the right hand
of Jesus (chap. 1:19), we are authorized to regard stars as a symbol of
Christian ministers, and the twelve that appear most prominently in the
first history of the church are the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The dragon, a beast from the natural world, would properly symbolize a
tyrannical, persecuting government. This was a red dragon with seven
heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. In the following
chapter we read that John saw a beast rising up out of the sea with the
same number of heads and horns, but ten crowns on his horns. And the
dragon gave him (the beast) "his power, and his seat, and great
authority." Verse 2. So far as the heads and horns are concerned, the
only difference between the two is that the crowns--a symbol of supreme
authority and power--have been transferred from the heads to the horns.
In chapter 17 John saw the same beast again and there received the
following explanation of the seven heads: "And there are seven kings:
five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he
cometh he must continue a short space." Verse 10. Concerning the horns
he was told, "The ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have
received no kingdom as yet." Verse 12. With this explanation before us
it will be easy to identify the dragon of chapter 12 and the beast of
chapters 13 and 17 as the Roman empire, the first under the Pagan and
the second under the Papal form. The seven heads signify the seven
distinct forms of supreme government that ruled successively in the
empire. The five that had already fallen when John received the vision
were the Regal power, the Consular, the Decemvirate, the Military
Tribunes and the Triumvirate. "One is"--the Imperial.[8] The
identification of its seventh and last head we shall leave until later.
The ten horns, or kingdoms, which had not yet arisen when the Revelation
was given, were the ten minor kingdoms that grew out of the Western
Roman empire during its decline and fall. The historian Machiard, in
giving an account of these nations, and without any reference to the
Bible or its prophecies, reckons ten kingdoms, as follows:

1. The Ostrogoths in Maesia;
2. The Visigoths in Pannonia;
3. Sueves and Alans in Gascoigne and Spain;
4. Vandals in Africa;
5. Franks in France;
6. Burgundians in Burgundy;
7. Heruli and Turings in Italy;
8. Saxons and Anglis in Britain;
9. Huns in Hungary;
10. Lombards, at first on the Danube