The key Greek manuscripts which support the reading 616 are Codex C and the Oxyrhinchus papyrus, P115. The number is written down in full as hexakosioi deka hex (616) in Codex C. P115 has the number written down as simply χ ι ς.
While there are thousands of extant Greek manuscripts of the Gospels, there are only 287 extant Greek manuscripts of Revelation. Of these, only 16 are from before the 10th century. And of these, only five manuscripts contain the passage concerning the number of the Beast (Rev. 13:18). These are:
Of these, P115 and Codex C have 616 as the number of the Beast, the others have 666. (Codex B (Vaticanus) does not contain Revelation.)
Codex C - the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus - is a fifth century Greek manuscript of the Bible, and sometimes referred to as one of the four great uncials. It was possibly written in Egypt. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the codex was brought to Florence. Catherine de Medici then brought it to France as part of her dowry, and from the Bourbon royal library it came to rest in the Biblioteque national de France, Paris. Being a palimpsest, potassium ferricyanide was used to bring out the ink of the original work. Tischendorf was the first to read it completely, working by eye alone. According to Edward Miller, Codex C was produced in the light of the most intellectual period of the early Church. According to Josef Schmid whose textual criticism on Revelation has advanced the research on Revelation more than any other person, the A and C form (to which P115 has been added) is a superior form to that of P47 and 01. It can be seen therefore that when one looks at only the earliest manuscripts which contain the superior form, the ratio is now in favour of the number 616 by a ratio of 2:1; (04, P115:02)
The number 666, however, became the accepted text throughout the Byzantine Empire, and so consequently there are far more extant manuscripts containing the number 666 than there of those which contain the number 616 if one includes all extant manuscripts without limiting the numbers to the first millennium. A large proportion of these later manuscripts are classified as the Byzantine text-form, which according to most textual critics, is the least likely text-form to resemble the original text. It was from this Byzantine form of the text that the earliest translations of the Bible into English were made by people such as Erasmus. However it must be conceded that some of these later manuscripts do contain texts of Revelation which may well contain a very early version, in particular the text used in Oecumenius’ commentary on Revelation.
Despite the fact that some ancient manuscripts have 616 at Rev. 13:18 in their main text, no modern version of the Bible does. However, eight out of the fifteen most significant English versions of the Bible have footnotes at Rev.13:18 which note 616 as a variant reading. These eight versions are:
While the documentary evidence in support of the number 616 is equivocal, both internal clues and the unfolding of events in history indicate that the 616 reading is the true reading.
Conscious of his own fallibility and of the curse that will befall anyone who adds to the words or takes away from the words of Revelation (Rev. 22:18-19), the author does not advocate changing the main text of Rev. 13:18 until a thorough investigation into this issue has been conducted by all those responsible for editing Bibles. Editorial committees of each and every version of the Bible should look afresh at the documentary evidence without any preconceptions and reconsider which number is the correct one in the light of the material contained in this book and all other factors. In the meantime, a footnote should be added to every version of the Bible at Rev. 13:18 with notification of the variant reading.
Irenaeus (c.130-c.200) was Bishop of Lyons from around AD 178. In his book, Adversus Omnes Haereses (Against Heresies) which attacks Gnosticism, he claims that the reading of 616 is a mistake:
I do not know how it is that some have erred following the ordinary mode of speech, and have vitiated the middle number in the name, deducting the amount of fifty from it so that instead of six decads they will have it that there is but one.
While his refutation of the 616 alternative at first sounds convincing, his testimony must be questioned. His testimony is unique and not supported by any other contemporary witnesses. Later sources who attest to the number 666, such as Hippolytus, are merely relying upon Irenaeus’ testimony.
It is likely that through the influence of Irenaeus the text was altered to 666 in most manuscripts.
