Days of Creation and 7-Headed Beast as Image of All Human History

Summary

This article reexamines ancient metaphors of the days of creation and beast kings as images of all of the ages of human history with the now deeper understanding of history from most fully approved Private Revelation. With Public Revelation, we only know of one Apostasy in Church history, the final great apostasy of the end of the world. With only this information, the days of creation don't quite fit the model of human history and so need to be amended in application to it.

But the mystics now supplement our understanding of Church history with an additional apostasy, an intermediate minor apostasy and tribulation followed by a glorious period of spiritual rest for the Church. All these precede the great apostasy. This enables a perfect solution to the creation days' analogy and also fits perfectly with the beast kings.

And so God's People of Old labor for five ages against sin and wickedness; the New People of God extend the labor into the sixth age, laboring to the spread the Gospel, to work out the implications of the Deposit of Faith, and to fight against heretics and infidels; then the New People of God rest imperfectly in a seventh age of spiritual peace (the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart from Private Revelation), and finally enter the eternal rest of the New Resurrected Creation in the eighth age.

Similarly, the beast kings of Apocalypse 17 perfectly image the greater phases of sin amongst the days of creation [the sunsets]: "Five have fallen", the five great ages of darkness for the Old Testament; "one is", pagan Rome; "the other has not yet come", the modern minor apostasy of today, and finally; "the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth…", the great apostasy.

The Creation Days and the Beast Heads as Image of Whole Salvation History

Prerequisites:

Introduction: True Wisdom and the Apocalypse – Seven Roman Emperors or Seven Ages? https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-pauline/apocalypses-best-layer-futurism-preterism-or-something-in-between/10153473628617144

Part I - A Theology of the Greater Ages in Abstraction https://www.facebook.com/notes/scott-pauline/apocalypse-no-longer-wild-speculation-when-history-rigorous-and-necessary/10153500879472144

A Word about Dispensationalist Theology

Today, there are two extremes in the apocalypse: futurism and preterism. As might be expected from the names, futurism has most of the apocalypse fulfilled in the future, or very end of the world; preterism, the other end, the beginning of Church history, "preemptively fulfilled" before most of Church history ever happens.

This too, introduces two extremes to our beloved "millennium" controversy, Apocalypse 20. We all know the crazy fundamentalists' interpretation: Jesus will literally come down from heaven, resurrect the good people, and reign in this Old Creation for a literal thousand years. Then, afterwards, the bad people will resurrect and attack the good ones, and then fire will come down from heaven and kill them all. THEN, FINALLY, the real end of the world will come: the General Judgment and New Creation.

As Catholics, we all know this is absurd. This is why St Augustine gave the Church a meaning that was plausible, at least for its time: when we are Baptized, we are resurrected into New Life, and the martyrs are already victorious with Christ in heaven. For the general age of the Church, Jesus reigns through His Church, which is the Mystical Body of Christ made present in the world sacramentally. At the very end, the dragon will indeed come out to disturb what will be the Church's evangelization maturation with the Great Apostasy. And after that, sure enough, all human history will close.

All this, of course, is good, but what about a possible middle road? I mean, on the one hand, we have the millennium as a literal period of peace and reign of Jesus toward the end of the Church "history", and on the other hand we have a figurative reign of Jesus for the near entire Church history. What about a possible hybrid? What do I mean? I mean, a period that is still figurative, like St Augustine, that is, a spiritual reign of Christ, not literal, but one that is NOT the WHOLE Church age, but only PART of it, and, in fact, toward the end of the world?

Sound crazy? Well it isn't relative to now profound insights from EWTN scholars, in the FAQ of ewtn.com, Faith Q&A, an article, "Millennium/End Times/ Rapture", discusses the question, amongst other things, of where the Church might be in her historical journey. It argues that the best scenario that can be derived from the plethora of fully approved apparitions of the Church (Private Revelations of mystics, and so forth) is that toward the end of the world, there will occur a minor apostasy and tribulation, after which will occur the reunion of Christians and a period of spiritual peace, where the Gospel is lived in men's hearts for a great age. Only later does the great apostasy of the end occur.

