666 Reader Roundup

Down yonder, some reader write as follows:

READER A: Jesus also said he would return soon. Are you a preterist?

Yes, I tend to be a preterist when it comes to Revelation (meaning: a person who thinks that most of the book applies to the beginning of Church history). I explain the fact that Jesus said he was coming soon by one of two possibilities:

(a) Scripture often speaks of God "coming" in vengeance but without meaning that he will be physically coming. Perhaps (since Jesus is God) this applies to a non-physical "coming" of Jesus in vengeance that occurred early in Church history (e.g., the destruction of Jerusalem).

(b) The standard "A days is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day to God, so ‘soon’ is hard to interpret" reply.

I lean toward the former possibility. In any event, Revelation indicates that before there will be a big long period of time (the Millennium, which is not necessarily only a thousand years) before the end of the world and the Second Coming. Typically of Catholics, I think we are now living in that period, which corresponds to most of Church history. We are now in the period of Revelation 20:1-10, and I think the material before chapter 20 thus applies to the early part of Church history.

READER B: I think I read in one of Scott Hahn’s book that 666 could also refer to St. Solomon.

I would be surprised if Scott said that. Sometimes people link 666 with Solomon because it is once mentioned that he had 666 talents of gold a year (1 Kings 10:14 and 2 Chronicles 9:13). This seems to have no symbolic significance and is just a coincidence (like many things in Scripture). In any event, the beast of Revelation 13 clearly was an individual living in Church history (as he persecutes Christians) and not Solomon, who lived centuries earlier.

READER C: In an old Bible of an old parish priest, 666 is explained like this :
7 is the perfect number and  so 6 (7-1) is the number of what is unperfect…
3 is the nuber of God…
So 666 is the number of "what is unperfect" trying to be called God, to usupt his title…
Is it a correct interpretation ?

I’ve heard this suggested, but it seems rather speculative to me. Maybe it’s what’s happening in the text, but maybe not. The obvious alternative number to 666 (the name of the beast) is not 777 but 888 (the name of Jesus). This explanation sounds more like an attempt to reason based on broader number symbolism, while the real explanation may simply be that 666 and 888 simply were the numbers of Nero’s and Jesus’ names. (Though that in itself may be a matter of Providence.)

READER D: it seems the Nero interpretation has the strongest arguments in its
favor, even if I don’t really find it convincing. (One weakness is that
Revelation was written in Greek, not Aramaic, and there’s no hint that
St. John meant us to dig beneath the Greek language for an Aramaic
subsoil to solve the 666 puzzle.) I’m not even sure St. John expected
his first readers to recognise the number of the Beast’s name, though
that would seem to make sense too.

I agree that the connection is not a certainty, though I think it’s stronger than what you seem to think, at least given the remaining contents of the book. I also am not that disturbed by the fact that Aramaic issue. (a) It may not have been written in Greek, as the Greek of the book is notoriously barbarous. It may be an unpolished translation of an Aramaic original, as far as I know. (b) If you’re an Aramaic speaker and it’s hit you that "Caesar Nero" is 666 then you may want to use that fact because of the triple that is present in the number. The triple makes it seem more significant than 557, which is what "Caesar Nero" is in Greek. (c) John may have been such a poor Greek speaker that he might not have known how to calculate name numbers in Greek. He may have been relying on someone else to help him with the Greek for Revelation but did the number calculation in his native language. (d) John does warn the reader that it takes understanding to figure out the number. Perhaps the Aramaic issue is part of what he’s thinking of.

Also, by e-mail, a reader writes:

READER E: I was reading your inof on the net regarding false prophets and was very interested in what you had to say regarding "Nero Caesar", a couple of questions came to mind while I was reading. The first was that you made no mention of the mark (666) of the beast on the right hand or forehead as well as the mortal wound, I’m thinking that the mortal wound may not be a literal wound, however; I’m wondering about the mark, can you shed some light on this for me.  Thanks

In my opinion, the symbolism of having the number on the right hand or on the head is likely to be understood as either a symbol of loyalty to the Roman state or (more likely) participation in the cult of emperor worship.

As to the head wound, I suspect that this also may not be literal. Many have thought that it’s an expression of the myth that sprang up after Nero’s death that he wasn’t really dead and would one day return and take his revenge (much like there were rumors after World War II that Hitler wasn’t dead).

I don’t like that interpretation, though, and I think it may refer to a number of things.

An intriguing possibility is that it is meant to allude to the previous emperor Caligula, who was mad, vicious, and who demanded to be worshipped as a god–and who was assassinated by his own guards. It may be that the revival of the beast is symbolic of Nero’s rise after Caligula (with the reign of Claudius between them). In other words: The evil (symbolized as a beast) that everybody thought had died in Caligula came back in the form of Nero.

It’s a thought, anyway.