What is the "Mark" of the Beast?

Here are all the verses that refer to the mark of the beast:

Rev 13:16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:

Rev 13:17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Rev 14:9 And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the Beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
Rev 14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
Rev 14:11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the Beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Rev 14:12 Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.

Rev 15:2 And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God.

Rev 16:2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.

Rev 19:20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.

Rev 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the Beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

Check out how many times worship is mentioned in connection with the mark of the beast. So the question is what is a "mark"?

The word "mark" translated in Greek:

Το λεξικό βρήκε 4 λέξεις.
The dictionary found 4 words.
 

Definitions of mark on the Web:

• tag: attach a tag or label to; "label these bottles"
• marker: a distinguishing symbol; "the owner's mark was on all the sheep"
• designate as if by a mark; "This sign marks the border"
• distinguish: be a distinctive feature, attribute, or trait; sometimes in a very positive sense; "His modesty distinguishes him from his peers"
• commemorate: mark by some ceremony or observation; "We marked the anniversary of his death"
• a visible indication made on a surface; "some previous reader had covered the pages with dozens of marks"; "paw prints were everywhere"
• the impression created by doing something unusual or extraordinary that people notice and remember; "it was in London that he made his mark"; "he left an indelible mark on the American theater"
• make or leave a mark on; "the scouts marked the trail"; "ash marked the believers' foreheads"
• a symbol of disgrace or infamy; "And the Lord set a mark upon Cain"--Genesis
• stigmatize: to accuse or condemn or openly or formally or brand as disgraceful; "He denounced the government action"; "She was stigmatized by society because she had a child out of wedlock"
• notice: notice or perceive; "She noted that someone was following her"; "mark my words"
• scar: mark with a scar; "The skin disease scarred his face permanently"
• score: make small marks into the surface of; "score the clay before firing it"
• a written or printed symbol (as for punctuation); "his answer was just a punctuation mark"
• sign: a perceptible indication of something not immediately apparent (as a visible clue that something has happened); "he showed signs of strain"; "they welcomed the signs of spring"

• "Distinctive of the Roman Catholic Church, Sunday Mass observance became a mark of a practicing Catholic." Source:  Dictionary of the Liturgy, Rev. Jovian P. Lang, OFM., Catholic Book Publishing Co., 1989, ISBN 0-89942-273-X, page 604.
   
• [pg. 397] The attendance at [Sunday] Mass is the mark of a practical Catholic. One who fails to attend is not worthy of the name. While all mortal sins involve great malice, there is attached to this sin a peculiar and unique malice. Other sins like anger or lust are usually the result of great passion which clouds the reason and shakes the will. But missing [Sunday] Mass is done in cold blood — calmly, deliberately, willfully. [pg. 398] ... It is one of the surest ways of losing one's religion and dying in mortal sin. ... [pg. 401] ... Destroy the sanctity of the Sunday and you throw civilization back into the darkness and mire of pagan materialism. You turn back the hands on the clock of progress. [pg. 403] ... Conscious of her divinely appointed mission to speak as the voice of God to all mankind, she [the Catholic Church] commands the worship of God and demands the attendance at Sunday Mass of every Catholic worthy of the name. Source: The Faith of Millions, by the Reverend John A. O'Brien, PH.D., Copyright 1938, published by Our Sunday Visitor, Huntington Indiana, pages  397-398, 401, 403.

• “Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change (Saturday Sabbath to Sunday) was her act... And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things.” H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons.
   

• "Sunday is our mark or authority. . . the church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact" Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept 1,1923.

More Roman Catholic leaders speak about this change from Saturday to Sunday:

• "Sunday is a Catholic institution, and its claim to observance can be defended only on Catholic principles . . . From beginning to end of Scripture there is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public worship from the last day of the week to the first."—Catholic Press, Sydney, Australia, August, 1900.
   

• "Protestantism, in discarding the authority of the [Roman Catholic] Church, has no good reason for its Sunday theory, and ought logically to keep Saturday as the Sabbath."—John Gilmary Shea, in the American Catholic Quarterly Review, January 1883.
   

• "It is well to remind the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, and all other Christians that the Bible does not support them anywhere in their observance of Sunday. Sunday is an institution of the Roman Catholic Church, and those who observe the day observe a commandment of the Catholic Church."—Priest Brady, in an address, reported in the Elizabeth, N.J. News of March 18, 1903.
   

• "Question — Have you any other way of proving that the [Catholic] Church has power to institute festivals of precept [to command holy days]?
  
  "Ans.—Had she not such power, she could not have done that in which all modern religionists agree with her: She could not have substituted the observance of Sunday, the first day of the week, for the observance of Saturday, the seventh day, a change for which there is no Scriptural authority."—Stephen Keenan, Doctrinal Catechism, p. 176.
   

• "God simply gave His [Catholic] Church the power to set aside whatever day or days she would deem suitable as Holy Days. The Church chose Sunday, the first day of the week, and in the course of time added other days, as holy days."—Vincent J. Kelly, Forbidden Sunday and Feast-Day Occupations, p. 2.
   