For all practical purposes, the minor godless age has been the last generation. Hence, we currently await, possibly, a minor tribulation relative to the end of the world, after which, again, nearly all non-Catholic Christians will come to Peter, and a period of spiritual renewal will reign throughout much of the world.

But isn't this strikingly like the closing portions of apocalypse? For here, in the mystics' scenario, the world is in a condition LIKE its end, but wait! It doesn’t end, not yet! It seems to end, but there is a renewal, a final phase of light before the real end occurs. The world goes through the beast, and the false prophet, and the tribulation (Apocalypse 13, 16), and lo, the Christ seizes the beast and false prophet and casts them into the fire, but alas! Is it the very end? NO! The dragon, rather than being utterly defeated in fire like the beast and false prophet, is temporarily chained before a final ATTACK. There is a grace period.

So, then, in this hybrid view, in one dimension, BEFORE the chaining of the dragon, the beast and false prophet can image, not the literal antichrist of the very end, but our modern age of godlessness and apostasy, if even limited. The bowls of wrath can be, in this first dimension, the minor tribulation. The destruction of the beast and false prophet can symbolize not the literal second coming but Christ's spiritual victory over our current apostasy through the reunion of Christians and the great renewal of faith in the world. This, too, can be the resurrection of those who died under the beast for not accepting its mark: the Church, now marginalized and persecuted in various ways, rises to new life by reconverting the Gentiles to the Gospel and ushering in Our Lady's temporary age of Her Triumph in men's hearts. The dragon, then, unlike the first 2000 years of Church history, really IS chained, in a practical sense: no war, no heresies, no infidels, no apostates, just peace for one great age.

When the dragon is "released" by man's laxity, then the whole sequence of beast and false prophet and tribulation are played all over in a second dimension: the great apostasy, the literal antichrist, and the great tribulation.

Now that's talking balance!

One final anecdote before we commence the big meat: the days of creation analogy, as we indicated before, fails in a "one day discrepancy" because of this millennium controversy. More specifically, the seventh day is chiliasm for some early fathers that advocate the creation analogy. (Chiliasm is the fundamentalist interpretation). Hence, because chiliasm is to be condemned, the analogy had to be amended. One way was to just say that the seventh day was the eternal Sabbath, and say the eighth was just being redundant mystically.

Well, lo and behold, with Our Lady of Fatima's promise of an era of Peace and that her heart will reign in men's hearts for a great time, the seventh day imperfect Sabbath can be a reality so as to retain all creation days, even the eighth!

So there you have it. Now let us get down to business. But first, before we try to work out the days of creation analogy with our renewed theology from Private Revelation, we need to recall the results of our abstract theology;

The Joyful Mysteries Analogy of Human History

Recall from the articles I wrote on pregnancy as image of the whole Old Testament, and of the months of pregnancy of the first three joyful mysteries as image of all human history, that the ages of the world fit the model well for the days of creation:

God must first allow the two great lies of the fall to be digested by all of humanity, the antithesis of the two great reasons we exist--Baptismal disposition: to know, love and serve God in this life; and Marital disposition toward God, that we might marry God forever in the next life:

1. Anti-Baptism, or no faith, no repentance, the wickedness of Noah's day, then Baptize humanity with the Flood, and then allow..

2. Anti-Marriage, or materialism, joining in fornication with the Creation rather marriage to the Creator, materialism, or Babel, followed by the division of humanity into nations and the Marriage to the special people, Abraham and the Hebrews, to begin the way of the pilgrim for the prefiguring covenant.

Then, the way of the pilgrim must be traversed by the People of the Prefiguring Covenant [the Jews], which is three stages,

3. The Purgative of Prefigurement, Egypt

4. The Illuminative of Prefigurement, Exodus, Holy Land, Prophets, Dark Night of Soul, pre-Exile wickedness of Jews, and

5. The Unitive of Prefigurement, Exile, Repentance, Renewal, Restoration, Martyrdom, Maccabees

Messiah, or the Incarnate One, then comes after the Unitive darkness, "martyrdom", of the People of Old. Which is to say, in any world that happens to fall and is to receive an Incarnation, the Messiah comes in the light of stage five, two lights in the Baptism and Marriage of the preeminent stages, and three lights for each of the three ways of the People of God, the purgative, the illuminative and the unitive.

