Revelation 13:18

“Now for wisdom” skill to penetrate the secret of the cryptogram which would reveal the features of the dread opponent. This cryptic method was a favourite apocalyptic device, due partly to prudential reasons, partly to the desire for impressiveness; Orientals loved symbolic and enigmatic modes of expression in religion (cf. Apoc. Bar. xxviii. 1, 2; Sib. Or. i. 141 f.; Barn. ix. 8, burlesqued by Lucian in Alex. 11). The prophet here drops the rôle of seer for that of hierophant or cabbalist. He invites his readers to count the name or number of the Beast, i.e., to calculate a name whose letters, numerically valued on the fanciful principles of Gematria, would amount to 666. For John and his readers the Beast was primarily the foreign power which opposed the divine kingdom, i.e., in this case, the Roman empire. But the drift of the present oracle is the further identification of the empire with the emperor, or rather (Revelation 13:3) with one emperor in particular. Hence the prophet throws out the hint which will solve his riddle: the number of τοῦ θηρίου is ἀριθμὸς ἀνθρώπου, i.e., of a historic personality. Ἀνθρώπου does not require τινός or ἑνός before it to bring this out. The only intelligible sense of the words is “a human number,” i.e., not a number which is intelligible (for no other kind of number would be worth mentioning) but one which answered to an individual. Hence it is a matter of comparative indifference what the number of the Beast originally meant ΤΕΙΤΑΝ (so recently Abbott 80 f. = Titus, Teitous), Η ΛΑΤΕΙΝΗ (ΙΤΑΛΗ) ΒΑϹΙΛΕΙΑ (Clemen), ΛΑΤΕΙΝΟϹ, קיסר רום (= 616), קיסר רומים (= 666), Nimrod (נמרד בו כש, Bruston), or any other (cf. Cheyne's Traditions and Beliefs of Anc. Israel, p. 248). This generic number is expressly identified or equalised by John with the number of an individual, viz., Nero Cæsar (קסר נרון), the Greek letters of which yield 666. The defective writing of קסר (without the yod) is not unexampled. Besides, the abbreviated form would gain, at a very slight expense, this telling and symettrical cipher. Furthermore, when the last letter of Neron is dropped, this Latinised spelling brings the total value of the name to 616, the very variant which puzzled Irenæus. Gunkel's proposal תהום קדמוניה (primal chaos = Tiâmat) suffers from several flaws; it omits the article, it employs a feminine ending which is not used in adjectives of this type, and “primal” is not a conventional epithet of mystery (cf. G. F. Moore in Journ. Amer. Oriental Society, 1906, 315 f.). Besides, as Gunkel admits, there are no Babylonian parallels to Revelation 13:11-17. Thus, while the application of the term is obvious, its origin is obscure. The basis of such contrivances (which became popular in Gnostic circles) was twofold: (a) gematria, which, using Greek and Hebrew letters to denote numbers, could often turn a name into a suggestive cipher; (b) isopsephia, which put two words together of the same numerical value (cf. for instances of ἰσόψηφα, Farrar 468 f. and Corssen). Probably the number of the Beast belonged to tradition. John plays upon it in order to disclose the shuddering climax of his oracle, that the final foe of the saints was Nero redivivus. The particular number 666 was specially apt as a symbol for this anti-divine power, since it formed a vain parody of the sacred number seven (Gfrörer notes further the ominous usage of 18 = 6 + 6 + 6 in Judges 3:14; Judges 10:8; Jeremiah 32:1; Jeremiah 52:29; Luke 13:1, etc.), always falling short of it. In Sib. Or. i. 324 f. 888 represents Christ, and Origen (on Ezekiel 4:9) remarks, apropos of the present passage, ἐστὶν ὁ ἀριθμὸς οὗτος πάθους σύμβολον καὶ κακώσεως τοῦ σωτῆρος τῇ ἕκτῃ ἠμέρᾳ πεπον · θότος. Irenæus explains the suitability of the number as “in recapitulationem uniuersae apostasiae eius, quae facta est in sex millibus annorum” (adv. Haer. ver. 28, 2). Thus the very number 666 by itself, may have been significant of the anti-divine power. The Neronic application would intensify and concentrate its meaning for John's readers who were initiated. And such calculations, as the Pompeii graffiti prove, were familiar even to Greek-speaking inhabitants of the empire. The Pergamos-inscriptions furnish analogous instances.