CITY OF REVELATION
John Michell 1972
Page 137
Chapter Thirteen
"666"
has been the subject of more comment
and speculation than any other cabalistic number, principally on account
of the last verse in revelation 13:
'Here is wisdom. Let him that hath
understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the num-ber of
a man;
and his number is
six hundred threescore
and six.'
In the Greek text the number is spelt in letters,
"
"
or
600,
60,
6,
The prophetic quality in these words
has thrilled the imagination of readers throughout the age. The meaning
they bear is remarkable and not easy to understand, for the mystical
language of numerology has long been moribund. However by reference
to the ancient canon of the Temple, it is possible to acquire some knowledge
of its vocabulary and grammar, which may not unreasonably be applied
to the further understanding of prophetic works in which this lan-guage
was used.
We have already seen the importance of the number
666 in
the dimensions of the temple and in the ratios of metrology, reflecting
the dominant position which this number occupies within the hier-archy
of powers. 666
is the number of absolute positive energy, emanating from the nucleus
to the satellites. Like all symbolic numbers it has no single identity
or personification, being of the nature of Plato's essences, a concept
of the mind, invented to express a certain tendency, which is apparent
within all classes of phenomena. 6
is the number of the physical creation, the cosmos, and 666,
the trinity of sixes, represents the active side of that number, 3
being the first numerical symbol of positive energy. Thus the reference
of 666
is to material as opposed to spiritual activity. As an elemental force,
666
represents the sun and the influence of solar radiation, corresponding
in society to the emperor, and in the in-dividual to the principal of
intellect and will. 666 is
the generative power of the male, it is the electric shock that orientates
the molecular structure, the leader directing the masses, the word of
command
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instinctively obeyed. There is a tendency
in all phenomena towards inertia and relapse into fixed patterns, which
is evident both in physical nature and in the human mind. This tendency,
which is characteristic of female and negative influence, is opposed
by all that is represented in the number 666.
The sun drives the planets and a similar order prevails within the atom;
a nation is animated by the strength of its ruler, the individual by
his intellect and power of decision. Every situation in life contains
an element which corresponds to 666,
The supreme solar representative within the hierarchy of numbers. Where
the proportions are correct, the influence of the number 666
promotes fertility, gives life and colour,
but where it becomes excessively dominant, the consequences are apparent
in the tyranny of the self-willed governor, and in the de-velopment
of a society obsessed with fantasies of violence, material wealth and
power. The rays of the sun are filtered through the pro-tective atmosphere,
and reach the seed through the medium of the earth. Were it not so they
would destroy all. Following this analogy, the number 666,
as it appears in the dimensions of temples, must al-ways be combined
with numbers of a female, lunar or terrestrial character, and this result
may be achieved by the use of the canonical figures of sacred geometry.
We have seen in earlier chapters some-thing of the geometrical relationship
between such numbers as 666,
1080
and 353
and the importance of 666
in the ratios of the foot to the megalithic yard and other ancient units.
Where the pro-portions
of regular geometry are measured by the canonical stan-dards of length,
a balanced scheme of numerology will become apparent in the dimensions.
The force of the number 666
is expressed by the Chinese in the symbol of the procreative dragon,
relating to the first hexagram of the I Ching oracle. According to Wilhelm's
commentary, 'the dragon is a symbol of the electrically charged, dynamic
arousing force that manifests itself in the thunderstorm. In winter
this energy withdraws into the earth; in the early summer it becomes
active again, appear-ing in the sky as thunder and lightning. As a result
the creative forces on earth begin to stir again.' Whoever acquires
this elemental view of nature is not likely to attribute eternal values
to the various theologies and moral codes of human invention, and for
this reason the authority of the early Roman Church was in direct opposition
to the science of the gnostics, who encouraged their pupils to develop
their sensitivity, and to percieve for themselves the interaction of
cosmic forces.
The Chinese dragon and the beast in Revelation
have the same
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origin, but the histories of the two
creatures have widely diverged since the collapse of the former world
order, in which both were represented by the number 666.
Wilhelm in his book, Change, writes,
'In China dragons are not slain; rather their
electrical power is kept in the realm, in which it can be made useful.'