After Messiah comes and forms the New, Fulfilling Covenant, then the way of the pilgrim is then traversed by the rest of the nations, the New Kingdom, the spiritual kingdom, the Church. After the pilgrim way of the New People is complete, the end of history follows, the crossing of the threshold, the Second Coming of the Messiah, when the world is recreated and iniquity utterly defeated.

6. The Purgative of Fulfillment, Pagan Rome

7. The Illuminative of Fulfillment, 300 - present: Catholic doctrinal development, dark night of soul, modern secular apostasy, and

8. The Unitive of Fulfillment: Minor Chastisement, Renewal of Catholic Christendom, Age of Peace, Martyrdom, NT Antichrist and Great Apostasy

Hence, again, the nature of any salvation history is predetermined to be five ages for the Old Law, composed of two preeminent stages and the three stages of the pilgrim's way for the People of Old, followed by the Coming of Messiah, the New, Fulfilling Covenant, and then the same three pilgrim's way ages for the New Covenant People, or, that is, eight total ages.

The Days of Creation as Symbol of the Blueprint of the Ages

Now for the good parts! Let us dive in.

What is a day of creation except a sunset and a sunrise ("evening came, morning followed, the first day, … the second day…"). So also an age of RE-creation of the world, a RE-making, a Renewal: first spiritual darkness, or sunset, then spiritual light, or sunrise. And this is what we constantly see in salvation history, alternation between great phase of spiritual darkness, then phase of spiritual light, or God's sub-redemption of the phase of darkness. Then the darkness comes back, and is redeemed again, and so forth, like the beast heads. A beast head as image a phase of sin rises up, and God "mortally wounds" the head of sin by a Redemptive action. But the wound is "healed", the sunsets, the fall returns!

Ages of the Fall Digested

Day 1:

Darkness: The Fall, Anti-Baptism, Noah's Day
Light: The Flood, God Baptizes the world

Day 2:

Darkness: Anti-Marriage toward God, Tower of Babel
Light: Confounding of tongues and formation of Prefiguring People, Abraham

Way of the Pilgrim for Prefiguring People (the Jews)

Day 3:

Darkness: Purgative Way, Egypt Enslaves
Light: Illuminative way of Light, Exodus, Old Testament Kingdom, Prophets

Day 4:

Darkness: Illuminative Dark Night of Soul, Intermediate pre-Exile Apostasy of Jews
Light: Unitive Way of Light, Exile, Repentance of Jews, Restoration to Holy Land

Day 5:

Darkness: Untive way Martyrdom: Maccabees, Old Testament Antichrist Antiochus
Light: First Coming of Christ, formation of Church

-- Coming of Incarnate One --

Way of the Pilgrim for Church

Day 6:

Darkness: Purgative way, Pagan Rome persecutes
Light: Illuminative way of light of Church, Catholic Christendom and Development of Church doctrine, 300 - 1950

Day 7:

Darkness: Illuminative Dark Night of Soul, intermediate Apostasy of Gentiles, 1950 - present
Light: Unitive way of light: Minor Chastisement, Restoration of Catholicism, Fullness of Gentiles, Age of Peace

Day 8:

Darkness: Unitive Way Martyrdom, Great Apostasy, New Testament Antichrist
Light: Second Coming of Christ, end of world, General Resurrection, New Creation

Now for analogical observations of the analogy, per Tradition and other things:

The Sixth Day and the Sixth Age: God recreates the Gentiles through the Church

The first profound observation, even one that Augustine sees in "On the Catechizing of the Uninstructed", is in the meaning of the sixth day on which man is created in Genesis. Augustine, as commenting on the ages of salvation history, points out that just as God created man in His Likeness and Image on the sixth day, so also in the sixth age of history, pagan Rome followed by Catholic Christendom, God re-created man in His Image by placing sanctifying grace back into his soul through the Gospel of Christ, which indeed brought a continent and more of humanity who had hitherto been in the darkness of paganism and sin back into the light of the fullness of God's Revelation and Salvation, Catholicism, the New, Fulfilling Covenant.

