The image of the beast, as mentioned in Revelation 13:14-15, was in the context of the Left Behind universe a statue of Nicolae Carpathia created by Guy Blod for the memorial service in The Indwelling that was given power to speak and to cause as many that would not worship this image to be killed. This statue, which was a metallic nude figure of Carpathia about four times his actual size, had a furnace at the bottom that used onion-skin paper found in Bibles to fuel its flames. Similar copies of this image, though lacking the furnace, were ordered to be made around the world for the populace, and had to at least be life-sized although smaller than the original. Leon Fortunato said he would honor with a personal visit the few localities that made their statues twice life-sized. The statues had to be monochromatic, but could be made of various materials and be of various colors. Most statues were black, but others were gold, bronze, crystal, jade (in China in the Remnant), some fiberglass, and one was orange and another green.
It is unknown whether the image had the power to only speak one language at a time or whether it also had the power to speak in a way that all listeners would hear the image's message in the listener's own language. In The Meeting of The Witnesses at Teddy Kollek Stadium, Nicolae Carpathia needed interpreters to speak to the crowd, but Tsion Ben-Judah was understood by the entire audience due to supernatural power rendering his words understandable to every listener. It may be that universal speech is only an ability reserved for God and the apostles.
Worship of Carpathia's image became one of the key tenets of Carpathianism.
Mandatory Worship of the Image[]
Leon Fortunato issued a "sacred proclamation" from the Church of Carpathia that the populace had to worship the image three times a day, with the failure to do so punishable by death. The live broadcast of this proclamation was interrupted by an angel who proclaimed Revelation 14:9-13, warning listeners that anyone who takes the "mark of the beast" and worships his image will be condemned to eternity in the Lake of Fire.
In Attack on Petra, it is said, "Refusing to kneel before a statue meant certain death." In The Remnant , a woman from region 7 (the United African States) was reported to be haranguing a crowd of people upset with the Global Community before she was massacred by the Global Community forces. Before she was shot to death, she said that we bow to the GC and image of the supreme ruler only because they knew someone who had been put to death for failing to do so. In Armageddon, in Al Basrah, the Global Community generally did not bother to police the community for civil crimes, but they did haul some people off to jail for skipping one of their three daily instances of worship of the statue of Nicolae. In other words, omission may be punishable with imprisonment, but outright refusal to worship the image is punished with death.
Carpathianism seems to be enforced like Islam is in countries like Saudi Arabia that have the religious police such as the mutaween. In Bounty Hunters, while Judd Thompson Jr. was in Petra, he saw a Global Community Cable News Network broadcast that showed people who had not worshiped the image of Carpathia being beaten in the streets. The Global Community somehow was able to figure out who had not worshiped that day (or they acted on the basis of tenuous suspicions). The Morale Monitors with clubs and electric batons moved through lines of supplicants who seemed tired of genuflecting and praying to the statue of Carpathia.
Images of the Beast throughout the World[]
People had the propensity to worship images of Carpathia even before the implementation of the loyalty mark system. In Wildfire!, someone from St. Louis, Missouri erected a 10-foot tall crude replica of Carpathia made out of scrap iron along the Mississippi River before Carpathia's funeral. Before Carpathia's resurrection, thousands knelt before the statue to pray to Carpathia.
Nicolae attempted to have a golden statue of his image be erected in the desecrated Temple, but was stopped by a mob of angered Jews who were outraged by the Antichrist's blasphemous action. The people of Jerusalem were not enthusiastic about obeying the decree to construct an image for their populace to worship, but there were completed replica statues in several cities in Israel, including Haifa and Tel Aviv. Although the United Carpathian States had an insurmountable lead compared to the other nine regions in constructing statues, Leon Fortunato reported that the people of Jerusalem did not start construction of their own image of Carpathia.
When Judd Thompson Jr. and Lionel Washington were landing in Paris, in Attack on Petra, they saw the image of Nicolae atop the Arc de Triomphe where thousands lining up to worship the image were visible. Leon Fortunato ordered for the image to be placed atop the monument so people could fulfill their daily worship. In Bounty Hunters, a church, which had been converted to a worship center for Nicolae Carpathia, in Saarbrücken, Germany had its spire fallen off due to the Wrath Of The Lamb earthquake, and it was replaced with a statue of Nicolae.
Some people have a statue in their own private residence. In an interview aired before the broadcast of From Death to Life, a documentary about the resurrection of Carpathia, Lars Rahlmost knelt before a statue of Carpathia signed by the Potentate in his living room. He closed his eyes and kissed the statue's hand.
During the plague of darkness in New Babylon, since the image was not visible to those who had taken the mark and worshipped Carpathia's image, Leon Fortunato decreed that singing "Hail Carpathia" counted for one of their obligatory occasions of daily worship, but many people who were in pain from the plague refused to sing. In The Perils of Love, Westin Jakes pointed out this irony of the plague of darkness, since Nicolae often said that a big advantage of worshipping him was that he was a god that you can see.
In Angola Prison in Louisiana (in The Perils of Love) and Stateville Penitentiary in Joliet, Illinois, there is a bronze statue of Nicolae in the courtyard where prisoners are taken to three times day.
In Other Fictional Media[]
In Cloud Ten Pictures' Revelation and Tribulation, which are part of the Apocalypse movie series, the "image of the beast" is in the form of a virtual reality program that is projected through a headset, where users see the digital likeness of the Antichrist and where they are offered either the "mark of the beast" or execution through various means, with the digital execution also affecting the user physically (similar to the deaths in The Matrix).