666 NUMBER OF THE BEAST

666: Number of the Beast


666 = Number of the Beast As long as there have been secret societies, there have been secret codes.  Whether the method used is secret hand signs, words with hidden meanings or numerology, the intent has been to communicate information to the initiated few while withholding that same knowledge from the masses.  Secret societies have goals and agendas which the masses would find revolting and would seek to stop, if they could.

Most secret societies trace their origins to hundreds, in a few cases, thousands of years ago.  Members, working to further their society’s goals, have infiltrated governments, churches, industry and even finance.  Kings, presidents and high-ranking officials have been assassinated; wars fought – all to further the plans of a handful of powerful, evil elite.

Those who have knowledge of this very real menace, fear it.  United States President, Woodrow Wilson, was aware of this creeping evil.  In 1913, he stated:
Woodrow Wilson

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson

A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men ... [W]e have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world -— no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men. ... Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.1

Satan has worked through this power elite, which pervades every country on earth, since ancient times, working, steadily and in darkness, as each millennium has passed, to create a global network he can use in his final struggle against the Kingdom of Heaven.  However,

The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.  Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.  (Hebrews 4:12, 13, KJV2)

God knows all and sees all.  “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.”  (Luke 8:17)  In His loving concern for those who shall live during the last days of earth’s history, He has identified an evil, powerful entity reaching back to antiquity: “Here is wisdom.  Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man: His number is 666.”  (Revelation 13:18

While Scripture is full of symbols rich in meaning, “666” is not a number that originated in Heaven’s secret code.  Rather, it is an extremely ancient number that had meaning to those initiated in the pagan mystery religions.  It represents a power that has long cooperated with Satan in his rebellion against Heaven.  God has revealed that this same power through which Satan has worked for millennia will again rise to world-wide prominence at the very end of time.
666 Seal

Amulets in Berlin Museum.  Drawings from photographs, 1910.

Modern occultists, like ancient pagans, use numerology both for communicating “secret” information as well as for acquiring occult powers.  It is in ancient occult numerology that the number 666 first originated.  Pagan priests wore metal amulets called Sigilla Solis, or “sun seals.”

These amulets were worn by the pagan priests, and they contained all the numbers from 1 to 36.  By these figures they claimed to be able to foretell future events.  These amulets were usually made of gold, yellow being the sun color.  While being carried, these amulets were wrapped in yellow silk, as it was thought that the bearer would thus receive the beneficial powers believed to emanate from the jewel.3

A solar grid using modern numbering


On the Sigilla Solis, appeared a grid containing all of the numbers from one to 36.  Each column as well as each full diagonal, when added together, equaled 111.  Six columns of 111 equaled a grand total of 666, or 6 X 11 = 666.  This number, originating in the ancient mystery religions of Sumer and Babylon, has come down through time and still contains meaning to those who understand its significance.  It was for this reason that God gave the number 666 in Revelation as an identifier of an ancient persecuting religious power that would again arise and hold despotic sway at the very end.

In many ancient languages, letters were given numerical value.  The Romans are best known for this practice, although only six of their letters held numerical value.  John is very explicit: “The number of the beast . . . is the number of a man: His number is 666.”  (Revelation 13:18)  This number is found in a title claimed exclusively by the pope and is worn on the papal crown: Vicarius Filii Dei.  It means, “Vicar of the Son of God.”  When the letters which contain numerical value are added, the total equals 666:

Vicarius Filii Dei = 666 (Number of the Beast)

While the number dates back to antiquity, the use of the title by the pope dates back to the eighth century when a forged document entitled the Donation of Constantine used the phrase, applying it to popes to prove apostolic succession from “Peter.”  This paper was confirmed by church council, incorporated in Roman Catholic canon law by Gratian, later endorsed by Pope Gregory XIII; and cited by the Catholic scholar and historian Lucius Ferraris, who proved that it is a forged document.

Ut sicut Beatus Petrus in terris Vicarius Filii Dei fuit constitutus, ita et Pontifices eius successores in terris principatus potestatem amplius, quam terrenae imperialis nostrae serenitatis mansuetudo haber videtur"    Lucius Ferraris, Prompta Biblietheca, (edition of 1890), art, "Papa," II, Vol. VI, p. 43.

Now, read the English rendering of this Latin translation from the Canon law of Gratian, which you will recall, was allegedly penned by Constantine the Great:

As the blessed Peter is seen to have been constituted Vicar of the Son of God on the earth, so the pontiffs who are the representatives of that same chief of the apostles, should obtain from us and our empire the power of a supremacy greater than the clemency of our earthly imperial serenity.     Christopher B. Coleman, The Treatise of Lorenzo Valla on the Donation of Constantine, p. 13.