The Chinese continued to recognise the realities in nature, including
the creative principle, while in the West the ancient philosophy was
submerged in the superstition of the dark ages. The Church Fathers were
inclined to represent their own prejudices in matters relating to human
ethics as the canon of divine law. The dragon as the principle of male
sexuality was discredited. The phallic rites of the gnostics and of
their rustic successors, the witches were put down by reverend fanatics
in the delusive hope that the devil within might be exorcised through
the destruction of his outward symbols. The result, of course, has been
the opposite of that intended, for the power of the beast, where it
is not recognised and duly placated, grows like a cancer within the
hidden mind until it entirely dominates the motives of its unconscious
host. Naïve world improvers, who neglect to become acquainted with
the material they are dealing with, which is human nature, may believe
that by withdrawing recognition from those aspects of psychological
reality of which they do not approve, they will cause them to disappear.
Thus the well meaning Puritans at the Reformation attacked all symbols
and practices relating to the number 666,
the 'steeple houses', stone crosses, maypoles and the rustic celebrations
of seasonal fertility, under the impression that these represented elements
hostile to the spirit of Christianity, which they conceived in purely
moral terms according to the notions of the time. Reacting against the
imperial authority of Rome, which they identified, not unreasonably,
with the power of the number 666,
the Puritans Rejected the solar attri-butes of Christ and denied the
aspects of nature which these reflect. In place of the new Jerusalem,
the city in which every element in creation is present in its correct
proportions in accordance with its due position in the cosmic scheme,
the Puritans attempted to create the utopian state, an affair of purely
human contrivance, founded on nothing more lasting than moral ideals,
which are nowhere fixed and nowhere identical.
The chief distinction between the
New Jerusalem and Utopia is that in the City of Revelation the number
666
is admitted and given its due place in the court of numbers. Utopians,
however, being compelled to choose between a great many rival and apparently
irreconcilable interests in drawing up the groundplan of their secular
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temple, must necessarily omit certain
numbers and their correspond-ing principles, those which have no appeal
to the contemporary moral sense. The temple of Utopia is not, in consequence,
a true model of reality; the appearance of an unknown or unfavoured
god throws its priests into confusion and shatters the images of the
sacred founders, on whose ideas and opinions the whole structure was
erected.
Where the number 666
is not unified with the number 1080
to produce 1746,
the mustard seed of fertility, then the two forces, male and female,
represented by these numbers, develop symptoms as of sexual frustration.
The influence of 666
becomes directed to-wards violence and destruction, while the female,
receptive spirit, 1080,
withdraws into the earth, becomes stagnant and takes on the dark, malicious
qualities of the elemental. The chief function of the temple was to
provide the marriage bed for the union between heaven and earth, in
which the two elements were brought together and placed in their correct
relationship according to the alchemical formula for the fruitful reconciliation
of opposites. 666
is the sun that rules the earth, the emperor set over the people, the
intellect governing the senses. This relationship is natural and eternal,
productive when there is a proper balance between the elements, a source
of friction when there is not. The first step in the development
of a true cosmic philosophy must therefore be to recognise the nature
of the two contrasting forces and to observe the proportions in which
they are most harmoniously unified. If the beast is a native citizen
of the New Jerusalem, his place in the scheme must be defined, for the
consequences of ignoring his certain presence can only be un-favourable.
The number of the beast
Apocalypse interpreters have flourished during the eighteen cen-turies
since Irenaeus first speculated on the number of the beast. Even among
the recent commentators on St John's Revelation there are few who resist
the temptation to put forward the name of their own chosen candidate
as the man with the number 666.
The litera-ture on the subject is extensive and curious. A great deal
of ingenuity has been applied to the discovery or invention of names
with gem-atria of 666.
The question has been tried by the most learned as well as the
most fanatical, for it concerns an ancient mystery, and its solution
is in the extreme blasphemous or liberating according to individual
taste. There may appear to be little merit in the subject,
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but for the benefit of those interested,
the various guesses at the identity of the man who bears the
number of the beast are summar-ised below, followed by the solution
according to the numerical interpretation of the relevant text.
Irenaeus in his books against heresies makes
several suggestions on the interpretation of the number 666,
including
" "Teitan the name of an archaic solar deity, and,,,
" "Lateinos, a word, of doubtful provenance meaning
" ". This
second name has been widely accepted, particularly by Protestant theologians,
and used in support of the theory that 666
is the number of the Pope. In Revelation 17, the whore of Babylon is
seated on a seven
headed beast, which is interpreted later in the same chapter as seven
moun-tains. This is naturally seen as reference to the seven
hills of Rome. Phrases such as
" "the Latin kingdom, and
"
"Italian church, each have the number 666,
and so does
" "I am God on earth, an epithet of the Pope
"
"
The solar and Appollonian character of the Roman Church is so
obviously related to the number 666,
that the Pope's cabalists have had little to say in the matter beyond
suggesting in the interests of Christian unity that 666
might apply to the name
" "Mahomet, which has the appropriate number
if spelt in this way.
