sacrifices, averted the danger at a small expense, and the earth stood fast.

The monster, who stands for the Province, is described s coming up out of the earth. He is contrasted with

the Beast which came up out of the sea. They are thus described as native and as foreign: the one belongs

to the same land as the readers of the Apocalypse, the other comes from across the sea, and seems to rise

out of the sea as it comes. This form of expression was usual, both in language and in art. Foreign products

and manufactures were described as "of the sea": we use "sea-borne" in the same sense: the goddess who

came in with the Phoenicians, as patroness and protectress of the Sidonian ships, was represented as

"rising from the sea." Beings native to the country, or closely connected with the earth, were represented in

art as reclining on the ground (e.g., river- or mountain -gods, as chapter 19, Figure 20), or emerging with only

half their figure out of the ground (as the goddess of the earth in Figure 6).

Figure 6: The Earth Goddess giving the child Erysichthon to Athena

Thus the Beast was marked clearly to the readers having a home beyond the sea, while the monster was

closely connected with their own soil, and had its home in their own country.

The monster causeth all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free and the bond, that

there be given them a mark on their right hand or upon their forehead; and that no man should be able to

buy or to sell, save he that hath the mark, the name of the Beast or the number of his n ame.

This refers to some unknown, but (as will be shown) not in itself improbable attempt, either through official

regulation or informal "boycott," to injure the Asian Christians by preventing dealings with traders and

shopkeepers who had not proved their loyalty to the Emperor. That such an attempt may have been made in

the Flavian persecution seems quite possible. It is not described here as an Imperial, but only as a provincial

regulation; now it is absolutely irreconcilable with the principles of Roma n administration that the Proconsul

should have issued any order of the kind except with Imperial authorisation; therefore we must regard this

as a recommendation originating from the Commune of Asia. The Commune would have no authority to

issue a command or law; but it might signalise its devotion to the Emperor by recommending that the

disloyal should be discountenanced by the loyal, and that all loyal subjects should try to restrict their

custom to those who were of proved loyalty. Such a recommendation might be made by a devoted and

courtly body like the Commune; and it was legal to do this, because all who refused to engage in the public

worship of the Emperors were proscribed by Imperial act as traitors and outlaws, possessing no rights.

Only some enactment of this kind seems adequate to explain this remarkable statement of 13:16f. In a very

interesting section of his Biblical Studies, p. 241f, Dr. Deissmann describes the official stamp impressed on

legal deeds recording and registering the sale of pro perty; and maintains that this whole passage takes its

origin from the custom of marking with the Imperial stamp all records of sale. This seems an inadequate

explanation. The mark of the Beast was a preliminary condition, and none who wanted it were admitted to

business transactions. But the official stamp was merely the concomitant guarantee of legality; it was

devoid of religious character; and there was no reason why it should not be used by Christians as freely as

by pagans.

That the mark of the Beast must be impressed in the right hand or the forehead is a detail which remains

obscure: we know too little to explain it with certainty. If it had been called simply the mark on the forehead,

it might be regarded as the public proof of loyalty by performance of the ritual: this overt, public proof might

be symbolically called "a mark on the forehead." But the mention of an alternative place for the mark shows

that a wider explanation is needed. The proof of loyalty might be made in two ways; both were patent and

public; they are symbolically described as the mark on the right hand or on the forehead; without one or the

other no one was to be dealt with by the loyal provincials.

That something like a "boycott" might be attempted in the fervour of loyal hatred for the disloyal Christians

seems not impossible. That "strikes" occurred in the Asian cities seems established by an inscription of