The way commentators interpret Revelation 13:18 often reveals their exegetical approach to the whole of the book of Revelation. This article is a brief survey of the interpretation of that chapter in the seventeenth and eighteenth century in England]. Interpretations are often a reflection of the times; the mainstream of Protestant interpreters saw in the [[Beast a picture of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church. This article examines this approach of attaching the significance of a text to a specific person or phenomena or feature in history.