Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/127

 homet. While the ten horns would signify the ten kingdoms, into which the Roman empire, or sixth head of the dragon, was to be subdivided. While Mahometanism, or the dragon's seventh head, was destined eventually to absorb three of these ten horns or kingdoms, as we have already intimated, and shall still further explain in the course of this work.

But although I feel no doubt that this is the most accurate interpretation of the Apocalyptic vision, it may also be referred in a somewhat more limited sense to that power which I believe to have been the dragon's sixth head, namely, to the Roman empire: now the Roman empire was emphatically the instrument of the devil in persecuting the Church, that is, "the woman clothed with the sun," on her first appearance in the world.

Applying it, then, to the Roman empire, by the seven heads crowned with diadems I should understand either the seven principal emperors who exhibited the greatest fury in persecuting the Primitive Church, which I consider the most probable interpretation, or what some other commentators have taken it to mean, the seven forms of government that successively prevailed in the Roman state, being as follows: 1. The Kings; 2. Consuls; 3. Dictators; 4. Decemvirs; 5. Military tribunes; 6. Emperors;