Beast of Revelation.pdf - Friends of the Sabbath Australia

The Beast of Revelation
was Napoleon. Aspiring to far more than the French presidency or
even to being a new king of France, his ambition could only be
satisfied by the re-establishment of the Roman Empire with
himself as emperor. As Will Durant notes, “he dreamt of rivaling
Charlemagne and uniting Western Europe” (vol. 11, p. 243).
Napoleon considered himself successor to Caesar and
Charlemagne. Staging a popular election that he won almost unanimously,
Napoleon had the French Senate proclaim him emperor on
May 18, 1804. Immediately he began negotiations with Pope Pius
VII to come to Paris and consecrate him as emperor. The negotiations
were successful and the coronation occurred December 2.
Meanwhile, the Hapsburgs of Austria, who maintained their
claim on the title of Holy Roman Emperor, were hit hard by
the successive military and diplomatic advances of Napoleon—
including his assumption of the imperial title. This was
particularly so when, two years after he did so, 16 princes and
their states withdrew from the Hapsburg’s Holy Roman Empire,
formed the Confederation of the Rhine and asked Napoleon to
take them under his protection as a
part of his empire. The following
month, on August 6, 1806, Francis
II of Austria renounced his nowempty
title of Holy Roman
Emperor. Napoleon’s European
empire now stretched from the
Atlantic Ocean to the Elbe River.
France, Spain, Italy, Holland,
Belgium, Germany and all French
and Spanish New World territories—the greater part of the
Americas—formed his vast empire. Napoleon thus became the
fifth head of the revived Western Imperium.
Napoleon’s empire was not destined to be long-lived, however.
A British-led coalition brought about his defeat and abdication in
1814. This ended a period of 1,260 years since the Imperial
Restoration under Justinian in 554. Thus the prophecy in Revelation
13:3–5 of the Beast’s mortal wound, subsequent healing and
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Napoleon’s French
Empire in Europe