Revelation 13:3: And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

Many conflicting interpretations attempt to explain how one of the seven heads on the First Beast¹ could be wounded to death and then the deadly wound was healed.² One popular view identifies the Emperor Nero as the mortally wounded head because‒according to legend‒he was resurrected after he committed suicide in 68 AD.³ That cannot be the case since Nero hasn't been resurrected or reincarnated. Furthermore, the heads of the First Beast symbolize the Roman Empire and other evolving world kingdoms, not Nero or any other single individual.⁴

The Roman Empire received a mortal wound from a sword⁵ when the city of Rome fell⁶ in 476 AD.⁷ In that year, the northern hordes of Germany conquered Rome, and the empire fell with it.⁸ After the fall of Rome, the vast territories of the Roman Empire began to divide into multiple kingdoms,⁹ including those that have become the modern nations of Europe.¹⁰ These European nations and all other modern nations are represented by the ten horns with ten crowns on the First Beast that died by the sword.¹¹

Imperial Rome may have died in 476 AD, but its deadly wound was healed by the emergence of papal authority¹² in the Holy Roman Empire.¹³ The papacy became an institution no later than 607 AD, when Phocas, the emperor of Rome, recognized Boniface III‒the Bishop of Rome‒as the supreme authority among all Christian bishops.¹⁴ Thereafter, the nations that previously freed themselves from the yoke of Imperial Rome subsequently yoked themselves to the authority of the Roman papacy.¹⁵ This began most notably in 800 AD, when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as the first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.¹⁶ This act became the precedent for papal authority over kings and various heads of state. The supremacy of the papacy over civil heads of state continued to grow until the reign of Pope Gregory VII (1073-1095 AD).¹⁷ His edicts¹⁸ gave the Roman pontiffs the same civil and ecclesiastical power¹⁹ once held by the Imperial Roman emperors,²⁰ primarily in the western parts of the ancient empire.²¹

After the deadly wound of Imperial Rome was healed by the rise of papal authority in the Holy Roman Empire, John then saw and recorded that all the world wondered after the beast. This means the world known as the ancient Roman Empire ²² revered and even worshiped²³ the papal institution.²⁴ Additionally, the world wondered after the beast as independent and emerging nations were forced²⁵ to accept the Roman papacy²⁶ as both an ecclesiastical and civil authority.²⁷ The world was also astonished or stood in awe of the power possessed by the Holy Roman Empire that rose again to life after the fall of Imperial Rome.²⁸

The papacy in the Holy Roman Empire reached the height of its power in the time of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216 AD).²⁹ Papal authority began to decline after the death of Pope Boniface VIII in 1303 AD.³⁰ This occurred as the first rays of light from the Renaissance began to pierce the Dark Ages.³¹ Papal power continued to decline until the Roman church lost its civil authority in the western part of the Holy Roman Empire during the Reformation³² in the 15th and 16th centuries.³³ The popes lost their power completely in the eastern part of the empire by 1453 AD when Turkish Muslims defeated Constantinople after centuries of conflict against the Holy Roman Empire.³⁴

The image of the First Beast in Revelation 13:1-3 represents the Imperial Roman Empire that died and then revived as the Holy Roman Empire.³⁵ These verses immediately illustrate that the image of the First Beast is a dynamic and evolving symbol for the Roman Empire from 70 AD through 1830 AD, including the 1290 years of Great Apostasy described in Daniel 12:11.³⁶