Revelation 13:17

καὶ ἵνα. So Text. Rec[457] Treg[458] and Weiss with אcAB2P. Lach[459] and Tisch[460] omit (and W. H[461] bracket) καὶ with א* and C.

[457] Rec. Textus Receptus as printed by Scrivener.
[458] Tregelles.
[459] Lachmann’s larger edition.
[460] Tischendorf: eighth edition; where the text aud notes differ the latter are cited.
[461] H. Westcott aud Hort.

τὸ χάραγμα, τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ θηρίου, ἤ τὸν� with AP. C has τ. χ. τοῦ ὀνόματος κ.τ.λ.; א τὸ χ. τοῦ θ. ἢ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ; B2 τ. χ. τ. ὄ. τ. θ. ἤ τὸν�.τ.λ.

17. καὶ ἵνα. See crit. note. If καὶ be retained, the verb depends on ποιεῖ in Revelation 13:16; if omitted, the clause marks the purpose of the χάραγμα.

ἵνα μήτις … πωλῆσαι. Such disabilities seem to have been actually imposed, at least in the Diocletian persecution, by requiring business transactions to be preceded by pagan formulas.

τὸν�. In Hebrew and in Greek, letters were used for numerals, every letter having its own proper significance as a number. Among the Jews (and to some extent among early Christians, especially heretics) this suggested the possibility of finding numbers mystically corresponding to any word: the numerical value of all the letters might be added together, and the sum would represent the word. This process was called by the Jews Gematria, a corruption of the Greek Geometria. Ridiculous as were many of the attempts made to find mystical meanings in the words of Scripture by this process, it remains true that a Jew of St John’s time would probably mean, by “the number of a name,” the number formed by Gematria from its letters: and probably the numerous guesses, from St Irenæus’ time to our own, that have been based on this method are so far on the right track. But there are too many that are plausible for any one to be probable. There are in fact an indefinite number of proper names whose letters will amount to 666 (or 616, see below) either in Hebrew or Greek—at least when the names are neither Hebrew nor Greek, and so have to be arbitrarily transliterated.

The attempts which are generally thought of most importance are Λατεινος, and Nerôn (or Nerô) Kêsar; the latter has the advantage that the alternative Hebrew transliterations of his chief titles give 666 or 616 as we retain or drop the final n. Both the solution Λατεινος and the reading 616 are as old as St Irenæus, who criticises the latter in a way to suggest that it was already interpreted of Nero. He insists that in a Greek book we should expect the name to be conveyed by the numerical value of Greek letters: he speaks of the reading 616 as due to an ‘idiotism’—a mispronunciation such as uneducated persons might fall into—an educated Greek would take care of the final n. Völter hardly presses his own objection that Kêsar ought to be written with a Yod between the Koph and the Samech: and whether Nero were living or dead at the moment of the vision it was equally dangerous to name him plainly. If he were alive it was treason against him to say he was the beast, if he were dead it was treason against the reigning emperor to say Nero would come back from the dead. Völter’s own ingenious solution—Trajanus Hadrianus—which gives either 666 or 616 also in Hebrew, cannot stand apart from his general theory of the book. If 616 were otherwise probable, it could be read of Gaius. ἔχιδνα gives the right number and might be referred to Nero as a matricide, for the viper’s birth was supposed to be fatal to the mother, and the three letters might be arranged as a rough outline of a snake. No other name (Genseric, Mohammed, and even Napoleon, have been tried with more or less violence) has any real chance of being right. Failing Λατεινος and Kêsar NerÔn, we may be pretty certain it will not be discovered till Antichrist appears: and then believers will be able to recognise him by this token.