Some people get confused about “antichrist,” as the word is not mentioned in The Revelation. It is not a person, it is an office. The term antichrist is used only in the Epistles of John. John states that there are many antichrists and that the spirit of antichrist was already at work in the first century. Antichrist is never presented as a single person. They are presented as being many; they came from us, and they are deceivers. Any person or persons who claim the authority and the position of Christ are antichrist.
The beast out of the earth is the Papacy. It claims all the power of the Messiah.
“We are compelled to believe with urgent faith and to hold one holy catholic and apostolic Church. Therefore, the one and only Church has one body and one head, not two heads like a monster, viz., Christ and the vicar of Christ, Peter and Peter’s successor. We are instructed by the Gospels that there are in his power two swords, viz., the spiritual and the temporal. For when the apostles said ‘Behold here are two swords’ (Luke 22:38), viz., in the Church; when the apostles said so, the Lord did not respond, ‘There are too many’ but ‘Enough.’ Certainly, he who denies that there is in the power of Peter a temporal sword has paid poor attention to the word of the Lord, who said ‘Put up the sword into the sheath’ (John 18:11). Therefore, both are in the power of the Church, both the spiritual and the material sword. But this is to be wielded for the church, that by the church; that by the hand of the priest, this not by the hand of kings and soldiers, but at the nod and patience of the priest. Moreover, sword should be under sword, and the temporal authority should be subject to the spiritual; for when the apostle says, ‘There is no power except from God; the power which are ordained of God’ (Rom. 13:1); they are not ordained except sword be under sword. For on the testimony of truth, the spiritual power has to institute the earthly, and to judge it, if it is not good. Thus, the prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power is verified, ‘Behold, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms,’ etc. (Jer 1:10). Therefore, if the earthly power deviates from the way, it shall be judged by the spiritual power; if the inferior spiritual power deviates, by its superior spiritual; but if the supreme by God alone, since it cannot be judged by man, on the testimony of the apostle, ‘The spiritual man judgeth all things, but is himself judged of no man’ (I Cor 2:15). Whoever, therefore, resists this power, thus ordained by God, resists the ordination of God; unless he feigns that there are two principle, like Manichaeus, which we judge false and heretical, because, on the testimony of Moses, God did not create the heavens and the earth in several principles but in one principle (Gen. 1:1). Then, to be subject to the Roman Pontiff, we declare, say, define, and pronounce to be absolutely necessary to every human creature to salvation.” Excerpts from the Bull of Boniface VIII “UNAM SANCTAM“
The beast out of the earth’s main objective is to promote false theology. His job is to make men worship the first beast, which is Satan. The dragon (Satan) is working through the reconstituted, but weakened Roman Empire. Men are not to know this, as in all Mystery Religions, the one being worshiped is hidden from the initiate until they are completely under the control of the priest.