Mary Baker Eddy has a few things to say about the beast of Revelation 13.

-        “Sin is the image of the beast to be effaced by the sweat of agony.  It is moral madness which rushes forth to clamor with midnight and tempest” Science & Health p. 327:13.

-        “Truth causes sin to betray itself, and sets upon error the mark of the beast” ibid. p. 542:8-9.

-        “The beast and the false prophets are lust and hypocrisy.  These wolves in sheep’s clothing are detected and killed by innocence, the Lamb of Love” ibid p. 557:27.

-        “The purification or baptismals that come from Spirit, develop, step by step, the original likeness of perfect man, and efface the mark of the beast” Miscellaneous Writings p. 18:1-3.

-        “The only correct answer to the question, “Who is the author of evil?” is the scientific statement that evil is unreal; that God made all that was made, but He never made sin or sickness, either an error of mind or of body. Life in matter is a dream: sin, sickness, and death are this dream. Life is Spirit; and when we waken from the dream of life in matter, we shall learn this grand truth of being. St. John saw the vision of life in matter; and he saw it pass away, — an illusion. The dragon that was wroth with the woman, and stood ready “to devour the child as soon as it was born,” was the vision of envy, sensuality, and malice, ready to devour the idea of Truth. But the beast bowed before the Lamb: it was supposed to have fought the manhood of God, that Jesus represented; but it fell before the womanhood of God, that presented the highest ideal of Love. Let us remember that God — good — is omnipotent; therefore evil is impotent. There is but one side to good, — it has no evil side; there is but one side to reality, and that is the good side.

God is All, and in all: that finishes the question of a good and a bad side to existence. Truth is the real; error is the unreal” Christian Healing p. 9: 21-15 (next page).

Joyce Voysey

 

Ed. - Dictionary.com has this under "beast":

Noun

1.     Any nonhuman animal especially a large, four-footed mammal.

2.     The crude animal nature common to humans and the lower animals: Hunger brought out the beast in him.

3.     A cruel, coarse, filthy, or otherwise beastlike person.

4.     A live creature, as distinguished from a plant.  What manner of beast is this?

5.     The antichrist.  Rev. 13:18

Origin: 1175-1225; Middle English be (e) ste <Old French beste (French bete)> Latin bestia