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.