376 66 The seven Heads [LECT. vision of the thirteenth chapter, bore upon it the characteristic marks of all the four beasts in Daniel's vision, the Babylonian, the Persian, and the Macedonian, as well as the Roman. And if to these we add those two yet more ancient monarchies which held the chief place, in the earliest times of the world's history, and which were represented, (if we interpreted the symbols rightly,) by the first two of the four "living creatures "," we shall have five 'kings," or kingdoms, which had already fallen when imperial Rome was in the zenith of her power -Assyria and Egypt, Babylon, Persia, and Macedon. And the heads of the wild beast on which the woman was seated, representing primarily, as we have seen, the seven mountains of the great city, would with more evident fitness correspond with the several kingdoms which were swallowed up in the universal empire of Rome, than with the successive forms which her government assumed, even were those several forms of government better entitled than they seem to be, to be counted as so many distinct "kings," or kingdoms'. For as, in the interpretation of the ten horns, we find ten distinct kingdoms which arose out of the ruins of the Roman Empire, so by the seven kings, answering to the seven heads, we should naturally suppose to be symbolized, and that on a larger and wider scale than in the case of the ten horns on the one head, seven distinct kingdoms. And the imagery would have in it a peculiar propriety, if these were kingdoms embracing within their collective limits the whole earth, and swallowed up successively by Rome, continually extend ひ Cf. sup. pp. 212–215. Vid. Note, Appendix. 1 See Dr. Maitland's Second Enquiry, pp. 153–171. XII.] 66 distinct Kingdoms. 377 ing her territories, in like manner as the seven hills, which, in her early days, were one after another enclosed within her walls; so that the seven-hilled capital of her dominion would be, as it were, a miniature of her entire empire, the whole world 2. Five great monarchies of the earth had fallen, (if thus, then, we may interpret the imagery before us,) "and the one," which was now the head of the wild beast, when St. John beheld the vision, was the Pagan empire of the Roman Cæsars. "The other" was not yet come;" and the manner in which that other is spoken of would seem almost to exclude it from being counted as one of the seven3; while, on the other hand, concerning the eighth, "the beast that was, and is not," it is said, "he is of the seven, and goeth into perdition "—the last form which this mysterious and manifold type of earthly dominion was destined to assume. We may therefore, perhaps, rightly understand by that "other," or seventh, head, the Empire as it existed in its Christian form during the interval between the time when Rome was the capital of the Pagan Empire, and the time when she became again the head of the Papal; the dominion, during the intervening period, having been transferred, it is worthy of remark, to new Rome or Constantinople *. But the angel proceeds further to declare the import of the ten horns which were seen on the head of the wild beast. "The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour" 66 2 Rome has been styled an epitome" of the world. 5 ὁ ἄλλος οὔπω ἦλθε· καὶ · ὅταν ἔλθῃ, ὀλίγον αὐτὸν δεῖ μεῖναι. Καὶ τὸ θηρίον ὃ ἦν, καὶ οὐκ ἔστι, καὶ αὐτὸς ὄγδοός ἐστι, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἑπτά ἐστι. . . 4 Vid. Note, Appendix. 378 The ten Horns, [LECT. -or, as it may be rendered, "in one hour ",-with the wild beast "." The ten horns, or kingdoms, here described, would seem to identify, as has been already observed, the wild beast of this vision with the fourth beast in the vision of Daniel, and also (thus far, at least) with the wild beast out of the sea in the vision of the thirteenth chapter; and here, as there, we must understand by the imagery the ten kingdoms which derived their origin out of the ruins of the Roman Empire in the West. And upon this point also, as well as in regard to the identity of the woman here described with Rome, in the one form of her existence or in the other, we may claim the support of high authority amongst the Romanists themselves. Bossuet interprets the ten horns to be the ten kingdoms which dismembered the Roman empire'; and, this being granted, it is difficult, I think, to escape from the conclusion which would make Rome in her Papal, and not in her Pagan, state, to be the subject of the prophetic vision. We must here, however, mention a different rendering which is to be found in the Vulgate, and which would represent the ten kings as receiving power "one hour," or "the same hour, after the beast" not "with," as in the received text. But there is no ground whatever for any departure from that text:—μετὰ τοῦ θηρίου, not μετὰ τὸ θήριον, is the 5 ἐξουσίαν ὡς βασιλεῖς μίαν ὥραν λαμβάνουσι μετὰ τοῦ θηpiov—“ unâ horâ." Vulg. So also the Latin version in S. Irenæus and Primasius. (Vid. Bossuet.) Elliott (p. 872, note) refers to John iv. 52 and Rev. iii. 3, for a similar use of the accusative. • The words μετὰ τοῦ θηρίου must, I conceive, be immediately connected with λaußáνουσι, not with μίαν ώραν. Vid. Note, Appendix. "Bossuet follows, as his authority, the commentary of Berengaudus. XII.] ten Kingdoms. 379 undoubted reading in the original. If the received text be retained, which Bossuet himself admits to have great authority, the interpretation which he would in this case adopt, is that the Gothic kings should come, at one and the same time, into the Western Empire to reign there with Rome, who was not all at once to lose her power. But this interpretation can hardly be made to consist with the facts of the history: the kings who came to establish themselves in the Roman Empire can scarcely be said to have received power with it. For it is surely an inadequate interpretation of the following verse-"These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the wild beast -to explain it as describing how the Empire, in its weakness, sought to avert the coming overthrow by enlisting the barbarians as auxiliaries in its armies'. It was not until the ancient empire was destroyed, and the new kingdoms were established upon its ruins, that they could be fitly represented in prophetic imagery as horns, or kingdoms, possessed of power and exercising their power in concert. And 2 Bossuet himself observes "Les rois dont il s'agit ne sont pas des rois comme les autres, qui cherchent à faire des conquêtes sur l'empire pour en agrandir leur royaume: ce sont tous rois sans royaume, du moins sans aucun siége déterminé de leur domination, qui cherchent à s'établir, et à se faire un royaume dans un pays que celui qu'ils ont quitté. On ne vit jamais à la fois tant de rois de ce caractère, qu'il en parut dans le temps de la décadence de l'empire romain." 380 The ten Kings confederate. 99 [LECT. the efforts of their force combined, as described in the vision, shew clearly that the power to which they lend their aid, is one which is in full vigour contemporarily with them, not a falling empire into whose place they are ready to succeed. "These i. e. the ten kings, giving their strength and power unto the wild beast, "shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for he is Lord of lords and King of kings: and they that are with him are chosen, and called, and faithful 3.” For the illustration of this passage we must refer to the nineteenth chapter. "I saw the wild beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together, to make war against him that sat on the horse"-the same who had "on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings, and Lord of lords ""—and against his army. And the wild beast was taken, and with him the false prophetthe same with the second beast which rose out of the land, and of which we read in the thirteenth chapter" and the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth; and all the fowls were filled with their flesh"." It would rather appear, from the language used in the vision before us, as though it would be for a long period that the |