On February 3, 1983 President Ronald Wilson Reagan signed a bill passed by Congress declaring 1983 as "The Year of The Bible."In the resolution it reads: "Today our beloved America and, indeed, the world, is facing a decade of enormous challenge. As a people we will be tested as we have seldom, if ever, been tested before. We will need resources of spirit even more than resources of technology, education, and armaments."* In his signing of the bill President Reagan wrote: "...I encourage all citizens, each in his or her own way, to re-examine and rediscover its (the Bible's) priceless and timeless message."
Accordingly, during a warm late summer night in 1983 the realization of the meaning of the number of the beast, 666, came to me in an instant as I awoke from a deep sleep in my San Diego, California bedroom. I heard a noise, and as I awoke, I saw what appeared to be a transparent blue image of a Roman senator standing in the doorway to my room. I jumped out of bed and put my fist through the afterimage of a dream that then vanished. I was left with the realization that I suffered from the effects of declining nouns and conjugating verbs that occurs during two years of high school Latin. That night I was also left with the meaning of DCLXVI (666). It is part of a concept that I want to share with you.
First, we must call up that shadowy specter of the great beast that haunts the consciousness of the Western mind. To do this I would use the Bible as allegorical history.I wish to make clear at this point that,because of my Episcopalian and Presbyterian family background, I hold certain sympathies for religion and the good that it has done. Most of us have been brought up under the influence of present day Christianity which is what I call the historical shadow of the Roman Empire.
The original date for filing our personal IRS return forms was March 15th, but a member of the government, recalling the soothsayer's warning in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, "Beware the ides of March", decided early on that it was best to change the filing date to the 15th of April. Differences among religious groups notwithstanding, the following is presented to shed light on that obsession of our present civilization, i.e., taxes.
St. Luke 2:1 "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed." Thus a person named Joseph, with his espoused wife, Mary , did journey to his hometown of Bethlehem, city of the lineage of the house of David, to be taxed of the Roman Caesar. The whole New Testament can be read and inter- preted as a collection of books on the struggle of life in Roman times, and especially on the subjects of death and taxes. From Revelation, in the King James Version of the Holy Bible, you can deduce certain historical facts from the images that are presented.
First, bare in mind that Revelation is the oldest book of that sect of Judaism that became known to us as Christianity. It speaks of "...things which must shortly come to pass; " Of "BABYLON THE GREAT" as the "great whore that sitteth upon many waters:" and "...here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth." Babylon was a city of captivity to the ancient Jews. Rome, the city of seven hills, was then the center of an empire which had the world's largest navy, and was in the process of reducing Jerusalem to a pile of stones and dispersing what was left of that nation. Be mindful that in those times there were no political parties such as we have today, so politics were often expressed through religion.Thus there were Jewish sects such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes,and the Zealots.
In Aramaic, the first language the Gospel was written in, the word for virgin is the same as that for teenage girl and does not necessarily imply being chaste. As is known much can be changed in translation. In our age a pregnant teen is not considered a miracle.
There was at the time a great need for taxes for the Romans had just entered Palestine and, with the active support of their client state, the kingdom of King Herod the Great, had just built the largest man made harbor of ancient times, the port city of Caesarea Maritimaon the coast of Palestine near the northern province of Galilee, a known hot bed of Zealot activity. Revelation 13:1 "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea,...and upon his heads the name of blasphemy." Rome was that great whore, and her legions that landed by sea carried images of Augustus Caesar Divus who had himself proclaimed a living god of the Roman state. ( Augustus had been adopted as a youth by Julius Caesar, who was known as every woman's husband and every man's wife. The official policy was that Augustus had been "immaculately conceived" of his mother and the god Apollo. Perhaps his real father disowned him? It then became a fad that everyone who was anyone was said to be some "son-of-a-god." A man calling himself divine was a blasphemy that offended the orthodox Jew.) Caesarea Maritima was built for landing legions of the Roman army.The harbor secured their control of the region and served as a base for further adventurism to the east against Persia.
Perhaps from as far back as the time of Darius II the king of Persia had been addressed with the title of "King of Kings and Lord of Lords" which appears in Revelation as a title for the "Lamb of God." It is not clear in Revelation if the "Lamb of God" is the same or another person other than the one called Jesus Christ. Palestine had for several hundred years been a tributary state of the Persian empire. Revelation may be read as a plea for a return to that former status. As a request for intervention on the part of the King of Persia and for support in the fight against the Romans.
