Revelation 13:3

3 . The proposed name must be not in the Saxon, Latin, or Hebrew language, but in the Greek. Says E.B. Elliott, (vol. iii, p. 205,) “There is the highest probability of the language and number of the word being Greek, and not Hebrew, because the apocalypse was intended for the use of the Gentiles, to whom Hebrew was scarcely known; because the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet are expressly selected by Christ in the apocalypse, and not those of the Hebrew, to express his eternity. ‘I am α and ω , saith the Lord,’ (Revelation 1:8,) because the numerals in which the enigma is expressed are Greek numerals, and because Irenaeus directly asserts, and all the other early fathers imply, by making their solutions in Greek, that that was understood by them to be the language intended by the Divine Spirit.” This again excludes Prof. Benary’s Hebrew Nero Cesar, the Hebrew, רמענושׂ , Romanus; and such names as Luther, Calvin, and others, adduced, as retort, by the papists.

These principles, if valid, effectually exclude all the plausibly proposed names except the one furnished by Irenaeus, namely, Lateinos. And the distinctive name of the Romish communion is THE LATIN CHURCH. Says Dr. Henry Moore: “They Latinize every thing. Mass, prayers, hymns, litanies, canons, decretals, bulls, are conceived in Latin. The papal councils speak in Latin. Women themselves pray in Latin. The Scriptures are read in no other language than the Latin. In short all things are Latin.”

The most formidable rival, however, in spite of the several points of exclusion, is the Hebrew name, Nero Cesar. This name seems to have dawned upon the minds of four eminent scholars almost simultaneously, in 1836; namely, Fritzsche, in Rostock; Hitzig, in Zurich; Benary, in Berlin; and Reuss, in Strasburg. With a certain class of thinkers it seemed to carry all before it.

An almost conclusive proof of this name being the true solution, arose from a very peculiar coincidence. Irenaeus tells us that there were in the then extant manuscripts two different readings of the numbers; the older and more accurate was 666, but a later 616. Now there were also two forms of the name Nero, both used in Hebrew; one, after the Greek, was Neron, the other, after the Latin, was Nero, and the former of these made the 666, and the latter exactly 616! Should not that settle the question?

To this one might reply that Irenaeus tells us that the 616 was found only in later manuscripts, and so they could not have come from John. And how could copyists have adjusted their codices to Nero’s name, and Irenaeus never have heard of that name as a candidate? Indeed, Irenaeus’s omission of that name in discussing the candidates is a powerful argument against its claims.

But the French Professor Godet (in his Studies of the New Testament) denies that 666 is the true number of the Hebrew name Nero Cesar. Its true number is really 676, according to the spelling in St. John’s day. The number 666 is spelled with the three Hebrew consonants, K, S, R; the needed E of the first syllable being supplied by a vowel point; whereas the true orthography of the word Cesar, as identified by contemporary record, has four letters; requiring the E to be, not a vowel point, but a full letter, thereby increasing the number by a ten, making 676. This would entirely destroy the identification of the number with Nero. It is, indeed, given up by such rationalistic scholars as De Wette, Lucke, Bunsen, and Dusterdieck. We consider the Neronian solution of this name, like the Neronian date of the apocalypse, a very plausible, yet entirely preposterous, fable.

But there are some points of peculiar significance, both in the figures 666 and in the combination of the Greek letters that form the number, as they present themselves to the eye.

First, as to the significance of the 666. As seven is the perfect 7.7" class="scriptRef">number, 7, 7, 7, thus trinally taken, would be the symbol of divine perfection, the Trinity. Three half sevens would be the reverse of perfection, the directly bad. Three sixes are an attempt to attain or display the divine perfection, but are a failure, a falling short, and that, perhaps, by a divinely-imposed limitation. And thus in this 666 is numerically figured the would-be Christ the antichrist.

And as to the combination of Greek letters that form the number 666, they are in John’s Greek text, χξς , that is, chi, xi, and st. But, striking out the middle letter, the remaining two, χ ς , are the customary abbreviation in the manuscripts of the name Christ. Now let the serpentine ξ crawl in between these two letters, and what have we in χξς ? A central serpent wearing the externals of Christ; a serpent-Christ; an anti-Christ! Nor, says Godet, must this be promptly dismissed as a puerility. The Orientals were thus accustomed to express conceptions in figured forms to the eye, as even in our modern west we have the coat of arms, and in our America the “stars and stripes.” An ingenious, reflective people, before books are printed, are inclined to shape a momentous thought into an impressive mnemonic form. Thereby we get coin stamps, monograms, signet rings, abraxases, symbols pregnant with impressive import.

There is certainly presented here a curious combination of agreements.

They are a numerical name, Lateinos, that points to Rome; a trinal number, 666, that suggests the pseudo-divine; and a monogrammic triplet of letters, χξς , that imports a Satanic Christ. It has taken centuries of thought to develop this combination, indicating that νους has, indeed, been exerted here in large amount. We leave the reader to decide whether the combination was really planned by the νους of John.