The Seventh Day, the Catholic Age of Peace, the Imperfect Sabbath from the Sin of History in this Old Creation

The analogy builds as we move on to the seventh day, the Sabbath of Old. Here, we employ St Methodius' analogy and other ECFs that see a full eight ages instead of just seven, but with the temperament of a little allegory: the "Millennium of rest", or the seventh age, is not a literal return of Christ, but is a figurative renewal, what we have just discussed above in the introductory discourse. Christ’s casting of the beast and false prophet in the fire can be seen as His supreme victory over sin within human history, insofar as the coming chastisement of our time, foretold conditionally by Fatima and many other fully approved Private Revelations, will bring massive repentance of the world and restoration of Christian unity. The subsequent triumph of Our Lady's Heart will bring a true peace unto humanity, spiritual peace. Hence, it will truly be the greatest rest from sin since the world began, and second only to the eternal rest beyond time in the New Creation. In other words, just as in the Old Covenant, the prefiguring People celebrated the seventh day as the day of rest, so also shall humanity rest from the sin of history in the seventh light of that same history.

The "Eighth" Day Brings One Back to the "First"

The next observation is that seven days of creation, mirrored in our own earthly week of seven days, bear a profound analogy to the meaning of salvation history, and this, namely, in the notion that the eighth day somehow brings one back to the first. And what do we mean? We mean that day eight, Sunday, on which Christ rose from the dead, making the eighth day the "new, ultimate Sabbath", is somehow also "the first day." And how does this relate to the question of salvation history? It implies profound parallels between the first and last "days", or "ages", of salvation history.

Specifically, in the darkness of the first day, or age, the near whole of humanity has just fallen the first time and is almost completely wicked, excepting a remnant, "Noah and his family." In a parallel situation, in the darkness of the eighth day, or age, humanity is once again nearly totally wicked (in the Great Apostasy), sparing a remnant, the faithful Catholics (who consist mainly of the near whole of the Jewish People, and a small portion of Gentiles). As it were, then, in the first day, humanity has fallen the first time, in the last day, humanity has fallen the final time.

Moreover, in the first day, God's response to the wickedness is to destroy the world and to begin to "recreate it", that is, redeem it. The mechanism of the destruction in this first day is water, which symbolizes the cleansing of humanity, its Baptism. And so, in a certain sense, in day one, God is beginning to "recreate the world" by beginning the process of its redemption.

Now, in the parallel situation of the eighth day, God's response to the great apostasy is also the destruction of the world, but not water, but by fire (see 2 Peter 3). And the world that is destroyed by fire then gives rise a New World as well, but a world that shall never end, that is in the completion of the Divine Plan for recreation, the General Resurrection and New Everlasting Creation. So, to recap, the world of the first day is destroyed and recreated by water. The world in the eighth day is destroyed and recreated by fire. The world in the light of the first day is a world that is anew, beginning to be redeemed by God. The world in the light of the last day is a world that is anew, but that has been utterly redeemed, a world that is everlasting and that shall never end.

Hence, as it were, the eighth day somehow brings humanity back to the first.

The Eighth Day, the Ultimate Sabbath, the Eternal Resurrection and New Creation

The final parallel of the days of creation is the ultimate Sabbath itself, the eighth day. For, inasmuch as the Scriptures declare, "Your Sabbaths are not acceptable to me...", so the Sabbath rest of the seventh age is not the final ultimate rest for humanity.

In what sense? Because, the seventh day, the age of Our Lady's Peace, will not last forever. Eventually, say some prophecies, humanity will grow bored and tired of spiritual and material prosperity and stop confirming their children. This will pave the way for the great apostasy and antichrist, which, as we have seen, is the darkness of day eight.

