conspicuous tattoo or brand (cf. Lucian, Dea Syra; 3 Macc. ii. 29, where the Alexandrian Jews are branded with the mark of Dionysius; also on Gal. vi. 17); or, better still, to the religious cus- tom of wearing a god’s name as a talisman (cf. Deissmann, 349 f.). The general sense of the prediction is that the faithful will be shut up to the alternative of starving or of coming for- ward to avow their prohibited faith, so subtly and diabolically does the cultus of the emperor pervade all social life. An- other solution is to think of the χάραγµα or red stamp, which was essential to all documents of exchange (Deissmann, 240 f.); it consisted of a red seal with tho emperor’s name or effigy. Ramsay (Seven Letters, pp. 106 f.) takes the whole description as a symbolic and rather sarcastic way of referring to a boycotting demand that every Asiatic Christian should somehow “ stamp him- self overtly and visibly as loyal, or be disqualified from participation in ordinary social life and trading”. Probably the passage is a figurative and unqualified expression for conspicuous loyalty to the Imperial cult. In Ep. Lugd. the devil is said to work against Christ by ‘‘ excluding us from houses, baths, and markets, and also by forbidding any one of us to ap- pear anywhere”.
Ver. 18. ‘‘Now for wisdom ”—skill to penetrate the secret of the cryptogram
434
νοῦν ψηφισάτω τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ θηρίου: ἀριθμὸς γὰρ ἀνθρώπου ἐστί, καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτοῦ ἑξακόσιοι 1 ἑξήκοντα ἕδ.
1χξζ”, i.e., εξακοσιοι (-αι) εξηκοντα εξ (NAPQ, etc., Iren., Vict., Pr.), but χιζ’, {.ε., εξακοσιοι δεκα εξ (C, 5, 11, Tic., Spec., ““quidam sequentes idiotismum’’ apud
Iren.).
See on xiv. 20, and Zahn, § 75, n. 5.
“There is no doubt but that 616
given in the Jerusalem codex is the original Armenian reading ” (Conybeare).
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 ex- pression in religion (cf. Apoc. Bar. xxviii. I, 2; Sib. Or. i. 141 f.; Barn. ix. 8, bur- lesqued by Lucian in Alex. 11). The prophet here drops the réle of seer for that of hierophant or cabbalist. He in- vites his readers to count the name or number of the Beast, #.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, {.ε., 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 (νετ. 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 ἀνθρώπον, i.¢., of a historic personality. ᾿Ανθρώπου does not require τινός or ἑνός before it to bring this out. The only intelligible sense of the words is ‘“‘a human num- ber,”’ 1.ε., not a number which is intelli- gible (for no other kind of number would be worth mentioning) but one which answered to an individual. Hence it isa matter of comparative indifference what the number of the Beast originally meant —TEITAN (so recently Abbott 80 f.= Titus, Teitous), H AATEINH (ITAAH)
_BACILEIA (Clemen), AATEINOC, 95> JOD (-616), OWI AD (=666), Nimrod (4775 49, λα, Bruston), or
any other (cf. Cheyne’s Traditions and Beliefs of Απο. Israel, Ῥ. 248). This generic number is expressly identified or equalised by John with the number of an
individual, viz., Nero Cesar (112 10), the Greek letters of which yield 666. The defective writing of 0ορ (without
the yod) is not unexampled. Besides, the abbreviated form would gain, at a very slight expense, this telling and symet-
trical cipher. Furthermore, when the last letter of Neron is dropped, this Latin- ised spelling brings the total value of the name to 616, the very variant which puzzled Irenzus. Gunkel’s proposal