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of the last persecution , and of future peace , and of the whole time from the Passion of the Lord , etc. Time and place have many points of resemblance. It is a resemblance, that Xenophon in his Cyropoedia says, upidpbv odov, the number of a journey , for length . Add Eurip. ed. Gr. p. 290, r. 3, ed. Lat. Part II. p. 232 ; Eus. Prsep. Ev. f. 228, ex Afric.
§ 5. The 42 months and the tiumher 666 are equal. — The duration of the locusts, under the first woe, is twice expressed by five months : to the angels of the Euphrates, under the second woe, there is given an hour , and a day , and a month , and a year ; and that body of horse- men, two myriads of myriads (200,000,000), is equalled to this space. Thus, under the third woe, 42 months of the power which the beast has, and the number 666 of the same beast, are equal.
§ 6. The form of expression respecting u the number of a man ” im- plies 666 ordinary years , and by way of contradistinction to this , 42 prophetical months. — The number of the beast is said to be the number of a man. This expression, of a man , either denotes a man definitely or indefinitely. If definitely, it has reference either to the beast with ten horns, or to the man computing. There is no need of either of these in a matter which is of itself obvious ; and neither would tend to aid the calculation. Therefore it must be used indefinitely, whence the article is not added in the Greek : therefore the genitive singular, of a man, is used for human, as her a dvdpuyjov, 1 Kings xiii. 2 (that is, offra avQpuimva, Num. xix. 16) ; 6urr\- p/a, uvOpunov, Ps. lx. 11 [see marg. of Engl. Version] ; ftdyaipa avOpuKov, Isa. xxxi. 8. Moreover it is either a human number of times, or a number of human times. It is not the former : for it would then have to be a human number, either of years, or months, or days : but 666 years very far exceed the age of man : but 666 days or months are far too short to express the duration of the beast ; and such an ellipsis of days or months is unusual : finally, the word, months, is already preoccupied by the opposite 42 months. Therefore it is a number of times, human , or belonging to man. But the expression, the number of a man , is used for this very conveni- ently. For as in Gal. vi. 11, the greatness [of size] which belongs to the whole epistle is assigned to the letters ; and as the curtailing, by which a longer interval is curtailed, is assigned to days , Ps. cii. 24, 25 ; and the middle, which belongs to greater times of the world, is assigned to years, Hab. iii. 2 : so, on the other hand, there is sometimes given to a collective noun a predicate, adapted to the in- dividual things separately : Prov. xxx. 26, oi y oipoypvXXioi sdvog ovx,
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