And in the light of day eight, the Second Coming and General Resurrection, notice that all men rise to eternal recompense, just Jesus rose to never die again on the eighth day. Alleluia!

The Beast Heads as the Ages

Now, we can expand the implications of the greater ages to the imagery of the beast. As expected, the beast becomes of a symbol, in its supreme sense, of the fallen nature itself, which is manifested in the eight phases of darkness in the days of creation.

To move on, there is a Scripture in Apocalypse 17 where an angel gives a mysterious meaning to the heads of the beast, which are "seven" but mysteriously, or seemingly, extended to eight. Let us now look into this, and discover that every component of the angel's explanation of the seven heads in Apocalypse 17:9-11 bears profound meaning for the ages we have analyzed throughout the discourses! Let us start with the text itself:

Rev. 17:7-11

7 And the angel said to me: Why dost thou wonder? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast which carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns. 8 The beast, which thou sawest, was, and is not, and shall come up out of the bottomless pit, and go into destruction: and the inhabitants on the earth (whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world) shall wonder, seeing the beast that was, and is not. 9 And here is the understanding that hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, upon which the woman sitteth, and they are seven kings: 10 Five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come: and when he is come, he must remain a short time. And the beast which was, and is not: the same also is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into destruction.

The Beast Was and Is Not, and Will be Again

The first question is the mystical meaning of the idea that the "beast was, and is not, and will be again [in the eighth]." Profound meaning can be assuaged as follows. The text implies that at some point in the past, the beast "was", that at St. John's time, he "is not", and, presumably in the eighth "king", he "will be again".

Here is clearly the wonderfully profound interpretation that puts to shame the preterists' notion of rumors of head wounds to Nero. The beast is nothing short of the fall and its nature, as manifested in human history!

Hence, in the beginning of human history, and before the Flood, the fall "reigned" ["was"] in human history. For, before the Flood, God had not, as of yet, intervened to redeem humanity in any significant sense, which lends itself to the notion that the fallen nature, having never felt the blow of any Redemptive act of God, clearly held sway over the majority of man in Noah's day [just prior to the Flood]. Hence, in the first great darkness, the beast "was".

But, beginning with the Flood, God's first act of Redemption of humanity, the fallen nature "ceased to be the prevailing force in human history", which is to say, the beast was "not." Which is to say, beginning with the Flood, God dealt the first lethal blow to the fallen nature. Once God intervened in the first Redemptive Action, the Flood, the Redemption of humanity, the progressive stages that draw greater spiritual goods from the manifestations of the fallen nature, was underway and, as it were, caused the fallen nature to take a secondary role in the course of salvation history, so that, precisely because God was in the process of Redeeming the human race, the beast "is not".

How much more so was this true in St. John's day, in that the fullness of Redemption had come: the Christ. Hence, all the more does the fallen nature take a back seat to the spread of the Gospel. Hence, especially in St. John's day, "the beast is not."

Although, that the fallen nature is both wounded and secondary to God's redemptive process, it does not abrogate the fact that the fallen nature still manifests itself in punctuated stages of resistance along the way, so that kings still rise and fall after the first, who was, again, "primary." These secondary kings are then the intervening ones between one and eight.

However, there inevitably comes the "final fall" that cannot be cured spiritually in a practical sense, namely, the eighth, the great apostasy. This would essentially be the beast that "is again". How so? Let us look into it. In the times of the great apostasy, humanity will be practically incurably turned away from God, so that the fallen nature once again reigns in human history. This is because man will have fully tasted of the truths and love of God in the age of peace, the fullness of the Redemption of humanity WITHIN human history, and they will have, before that, seen the apocalyptic fruits of NOT listening to these truths and seeking to love as God loves.

