(2) The woman on the scarlet coloured beast--17:3-8. “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.” The color of the beast was derived from the Red Dragon of the preceding chapters that instigated the persecutions. The crimson color was also the symbol of sin: “ Though your sins be as scarlet . . . though they be red like crimson” Isaiah 1:18. The adaptation of the color red was significant in this symbol of a beast full of the sins of blasphemy. The word blasphemy originally denoted every kind of railing, reviling, irreverence, and insulting reproaches against God, or any other detraction; hence, this beast was full of names of blasphemy--any or all blasphemy against the church that could be named in connection with or reference to every known form of heathen idolatry. The comments on the seven heads and ten horns which characterized the beast have been made in preceding chapters, this being the same beast, the Roman Empire and its tributaries, extended remarks here are unnecessary.