Irenaeus states that the number 666 is found in the most approved and ancient copies. This phrase does not rule out the possibility that the number 616 was found in some of the ancient copies but were not approved, or that some of the most approved copies contained the number 616 but were not ancient. In any case, the error may have been made very early on so that it would appear even in these ancient copies. The newness of a copy is irrelevant. Its source and accuracy are what is important. Irenaeus does not clarify on what grounds or by whom these ancient copies were approved. Irenaeus has not seen the original autograph, merely copies, and therefore he cannot confirm that copies he has seen match the original autograph.
Irenaeus cannot explain how the discrepancy over the number of the Beast came about. He suggests that perhaps a copyist elongated the xi so that it ended up looking like an iota, but this theory is not very plausible given the huge difference between the shape of xi (60) (made up essentially of three horizontal lines) and iota (10) (made of one single vertical line). The two letters could scarcely look more different. His theory that the tired hand of a scribe could be responsible for the error might explain his conviction that 666 is the correct number, since the tired hand of a scribe might make the xi look like an iota, but is unlikely to make an iota look like a xi as it would require more effort. Irenaeus does not name those men who saw John face to face and who bear their testimony to 666 as being the correct number; he does not even say that he himself met any of these men who saw John face to face (although Irenaeus is said to have been a disciple of Polycarp, allegedly a disciple of John, and so maybe Polycarp is one of these men); nor does he clarify to whom these men bore their testimony. Irenaeus is not one of those who saw John face to face and so he is not a witness, but at best a witness of a witness.
Irenaeus writes:
reason also leads us to conclude that the number of the name of the beast will amount to six hundred and sixty six; that is the number of tens shall be equal to the number of hundreds, and the number of hundreds equal to that of the units (for that number which expresses) the digit six being adhered to throughout, indicates the recapitulations of that apostasy, taken in its full extent, which occurred at the beginning, during the intermediate periods, and which shall take place at the end.
Irenaeus also deduces that the number of the Beast must be 666 because the statue that Nebuchadnezzar built in the plain of Dura was 60 cubits in height and 6 cubits in breadth. While Irenaeus is surely right to perceive in this statue a type for the image of the Beast, he should not make such deductions. In any case, these dimensions have no connection with the number 666. Whether added or multiplied together, they do not equal 666. The numbers 60 and 6 may be accounted for, but not the 600.
Irenaeus is surely mistaken to make any deductions about the number of the Beast based on numerical patterns, or based on his theory regarding the recapitulations of the apostasy. Such spurious assertions leads one to question his judgment regarding the other aforementioned areas as well. If his testimony about the authentication of the number 666 was true, what further need was there for him to draw such inferences about the number of the Beast?
Irenaeus applies similar reasoning to conclude that there could only be four gospels:
It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are. For, since there are four zones of the world in which we live, and four principle winds. For the cherubim too were four-faced. For the living creatures are quadriform, and the Gospels quadriform. For this reason were four principal covenants given to the human race: one, prior to the deluge, under Adam; the second, that after the deluge, under Noah; the third, the giving of the law, under Moses; the fourth, that which renovates man, and sums up all things in itself by means of the Gospel.
These passages indicate that despite his rejection of the more outlandish teachings of the gnostics regarding numbers, he himself uses numbers to make unjustified assertions.
His testimony regarding the existence of the variant reading of 616 is very important, because it proves that the number 616 was widespread by the end of the second century. In fact his testimony is the earliest known witness to the number 616. P115, the earliest extant manuscript with the reading 616, is dated on palaeographical grounds to the late third/early fourth century. The other main witness to the reading 616, Codex C (one of the four great uncials), is dated to the fifth century.
Irenaeus was convinced that the key to the solution to the number of the Beast was in the use of isopsephy. The overwhelming number of potential names appears to have led Irenaeus to the conclusion that the range of possibilities must be limited. He used a system in which all the letters of the alphabet with a numerical value within the range of 100-900 must always add up to 600, those within the range 10-90 must always add up to 60, and those within 1-10 must always add up to 6. Thus he tried to avoid using any letters from the range 70-90, or 7-9, or multiples of letters which would have added up to numbers beyond the units or tens to which Irenaeus restricted them. It can be seen that his proposed solutions, such as Lateinos or Teitan, fit into this system. The fact that the name of Jesus in Greek fits into this pattern may have encouraged Irenaeus to adopt this system.
