The Beast (Revelation) adds up to 666, is not a title of the pope". The beast from the earth has also been interpreted as the Islamic prophet Muhammed, according to some medieval Christians, particularly Pope Innocent III; Saracens and Antipopes, according to other medieval Christians, particularly Joachim of Fiore; and the government of the United States of America (this is the view of the Seventh-day Adventist Church). This interpretation was introduced by Adventist pioneer, John Nevins Andrews. Samuele Bacchiocchi, an Adventist scholar, has noted that Seventh-day Adventist teaching is moving away from historicism towards a more symbolic interpretation of the mark of the
Number of the Beast full knowledge that it is not God's appointed day of worship, will receive the 'mark of the beast. "The Sunday Sabbath is purely a child of the Papacy. It is the mark of the beast." In the writings of the Bahá'í Faith, `Abdu'l-Bahá states that the numerical value given to the beast referred to the year when the Umayyad ruler Muawiyah I took office as Caliph in 661 AD. He opposed the Imamate, according to the beliefs of Shia Islam, who continued to pay the tax required of nonbelievers and were excluded from government and the military, and thus bore