The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

(Zech. 8:10); the natural outcome of this growing want of confidence between man and
man."
The historical enumeration of these heads beginning 31 BC, when the last head of the
Grecian beast, Egypt, was overthrown by the Romans, would be as follows:
1. The Roman Republic ruling from 31 until 27 BC;
2. The Military Imperial government ruling until Diocletian 303 AD;
3. The Despotic Imperial ruling until 476 AD;
4. The Odoacean Dynasty until about 539 AD;
5. The Papacy, until it received a death wound in 1799 AD;
6. The Republic under Bertier for about two years, after which, Papacy was reinstated;
7. The Victor Immanuel Dynasty since 1870.
The eighth form (not head) of the beast would be the future anarchistic state of the peoples
(who have always constituted the body of the beast)--the peoples in a condition of
anarchy. It will thus be seen that the beast in one form or another continues to exist until
destroyed. The words of Daniel are very significant in this connection: "I saw until the
beast was slain and its body destroyed and given to the burning flame." At each of these
periods a change of form takes place. The present form is the Victor Immanuel Dynasty.
Every "head" up to its last or eighth form rules from the city of Rome.
The older expositors speak of the eighth form of the beast as an eighth head, representing
Papacy as both a political and ecclesiastical ruler, and that as such it would continue until
its complete destruction. However, as we view the present state of Papacy, it seems quite
evident that while it still exists as an ecclesiastical power, exercising a very great influence
as such over a large portion of the human family, it has lost altogether its temporal
authority, and therefore has ceased to exist as a civil government --a "head" of the symbolic
beast. Papacy, as a "head" of the beast, received a deadly wound beginning in the great
Reformation Movement and culminating in the terrible blow at the hands of Napoleon,
who took possession of the city of Rome, carried the Pope a prisoner to France, and set up
a Roman republic in the city where the Pope had reigned supreme for a thousand years. It
seemed for a season (two years) as though this wound was a fatal one; however, the
deadly wound was healed, and Papacy recovered its temporal authority, being reinstated
by Napoleon. This state of things continued with varying fortunes to Papacy until 1870, at
which time Victor Immanuel took possession of the City, making it his capital. The Pope at
this time took refuge in the Vatican palace--every vestige of temporal authority gone. Thus