OF THE REVELATION THAT ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST SAW.
My lord, St. John, in the book of his visions, which is called the Apocalypse, so says that he saw a beast that came out of the sea wonderfully adorned and exceedingly dreadful. For the body of the beast was as a leopard, the feet were of a bear, the throat of a lion, and it had seven heads and ten horns, and upon the ten horns ten crowns; and St. John saw that the same evil beast had power of himself to fight with the saints, and to overcome and to overmaster them. This same beast, so wonderful and so counterfeited and dreadful, betokens the devil, who came out of the sea of hell, which is full of all sorrow and of all bitterness. The body of the beast, as St. John says, was so like the leopard because, as the leopard hath divers colours, so hath the devil divers modes of watching and of dispute, in order to beguile and to tempt folk. The feet were like the feet of a bear, for as the bear, which hath its strength in its feet and in its arms, holds strongly and binds what it hath under its feet, what it embraces, just so does the devil them that he hath embraced and overthrown by sin. The throat was of a lion, because of his great cruelty, that will devour all.