The Beast (Revelation) of the sea, specifically fishing, and of fertility: Dagon. According to this interpretation, the beast and false prophet were most commonly identified with the papacy in its political and religious aspects. The identification with the papacy is a viewpoint echoed by Seventh-day Adventist writers. According to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the "image to the beast" represents Protestant churches which will form an alliance with the Papacy, and the "mark of the beast" refers to a future universal Sunday law. Adventists have interpreted the number of the beast, 666, as corresponding to a Latin title Vicarius Filii Dei of the Pope.
The Beast (Revelation) that interprets prophecies of the Bible, especially the Books of Daniel and Revelation, as events which have already happened in the first century AD. Preterist academic scholars generally identify the first beast from the sea with the Roman Empire, particularly with Emperor Nero. The beast from the earth is generally identified with the Roman imperial cult or the Jewish religious system of the first century that conspired with the Roman state to suppress and persecute the early church. Sometimes there is a particular identification with a personage such as a chief administrator of Roman rule in Ephesus and Asia Minor.