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Re-examining the Heads of the Beast From a Current Perspective

by J.L. Haynes

I am currently reading, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, by Samuel Garratt (3rd edition, 1897).  Very, very interesting interpretation of some of the details in Revelation!  Mr. Garratt's writing is challenging some of my previous assumptions.  My own thoughts on this interesting interpretation could suggest that the "heads" of the beast in Rev 13 & 17 have ramifications in the present day.

  The five heads "that were" are the five previous forms of Roman government prior to the time when John received this vision: kings, consuls, decemvirs, military tribunes, triumvirs.  The one "that is" is that of "emperors".  The seventh "must remain a little while," but what is it?  This beast "once was and now is not" (Rev 17:11) and when it reappears will become an eighth which is the final form of Roman government that will exist at the coming of Christ.  The words, "now is not..." are applicable at the time indicated by the vision John was seeing then:  of the woman riding the beast having already reached maturity in her persecution of the saints (17:6).  By that description, we could suggest that the Roman church was drunk on blood anytime from the 16th century until now.  But the actual time of the vision in real history must also coincide with a period when the seventh head, which ''once was," is not. 

The sixth head was that of "emperors".  I have usually maintained that this form disappeared with the fall of Romulus Augustus in 476.  He was the last Western Emperor to rule from Rome itself.  But the fact (which has often troubled me) is that historically, Justinian, the Eastern Emperor, was declared by Odoacer, chief of the Heruli invaders and new conquering king of Rome, to be the Emperor of both East AND West.  This has troubled me because it meant that REALLY, there was still an emperor even if he resided in the East. 

So when was there NOT an emperor of the Roman, or Holy Roman, Empire?  The title of Western Emperor was regained under Charlemagne in 800, but it was only a modification: the presence of an emperor over the empire was a constant.  Even when the Eastern Empire fell to the Turks in 1453, the Emperor of Germany bore the title of Roman Emperor--he was acknowledged as the head of the European Commonwealth.  This was titular mainly, and fits nicely with the vision of chapter 17's focus on the HORNS ( the nation kings), and not the presence of the head in verse 16; and with the lonely mention of the horns without reference to the head in Daniel 7:7-25, when the return of the Lord is described.  The head was not a major detail from Daniel's perspective--being concerned with events that were still at least 2500 years away.  However, being forced by Napoleon, the German emperor Francis, in 1806, renounced the "throne of the Caesars" and declared himself only emperor of Austria.  Napoleon won the title Emperor of France, and tried to identify his government with Roman character, but he was not a Caesar of the Western Roman Empire--that title was abandoned by Francis, not transferred to Napoleon.  Napoleon instituted the seventh head under himself.  John wrote that this head would "remain a little while", (Rev 17:10).  He also wrote in chapter 13:12 that it would be wounded with a "fatal wound." And in 13:14, that it would be wounded "by the sword."  This unique description fits the way that the Napoleanic head was brought to an end: by  foreign invasion at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.  Never since has there been a single head of Western Europe.  There has been no single Roman government over the ten horns in Europe.  Satan has tried, not knowing exactly how these prophecies were to be fulfilled, to establish the eighth head--  through the Franco-Prussian war, the First World War, the Second World War (all of these instigators, Napoleon III, Prussia, and Hitler, sought the revival of the Western Roman Empire.  All of them failed. So the Beast that "one was, now is not."  There is not, by this interpretation, a head over the Roman beast at this time.  This gives an interesting perspective of the frantic evil of the wars in Europe over the last two centuries as Satan tried to revive the seventh head of the Roman/European beast.  But the facts of these evil wars are in themselves an indication of the correctness of this interpretation.  No head has existed over Europe since Napoleon; but there has been a repeated and bloody effort to establish one.  

