Persecutions Of The Greeks In Turkey Since The Beginning Of The European War (1918)

In this system the Greek word for "God" (Theos) had a numerical value of 284, as did the words for "holy" and "good." The numerical value of the letters alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, was 801, the same as the word for "dove" (peristera), and was supposed to be a mystical corroboration of the Christian belief in a Trinity. The Greek Gnostics noted that the Greek word for " Nile River " had a numerical value of 365, indicating the annual nature of its floods. Christian mystics devoted much energy to deciphering the number 666, said by John the Apostle to designate the name of the Beast of the Apocalypse, the Antichrist. The method used to assign numbers to letters was not specified, however, and so it's not entirely clear to whom the number refers. "Caesar Nero," the name of the first Roman Emperor to persecute the Christians, had a value of 666 in the Hebrew system, as did the word for "Latins" in the Greek system. The number has often been used in the service of ideology: a Catholic writer of the sixteenth century wrote a book whose gist was that Martin Luther was the Antichrist, since in the Latin system his name had a value of 666 ...»