Vatican City Coat of Arms In the early years of the first millennium after Jesus, the Roman Catholic Church was growing in power and influence.  It did this by rechristening paganism with new “Christian” names.  This is an important point.  Christianity did not absorb paganism.  Rather, paganism, pure and unadulterated, was renamed and passed off as Christianity.  This gave power to the Bishop of Rome over both the Christians and the pagans.

Within Roman Catholicism, the pope holds two “keys.”  These are seen on every papal coat-of-arms and stand for the “keys of Peter.”

It is not difficult to see how the Pagans would rally round the pope all the more readily when they heard him found his power on the possession of Peter’s keys.  The keys that the Pope bore were the keys of a “Peter” well known to the Pagans initiated in the Chaldean Mysteries . . . . There was a “Peter at Rome who occupied the highest place in the Pagan priesthood.  The priest who explained the Mysteries to the initiated was sometimes called by a Greek term, the Hierophant; but in primitive Chaldee, the real language of the Mysteries, his title, as pronounced without the points, was “Peter” – i.e., “the interpreter.”4

This link from the pope to paganism still exists and it is this very paganism-disguised-as-Christianity that God reveals in Revelation will be a major persecuting power against the righteous in the days ahead.  By warning that “the number of a man” is 666, God was specifically identifying this fearsome power.

[There is] the strongest evidence that, in countries far removed from one another, and far distant from Rome, these keys were known by initiated Pagans not merely as the “keys of Peter,” but as the keys of a Peter identified with Rome.  . . . The existence of such a title was too valuable to be overlooked by the Papacy . . . When the Pope came, as he did, into intimate connection with the Pagan priesthood; when they came at last . . . under his control, what more natural than to seek not only to reconcile Paganism and Christianity, but to make it appear that the Pagan “Peter-Roma,” with his keys, mean “Peter of Rome,” and that that “Peter of Rome” was the very apostle to whom the Lord Jesus Christ gave the “keys of the kingdom of heaven”?

Hence, from a mere jingle of words, persons and things essentially different were confounded; and Paganism and Christianity were jumbled together, that the towering ambition of a wicked priest might be gratified; and so, to the blinded Christians of the apostacy, [sic] the Pope was the representative of Peter the apostle, while to the initiated Pagans, he was only the representative of Peter, the interpreter of their well-known Mysteries.5

As the possessor of the “keys of Peter,” the pope is the sole legitimate head of the Babylonian mysteries.  Indeed, Revelation 17:5 refers to this pagan system of religion which passes itself off as Christian as “Mystery Babylon.”

It is widely known that the Roman Catholic Church’s claim to supremacy is found in her own admission that she changed the day of worship from Sabbath to Sunday.  One Catholic publication boasted:

They [the Protestants] deem it their duty to keep the Sunday holy.  Why?  Because the Catholic Church tells them to do so.  They have no other reason . . . The observance of Sunday thus comes to be an ecclesiastical law entirely distinct from the divine law of Sabbath observance . . . The author of the Sunday law . . . is the Catholic Church.6

Revelation reveals that the final confrontation between the forces of evil and the Kingdom of Heaven will be over worship.  The beast which bears the number 666,

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.  And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.

Here is wisdom.  Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred three-score and six.  (Revelation 13:15-18)

Pope Benedict XVI This passage reveals that the Roman Catholic Church, with the pope at its head as inheritor of the mystery religion of Babylon, will wield control on a global basis.  Those who do not conform will be denied the right to buy or sell and, eventually, will be deemed worthy of death.

In the last 200 years, the Catholic Church has not been the prominent world leader it was of previous centuries.  Many people have come to wonder if perhaps it is a mistake to apply this passage of Scripture to the pope.  

To conciliate the Pagans to nominal Christianity, Rome, pursuing its usual policy, took measures to get the Christian and Pagan festivals amalgamated,  it was found no difficult matter, in general, to get Paganism and Christianity – now far sunk in idolatry . . . to shake hands.7

While Jews and many Protestants realize that the pope does not really have the authority to change God's Sabbath and create his own worship day on Sunday.

. . . [T]he pope is . . . the legitimate representative , the number of the Pope, as head of the Mystery of Iniquity, is just 666.

Three Angels Now, the divine warning is sounding forth:

Fear God and give glory to Him; for the hour of His judgment is come: and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.  And their followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.  (See Revelation 14:7, 8.)

Scripture reveals that the final generation will exalt the Creator by keeping ALL of His commandments holy, including worship on the seventh-day of the Biblical calendar.  The lost will cooperate with the identified 666 beast power of the Roman Catholic Church and lose eternal life.

Choose ye this day whom you will serve so that the blessed benediction may be said of you: “Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.”  (See Revelation 14:12.)