Mark of the Beast

Who is the Beast and the False Prophet, and what does the bestial number, 666, signify? Everyone wants to know. But before we get carried away and leap to obvious conclusions, pointing our fingers at Barack, Hillary and Soros, consider St. John's numeric source, namely Solomon, who serves as a type, or forerunner, of Antichrist.

Recall Solomon's apostasy after the departure of the Queen of Sheba, in which he breaks the laws of kingship, multiplying horses, women and gold to himself contrary to Dueteronomy 17: 16-18. How much gold did the Astaroth, Moloch worshiping king amass? We're told in I Kings. 10: 14, "The weight of gold that came to King Solomon in one year was six hundred and sixty six talents of gold."

There you have it, the infernal number of idolatrous abomination and a blasphemous parody of 888, which is the number of Jesus reckoned by rabbinical Gematria. But if Solomon serves as a type of Antichrist, how was that played out in St. John's time? Here's Farrer; after discussing the sixfold pattern of divine judgement in the Apocalypse, he writes:

"On the sixth day of the week, and the sixth hour, says St. John (Jn. 19: 13-22), the kingdoms of Christ and Antichrist looked one another in the face in Pilate's court, and the adherents of the False Prophet (Caiaphas) firmly wrote on their foreheads the mark of the Beast, when they said, 'We have no King but Caesar.'"

We have no King but Caesar. How does that differ, in effect, from the present spirit of the age? 

Beware the wrath to come,

LSP