Nor was it only in Judaism that St. John had seen the spirit of religion so overmastered by the spirit of the world that it became the world's slave. He had witnessed the same thing in Heathenism. It is by no means improbable that when he speaks of _the image of the beast_ he may also think of those images of C?ar the worshipping of which was everywhere made the test of devotion to the Roman State and of abjuration of the Christian faith. There again the forms and sanctions of religion had been used to strengthen the dominion of secular power and worldly force. Both Judaism and Heathenism, in short, supplied the thoughts which, translated into the language of symbolism, are expressed in the conception of the second beast and its relation to the first. Yet we are not to imagine that, though St. John started from these things, his vision was confined to them. He thinks not of Jew or heathen only at a particular era, but of man; not of human nature only as it appears amidst the special circumstances of his own day, but as it appears everywhere and throughout all time. He is not satisfied with dwelling upon existing phenomena alone. He penetrates to the principles from which they spring. And wherever he sees a spirit professing to uphold religion, but objecting to all the unpalatable truths with which it is connected in the Christian faith, wherever he sees the gate to future glory made wide instead of narrow and the way broad instead of straitened, there he beholds the dire combination of the first and second beasts presented in this chapter. The light has become darkness, and how great is the darkness![367] The salt has lost its savour, and is fit neither for the land nor for the dunghill.[368] In speaking of the subserviency of the second to the first beast, the Seer had spoken of _a mark given_ to all the followers of the latter _on their right hand, or upon their forehead_, and without which no one was to be admitted to the privileges of their association or of buying or selling in their city. He had further described this mark as being either _the name of the beast or the number of his name_. To explain more fully the nature of this "mark" appears to be the aim of the last verse of the chapter:-- Here is wisdom. He that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty and six (xiii. 18). To discuss with anything like fulness the difficult questions connected with these words would require a volume rather than the few sentences at the close of a chapter that can be here devoted to it. Referring, therefore, his readers to what he has elsewhere written on this subject,[369] the writer can only make one or two brief remarks, in order to point out the path in which the solution of the problems suggested by the words must be sought.