Most English writers appear to have favoured
" "the
Pope of Rome, as the name of the man with the number of the beast. The
Scottish genius, Lord Napier, who invented logarithms in order to assist
his calculations on the measurements of the New Jerusalem, was of this
opinion. So was the Rev. Reginald Rabett, the querolous author of a
book on 666,
published in 1855, in which various inter-pretations are examined and
all shown to be deficient
except
" "the Pope. Bishop Wordsworth in his commentary on
the Greek New Testament also refers 666
to the Roman Pontiff, and exhibits a Vatican seal, bearing a device
with some resemblance to the letters of the beast. However, this sort
of thing is no longer the fashion. It is now more tactfully suggested
that St John intended the beast to signify the Roman Emperor rather
than the Pope, and that his particular reference was to Nero, for in
the Hebrew letters Neron Caesar has the value 666,
or written in Greek,
" " = 1332
(666x2).
According to Dr Lea, the Rabbis called the Roman language Romiith, the
Roman beast, the Hebrew word having the same number as Sorath, 666,
the solar force.
It is, of course, gratifying to know that if
the English letters are given numbers so that
A = 100, B = 101,C = 102 etc., then the number of Hitler is 666;
and if Stalin is spelt in Greek letters with the definite article, and,
following the precedent of Lateinos, Teitan etc., with a dipthong,.."
The Roman emperor, the Pope or Hitler may each
in his own way be described by the number 666,
for the associations of this number are imperial and authoritarian.
It must however be repeated that these numbers have absolutely no application
to human moral values. It is not, as the Protestant clergymen believed,
sufficient to identify the Pope as the man with the number of the beast
in order to dis-credit the Roman Church, for as head of an hierarchical
organisa-tion, the Pope must combine a b element of 666
with qualities of a more spiritual nature. No doubt Hitler and his advisers
were consciously manipulating the power of 666,
for the fascist emblems, the eagle, the swastika, the flash of lightning
were all directed to-wards the release of solar energy among the German
people. As the influence that stimulates all activity, this force is
not by nature evil, although violent manifestations will occur if it
is either repressed or over emphasised. The Nazis invoked the power
of 666
for their own immediate use, but failed as it were, to earth it, to
bring it into conjunction with its opposite, and allowed it to sweep
through the nation unchecked and undirected. The consequence was that
the Third Reich, planned in ignorance to endure for an age, burnt out
within a few years.
The scriptural phrase that best
expresses this violent, elemental aspect of 666
is
" "Wrath of God, which within the permitted latitude of one
unit has the value of this number
" "the Greek word for the heart
or diaphragm, the seat of the passions, also has the appropriate number
666.
But although 666
is a numerical attribute of any active leader, it is clear that St John
intended that the number of the beast should be applied to a particular
individual. The words in Revelation 13
are, 'Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:
for it is the num-ber of a man.' In the next phrase St John gives the
number by which the man is to be identified. This number can be found
by the methods which the gnostics themselves would have used in accordance
with their known practice. The phrase that gives the number of the beast
is translated, and his number is 'six
hundred threescore
and six.'
"
"
To find the meaning of this phrase, we must add together the
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values of the individual words of which
it is composed.
" "
The total value of the phrase, which
gives the number of the beast, is therefore2368, the number of Jesus
Christ. Following the cabalistic system of replacing the words and phrases
of sacred texts with others of the same numerical value, Revelation
13.18
can be read, 'Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count
the number of the beast: for it is the num-ber of a man; 2368,
Jesus Christ.'
There
is no question here of a chance coincidence of numbers, for in the same
chapter St John emphasises his meaning by use of the phrase, the Image
of the Beast, which is repeated three times in verse 15. Now the number
of
" "
the image of the beast is 2260 and this number is
already familiar as belonging to the Antichrist, whom St Paul describes
in II Thessalonians 2.3, using two phrases both of obviously traditional
significance.
'Let
no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come
except
there be a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed,
the
son of perdition. '
The man of sin
" "
of which
the value is 2260, the same number as the image of the beast. The son
of perdition is
" "
2385. The number 2260 occurs again in
Revelation 14, the chapter following St John's account of the beast.