The Persian King and his priests (the Magi, from which we take the word magic) knew of these intentions.Zoroastrianism, which was their Persian religion, taught that the world was a struggle between the good God, Mazda, the God of Light, and the bad God; it was adualistic pattern of thought. Mithras, archangel of Mazda, was the Light sent by Mazda and is historically the reason we in the West worship on Sundays; fire, sun, and light being representative of truth. Now if we say that Judaism is the mother of Christianity, then Zoro-astrianism is its father, and the child favors the father. So the king of Persian sent his priests (Magi) to find a willing family whos line of heritage had some pretense to the throne of David. The Magi proclaimed a new king for the Jews and with the gold they brought laid the seed of a spell that was to entrance the Western mind for now some twenty centuries.
After Jesus-bar-Joseph (Jesus son of Joseph, also known as the Christ) had left the historical stage,brothers in his family who had not believed in his messiahship took an interest in the movement his ministry had started. James became the head of the church in Jerusalem. It is somewhere in this part of history that the images in the book of Revelation are made. It often occurs that people write about what is happening at the time that it is happening and the material they produce reflects and will image the concerns that preoccupy their minds. In Revelation chapter 12 it tells how the devil as a great dragon is cast out of heaven and down upon the earth where he struggles against Mary and "...the remnant of her seed." This "dragon" that came down to the earth most likely had taken the form of King Herod Agrippa. It is always useful to depict your enemy as evil incarnate, for it allows the mind so much ease and latitude in dreaming up ways of dealing with the obstacle that stands between you and your family's right to a throne.
Chapter 13 in Revelation talks of the dragon (King Herod Agrippa)giving to a beast that comes up out of the sea (Roman legions)"...his power, and his seat, and great authority." In other words, King Herod Agrippa was a puppet of the beast from the sea (the Romans). The Roman sea beast was seen as an empire for "...power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." King Herod Agrippa had the public problem of how this sea beast was to be fed and housed. The solution was by collecting taxes!
This is the second beast, the beast from the land. Revelation 13:11 "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. " That he came from the land and not the sea and "spake as a dragon" meant that this was a local who spoke the same native tongue as the "dragon" Herod Agrippa. I shall endeavor to prove that this land beast was the Publicans, who were the tax collectors of that age. Is it not natural to think of the tax collector as some kind of ungodly beast?
In Revelation, Persia is the kingdom of the east that comes to fight the Roman beast that came from the sea. Of course, the population of Palestine were, for their part, required by agreement to raise an army of support for Persia.
Revelation 14:3 ; 4 "...and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth." These are they which were not defiled with women; for they are virgins {young men?}. These are they which follow the Lamb witherso-ever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the first-fruits unto {our} God and to the Lamb. They were to be sent to war.
Revelation 14:19 ; 20 "And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of {our} God. And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles..."
Those who collaborated with, or who were found with the mark of, or who did not give support to the struggle against the Roman sea beast were warned of retribution:
Revelation 20:15 "And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire "{hell was the city dump outside of Jerusalem where they burnt the trash}." Revelation 21:13; 14 "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life..." This implies a Richard Nixon type of name list from A to Z.
If there was to be a great military battle in Galilee (Armageddon) against the Roman sea beast, then why was there so much concern about the "mark of the beast" and the number 666 (DCLXVI)? The answer is that because it was through taxes that the beast was fed. Here is the heart of the matter.
Revelation 13:12 "And he {the beast from the land} exerciseth all the power of the first beast {the one from the sea} before him,and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast..." { Worship means to pay homage and empower through tax support }
Revelation 13:15 - 18 "And he {the land beast} had power to give life unto the image of the beast {from the sea}, that the image of the beast should both speak {be translated}, and cause that as many as would not worship {pay taxes} the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond {for it was an age of slavery}, to receive a mark in their hand, or in their foreheads {as though a poll tax like when you would enter a swapmeet or back then a market place}. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast {the land 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 threescore and six {the number of the land beast}."
Revelation was addressed to early Christian communities that existed in the first century A.D. Where were they to see the number 666 (DCLXVI) in their everyday lives? What were they being told to avoid? To buy or sell in a market place and to have "the mark" would show that you paid your taxes and so were to be permitted to trade. But where does this number relate to a man and in what manner does it relate? In all commentaries and encyclopedia of religion there are attempts or errors that obscure the true meaning of the number 666. Often these errors take the form of trying to explain the meaning of the number through the ancient code craft of Gematria. Gematria is the process of finding some meaning in a written text by observing the numerical values and finding hidden meaning underlying the surface of a written text, e.g., in ancient Hebrew the name for their God added up in value to be the same as that of their word for Nature. Could this imply that the study of the ways of Nature is the study of the ways of God?