Only two of his works have survived: Against Heresies and The Demonstration of Apostolic Teaching. In Demonstration 74 of The Demonstration of Apostolic Teaching, Irenaeus wrote that Jesus was crucified during the reign of Claudius:
For Herod the king of the Jews and Pontius Pilate, the governor of Claudius Caesar, came together and condemned Him to be crucified.
In fact Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, the prefect of the Roman province of Judaea from AD 26-36, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. Caligula was the next emperor, followed by Claudius who ruled from AD 41-54. His testimony is out therefore by two reigns, and by more than at least eleven years (assuming that Jesus was crucified in 30 AD). Irenaeus was clearly capable of making serious factual errors. Bible scholar James Moffatt said: Irenaeus of course, is no great authority by himself on matters chronological.
Irenaeus may also have been historically inaccurate with his claim that Peter had died before Mark wrote his gospel. This contradicts others, such as Origen and Eusebius, who claim that Peter was alive and approved the work.
Irenaeus evident desire to employ Polycarp as a living link to the apostolic age has led many scholars to question whether Polycarp was ever in fact associated with the apostle John. Some suggest that the John whom Irenaeus wrote about was a John the Elder – whom Papias mentions – and that Irenaeus was mistaken in making such a connection. It is perhaps significant that Polycarp makes no mention of any connection with the apostle John in his Letter to the Philippians. Kenneth Berding in his paper John or Paul? Who was Polycarp’s mentor? concludes that such matters may remain unresolved unless other ancient documents come to light.
How well did Irenaeus know Polycarp? Irenaeus claims to have seen Polycarp as a child. He did not take notes at this meeting. How reliable was his memory after the three quarters of a century that may have passed before he wrote Against Heresies?
Prompted by the exhortion to "calculate" (Rev. 13:18), the number 666 arose when a manuscript was altered to take into account the numerical value of the Greek letter nu in THERION (Greek: "beast"). Transliterated into the Hebrew letter nun, this letter adds an additional value of 50 to the total.This was a great error, because Rev. 13:18 makes it very clear that the mark of the Beast is a number. The Hebrew letters TAV(400)/RESH(200)/YOD(10)/VAV(6) and TAV(400)/RESH(200)/TET(9)/ZAYIN(7) make a number (616), but TAV(400)/RESH(200)/YOD(10)/VAV(6)/NUN(50) does not make a number. (The number 616 in Hebrew letters is TAV(400), RESH(200), SAMEKH(60), VAV(6).) If one includes the letter nu/nun, one is no longer dealing with a number. Any duplication of letters that signify hundreds, tens, and units signify the absence of a number.
Bruce Metzger believes that the divergence occurred over Nero. Transliterated into Hebrew letters, NERON CAESAR (the Greek spelling) adds up to 666 provided one spells Caesar in a peculiar way. Treated similarly, NERO CAESAR adds up to 616.
Friedrich Engels shared the same view as Metzger. In 1883 he wrote a work which touched upon the book of Revelation in which he states that a certain Ferdinand Benary discovered that the number 666 referred to Nero and that his name could add up to 666 or 616 depending on how his name was spelt in Hebrew. In this work, Engels concludes that the list of seven emperors started with Augustus; that Nero was the fifth; Galba the sixth and the one in whose reign the book of Revelation was written; (hence Otho is the seventh); and that the prophecy predicts the imminent return of Nero according to the Nero redivivus myth. Engels states:
The mysterious book, then, is now perfectly clear: John predicts the return of Nero for about the year 70, and a reign of terror under him which is to last forty-two months, or 1,260 days. After that term God arises, vanquishes Nero, the antichrist, destroys the great city by fire, and binds the devil for a thousand years. The millennium begins and, so forth.
