The number of the beast, explained

Back to Stuff

The following is an excerpt from Asimov on Numbers (ISBN: 0-671-82134-2) by Isaac Asimov, from chapter 1 "Nothing Counts," pages seven and eight of the paperback edition:

The Jews, poring over every syllable of the Bible in their effort to copy the word of the Lord with the exactness that reverence required, saw numbers in all the words, and in New Testament times a whole system of mysticism arose over the numerical inter-relationships within the Bible. This was the nearest the Jews came to mathematics, and they called this numbering of words gematria, which is a distortion of the Greek geometria. We now call it "numerology."

Some poor souls, even today, assign numbers to the different letters and decide which names are lucky and which unlucky, and which boy should marry which girl and so on. It is one of the more laughable pseudo-sciences.

In one case, a piece of gematria had repercussions in later history. This bit of gematria is to be found in "The Revelation of St. John the Divine," the last book of the New Testament -- a book which is written in a mystical fashion that defies literal understanding. The reason for the lack of clarity seems quite clear to me. The author of Revelation was denouncing the Roman government and was laying himself open to a charge of treason and to subsequent crucifixion if he made his words too clear. Consequently, he made an effort to write in such a way as to be perfectly clear to his "in-group" audience, while remaining completely meaningless to the Roman authorities.

In the thirteenth chapter he speaks of beasts of diabolical powers, and in the eighteenth verse he says, "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 three-score and six."

Clearly, this is designed not to give the pseudo-science of gematria holy sanction, but merely to serve as a guide to the actual person meant by the obscure imagery of the chapter. Revelation, as nearly as is known, was written only a few decades after the first great persecution of Christians under Nero. If Nero's name ("Neron Caesar") is written in Hebrew characters the sum of the numbers represented by the individual letters does indeed come out to be six hundred sixty-six, "the number of the beast."


Text copyright ©1977 by Isaac Asimov.