the employment of the letters of the Hebrew and Greek alphabets for the designation of numbers.
The Hebrew Aleph counts 1, Beth 2, etc., Yodh 10; but Kaph (the eleventh letter) counts 20, Resh
(the twentieth letter) 200, etc. The Greek letters, with the addition of an acute accent (as α’, β’),
have the same numerical value in their order down to Sigma, which counts 200; except that ς’ (st)
is used for 6, and Φ’ (an antiquated letter Koppa between πand ρ) for 90. The Hebrew alphabet
ends with Ta = 400, the Greek with Omega = 800. To express thousands an accent is put beneath
the letter, as,α, = 1,000; ,β, = 2,000; ,ι, = 10,000.- On this fact most interpretations of the Apocalyptic puzzle are based. It is urged by Bleek,
DeWette, Wieseler, and others, that the number 666 must be deciphered from the Greek alphabet,
since the book was written in Greek and for Greek readers, and uses the Greek letters Alpha and
Omega repeatedly as a designation of Christ, the Beginning and the End (1:8; 21:6; 22:13). On the
other hand, Ewald and Renan, and all who favor the Nero-hypothesis, appeal against this argument
to the strongly Hebraistic spirit and coloring of the Apocalypse and the familiarity of its Jewish
Christian readers with the Hebrew alphabet. The writer, moreover, may have preferred this for the
purpose of partial concealment; just as he substituted Babylon for Rome (comp. 1 Pet. 5:13). But
after all, the former view is much more natural. John wrote to churches of Asia Minor, chiefly
gathered from Gentile converts who knew no Hebrew. Had he addressed Christians in Palestine,
the case might be different. - The number 666 (three sixes) must, in itself, be a significant number, if we keep in view
the symbolism of numbers which runs through the whole Apocalypse. It is remarkable that the
numerical value of the name Jesus is 888 (three eights), and exceeds the trinity of the sacred number
(777) as much as the number of the beast falls below it.^1265 - The "beast" coming out of the sea and having seven heads and ten horns (Rev. 13:1–10)
is the anti-Christian world-power at war with the church of Christ. It is, as in Daniel, an apt image
of the brutal nature of the pagan state. It is, when in conflict with the church, the secular or political
Antichrist; while "the false prophet," who works signs and deceives the worshippers of the beast
(16:13; 19:20; 20:10), is the intellectual and spiritual Antichrist, in close alliance with the former,
his high-priest and minister of cultus, so to say, and represents the idolatrous religion which animates
and supports the secular imperialism. In wider application, the false prophet may be taken as the
personification of all false doctrine and heresy by which the world is led astray. For as there are
"many Antichrists," so there are also many false prophets. The name "Antichrist," however, never
occurs in the Apocalypse, but only in the Epistles of John (five times), and there in the plural, in
the sense of "false prophets" or heretical teachers, who deny that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh
(1 John 4:1–3). Paul designates the Antichrist as, "the man of sin," the son of perdition who opposeth
and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the
temple of God, setting himself forth as God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4). But he seems to look upon the Roman
empire as a restraining power which, for a time at least, prevented the full outbreak of the "mystery
of lawlessness," then already at work (2:6–8). He thus wrote a year or two before the accession of
Nero, and sixteen years or more before the composition of the Apocalypse.
(^1265) I = 10 + η = 8 + σ = 200 + ο = 70 + υ = 400 + σ = 200, total ησουσ = 888. Comp. Barnabas, Ep. c. 9; and the Sibylline
Books, I. 324-331.
A.D. 1-100.