There is yet another not improbable mode in which the revival of the ten-horned beast might be accomplished.  The triumph of the French Republic would almost certainly result in the formation of republics all over the Roman earth.  This is what is meant by the phrase "the United States of Europe."  The secret societies are said to cherish the design of a grand European revival of the Roman Republic.  The second, third, fourth, and fifth heads of the ten-horned beast were all republican, and the establishment of a system of European Republics would be the rising up of another head, one "of the seven."  The beast is to be identical with the eighth head, "he is the eighth," (Rev 17:11) which seems to require either a Republic or a Democratic Empire.  The Church of Rome would accommodate itself with equal ease to a Holy Roman Empire or the United States of Europe.  Each, as far as I can see, would be a fulfilment of the prophecy.  The ten horns might be ten kingdoms or ten republics, but as the horns of the beast in Dan 7 are identical with the toes of the image in Dan 2, and the stone cut out without hands is to smite the image on its ten toes, the number must be ten at the close, as well as at the beginning; and it seems too likely that England will be one of them. In which of these ways the fourth of Daniel's beasts or the Western Roman Empire is to be revived, or in what other way, I do not think prophecy determines; but its revival in some form,--royal, republican, or imperial,--seems absolutely required by the prediction.

Samuel Garratt, A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, Considered As The Divine Book of History, 3rd Ed., (London: Chas. J. Thynne (Successor  to Wm. Hunt & Co.), 1897), pp 250-251.  

 

COMING SOON—A STRONGER, UNIFIED EUROPEAN UNION May 14, 2000
 
 The London Telegraph reported: “The French and German governments have resolved to reverse the euro's relentless slide by launching the EU on a fresh course of political integration during a summit near Paris this week....The summit at Rambouillet next Friday has been designated the stage for a Franco-German rapprochement. Among ideas to be discussed, listed in a radical speech by Germany's foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, are a new EU constitution for the ‘European citizen’, an elected president for the Union and a radical reform of the EU founding treaty to give ‘a long-term political perspective on the Union's future’…In a key speech in Berlin on Friday, which aides said had been written after ‘long discussions’ with his French counterpart Hubert Vedrine, Mr. Fischer, said that the creation of a currency union meant that a complementary political union had become a necessity...He advocated setting up a single European government, a more powerful European parliament with two chambers, and an elected ‘President of Europe’...Francis Maude, the shadow foreign secretary, said the revelations had ‘spectacularly blown the lid off Europe's superstate agenda’… The idea that economic and monetary union would generate the need for further political integration in Brussels is not a new one. Jacques Delors, the French former president of the European Commission, considered it the hidden gamble of the euro project. Once a single currency was in place, Mr Delors, along with Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterrand, anticipated that electorates inside the euro zone would demand a political counterweight to the European Central Bank, which is responsible for running the new currency..." 

NEW EFFORT TO PUSH EUROPEAN UNION INTEGRATION May 20, 2000
 
 The London Times reported: “The leaders of France and Germany met in conclave in the French countryside last night to discuss closer European union. It could start this year with a scheme for member states to band together in an embryo ‘hard core’. In talks with Chancellor Schröder at Rambouillet, southwest of Paris, President Chirac and Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, were pushing the concept of "reinforced co-operation" among willing states as a FrancoGerman priority when France takes over the six-monthly EU presidency in July…French ideas for widening the co-operation scheme, already enshrined in limited form in the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, were given new life this week when Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, painted a bold vision of a fully federal Europe based on a Franco-German ‘center of gravity’. Monetary union and the EU's current push for a defense arm are already examples of such ‘alliances of the willing’. However, Britain, Spain and their EU allies take a dim view of arrangements that could promote a hard core while sidelining other member states. Poland and other eastern European states are alarmed at the prospect of exclusion to an outer circle when they join the EU over the next few years…Supporters of the approach see it as the only way of ensuring that an enlarged EU is not paralysed by vetos from Britain and other states opposed to deeper integration. Romano Prodi, the President of the European Commission, yesterday hailed the push for ‘reinforced co-operation’ in next December's Treaty of Nice as a welcome step. The scheme should ‘not just be used for secondary issues but for the most important ones’, he said. ‘From now on, it is difficult to draw the line between such reinforced co-operation and a federal Europe’...” 

