or sepulchre of St. Peter, the measure of each side of which is precisely 25 feet, and upon which no man may celebrate mass but the Pope only; upon almost all their altars they have 25 squares on each side, and in five squares of the upper side are imprinted five times five cinques or round spots, in allusion to Christ's five wounds; these five cinques are also accounted a symbolical device, and made armorial, and are inserted into the arms of the king of Spain, the emperor of the Romans, and the archduke of Austria; the Pope and cardinals cause them to be imprinted in the frontispiece of several books published at Rome for their better success, and their greater confirmation; their mass of Christ's five wounds five times multiplied and repeated is pretended to have been commanded by the archangel Raphael; their celebration of the Jubilee takes place every 25 years; their priests, deacons, subdeacons, &c. are not accounted of a perfect age till they have attained 25 years; their chief holidays are upon the 25th day of the month; upon the 25th day of December is the beginning of the Popish year, and the celebration of Christ's nativity; upon the 25th of January is the conversion of St. Paul; &c. &c. &c. * It is also observed that the general council of Trent was begun by 25 prelates, continued 25 sessions, ended with the See of the addition of building to this church in the 16th century, the number of altars has been considerably increased. Potter, c. 25. * Potter, c. 26, pp. 176–180. subscription of 25 archbishops; and, last of all, the doctrine and faith decreed in this council was afterwards by the Pope and his cardinals reduced * to a set form of words naturally branching themselves into 25 articles. Finally, the number 25 is thought by Dr. Potter to be peculiarly applicable to the Papacy, as this number has been esteemed, both by Heathens and Christians, a sign of evil, as Jerome, Lyra, and Peter Serranus fully attest. † As to the objection why 666 is called the number of the Beast, as 25 is not the square root of 666, but of 625, Dr. Potter has given several very ingenious answers the principal of which are the following: If the number of the Beast had been called 625, then the square root would be exactly 25, and in no respect could be called 26; which would give the Jesuits room to object that the first number of cardinals was 26, and not 25, as the Pope is also numbered among the cardinals, it being customary to paint a cardinal's hat upon the Pope's coffin, thereby pointing him to be one of their number. Secondly, if the number of the Beast had been called 676, then the square root could in no sense be said to be 25 but 26, in which case it might be alleged that the Pope is Vicarius Christi, and therefore not to be numbered among the cardinals. Thirdly, if the number of the Beast had been call * Potter, c. 22. + Ibid. c. 12. See Jerome upon Ezekiel viii. and xi. Ibid. c. 27, and 28. mately produced as an absolutely unequivocal demonstration that the Pope or his power is the Beast of the Apocalypse. For even those two which appear to apply the best, (Aarsivos and ",) are defective in so many particulars, that it is impossible for any person to demonstrate either of these to be the name intended. And as the truth is necessarily free from every species of ambiguity; consequently every interpretation of the number which is not sufficient to elucidate every syllable uttered by the Spirit of God concerning the Beast ought to be considered but of comparatively little moment. As for those interpretations which respect Mohammed, Luther, Calvin, and others, they are all (if we except Ludovicus) so excessively defective in their orthography, or so extremely unnatural in their formation, that no reasonable person could, after a deep perusal of the prophecy, suppose any one of them to be the name or thing intended. And with respect to Ludovicus, a word so strenuously supported by the Rev. David Simpson, Bicheno, and others; though its orthography be correct, yet it must be allowed, that its application to the French monarch Louis XIV. as at first intended, or to the whole of the French monarchs of this name, is perfectly indefinite, aș there is no sufficient reason why these, more than any other of the French kings in the service of the Papacy, should be pointed out in the prophecy. Before we close this chapter it will be highly necessary to examine a various reading of the number of the Beast which existed in some copies of the Revelation as far back as the time of Irenæus. This reading consists in stating the number of the Beast to be 616 instead of 666; but Irenæus positively asserts that the latter is the proper reading, and attributes the other either to the carelessness or wilful perversion of the copyists. He further observes, that he is " entirely ignorant how some could have deviated from the vulgar reading, in vitiating the middle number of his name, and subtracting fifty from it, writing only one decad instead of six decads." * It is impossible that a greater evidence for the number 666 could be produced than that of Irenæus, as this father flourished only about a century after the writing of the Apocalypse, and consequently was best qualified to correct a vitious reading that might creep into the text. Hippolytus, who flourished not more than about 30 years later than Irenæus, says, "that Antichrist's seal upon his forehead, and upon his right hand, is the number 666." And though the Codex Ephrem rescrip * Οὐκ οἶδα πῶς ἐσφαλησὰν τίνες ἐπακολεθήσαντες ἰδιωτισμῷ, καὶ τὸν μέσον ἠθέτησαν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος ν' ψήφισμα ὑφέλοντες, καὶ ἀντὶ τῶν ἓξ δεκάδων μίαν δεκάδα βελόμενοι εἶναι.—Iren. Lib. 30, p. 447. V. C. † Ἡ δὲ σφραγὶς αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τοῦ μετώπε, καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς δεξιᾶς χειρὸς isì Vñpos xes'.-Beati Hippolyti de Consummat. Mundi et de Antichr. p. 355, Tom. IX. Bibliothecâ Patrum. tus has 616, yet in nearly all the most ancient MSS. it is 666.* Among these stands pre-eminent that most ancient MS. in the British Museum, the Codex Alexandrinus, † in which the number is expressed at full length, thus εξακοσιοι εξηκοντα εξ. To complete the evidence for 666 we can add, that there is no example of computation extant, among the vast variety in ancient Greek writers, which is founded upon the number 616. *See Griesbach and Wetstein in loc. + This MS. is supposed to have been written sometime betwixt the fourth and seventh centuries. |