Those who study the "number of names" have claimed that there are ancient Greek or Hebrew values to letters and the number 666 (DCLXVI) somehow adds up to the value of the name of Nero, Caesar of Rome, or one or another more recent national political leader. It was St. Irenaeus who first suggested that the number 666 (DCLXVI) stood for the name of the Roman Emperor Nero. Mr. Frederick Engels, co-author of the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO with Dr. Karl Marx, writes in his essay entitled "The Book of Revelation" this concluding paragraph:
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 Anti-christ, destroys the great city [Rome] by fire, and binds the devil for a thousand years. The millennium begins, and so forth.
All this now has lost interest, except for ignorant persons who may still try to calculate the day of the last judgment. But as an authentic picture of almost primitive Christianity, drawn by one of themselves, the book is worth more than all the rest of the New Testament put together.
I find it interesting that most Christians would find common ground with Engels on this point concerning the nature and meaning of the number 666 (DCLXVI), but I do not concur with them.
I have a degree in Philosophy, which means "the love of wisdom. "I observe that all this activity is concerned with the number of a name of a man and not the "...number of a man." I was once affronted by the assertion that Philosophy is "just splitting hairs."I replied that instead Philosophy is the fine art of knowing how to split hairs with skill and in the proper manner.
Here, then, is my reasoning. "...the number of a man " is not some secret number for a name at all, instead it is a tool of a trade. Rome was founded in 753 B.C. according to the present system of counting the ages from the start of the Christian era. But the Romans counted history from the founding of the city of Rome, and all subsequent years were dated A.U.C. (anno urbis conditae "in the year from the city's foundation"). When the Romans began the occupation of the eastern Mediterranean states, such as Greece, Syria, and Palestine, they dedicated the public buildings they put up in the A.U.C. system. The year the early Christians were said to have burnt Rome, 64 A.D. would have been expressed on public buildings as DCCCXVII A.U.C. Therefore, the largest known public Roman numeral in the occupied east of the Empire would have been the number D, which means 500.
The native tax collectors, the Publicans, who contracted to collect the taxes for the Roman Caesars used a device called a "counting table." Across the top of these tables were Roman numerals in individual slots in descending order from left to right, consisting of D, C, L, X, V, I. As the number of items to be taxed increased, the pebbles would be placed in the appropriate slots. In the accompanying illustration is shown as the number counted. But now if we add up the number of Roman numerals across the top of the counting table we get the total:
D = 500
C = 100
L = 50
X = 10
V = 5
I = 1
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DCLXVI = 666
Thus, the "mysterious number" is code advocating the non-payment of Roman taxes, because those taxes were the means by which Rome paid for the occupation of the "Holy Land" called Palestine.
Many of the people of Greece and Palestine were herdsmen in those times. Even Jesus is often pictured as the "Good Shepherd." Each year those native herdsmen lost some of their flock to the beasts of the fields, but this was nothing compared to when the Publicans came around to collect the tax. The tax collectors would take more than all the other beasts combined and so rightfully earned the epithet "the Great Beast."
Rome existed as a continuing city state and empire from 753 B.C. to 476 A.D., a period of some 1,229 years. Revelation, however, tells us of a kingdom to come that shall last a 1000 years. It is part of the human condition, it is an attribute of man, that our realities often out pace our dreams. So, I observe that, it is a basic fact that money makes the world go around, and upon reflection, I see how it also excites the heavens.
How and why was the real meaning of DCLXVI (666) lost to Western consciousness? The Roman Empire needed a universal religion to unify the vast distances and different cultures within its domain. Mithraism, in many ways similar to Christianity, though a universal religion in its own right, was connected to Zoroastrianism and there by to Persia,and so was considered tainted with foreign loyalties, much as we consider the philosophy of Communism today. Thus Christianity, the most anti-Roman religion, was also the religion that most related to Rome and her empire. Christianity had spread throughout the Roman Empire for the very reason of its anti-Roman content. It was realized that Christianity was a universal religion centered in the geographical areas where it could be useful as a pillar to support the Roman state authority, if only its original intent could be blunted. This occurred under Emperor Constantine in the year 323 A.D., when at the church Council of Nicaea called by him, Christianity was made fit to become the state religion of Rome. In a manner that G.W.F. Hegel would have approved, the great antithesis (Christianity) mixed with the thesis (Imperial Rome) and produced a synthesis, the Christian Imperial Roman state that has come down to us as the Roman Catholic Church.