GERMANY AND FRANCE PUSH FOR A QUICKER EUROPEAN UNION INTEGRATION May 30, 2000

The London Times reported: “A German plan for a federal Europe was given authoritative French backing yesterday when Laurent Fabius, the Finance Minister, welcomed it as a road map for turning the European Union into a ‘federation of nation states’. M Fabius, who is Deputy Prime Minister in the Government of Lionel Jospin, broke with the caution shown so far by the Government towards the ambitious scheme drawn up by Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Minister. Herr Fischer's ideas were ‘important and very interesting,’ as a guide for the political organization of Europe, he said. The EU, which comes under French presidency in July, should proceed towards deeper integration led by a Franco-German ‘avant-garde’ as suggested by the German minister, he added. By 2007, when the EU will mark its 50th anniversary of its founding Treaty of Rome, ‘it would be a fine aim for our generation to prepare by then an adequate political structure...whether one calls it a federation of nation states or co-sovereignty,’ he said...”

 

FRENCH MAKE A PRIORITY OF INCREASING COMMON EUROPEAN UNION DEFENSE May 31, 2000

Agence France Presse reported: “France's President Jacques Chirac issued an impassioned plea Tuesday for a European defense structure, and called for an EU rapid reaction force to police the northern Mediterranean. In a speech delivered a month before France takes over as European Union president, Chirac also proposed a summit meeting with states from the former Yugoslavia to encourage the process of democratization there. Addressing representatives of the defense body, the Western European Union, Chirac said that backing up a joint foreign policy via a credible defense capacity was a crucial next step in forging a European identity. ‘The EU must make its voice better heard on the international scene...We are not lacking in conviction or courage. What we need is cohesion and -- let us face it -- political vision,’ he said. Chirac said that a priority in France's six month presidency would be to press forward on commitments made at the Helsinki summit last December to have a European corps of up to 60,000 men capable of deploying by the year 2003. ‘It seems to me that the time has come to consider reinforcing Europe's rapid reaction capabilities, especially in southern Europe. There is scope for the establishment of a new European rapid reaction force to intervene in the northern Mediterranean,’ he said. Prospects for a European defense arm have advanced dramatically in the last 18 months..."

 

GROWING EUROPEAN UNION MUST BECOME A FEDERAL STATE WITH AN ELECTED PRESIDENT AND CONSITUTION June 15, 2000

The London Telegraph reported: “The European Commission is considering radical plans for an elected president and a federal constitution to bind the European Union closer together before the next round of enlargement. Michel Barnier, the European commissioner in charge of reform, has given warning that the EU will slide into crisis, becoming ‘unpopular’, ‘useless’ and ‘incapable of decision-making’ unless Europe's leaders rise to the challenge and draft a visionary document as the basis for the next constitutional treaty in December. At a meeting with fellow commissioners in Strasbourg, M Barnier said the status quo was not sustainable. The only question was whether the EU should be a ‘federal’ state in the conventional sense, modeled on the United States or Germany, or whether it should pursue the goal of political union through other means. ‘Everybody knows that Europe's current institutions can't work with 30 countries,’ he told The Telegraph after the meeting. ‘If we can't find the courage to change the mechanism, we're going to face a general blockage of all EU activity. The British Government sees this too, and I'm confident that they will accept the need for fundamental change in the end.’..."

"...Francis Maude, the shadow foreign secretary, said the Barnier proposals showed that ‘the EU superstate agenda is alive and well’ and the Government must ‘stop pretending’. M Barnier said the creation of the euro entailed a ‘federal logic’, arguably requiring a new federal structure with a directly elected president and a bicameral parliament with full legislative powers. It would also have a ‘supreme court’ to act as guardian of a ‘simple, clear constitution’ that all the children of Europe could learn by heart. The revamped commission should have a directly elected president to give it ‘democratic legitimacy’, with a vice-president in charge of foreign policy and defense and powers to dissolve the European Parliament."

June 15, 2000

News clippings from JVIM Update, (http://www.jvim.com/cgi-bin/update.cgi , May 21, 2000).