In verse 14 the Son of Man appears on a white cloud, evidently standing
in contrast to the best from the sea. Yet by number they are made identical,
for the Son of Man,
" "
has the number 2260. Thus
2260
= the image of the beast
= the man of sin
= the son of man
and
2385
= the son of perdition
=
" "
power of Christ
=
" "
the baptism of John (Luke 20.4)
Whatever may
now be thought of scriptural interpretation by gematria, there can be
no doubt that the early Christian scholars, who practised it would have
recognised St John's intentions in identifying Jesus Christ and the
Son of Man with the image and number of the beast: to draw the attention
of his fellow initiates to the state of affairs in which a prophet is
idolised by his followers,
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who raise the image of his body in
temples, observing the letter of his law to the neglect of its spirit.
Throughout Revelation, the symbolic figures which appear out-wardly
to stand most decidedly in opposition to each other are revealed as
being essentially one and the same. The duality which, from the human
point of view, obtains universally, is an illusion of this world and
exists neither in the world of archetypes nor in their corresponding
numbers. It has often been remarked that the Greek words, which are
applied to the contrasting figures in the apocalyp-tic vision, are strikingly
similar in form. The bride is
" "
"
the whore is
"
"The beast is
" "
and the lamb
" "
a rare word
which scarcely occurs in the New Testament outside Revelation. The scene
of the vision continually shifts, so that at one moment the prophet
sees the splendour and corruption of Babylon, followed immediately by
the holy city, Jerusalem, with its fresh springs and walls of sparkling
crystal. The woman clothed with the sun, the beast with seven heads
and ten horns, the Lamb on Mount Sion and the whore with the scarlet
beast are described in turn. Babylon is destroyed, Jerusalem is revealed.
But these are not two different cities. According to their numbers they
are identical, for the gematria of Babylon and of the holy city Jerusalem
is: "
"
1285
"
This use of numbers introduces a new dimension into language. The mystic
realises that all he sees and feels is conditioned by his state of mind
and by the influences of the time in which he lives. The forms that
surround him are no more permanent or real than his perception of them.
The city or society to which he belongs is a living organism, at least
it behaves like one, following the natural life cycle of growth, decay
and renaissance. Excavators of ancient cities almost invariably discover
traces of earlier settlements and evidence that the site has been built
up and destroyed, abandoned and resettled throughout the rise and fall
of civilisation. In one age it is Jerusalem, green and fertile, the
home of a vigorous population inspired by the ideals of the prophets.
Next the civilised arts are cultivated. The craftsmen become specialists
and develop the skills of their particular trade. Temples, markets,
public buildings mark the expansion of commerce and the establishment
of laws and orthodox beliefs. Finally, the city is no longer self sufficient,
but has become the imperial capital, its comfortable population living
off the produce of the surrounding countryside, and finding no legitimate
outlet for its energy other
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than in the pursuit of wealth and excitement.
Jerusalem has become Babylon, and Babylon perishes through the corruption
of its citizens. But these citizens are the same sort of men as it were
there at the beginning, neither better nor worse, merely placed in a
different situation and reacting accordingly.
The prophet, therefore, makes no distinction
between Jerusalem and Babylon. In every age there are those like himself,
who prefer the study of essences to that of phenomena, who view the
situation not exclusively from the point of view of their own time,
but with the eyes of humanity as a whole. These men communicate with
each other across great stretches of time in the knowledge that their
vision has been and will be shared by others. St John writes the language
of mysticism in a tradition which in his day was already of incalcul-able
antiquity, and which he knew must appear again at the fulfil-ment of
a cycle. The high mountain from which he saw the New Jerusalem is the
prophetic trance. The ages and stages of creation are condensed in one
moment. Great trees sprout and fall apart like explosions as Jerusalem
becomes Babylon, flares up and resurges from its own ashes. Like a rolling
wave in the ocean, the city is not controlled by the individual particles
that comprise it, but moves under the influence of greater forces, and
these forces are themselves subject to others, following the same patterns
of growth and decay, expansion and contraction as are evident in all
phenomena throughout the dimensions. The prophet, who is aware of cosmic
motion through his own perception, is constantly seeking ways of com-municating
his experience to others. In former times this was made possible by
the use of a metaphysical
language of number, constructed by reference to the same cannon of proportion
as regulated every other facet of human activity. St John was thus able
to contrast the delights of Jerusalem with the fare of Babylon while
indicating, by giving the two cities with an identical number, the true
relationship between them.
