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/168

 doms or polities. It is from that date that English, French, German, Spanish, and the other national histories, of what is called modern Europe, commence.

The destruction of imperial Rome was therefore not the destruction of any head of any beast, but the destruction of the imperial beast itself; and consequently cannot (on that ground alone) be represented, as Bishop Newton thinks, by the deadly wound of one of the heads of the Apocalyptic beast in question: not to add that the falsehood of this conclusion has already been proved by anticipation, when we showed that this beast could not represent the Roman empire at all.

What then is the head referred to? We have already demonstrated the beast to signify the Mahometan Saracenic empire; we, therefore, without hesitation, express our conviction that his bead, thus wounded to death, symbolized the extinction of the dynasty of the caliphs, which took place under Motassem, the fifty-sixth successor of Mahomet. So that, as we shall presently see, St. John describes a second beast coming up out of the earth, which evidently is but a development of the consequences resulting from the healing of the deadly wound inflicted on the principal head of the first beast.