Showing his contempt for the prophecy, Engels adds:
All this now has lost all interest, except for ignorant persons who may still try to calculate the day of the last judgment.
The presumption that the Book of Revelation refers to Nero is very reassuring for those who have lost their faith. They can reject the Apocalypse as having been proven false through the failure of the Beast to have appeared during the first century.
A flaw with many of the above arguments is that there is very little evidence, if any at all, that in the first couple of centuries Christians believed that Caligula or Nero was the Beast. According to Irenaeus, the prophet John himself was alive well into the latter half of the first century and never intimated to anyone that he believed that the Beast had already come. Engels is being presumptious when he claims that Irenaeus knew that Nero was the one whose name is contained “in that mysterious number.
In the centuries to follow, commentaries on Revelation were written that did indeed interpret Nero as the Beast. Victorinus of Petovium, Jerome, and Sulpicius Severus all interpret the beast as referring to Nero, with the mortal wound that healed being a reference to his suicide and Nero redivivus myth.
The commentary by Victorinus of Petovium is the earliest commentary we have on Revelation, written perhaps as early as AD 258. Victorinus states that the number must be interpreted according to the Greek letters. Victorinus believed that Nero would adopt a new name when he returned as the Antichrist, and that this new name would add up to the correct number. He did not write down which number of the Beast he had in mind.
Josef Schmid, the expert on Revelation, concluded that the history of the Apocalypse text can only be traced back to about AD 200 and that most of the textual variants occurred in the first one hundred years of the transmission of the text. The text of Revelation can be recovered as far back as the middle of the second century, but the gap between this stage and the original text cannot be bridged. The original autograph does not appear to have survived as a witness to the correct number of the Beast. Without this original autograph or proof of the provenance of some ancient manuscript, it would appear impossible to be able to say for sure what the correct number is. For all we know, the alternative reading may have appeared within a generation of Johns death.
Experts in palaeography and textual analysis of the New Testament have been unable to detect how such a mistake could have come about, unless it was deliberate. It would appear that there is no clear reason for how the mistake could have occurred through scribal error.
The number 616 when translated into Latin is DCXVI. To a Roman mind, there might appear to be a missing letter, namely L (50), in what appears to be the sequence of the letters that the Romans used for numbers. The base numerals were D (500), C (100), L (50), X (10), V (5) and I (1). DCXVI appears to follow this sequence, but with a missing L.
The 666, being the easier reading, symmetrical, and conducive to the DCLXVI Roman numeral system would have had far greater appeal than 616.
A Latin copyist who did not have a Greek manuscript to copy from, who was reliant solely on a Latin copy, may have added the L (50) either out of carelessness, or intentionally, mistakenly thinking that the manuscript he had was faulty. Since we are to calculate the number of the beast, the sequence of Roman letters used for calculating may have been unconsciously perceived, when in fact such a sequence was not actually there. Like Irenaeus, who thought that Lateinos was the most likely solution because the current rulers were the Latins, a copyist might have drawn similar conclusions and assumed that the Greek number was intended to signify the Roman base numerals.
The Greek letters used to spell the name Jesus, add up to 888 using gematria. This fact may have inclined people to assume that the number of the Beast must be symmetrical too and so preferred 666. This is the conclusion drawn by Adolf Deissmann, who expresses this view in a footnote in his book Light from the Ancient East. He too thought that perhaps the original number was 616. His theory was that perhaps the solution was kaisar theos (Caesar god) which, using gematria, adds up to 616.
In Against Heresies Irenaeus reveals the inclination of some to use numbers to draw up fictitious systems, particularly within the gnostic systems:
It is not hard to see that in a climate where such strange systems abounded, some might contrive 666 to be the correct number of the beast, given its symmetry and the fact it is a triangular number.But Jesus, he [the gnostic] affirms, has the following unspeakable origin. From the mother of all things, that is the first Tetrad; there came forth the second Tetrad, after the manner of a daughter; and thus an Ogdoad was formed, from which, again, a Decad proceeded: thus was produced a Decad and an Ogdoad. The Decad, then, being joined with the Ogdoad, and multiplying ten times, gave rise to the number eighty; and, again, multiplying eighty ten times, produced the number eight hundred. Thus, then, the whole number of the letters proceeding from the Ogdoad [multiplied] into the Decad, is eight hundred and eighty-eight. This is the name of Jesus; for this name, if you reckon up the numerical value of the letters, amounts to eight hundred and eighty-eight. Thus, then, you have a clear statement of their opinion as to the origin of the supercelestial Jesus.
