The Alabaster Jar of Anti-Sacramental Mystery Part II: Are Christian Division and Their Sacraments Anticipated in the Bible? Protestant Chaos? Probably, Yes! Read On!
Memory: The Ages of the World in the Days of Creation and Seven Heads of the Beast: Shorter Version
I wanted to give a more concise treatment of the days of creation and beast kings as image of all human history, one not so long and cumbersome.
Now, per some Early Church Fathers' traditions, the days of Creation are not merely about the CREation of the world, but also its REcreation, the renewal of the human race in salvation history
For example, the day begins with evening, or darkness, and ends with morning, or light. "Evening came and morning followed, the first day, ..., the second day..." So also is this the way that salvation history goes: First a period of spiritual darkness, then a period of spiritual light....
DAY I:
Sunset: The Fall and Wickedness of Noah's day, darkness
Sunrise: The Flood, light
DAY II:
Sunset: The Tower of Babel, man's resistance of marrying God to fornicating with the material world, darkness
Sunrise: The confounding of language and calling of Abraham, the formation of the first People of God, the Hebrews, light
DAY III:
Sunset: The Enslavement of God's People by Egypt, darkness
Sunrise: The Exodus and possession of Holy Land, light...
DAY IV:
Sunset: The intermediate falling away of the Jews from faithfulness to the Old Covenant, darkness
Sunrise: The Exile, repentance of Jews, and Restoration to Holy Land, light
DAY V:
Sunset: The Maccabbean struggle, terrible persecution of Antiochus, darkness
Sunrise: The First Coming of Christ, light
DAY VI:
Sunset: Pagan Rome viciously persecutes the Church, darkness
Sunrise: Catholicism conquers paganism, Catholic Christendom, light
DAY VII:
Sunset: The great loss of Catholic faith, Protestantism, Enlightenment, Modern Secular Apostasy, darkness (NOW, today!!!)
Sunrise: The Minor Chastisement that is coming, the Reunion of Christians and the Age of Our Lady's Peace, ...
DAY VIII:
Sunset: The final falling away, NT Antichrist, Great apostasy, great tribulation
Sunrise: The Second Coming of Christ, the New Heavens and New Earth!
Eight days of creation, eight great ages of human history in God's Divine Plan. We are currently in the first half of the seventh, which means when Our Lady soon conquers men's hearts in the world, there will be an imperfect "Sabbath" from sin in history, even as God established the Sabbath on the 7th day.
But the ultimate Sabbath, the eighth day, lies beyond the eschaton, in the Resurrection and New Creation that shall never end, even as Jesus rose never to die again on the "eighth day of Creation."
The Beast of Apocalypse 17
As for the beast, the angel tells John, that the seven heads are seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and one has yet to come. The beast himself, who was and is not and will be again, is said to be eighth and of the seven.
This also corroborates our eight days of creation. St Hippolytus suggests that the kings are ages of sin. This fits well with our theology above:
To begin, we notice that the first five days are Old Testament, saving the final part, the morning of the fifth day, which is Jesus' First Coming. But this still leaves five phases of darkness for the OT.
Hence, very appropriately, as the beast itself can image the FALLEN NATURE OF MAN MADE INCARNATE IN HUMAN HISTORY, or, derivatively, ages of sin, then, just as FIVE phases of darkness span the OT, so "FIVE [beast kings] have fallen." That is, five great ages of sin precede the coming of the Christ.
"One is". Indeed, when St John wrote the Apocalypse, the great Roman persecution of Christians was already under way. Hence, the king that "is" is the Roman Empire, or derivatively, the great persecutive pagan power immediately following the first Coming of Christ.
"And the other has not yet come:" One phase of sin yet remained after St John's time. This, of course, is our modern age, the minor apostasy of history, the godlessness of the twentieth century down to our own day, where there is nearly no regard for God or morals, and in which men live for this world rather than the next, for finding ultimate fulfillment in the CreaTION, rather than in their CreaTOR.
The text suggests even a final darkness, an "eighth":
"And the beast which was and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goes into perdition."
This fully agrees fully with our Marian Apparitions scenario. Our current age is not the very end. A conditional chastisement will renew humanity and bring spiritual peace for a great age. Only after this age starts to dissipate because of laxity will the final darkness come, the great apostasy. Then shall AC come, etc, and the world end.
The Beast is OF THE SEVEN, yes, the fallen nature of man is that which permeates all phases of sin, the nature of the lies of the fall and the embrace thereof.
As for the beast "was and is not and will be again," we can say the fall of man had PRECEDENCE ["was"] in human history prior to Christ, since nearly all nations did not know God, and lived in the darkness of paganism and sin.
But with the onset of the Gospel, already present even in St John's time with the slowly growing Church, the renewal of the whole world is under way, and the Gentiles are progressively ceasing to be in the darkness but brought into the "light of Christ". Hence, already in St John's time, "the beast is not".
The beast "will be again" [presumably in the eighth]. In the Age of Peace, God will have given to humanity everything He can this side of the end of time. They will fully digest the Gospel, and see its fruits of love and peace. They will also have the fullness of science reconciled with faith. Hence, per Hebrews 6, if they reject God even after all that, "it is impossible to be restored to repentance" That is, once the wonderful fruits of the fullness of science and faith are digested, nothing further remains for a subsequent apostasy than judgement.
Hence, for all practical purposes, the great apostasy will be "incurable [generally] and practically unforgivable historically". In other words, at the end of the world, the fall once again takes PRECEDENCE over nearly all humanity, like before Christ. Hence, the beast [the fallen nature of man] "is again."
In conclusion, powerful evidence suggests, built on the Tradition of the Fathers [the days of creation as ages of renewal, St Hippolytus on the beast as ages of sin] that in the beginning of Scripture, in the days of creation, images of great light, and at the end of Scripture, the beast heads, images of great darkness, all human history is veiled there in allegory. What a wondrous God we have, Amen!