MIT DWN (primal chaos = Tia- mat) 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 Fourn. Amer. Oriental Society, 1906, 315 f.). Besides, as Gunkel admits, there are no Babylonian parallels to xiii. 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) tsopsephia, 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 sym- bol for this anti-divine power, since it formed a vain parody of the sacred num- ber seven (Gfrérer notes further the ominous usage of 1&3 =6+6+6 in Judges iii. 14, x. 8; Jerem. xxxii. 1, lii. 29; Luke xiii. I, etc.), always falling short of it. In Sib. Or. i. 324 f. 888 represents Christ, and Origen (on E-ek. iv. 9) remarks, apropos of the present passage, ἐστὶν 6 ἀριθμὸς οὗτος πάθους σύμβολον καὶ κακ- ώσεως τοῦ σωτῆρος τῇ ἕκτῃ ἡμέρᾳ πεπον- θότος. Irenzus explains the suitability of the number as “in recapitulationem uniuersae apostasiae eius, quae facta est in sex millibus annorum” (adv. Haer. v. 28, 2). Thus the very number 666 by it- self, may have been significant of the anti-divine power. The Neronic applica- tion would intensify and concentrate its meaning for John’s readers who were initiated. And such calculations, as the Pompeii graffiti prove, were familiar even
“XIV. τ---3.