The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

of Italy, AD 1130, thus writes: 'The nine kings of the Latin world might disclaim their new
associate, unless he were consecrated by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff.'"
The next feature in order in this vision is that the beast had seven heads. These are
understood very generally by expositors to represent the seven successive forms of
government that ruled from the city of Rome from its beginning, either its earliest
beginning, 753 BC, or when it exercised world-wide dominion, 31 BC. There is a general
agreement that Papacy is represented by one of the heads of this beast. As the full
explanation of these seven heads is given to St. John by the revealing angel, and recorded
in the vision of chapter seventeen, we will leave the full consideration of them until we
come to a study of that chapter.
It is stated in verse 3 that St. John "saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and
his deadly wound was healed." There is a difference of opinion among expositors as to
which one of the beast's heads is referred to in these words. The cause of this difference is
almost wholly from the fact that they begin to count these seven heads from a different
epoch in history. Many of the older commentators begin to count at the time when the city
of Rome (not the empire) was founded. Nearly all of these make the head that was
wounded to death to be the imperial, which ended in 476 AD. They understand this to be
the seventh head, and the Papacy to be an eighth head. We note several seemingly
insurmountable objections to this interpretation:
1. The visions that symbolize the Roman Empire in chapters 12, 13, and 17, invariably
represent it as having seven heads and not eight. This is explained by the above mentioned
expositors by saying that the eighth head took the place of the one that was wounded to
death, the imperial. The description, however, does not state that this head died, but rather
that its deadly wound was healed--an incident which seems to teach that the form of
government symbolized by this head would receive a terrible wound, but would recover
from it. This very fittingly describes what was done to Papacy by the Reformation of the
sixteenth century, culminating in 1799, when the Pope for a brief space of time was
dethroned. However, in harmony with the vision, he was shortly reinstated by Napoleon,
and later on recognized by the allied powers of Europe. Thus, "his deadly wound was
healed."
2. It would seem that the proper time in history to begin to count these seven heads or
forms of government would be when the third beast empire of Daniel 7, the Grecian or
Macedonian, and its four heads or divisions, had been swallowed up by the Roman, which
was not until Egypt, the last division, was conquered in 31 BC. It would appear manifestly
improper to begin to count these seven heads over a century before even the first beast, the
Babylonian Empire, was seen in the vision by Daniel, which would be necessary if we
began the count when the city was founded--about seven centuries before the fourth beast,
symbolizing the Roman Empire, was seen by the Prophet.
3. When St. John was given the vision, only three forms of government had existed in the
city of Rome from its founding in 753. These were the kingly, lasting until 508 BC; the