Who are the Seven Heads and Ten Horns of the Beast in the Apocalypse of St. John?

According to tradition, St. John was arrested and brought to Rome where he was publicly thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil. He miraculously survived and was then sent into exile on the island of Patmos, where he received the visions that he would record in the Apocalypse. There is some debate over when these events occurred and thus with the dating of the Apocalypse. Traditionally, it was believed that this occurred during the last decade of the first century which was also the last decade of St. John’s life. This would have been during the reign of the emperor Domitian, who persecuted Christians because of their refusal to acknowledge him as deus et dominus (God and Lord). Before 1955, the Church commemorated the casting of St. John into boiling with the feast of St. John at the Latin Gate and most missals dated this event to A.D. 95. The Fathers of the Church stated that the Apocalypse “appeared” during the reign of Domitian; however, that does not necessarily mean that is when it was actually written.

Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus 

Textual details can be interpreted to suggest the Apocalypse was written during the reign of Nero, such as there being no reference to the destruction of the Temple and most notably, the infamous “number of the Beast” 666, which is the numerical value of Neron Kaisar, the Greek name for Nero Caesar, transliterated into Hebrew. However, the Beast is described as having seven heads and ten horns. Nero was the fifth emperor and the last of the Julio-Claudians. When faced with the prospect of the Senate finally overthrowing and executing him, Nero took the cowardly way out and committed suicide on June 9, A.D. 68.

Servius Sulpicius Galba

The Senate proclaimed the general Servius Sulpicius Galba as emperor to succeed him. Galba reigned for just over six months. On the first day of A.D. 69, the Roman legions on the German frontier mutinied and proclaimed Aulus Vitellius, the governor of Germania, as emperor. Before the legions under Vitellius reached Rome, Marcus Salvius Otho, the Lusitanian governor who had accompanied Galba to Rome, became angry that he had not been declared to be Galba’s heir. He conspired with a number of Praetorian Guards to assassinate Galba on January 15. Otho than gathered troops and marched out to meet Vitellius in the First Battle of Bedriacum. After learning of the disastrous defeat of his troops, Otho committed suicide on April 16, to prevent more deaths in battle.

Aulus Vitellius

Vitellius marched into Rome unchallenged and was acknowledged as emperor by the Senate on April 19. However, his rule was far from secure. Almost as soon as they received word that Nero was dead, Vespasian and his son Titus, who were commanding the Roman forces in the Jewish-Roman War, began planning to claim the throne. In July, the legions in the eastern part of the Empire declared Vespasian to be emperor. In October, Vespasian’s troops met those of Vitellius at the Second Battle of Bedriacum and were victorious over them. Vitellius agreed to abdicate but his troops prevented him from doing so and forced him to return to Rome. In December, Vespasian’s troops entered Rome and after intense urban fighting, Vitellius was killed on December 20. With ten days left in the year, the Senate acknowledged Vespasian as emperor the next day, thus making A.D. 69 The Year of Four Emperors.

The Flavian Dynasty

Including the short-lived emperors Galba, Otho and Vitellus, the tenth emperor of Rome was Titus, Domitian’s older brother and predecessor, who had been left by his father in Judaea to complete the conquest of Jerusalem, which he did in A.D. 70. Given the brevity and relatively insignificance of their reigns, it is fitting for these three of the Four Emperors to be represented by horns, and not by heads on the Beast. Domitian is the eleventh emperor but it is important to note that “One of it’s [the Beast’s] heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed”  (13:3) The Nero Redivivus (Nero Living Again) legend developed from a belief that Nero would return after his death. However, one could interpret the mortal wound of one head being healed as a statement that Domitian was just like Nero, in viciously persecuting Christians and would suffer a similar fate.

Domitian was eventually overthrown but unlike Nero, he was assassinated in A.D. 96. Like Nero, he was the last of his dynasty (the Flavians) and was succeeded by the old and experienced Nerva. During Nerva’s reign John returned from his exile to Ephesus, where he died of old age in either A.D. 98 or 99, during the reign of Trajan, Nerva’s successor. He is the only apostle to have not died as a martyr, though it was not for lack of trying on the part of the Romans.