Apocalyp'tic Number is the mystical number 666, spoken of in the Book of Revelation (xiii. 18). Among the Greeks and Hebrews the letters of the alphabet were used to denote numbers. Hence such letters must be taken as will, when used as numbers, make up 666 (either in the Greek or Hebrew alphabet) as the letters of the name in question. The best solution of the riddle is 'Neron Kesar,' the Hebrew form of the Latin 'Nero Cæsar.' The vowels e and a are not expressed in the ancient Hebrew writing. The number represented by NeRON KeSaR would be 666, thus :
Other interpretations were adopted in early times, as Antichrist and Lateinos, the latter being supposed to refer to the Roman empire, and even in more recent times being explained by Protestant controversialists of greater zeal than discretion, as a prophetic allusion to papal Rome. See ANTI-CHRIST; De Morgan's Budget of Paradoxes (1872).