Nature of the Beast

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the phrase nature of the beast first appeared in the 1600s: The nature of the beast was said to be “the inherent or essential quality or character of something, (usually undesirable) which cannot be changed and must be accepted.”

First appearance was said to be in the 1678 John Ray's Collection of English Proverbs (ed. 2) 77 “It's the nature o' th' beast.” It was suggest it was an accepted idiom at that time.

But I found in the 1567 translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis by Arthur Golding who died in 1606:

The beastes doo breake theyr fast with flesh:

& yit not all beastes neyther.

For horses, shéepe, and Rotherbeastes too live by grasse had lever.

The nature of the beast that dooth delyght in bloody foode,

Is cruell and unmercifull. As Lyons féerce of moode,

Armenian Tigers, Beares, and Woolves.

Oh, what a wickednesse

It is to cram the mawe with mawe, and frank up flesh with flesh,

And for one living thing to live by killing of another:” See context.

Metamorphosis was the Roman poet Ovid's magnum opus. The poem chronicles the history of the world from its creation to the deification of Julius Caesar as the Son of God.

We see the word “unmercifull” used by Golding in Romans 1:31 “Without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:”

The word unmerciful is translated from the Greek word aneleemon ^[1] which is the negative form of the word for mercy from eleos^[2] meaning “mercy: kindness or good will towards the miserable and the afflicted, joined with a desire to help them “ and is a distinguishing characteristic of “true Christians” who lives by faith rather than taking a bite out of his neighbor through force.

Void of Right Reason

The Nature of the Beast is void of “Right Reason” and of faith but bite friend and foe to fill his appetite.

Right Reason is equated with divine will and the Natural Law but if you read the rest of Romans 1 to know that the “righteousness of God [is] revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”

Romans 1:17 "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

Living by faith is not living by force.

Romans 1:19 ¶ Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed [it] unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: 21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, 23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Metamorphoses Context

“The first foundation of the world: the cause of every thing:

What nature was: and what was God: whence snow and lyghtning spring:

And whither Jove or else the wynds in breaking clowdes doo thunder:

What shakes the earth: what law the starres doo keepe theyr courses under:

And what soever other thing is hid from common sence.

He also is the first that did injoyne an abstinence

To feede of any lyving thing. He also first of all

Spake thus: although ryght lernedly, yit to effect but small:

Yee mortall men, forbeare to frank your flesh with wicked foode.

Yee have both come and frutes of trees and grapes and herbes right good.

And though that sum bee harsh and hard: yit fyre may make them well

Both soft and sweete. Yee may have milk, and honny which dooth smell

Of flowres of tyme. The lavish earth dooth yeeld you plentiously

Most gentle foode, and riches to content bothe mynd and eye.

There needes no slaughter nor no blood to get your living by.

The beastes doo breake theyr fast with flesh:

& yit not all beastes neyther.

For horses, shéepe, and Rotherbeastes too live by grasse had lever.

The nature of the beast that dooth delyght in bloody foode,

Is cruell and unmercifull. As Lyons féerce of moode,

Armenian Tigers, Beares, and Woolves.

Oh, what a wickednesse

It is to cram the mawe with mawe, and frank up flesh with flesh,

And for one living thing to live by killing of another:”

P. Ovidius Naso, Metamorphoses, Arthur Golding, Ed.

Footnotes

↑ 415 ~ἀνελεήμων~ aneleemon \@an-eleh-ay’-mone\@ from 1 (as a negative particle) and 1655; TDNT-2:487,222; {See TDNT 232} adj AV-unmerciful 1; 1
1) without mercy, merciless
↑
1656 éleos ἔλεος: (el'-eh-os), t Definition: mercy, pity, compassion(translating OT 02617 /kataisxýnō, "covenant-loyalty, covenant-love" in the OT-LXX over 170 times) – properly, "mercy" as it is defined by loyalty to God's covenant.
- 1. Mercy of men toward men: Matthew 9:13; Matthew 12:7; Matthew 23:23, James 2:13; James 3:17; to exercise the virtue of mercy, James 2:13; with the common Hebrew phrase פּ עִם חֶסֶד עָשָׂה, Genesis 21:23; Genesis 24:12; Judges 1:24, mercy to one, Luke 10:37.
- 2. of God toward men;
a. universally: Luke 1:50; in benedictions: Galatians 6:16; 1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 1:2; Titus 1:4 ; 2 John 1:3; Jude 1:2.

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Brother Gregory
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