Revelation 17:5

Roman filles de joie wore a label with their names thus (Juv. vi. 123). μυστήριον (which hardly belongs to the title itself) indicates that the name is to be taken πνευματικῶς (Revelation 11:8), not literally; “a name written which is a symbol,” or a mysteriously significant title. μήτηρ κ. τ. λ., Rome, the natural focus of Oriental cults in general, is charged with fostering all the superstitious and vicious practices of her subjects. βδελ. (partly justified by a perusal of Petronius and Apuleius) is an apt rebuke if it comes from the prophet of a religion which one Roman historian classed among the atrocia aut pudenda which disgraced the capital (Tacit. Ann. xv. 44).