Many writers of commentaries on Revelation state that 616 is probably the correct number because it is the least obvious and the least symmetrical. The 1950 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, for example, subscribes to the view that 616 is probably the original number, because it is the more difficult reading. This conclusion however is obviously not entirely satisfactory, because the correct number of the beast might well just happen to be a symmetrical number with interesting mathematical qualities, such as being a triangular number.
Philip Comfort argues that 616 is not heretical, on the basis that P115 and Codex C (Ephraemi Rescriptus) are also good and ancient copies.
Dr Paul Lewes writes that 616 is probably the original number. He believes that the number 666 has been substituted for 616 either by analogy with 888, the Greek number of Jesus, or because it is a triangular number, the sum of the first 36 numbers. The number 36 is significant here, because it is made up of the square of 6 (6x6=36).
Professor David Parker, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism and Palaeography at the University of Birmingham, also thinks that 616 is probably the original number. He thinks the number may have originated from the name GAIOS CAESAR which adds up to 616 using Greek letters. He also thinks it is significant that 02 (Codex Alexandrinus), 04 (Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus), and P115, have the better readings in those ten instances where their readings agree with each other but differ from those of P45 and Codex Sinaiticus, (the other ancient text type which Schmid considered slightly inferior to the 02-04 text type). Such analysis shows that Josef Schmid was correct to consider the 02-04 text type the more superior in terms of faithfulness to the original text. That two of the three manuscripts of this text type (if one includes P115) should have the 616 reading is a cogent argument in favour of 616.
As already noted above, A. Deissmann also favoured 616.
J. N. Birdsall also considers 616 to be the likely original reading, as it is the harder reading. He wrote that 616 symbolised Gaius Caesar. Using Greek letters, GAIOS KAISAR adds up to 616. [he notes how the Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus is one of the members of the text type which is closest to the original text of the Revelation, according to the exhaustive analysis by J. Schmid. The Oxyrhinchus papyrus P115 is also a member of that type. The traces which remain show that 616 was once far more widespread than it is given credit for. It would have been in Asia, and perhaps from surviving there passed by way of Constantinople to the Armenian Church. The 616 version is known to have been in Egypt. J.N. Birdsall concludes that the number 616 should be given far more weight than hitherto:
We have here the traces of a very ancient reading, namely, early Greek manuscript attestation together with evidence of survival on either wing of the ancient world.
Here is a list of the manuscripts that contain the number 616 rather than 666:
The fulfilment of prophecy is the only sure way of discerning between a true prophet and a false prophet. Likewise it stands to reason that the only way to discertn between the number 616 and 666 is through the fulfilment of prophecy. The presence of the Hammer & Sickle in the world proves that the number 616 is the true number of the Beast.
For there is nothing hid, except to be made manifest; nor is anything secret, except to come to light. (Mark 4:22)
For two millennia the true number of the Beast has been hidden. Now that the advent of the Beast (the eighth kingdom) is imminent, the identity of the true number has become manifest.
The fact that the Hammer & Sickle can be perceived as a monogrom of the number 616 in Greek letters in reverse, and again in Hebrew letters in obverse, proves that 616 is the true number. Greek, of course, is the language of the New Testament. The Book of Daniel was written in both Aramaic ahd Hebrew. Such duplication authenticates the interpretation.
Not only is this number thus duplicated, but as stated above, the number 616 signifies the name "Beast" in both Aramaic (cheivah) and Greek (therion) through transliteration.
