forty two months. And it opened its mouth to defame God, to defame his name and his dwelling, those who dwell in the sky. And it was allowed to make war with the holy ones and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation. And all the ones who dwell on the earth worshiped it, whomever was not written in the slain lamb’s scroll of life since the foundation of the cosmos.

And I saw another wild animal rising from the earth, and it had two horns like a lamb, and it spoke like a dragon. And it uses the first wild animal’s authority on its behalf, and it makes the earth and the ones who dwell on it worship the first wild animal, which had been healed of its fatal wound. And it makes impressive signs, so it can even make fire descend from the sky to the earth in front of men. And it deceives those who dwell on the earth through the signs it was allowed to make in front of the wild animal, telling the ones who dwell on the earth to make an image of the wild animal that had the sword-wound and lived. And it is allowed to give breath to the image of the wild animal, so the image of the wild animal could speak and cause whoever would not worship the wild animal to be killed.

And it makes all the small and the great and the rich and the poor and the freemen and the slaves—it gives them a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, so no one can buy or sell if they do not have the mark. It is the wild animal’s name or the number of its name. Here is wisdom: let the one who has perception calculate the wild animal’s number since it is a man’s number. And the number is six hundred sixty six.