Again to demonstrate the identical
nature of forces, which from the human point of view seem utterly opposed,
St John gives the number of the beast in a phrase,
" "
which
has the same value, 2368
" "
This is not unexpected. Napier, Bishop Wordsworth and
others have commented on the similarity between
" "
666,
" "
and
" "
the cipher of Christ. It has been observed
that 666
is related to 2368
in that they are both multiples of 37,and
the word
" "
beast,
" "
occurs 37
times in Revelation. this detail is not without significance in canonical
literature, for works such as Revelation were planned so that the
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balance of elements within the various
episodes should be repeated in the book as a whole,as well as in the
entire body of sacred texts to which it belongs, Thus the first chapter
of the first bookin the Bible concerns Adam and Eve and the Tree of
Knowledge, while the last chapter of the last book, Revelation, ends
with the Spirit, the bride and the Tree of Life.
St John's purpose in writing the number of
the beast in a phrase with the value 2368, the number of Jesus Christ,
can only be under-stood in the context of the bitter disputes throughout
the history of the early Church between the bishops of Rome and the
prophetic leaders of the eastern communities. The chief source of the
gnostics' heresy in the eyes of the Church lay in the distinction they
made between the body of Jesus Christ
and the spirit of Christ and their insistance that the spirit alone
partook of the divine nature. The further im-
plication was that, while the life of Jesus was mythical, his spirit
was eternal, a reality within the possible experience of all, and not
only through the offices of the Church. The same idea occurs in all
evangelical movements. To the Bishops who claimed that the body and
spirit of Jesus Christ were alike divine, the gnostics made the logical
answer that since divine nature is beyond suffering, and since Jesus
is said to have suffered on the cross, therefore his body must have
been that of an ordinary man. The same point, whether it should be the
image of a man that is worshipped or his spiritual ideal, that is disputed
in Russia today, was also the chief issue
be-tween the prophets and the priests in the early Church. The gnostics
rejected the literal images of the Christian story which the priests
emphasised, in particular the representation of the wounded body on
the cross.
" "
Christ was the rising sun of a new age, but
the aspect of his nature that dominated the teaching of the Roman Church
was related above all to the midday sun, the symbol of imperial splendour.
The balance between the Dionysian and the Apollonian Christ was upset
in favour of the latter, and this was reflected in the decline of the
old prophetic ministry and in the growing power of the bishops, who
were originally concerned only with matters of organisation and finance.
Particularly in the eastern churches, there were many who deplored this
tendency on the part of Rome to glorify the image of the body to the
neglect of the spirit. It was due to their influence that Revelation
was included in the scriptural canon, and even this was decided by the
narrowest possible majority, for though the significance of the numbers
666
and 2368
would not have been generally understood, St John's comparison of the
idealised body of
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Jesus Christ with the beast, described
in Revelation 13, is not hard to recognise.
The first beast, marked with a
deadly wound, rises up out of the sea which in the language of mysticism
signifies the unconscious mind. As the watcher on the eastern shores
at dawn feels the first rays of the sun as it clears the ocean horizon,
so it is when a new influence, long dormant below the horizon of the
mind, begins to affect the dreams and thought patterns of a generation.
The beast rises from the sea to begin the period of his reign as the
god of a new age. He is followed by another.
'And I beheld another beast coming up out of
the earth; and he
had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as
a dragon.'
The first
beast is of the sea, a spiritual phenomenon, Jesus Christ the fish of
the Piscean age; the second is of earthly nature and represents the
physical manifestation of the beast, the divine em-peror or prince of
the Church.
He appears as a lamb, but his authority is that of the imperial dragon.
'And he exerciseth
all the power of the first beast before him, '
and causeth the earth and them which dwell
therein to worship the
first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
. . saying to them that
dwell on the earth, that they should make an
image to the beast,
which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
And he had power to
give life unto the image of the beast, that
the image of the beast should
both speak, and cause that as many as would
not worship the image
of the beast should be killed.'
For those
who had not yet guessed the identity of the beast, whose wounded image
was set up as an object of compulsory worship by the second beast, St
John then gives the number of his name in a phrase with the value of
2368,
" "
The Son of Man, 2260, becomes the image of the beast,
also numbered 2260, and in Revelation the great city which spiritually
is called Sodom and Egypt
" "
=1480) 'where also our Lord
was crucified '
has the number of Christ,
" "
1480.
St Paul, whose words were much quoted by the
gnostics in their disputes with Rome, made the same point in the first
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, writing of those who 'changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible
man, and to birds, and to fourfooted beasts and creeping things . .
. who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served
the creature more than the Creator'.
Look wah scribe said Zed Aliz seeing
delicate coincidences entrapped within the following book, as soon as
they had been discovered, the serendipities kindly offered themselves
to the work.
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