To become a universal state religion Christianity had to abandon its anti-tax doctrine: the idea of not feeding the Roman beast. A Christian state and a doctrine of not paying taxes to that state were self- contradictory concepts; therefore, the anti-tax message of early Christianity had to be skillfully misplaced in order to take advantage of the opportunity of becoming the official Roman state religion. In the idiom of the 1960's, Christianity was "co-opted."
There is an often misconstrued and misquoted passage in St. Matthew 22:15- 22 : "Then went the Pharisees, and took counsel how they might entangle him {Jesus} in his talk . { For they knew of his anti-Roman tax position} And they sent out unto him the disciples...saying, Master, we know that thou art true, and teachest the way of {our} God in truth, neither carest thou for any man: for thou regardest not the person of men. {They hoped in their thoughts that he would put his duty to speak the truth above his own personal safety as a man.} Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful { Jewish religious law, not Roman civil law } to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? {This was meant as a public trap for Jesus for his anti-Roman tax views were known to them} But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, " Why tempt me ye , ye hypocrites? Shew me the tribute money ". And they brought unto him a penny. And he saith unto them, "Whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him, Caesar's. {This made clear whose coin they carried } Then saith he unto them, " Render { you } therefore unto Caesar the things { including them } which are Caesars ,and unto { our } God the things that are ( our } Gods ". { Avoiding the question of feeding the Roman beast he had shown them up for what they in fact were.} When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him {this should be read that they got out of there fast}, and went their way."
It was because Jesus was known to have anti-Roman tax views that they asked him this question in the first place, but in the process of asking they put themselves in jeopardy with the crowd that accompanied his public teachings. Even though Jesus's anti-Roman views were blunted and blurred by Emperor Constantine's calling of the church Council of Nicaea, where it was decided what was to be made accepted scripture, the anti-Roman nature of his tax teaching still show through for those who can perceive.
Religions are born, they live, they go through development,and they die. New religions are born. Older religions give birth to new ones. This is part of the Nature of the reality in which we live. It is a positive thing that there is new growth. Only through the process of birth, growth, and death are there future generations.That there are future generations allows for the possibility of progress and it is progress that gives hope for a better system of things. New ages continue to occur as long as time continues to move forward for us. The universe appears to move towards entropy, but life develops from this tendency and intelligence develops from life and through the growth of intelligence we can organize life at a rate faster than the drift towards chaos. This is our Nature.
I pause to reflect upon the difficulty with which some future generation might ponder a statement like "...the great beast of the form 1040?" So we conclude that the New Testament can indeed be seen as a statement on death and taxes. The hero of the work over-comes death, then is not seen again. With what is certainly the right manner of things they curse the tax collector. Here we find a thread in the fabric of lasting truth, for as Seneca puts it: Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false and by the rulers as useful." VERITAS PRIMA "(TRUTH FIRST)
1) Julius Caesar: Act I, Scene II by William Shakespeare
2) President Richard M. Nixon had a personal enemies list that was used as a list of American citizens who were to be treated as enemies of the Nixon government of the United States. People who were singled out for harassment and who were to be denied government jobs and contracts.
3) The Book of Revelation talks of the burning of the great city that sit on the seven mountains {hills} and is therefore for many good reasons assumed to be Rome herself. In 64 A.D. the city of Rome was put to the flame and Emperor Nero blamed the small "Christian" community as the cause of it. Their early writings, which must have included Revelation, were used in evidence against them.The Roman punishment for arson was to burn the perpetrator at the stake.Roman justice had a certain directness about it. In that age property was more difficult to produce and come by.
4) Mithraism was a religion that grew out of Zoroastrianism and advocated a messiah {a concept that originated in Zoroastrianism and was later picked up by the Jews during their captivity in Babylon} and competed with Christianity for the position of becoming the universal state religion of the Roman Empire. Instead of bread and wine Mithraism used the blood of a sacrified bull in its rites of remittance of sin. The use of bread and wine proved less costly than the wasting of bulls.
5) G.W.F.Hegel was a German philosopher who held that thought and being are one and the universe develops through a rational movement of things that are a complex diversity in unity expressive of the Absolute Idea {God}.
6) American I.R.S. tax financial accounting form 1040.
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