• "Protestants . . . accept Sunday rather than Saturday as the day for public worship after the Catholic Church made the change . . . But the Protestant mind does not seem to realize that in accepting the Bible, in observing the Sunday, they are accepting the authority of the spokesman for the church, the Pope."—Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950.
   

• "We hold upon this earth the place of God Almighty."—Pope Leo XIII, in an Encyclical Letter, dated June 20, 1894.
   

• "Not the Creator of Universe, in Genesis 2:1-3,—but the Catholic Church can claim the honor of having granted man a pause to his work every seven days."—S. C. Mosna, Storia Della Domenica, 1969, pp. 366-367.
   

• "The Pope is not only the representative of Jesus Christ, but he is Jesus Christ, hidden under veil of flesh."—The Catholic National, July 1895.
   

• "If Protestants would follow the Bible, they should worship God on the Sabbath Day. In keeping the Sunday they are following a law of the Catholic Church."—Albert Smith, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, replying for the Cardinal, in a letter dated February 10, 1920.
   

• "We define that the Holy Apostolic See (the Vatican) and the Roman Pontiff hold the primacy over the whole world."—A Decree of the Council of Trent, quoted in Philippe Labbe and Gabriel Cossart, "The Most Holy Councils," col. 1167.
   

• "It was the Catholic Church which, by the authority of Jesus Christ, has transferred this rest [from the Bible Sabbath] to the Sunday . . . Thus the observance of Sunday by the Protestants is an homage they pay, in spite of themselves, to the authority of the [Catholic] Church."—Monsignor Louis Segur, Plain Talk about the Protestantism of Today, p. 213.
   

• "We observe Sunday instead of Saturday because the Catholic Church transferred the solemnity from Saturday to Sunday."—Peter Geiermann, CSSR, A Doctrinal Catechism, 1957 edition, p. 50.
   

• "We Catholics, then, have precisely the same authority for keeping Sunday holy instead of Saturday as we have for every other article of our creed, namely, the authority of the Church . . . whereas you who are Protestants have really no authority for it whatever; for there is no authority for it [Sunday sacredness] in the Bible, and you will not allow that there can be authority for it anywhere else."—The Brotherhood of St. Paul, "The Clifton tracts," Volume 4, tract 4, p. 15.
   

• "Reason and common sense demand the acceptance of one or the other of these two alternatives: either Protestantism and the keeping holy of Saturday or Catholicity and the keeping holy of Sunday. Compromise is impossible."—The Catholic Mirror, December 23, 1893.

Here is the first Sunday law in history:

A legal enactment by Constantine I (reigned 306-337): "On the Venerable Day of the Sun "Venerable die Solis"—the sacred day of the Sun, let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the bounty of heaven should be lost—given the 7th day of March [A.D. 321], Crispus and Constanstine being consuls each of them for the second time."—The First Sunday Law of Constantine I, in "Codex Justianianus," lib. 3, tit. 12,3; trans. in Phillip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Vol. 3, p. 380.



Here is the first Sunday Law decree of a Christian council:

Given about 16 years after Constantine’s first Sunday Law of A.D. 321: "Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday [in the original: ‘sabbato’—shall not be idle on the Sabbath], but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall by shut out [‘anathema,’ excommunicated] from Christ."—Council of Laodicea, c. A.D. 337, Canon 29, quoted in C. J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, Vol. 2, p. 316.

  Now read a few quotes from Protestant leaders:


Baptist: "To me it seems unaccountable that Jesus, during three years’ discussion with His disciples, often conversing upon the Sabbath question, discussing it in some of its various aspects, freeing it from its false [Jewish traditional] glosses, never alluded to any transference of the day; also, no such thing was intimated. Nor, so far as we know, did the Spirit, which was given to bring to their remembrance all things whatsoever that He had said unto them, deal with this question. Nor yet did the inspired apostles, in preaching the gospel, founding churches, counseling and instructing those founded, discuss or approach the subject. Of course I quite well know that Sunday did come into use in early Christian history as a religious day, as we learn from the Christian Fathers and other sources. But what a pity that it comes branded with the mark of paganism, and christened with the name of the sun god, then adopted and sanctified by the Papal apostasy, and bequeathed as a sacred legacy to Protestantism." Dr. E. T. Hiscox, report of his sermon at the Baptist Minister’s Convention, New York Examiner, November 16, 1893.


Southern Baptist: "The sacred name of the seventh day is Sabbath. This fact is too clear to require argument [Exodus 20:10, quoted] . . On this point the plain teaching of the Word has been admitted in all ages. . Not once did the disciples apply the Sabbath law to the first day of the week,—that folly was left for a later age, nor did they pretend that the first day supplanted the seventh."—Joseph Judson Taylor
 

Baptist: "There was and is a command to keep holy the Sabbath day, but that Sabbath day was not Sunday. It will however be readily said, and with some show of triumph, that the Sabbath was transferred from the seventh to the first day of the week, with all its duties, privileges and sanctions. Earnestly desiring information on this subject, which I have studied for many years, I ask, where can the record of such a transaction be found? Not in the New Testament—absolutely not. There is no scriptural evidence of the change of the Sabbath institution from the seventh to the first day of the week."—Dr. E. T. Hiscox, author of the Baptist Manual.