Practiced with discernment, as Saint Basil the Great teaches us in his “Address to Young Men on How They Might Derive Benefit from Greek Literature,”[i] reading the works of ancient pagan authors can offer us moments of rare aesthetic delight, as well as a profound understanding of the world. It is no coincidence that the authors who most influenced the metaphysical thought of the Church Fathers and the brilliant medieval Scholastic Doctors were Plato and Aristotle, followed by their Neoplatonic disciples—Plotinus, Iamblichus, and Proclus. Beyond unlocking the mysteries of creation, it seems that sometimes the ancients may even provide insights into the mysteries of the Holy Scriptures of the Judeo-Christian Tradition. Specifically, I am referring to one of the most debated topics in the Apocalypse of Saint John the Apostle: the number of the beast.
As I pointed out in a previous article,[ii] this is the ultimate test of interpreting sacred texts. What does the number ‘666’ signify? And what is the mysterious name hidden by these three digits? By invoking the pseudo-science known to the Greeks as isopsephy (ἴσοψῆφία), similar to the Hebrew gematria, some have believed they could calculate the name of the beast based on the premise that every Greek letter has a numerical value. Saint Irenaeus of Lyon, among others, demonstrated why such a method is flawed. Inspired by Saints Bede, Robert Bellarmine, and especially Dionysius the Areopagite, the direction of my own reflections involves a mystical interpretation of the number of the beast. While taking into account Saint Robert’s axiom—that the revelation of the “son of perdition” (II Thessalonians 2:3) will only be possible for Christians contemporary with him—this approach outlines the framework of an answer that seems most plausible. The essential idea of the interpretation I follow pertains to the existence of passions that mark the souls of those enslaved by them. The profound nature of these passions is indicated by the triple repetition of the number 6—a symbol of imperfection and egocentric self-sufficiency in contrast to the number 7, the symbol of wisdom—which describes the spiritual profile of those under the dominion of the enemies of Christ the Savior.
A Surprising Note on an Ancient Text
One of the most intriguing suggestions regarding the meaning of the number of the beast surprisingly comes from a pagan author of the 3rd century before Christ, Apollonius of Rhodes. While reading his most famous work, Argonautica (i.e., the adventure of the Argonauts), I encountered a passage in which the goddess Aphrodite (referred to here as Cypris, after the island of Cyprus) is searching for her son, the god Eros:
“Cypris (...) went on her way through the wolds of Olympus, to see if she could find her son. And she found him far away in a blooming orchard of Zeus, not alone, but Ganymede was with him; he it was whom Zeus on a day brought to dwell in heaven with the immortals, eager for his beauty. And those twain were sporting with golden dice, as youths alike in habits will.”[iii]
In the anthropomorphic style characteristic of ancient legends and tales, the world of the gods is depicted as a faithful reflection of the earthly one. The celestial beings of the ancient Greeks were like humans, with all their virtues and flaws. To the delight of readers, even the hobbies of the gods mirrored those of mortals. In the quoted passage, we encounter the ancient game of knucklebones, which is the precursor to dice (also invented in ancient Greece). But what connection could this have to the number of the beast?
So the fateful number, known as “Venus” (the Latin name for Aphrodite), with which Eros always won at dice was... 666. Startled, I began searching for additional references.
In the Romanian translation of the Argonautica by the renowned classicist Ion Acsan, the passage about the dice game between Ganymede and Eros includes a note that my Greek language professor drew to my attention. Here is the note:
“For the game of knucklebones, mentioned also in the Iliad (XXIII, v. 88), actual bones were originally used, and only later were dice introduced, featuring four flat faces and two rounded, unmarked ones. The best throw (called ‘of Aphrodite’) was three sixes. The poet Anacreon (6th century before Christ) claimed that knucklebones were both the weakness and the joy of Eros. A favorite theme of later Greek epigrammatists was Eros and his dice.”[iv]
Reading the scholarly commentary above gave me much to ponder. So the fateful number with which Eros always won at dice, known as “Venus” (the Latin name for Aphrodite), was... 666. Startled, I began searching for additional references. From a dictionary article on the Greco-Roman dice game, alea (ālĕa),[v] available online from the University of Chicago, I learned that there were two types of dice, tesserae and tali. The former had six sides, marked I, II, III, IV, V, VI; the latter were rounded on two sides and marked only on the other four. This article also noted that when playing with the six-sided dice (tesserae), “the highest or most fortunate throw, called Venus (jactus Venereus or Basilicus),” was one composed of three sixes: 666.
From a study authored by the French classicist Paul Perdrizet and published in 1930, I learned that in ancient Greece this winning combination indeed bore the name of the goddess later called Venus by the Romans: ‘of Aphrodite’ (ἀφροδίσιος). Without a doubt, this is a historically verified fact: the absolute winning number—‘of Aphrodite’ (or Venus)—with which Eros defeated his opponents at knucklebones was 666.
For those familiar with the wise Athenian Plato’s discourse on Eros in the dialogue Phaedrus, as well as the Neoplatonic commentaries (especially those of Proclus), this detail is more than telling—it is a true illumination.
Why is the association of the god Eros with the fateful number ‘666’ significant? In the case of carnal desires, bodily love is akin to a game of dice—a matter of chance. It ignites randomly, often leading to irreversible catastrophes.
