opposition to this false interpretation to observe, that the beast
appears to John with crowns, not upon his _heads_, but upon his _horns_,
denoting the actual division of the empire into ten kingdoms: an event
which did not transpire till after the empire had become nominally
Christian under the reign of Constantine the Great. The reign of this
emperor and his successors, by their largesses fostered the luxurious
propensities of the Christian ministry, and so contributed to prepare
the way for the rise of the next enemy in this antichristian confederacy
against the witnesses.--The "head wounded unto death is the _sixth_.
John says expressly, elsewhere, "five are fallen, and one is, and the
other is not yet come," (ch. xvii. 10.) The "five fallen" were, kings,
consuls, dictators, decemvirs, and military tribunes. All these forms of
civil government had passed before the time of the apostle. The one
existing in his time, was the sixth head,--the emperors; by one of whom
the apostle was now subjected to banishment in the desert isle of
Patmos. This wound is supposed by some to be the change from paganism to
Christianity in the empire. No; this view is many ways erroneous: but it
is enough to remark that the Roman empire, according to both prophets,
Daniel and John, is to continue _bestial_ under all changes, during the
whole period of 1260 years. The deadly wound was inflicted by the
northern invaders who overturned the empire, and, for the time,
extinguished the very name of emperor in the person of Augustulus. After
the division of the western member of the empire had been subdivided
among the victorious leaders of the invaders from the north, and the
people of that section supposed the beast slain, the throne of
Constantinople continued to be occupied by the representative of the
empire. In the popular apprehension the imperial head of the beast
seemed to be utterly cut off by the sword of Odoacer,--"wounded by a
sword:" but the several kingdoms into which the empire was divided, in
process of time became united in the bonds of an apostate faith. The