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/167

 Saracenic empire, and not what Bishop Newton erroneously interpreted it, papal Rome.

The Prophet continues, "And I saw one of his heads, as it were slain to death: and his death's wound was healed."

Bishop Newton and other Protestant commentators see in this text, following up their erroneous hypothesis concerning this beast, the destruction of the imperial power of old Rome in the person of its last western emperor, Romulus Augustulus. But that destruction was not the destruction of a form of government merely, but of the Roman empire itself. It was the destruction of the Roman beast, as a single empire, and not alone of one of the heads of that empire. That this was so history proves: from that time the Roman empire as such ceases, and the ten kingdoms, of which the Byzantine Greek empire was of course one, take its place. To say the contrary is to deny history. No man m his senses would call European history subsequent to that date "Roman history," but it is equally true that no man in his senses either could or does term European history before that date by any other name than that of Roman history. And why? because before that date Europe and the Roman empire were synonymous, whereas after it Europe was subdivided into independent king-