Plato and the Two Loves
Subtitled On Beauty, the dialogue Phaedrus is one of the most comprehensive explorations of the theme of love. What interests us particularly here is Plato’s description of two kinds of love—one maleficent and the other beneficial. The first, governed by Aphrodite and Eros, is carnal love, which disregards all laws and leads those ‘maddened’ by passion to commit the most terrible sins of the flesh. The way Plato describes those afflicted by this love turns some pages of his text into a genuine pathology of passionate carnal love. The strategies and behavior of the impassioned are described with great accuracy. Transformed into the sole purpose of their erratic lives, physical, sexual pleasure becomes their only goal.
Heavenly love characterizes those drawn toward Heaven and God. This love leads its adherents away from all that is worldly and toward contemplation—the heart of Platonic philosophy. Neoplatonist Proclus reveals a detail that is particularly significant for us as Christians. Despite the name—Eros—used to describe the spiritual being that inspires this type of love, the two kinds of love correspond to entirely different deities: carnal love is governed by a daímōn (δαίμων—from which our word ‘demon’ derives), while heavenly love is governed by the Supreme God (or, as we would say, by God).
All of this may already suggest why the association of the god Eros with the fateful number ‘666’ is significant. In the case of carnal desires, bodily love is akin to a game of dice—a matter of chance. It ignites randomly, often leading to irreversible catastrophes. Is this not what all romantic love stories describe? Is this not what we see in the tales of Tristan and Isolde, Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and countless other novels and romances? In literature, music, opera, operetta, theater, film, and videos, no subject is more prevalent: love is omnipresent. But what kind of love? The kind Plato associated with physical, carnal, devouring, and destructive eros. This was why the daímōn Eros was so feared in ancient Greece. Those struck by his enchanted arrows became incurably afflicted, ultimately falling victim to abominable circumstances (which modesty prevents me from recounting here). Sooner or later, they lost all sense of shame.
For now, we note that it is linked to the type of carnal, fleshly (demonic) love revealed through the number of the fearsome daemon Eros and his mother, Aphrodite.
A Bridge to Heaven
The same name, eros, can also apply to the love inspired by God in the hearts of those who fall in love with Him and the Blessed Virgin Mary. This ‘heavenly love’ is radically opposed to ‘earthly love.’ The fascinating poem Canticle of Canticles describes the love between the soul touched by grace and the mystical bridegroom—Christ the Savior. Its effects are extraordinary, leading even to the self-sacrifice of the lover for the Beloved. The martyrs are the greatest testimony of this love. Yet they do nothing more than imitate the Crucified One, who gave His life out of love for us, His lost sheep.
Through the graces received in Baptism and Confirmation (and all other Holy Sacraments), Christians are called to follow God on this path, which leads to Paradise. Those anointed with the holy chrism are, in essence, ‘marked’ with all the gifts the Holy Spirit bestows upon those who love Him. Conversely, those who fall in love with the world and its pleasures are spiritually marked with the seal of the three sixes—three attachments that bind them to the visible world, making them slaves to “the prince of this world” (John 14:30). Only now do we begin to glimpse the crucial importance of one of the gravest warnings found in Scripture:
“Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity of the Father is not in him” (“Nolite diligere mundum, neque ea quae in mundo sunt. Si quis diligit mundum, non est caritas Patris in eo” – I John 2:15).
Love of the world drives out the love of God from the hearts and souls of those who fall prey to it. And we immediately sense that the reverse is also true. This axiomatic statement by Saint John the Apostle—the same inspired author through whom God revealed the mysterious number of the beast in the Book of Revelation—opens the door to the correct interpretation of the three sixes. For now, we note that it is linked to the type of carnal, fleshly (demonic) love revealed through the number of the fearsome daemon Eros and his mother, Aphrodite.
The fact that the forehead (symbolizing the intellect and its capacity for thought) and the right hand (symbolizing one’s deeds or actions) are marked with the three sixes shows that the heresies of these individuals are both intellectual and practical in nature—just as we see in the case of those who, while not explicitly or formally denying the doctrines of faith and moral law, contradict them through their actions.
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[i] A complete English translation, by Edward R. Maloney, can be read online at the following address: https://archive.org/details/stbasilgreattos00malogoog/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater [Accessed: 17 January 2025].
[ii] “The Mysteries of the Holy Scripture: The Number of the Beast:” https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/7531-the-mysteries-of-the-holy-scripture-the-number-of-the-beast [Accessed: 16 January 2025].
[iii] The Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius, Translated into English Prose from the text of R. Merkel, by Edward P. Coleridge, B.A. Oriel College Oxford, London, 1889, p. 103 (https://archive.org/details/theargonauticaof00apoliala/page/n6/mode/1up?view=theater).
[iv] Apollonios din Rhodos, Argonauticele (Epopeea argonauților), Traducere, prefață și note de Ion Acsan, București, Editura Univers, nota 6, p. 173. For the Romanian readers of this newspaper, here is the original text: “Pentru jocul de arșice, menționat și în Iliada (XXIII, v. 88), au fost folosite oasele propriu-zise și abia ulterior au apărut zarurile cu patru fețe plate și două rotunjite și nemarcate, cea mai bună aruncare (numită ‘a Afroditei’) fiind de trei ori șase. Poetul Anacreon (secolul VI î. Ch.) susținea că arșicele erau slăbiciunea și bucuria lui Eros. Tema favorită a epigramiștilor greci de mai târziu era Eros și zarurile lui.”
[v] https://logeion.uchicago.edu/alea [Accessed: 16 January 2025].
