666

The association of the number 666 with the Antichrist is derived from Revelation 13:18 in which John the Revelator is told in his apocalyptic vision that the number of the Beast is 666 and that the number stands for a person. In John’s world of the first century, the Beast that ruled the Earth would have been the emperor, the caesar, of the Roman Empire, Nero (37C.E.–68 C.E.). Using the Hebrew alphabet, the numerical value of “Caesar Nero,” the merciless persecutor of the early Christians, is 666. Although Jesus (c. 6 B.C.E.–c. 30 C.E.) made it clear when speaking to the apostles that no one will know the exact hour or day of his Second Coming, for many centuries certain Christian theologians have associated the rise of the Antichrist to power and his achievement of a seven-year reign over all the Earth as a kind of catalyst that would set in motion Armageddon, the last final battle between good and evil—the ultimate clash between the armies of Jesus Christ and Satan.

Ever since the Protestant Reformation, the pope has been a favorite of certain Evangelicals for the ignominious title. Many of the pontiffs in the Middle Ages did exercise great power over the rulers and the people of the emerging European nations; and consequently, there were numerous embittered princes and fiery Protestant leaders who did seek to affix the blame for a large number of repressive social and religious programs on the Vatican.

However, contemporary popes have wielded little political influence, surely none that would place them in world-threatening positions. There have been such men as Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), who actually appeared to covet and campaign for the position by calling himself the Beast and 666. Hollywood has capitalized on the fascination of certain Christians and horror movie fans with the menacing evil of the Antichrist and depicted him in a number of motion pictures. In Rosemary’s Baby (1968), an unsuspecting young wife (Mia Farrow) is selected to bear the Antichrist after her husband (John Cassavetes) makes a pact with Satan.

The Omen (1976) spawned a series of three films that follow the Antichrist from early childhood to his position of wealth, power, and charismatic mastery as an adult. In the first of these films, Gregory Peck, as the unsuspecting surrogate father of the Antichrist, is warned of his son’s true identity by a number of priests and other individuals who all meet untimely warnings as the babble of the demented, he is later shocked to discover the numerals “666” on his son’s scalp and he resolves to do whatever must be done to stop Satan’s will from being accomplished. In spite of a valiant effort on the part of the father, who now concludes rightfully that his true son was killed and supplanted by the disciples of the Antichrist, the demon seed continues his destructive path to world domination in two additional films.

Number of the Beast Is 666
(artist : William Blake, year : 1850)

In the The Chosen (1977), Kirk Douglas plays another unaware father, an industrialist specializing in building nuclear power plants, who comes to realize that his son (Simon Ward) is the Antichrist. In Lost Souls (2000), a devout teacher played by Winona Ryder must convince an unsuspecting young journalist that he is the Antichrist before the fated hour when his newly awakened demonic awareness will seize control of his consciousness. Arnold Schwarzenegger is challenged by the almost impossible mission of preventing Satan (Gabriel Byrne) from fathering the Antichrist in End of Days (2000). In Stigmata (2000), Byrne switches sides and plays a priest who fights to thwart satanic interference toward a young stigmatist, a woman who bears the bleeding wounds of Christ’s crucifixion. Bless the Child (2000) portrays a desperate mother (Kim Basinger) who must somehow prevent her specially gifted and blessed child from becoming the human sacrifice that would grant the Antichrist his full-powered entry into the world.

Christians who believe completely that the end times drama will play out according to certain scriptural references maintain a wary eye for signs of the Antichrist and the onset of the Apocalypse, but not all Christians accept the warnings of the advent of the Beast with his telltale numerical designation of 666 or believe that the traditional scenario of the Antichrist and his seven-year reign has any real relevance to the actual “signs in the sky” that will precede the Second Coming of Christ. In today’s world the term “antichrist” lost much of its power to provoke fear after the concept entered the popular mass culture.

For millions of modern secular men and women, the Beast 666 has become merely a sinister, but always defeated, villain in horror movies, and his once dreaded title is often loosely applied in an offhanded manner to everything from cartoon figures to a wide range of men and women in a vast spectrum of modern society. In the Bible, the Book of Revelation (13:17-18) cryptically asserts 666 to be "the number of a man," associated with the beast, an antagonistic creature that appears briefly about two-thirds into the apocalyptic vision.

The author challenges the reader to figure out the symbolism of this number, a challenge that has inspired mystics and would-be prophets ever since. It is assumed by many biblical scholars to refer to Emperor Nero. The number is arrived at by presenting Nero's name in Greek (Kaisar Neron) and transforming it into Hebrew whose letters also have a numeric value. The number of people who have been proposed to be the man whose number is 666 is vast and ever growing; it usually does not demand much ingenuity to find several ways to connect one's political or religious opponent with the number 666, since there is no biblical restriction on how a connection between a man and the number may be established.

In modern popular culture, 666 has become one of the most widely recognized symbols for the Antichrist or, alternately, the Devil. Earnest references to 666 occur both among apocalypticist Christian groups and in explicitly anti-Christian subcultures such as that surrounding some heavy metal bands. An appearance of the number 666 in contemporary Western art or literature is more likely than not an intentional reference to this number of the Beast symbolism. Such popular references to 666 are too numerous to list here. It is not uncommon to see the symbolic role of the integer 666 transferred to the digit sequence 6-6-6. Some people take the satanic associations of 666 so seriously that they actively avoid things related to 666 or the digits 6-6-6. This is known as hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. Until now that number has a lot of interpretation, is it a satanic symbol or its just a number? No one knows. The truth is out there...

(Taken from many sources)