Revelation 13:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

If anyone takes captive, he himself will be taken captive, and each will receive a recompense corresponding to his deeds. Thus those who plot evil against their neighbor will be taken captive by the devil and will undergo spiritual death from Satan's sword.

As the apostle Peter says, "By whom a man is overcome, by him also he is enslaved" (2 Pet 2:19). But those who preserve an undefiled, pure faith and firm patience in temptation will not be erased from the book of life.

May the merciful God count us also worthy to be their fellow participants. They reckon the sufferings of this present life as nothing compared with the glory awaiting the saints, and they courageously walk the narrow way.

St. Andrew says: "Some say that this beast is the Antichrist. Others thought that it is Satan and that its horns signify the Antichrist and the false prophet. But since they agree that the false prophet too will come in his own person, we consider it fitting to understand the serpent as Satan, the beast rising from the sea as the Antichrist, and the present beast, according to the opinion of blessed Irenaeus, as the false prophet.

He comes up from the earth, that is, from earthly and dust-born life. He has horns like a lamb's because the murderousness of the hidden wolf is concealed in sheep's skin, and because at first he will have the appearance of piety."

He will be marked by blasphemy and by every kind of violence against those who do not submit to him, that is, against the saints. "He will open his mouth for blasphemy against God," saying, for example, that He is not the one true God.

He will blaspheme the name of God, that is, His nature and attributes. He will say, for example, that He is not almighty, not holy, and the like. He will open blasphemous lips against His dwelling, that is, against the holy Church of the Lord.

In Scripture, the Church is also called the dwelling or temple of God (1 Cor 3:16-17). He will even spew blasphemy against those who dwell in heaven, that is, against those who have departed in piety and faith in Christ.