Hence, since God can offer humanity nothing further short of eternity, there is nothing more to do for man should they fall into apostasy after Our Lady's Triumph. Moreover, since they will not have the fullness of Redemption in THIS side of the end of time, NOTHING will satiate them from God, and so they are effectively, again, INCURABLY turned away from God. In other words, we can say that in the time of the final apostasy, a further spiritual good can no longer be drawn from this stage of darkness in such a manner that a greater share of the Redemption can be had. The only spiritual good that shall come in this is the conversion of the Jews, to the detriment of the loss of the Gentile faith.

Hence, just as the fallen nature reigned in the beginning of human history (the Fall and wickedness of Noah's day) [the beast "was"], so the it reigns again at the close of human history, where all but a remnant of humanity are in [incurable] rebellion against God [the beast "will be again"].

The Beast Kings Delineated

The residual verses of the beast fill in gaps that expand on the theology:

"Five have fallen."

That is, five stages of sin are the Old Law, as we have seen confirmed by St. Methodious of Olympus and St. Augustine. Five ages are the predetermined means of preparing for Messiah. The two preminent darknesses afflicting the whole of humanity, the Pre-Flood Wickedness and Tower of Babel and three darknesses of the saint's way for the Prefiguring People: dark night of senses: Egyptian Enslavement; dark night of Soul: Pre-Babylonian-Exile Apostasy; Martyrdom: OT Antichrist Antiochus.

"One is."

Clearly, the stage existing in St. John's time is the sixth, the one that is the purgative dark night of the senses for the New Pilgrim People, the resistance of the pagans to conversion and their subsequent persecution of the Church, effectively, Pagan Rome.

"And the other has not yet come, and when he does, he must continue a short space."

Clearly, this is the seventh darkness, the dark night of the Soul for the Church, the intermediate apostasy. For all practical purposes, this is our current age. Behold, that stage falls, as it were, from the Minor Chastisement, which restores the Gentiles to the Church. Which brings us to the eighth, the Great Apostasy, which we have already treated significantly:

"And the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition."

“of the seven”

The only comment remaining, is the concern with the phrase, that the beast in the eighth king "is of the seven", which is simply from a mystical point of view: it is the fallen nature of man, instigated by the seduction of the dragon (who likewise bears seven heads), that constitutes the source of cause of all the stages of sin. For in each stage, the same fallen nature and the same lies that it follows are the theology of the darknesses: anti-Baptism ("Have no regard for religious and moral truth, nor to obey them") and spiritual anti-Marriage ("Do not live for the end of marrying God in Eternity. Spiritually fornicate with this world, find all your happiness and desire in the brute superficialities of the material existence.")

So then, in conclusion, the mystical meaning of the days of creation and the beast complement one another, and seem to bear forth the necessary blueprint of a world that is to be redeemed, that is, in its greater ages!

PS a little tidbit, the same nature in music:

Addendum: Natural Music

Note that in music, there are seven notes in a pure key, and when you reach step eight, you return to note one, where you started. As in, "do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do." And in any key, there is a primary major scale (major chords and songs are "happy songs") and a primary minor scale (minor chords and songs are "sad songs"). So then, salvation history can also be seen as seven great steps of light, or Redemption (joy) or seven great steps of sin (sorrow).

And in both cases, the stage of note one bears the imprint of note eight.

In joy, in both note one and note eight, the world is destroyed and a new world comes forth: in the first joy, the world is a world that is beginning to be redeemed, the old world having been destroyed by water. In the eighth joy, it is a world that has already been redeemed that is destroyed by fire, and the New World that comes forth shall never end, the New Creation.

In both phases one and eight of sorrow, the darkness is a world that is almost completely wicked, in rebellion against God, saving a remnant. In the first sorrow, the remnant is Noah and his family, but the wicked world knows so little of God and CAN be redeemed, can know God deeper and be raised up spiritually. In the eighth sorrow, the remnant is the Catholic Church, composite only of the Jews and a minority of Gentiles, but the world that is in rebellion can NO longer be redeemed. It has fully tasted of the truth and grace of God, and so is practically incapable of coming back to God, and supremely insults His Divine Plan and incomprehensible mysteries that He has given them.

Eight days. Eight kings. Eight notes. The meaning of salvation history?