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The Apocalyptic Number 616 and the Donatist Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2021

JESSE HOOVER
JESSE HOOVER*
Affiliation:
Morrison Hall 231, Baylor University, One Bear Place #97350, Waco, Texas 76798-7350, USA
*
E-mail: jesse_hoover@baylor.edu
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Abstract

The apocalyptic number 616 is attested as a variant for the more common 666 in Revelation xiii.18 as early as Irenaeus as well as in several ancient Greek manuscripts. Surprisingly, however, all known exegetical interpretations of the number in late antiquity and the early medieval era can be traced back to just two sources derived from the Donatist Church in North Africa: Tyconius’ Expositio apocalypseos and the anonymous Liber genealogus. After reviewing these sources and the exegetical traditions predicated on them, this article will introduce a third witness to the 616 variant within the Donatist communion and comment on its implications.

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Research Article
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 72 , Issue 4 , October 2021 , pp. 709 - 725
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2021

According to Revelation xiii.18, the name of the apocalyptic beast identified quite early within the Christian tradition as the AntiChrist may be deciphered as follows: ‘Let anyone with understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a person. Its number is six hundred sixty-six.’ Whether intended by its author or not, this enigmatic calculation has proved irresistible to apocalyptic prognosticators throughout the centuries. Ubiquitous as it is among popular speculation, however, 666 is not the only contender for the dreaded number in Rev. xiii.18. Quite early in the Christian tradition – the 180s, in fact – we hear of an alternate reading in the writings of Irenaeus. ‘Some, though I know not how, have erred, following a particular reading’, he writes in the final book of the Against heresies, ‘and have taken liberties with the middle number of the name, subtracting the value of fifty, and choosing to have one ten instead of six’Footnote 1 – resulting, in other words, in the number 616.

Irenaeus, of course, was certain that his opponents were mistaken. For modern scholars, however, the picture is more complicated. There are in fact three Greek manuscripts that preserve the variant reading: Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 4499, Codex Ephraemi rescriptus (Bibliotheque nationale, Paris, ms Gr. 9)Footnote 2 and the lost manuscript Petavianus 2, which was described by John Mill (1707) and Johann Bengel (1734) in their critical editions of the Greek New Testament before vanishing sometime in the late eighteenth century.Footnote 3 These early Greek witnesses have led to a re-evaluation of the relationship between the two numbers. Some have gone so far as to question the primacy of the 666 tradition, while others, most notably Bruce Metzger, have argued that the shift from 666 to 616 reflects an early period of textual fluidity.Footnote 4

The purpose of this article, however, is not to revisit arguments over which number more accurately reflects the author of Revelation's original text. Instead, it will focus on the curious fact that while the earliest manuscripts which attest to the 616 reading are Greek, it is only in the Latin world – and, more particularly, within the Donatist community of fourth- and fifth-century North Africa – that exegetical traditions predicated on the variant number are found. After reviewing all extant Latin witnesses to the 616 reading that are known at this time and demonstrating their common origin in just two Donatist sources (Tyconius’ Expositio apocalypseos and the St Gall recension of the Liber genealogus), this article will introduce a third witness to the 616 variant within the Donatist tradition and comment on the implications of this find.

Latin witnesses to 616

Manuscripts

Beginning with the Latin text of Revelation, it is important to note that none of the four Old Latin manuscripts which include the relevant verse – Codex Gigas (VL 51), the Book of Armagh (VL 61), ms Harleian 1772 (VL 65) and Codex Hafnianus (haf) – contain the variant reading 616.Footnote 5 H. A. G. Houghton notes that Universitätsbibliothek, Düsseldorf, ms B 3, a Vulgate manuscript from Corbie dating to the ninth century, preserves the variant number in the form of ‘sescenti sedecim’. This striking alteration to the normative Vulgate reading, however, was probably imported into the text from the Latin exegetical tradition.Footnote 6

The Tyconian tradition

In contrast, the Latin exegetical tradition of late antiquity and the early medieval era shows evidence of significant interaction with the 616 reading. The earliest known witness to this alternate tradition comes from the Expositio apocalypseos, written about 370 ce by the Donatist theologian Tyconius. Since his interpretation of the number would prove so influential in the following centuries, it is best to quote the relevant passage in full:

Here is wisdom! One who has understanding, let him calculate the number of the beast. For his number is that of a man, and his number is six hundred sixteen [DCXVI]. Therefore, let us calculate the number that he said is received, so that in the number we might find the name of the mark. He says, His number is six hundred sixteen. We should write this number according to the Greeks, especially since he is writing to Asia. He says, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega.’ Therefore, six hundred and sixteen become this: Χις. These markings make up the number, but reworked into a monogram they make up the mark and the name and the number: with this sign: , Christ is understood, and a likeness is shown of him whom the church worships in truth, and to whom Adversity makes himself similar.Footnote 7

A brief explanation is in order. Tyconius is arguing that the number six hundred and sixteen, when written in Greek (Χις), is the same as the first and last letters of ‘Jesus Christ’ when abbreviated as a nomen sacrum (IC XC): the monogram is therefore a Christogram.Footnote 8 AntiChrist, in other words, camouflages himself within the Church, appearing to be part of the body of Christ until he is ultimately expelled from it at the end of the world. This interpretation fits Tyconius’ larger argument that the present Church is comprised of both saints and sinners – or to use his terminology, ‘Lot and Sodom’ – and will remain so until the final separation when AntiChrist will be revealed and there will be a ‘departure’ (‘discessio’) of the people of God from the fallen Church. While this claim differs somewhat from more mainstream Donatist assumptions about the nature of the Church (indeed, Tyconius appears to have been condemned for his viewsFootnote 9), the Expositio apocalypseos is in fact very Donatist in its outlook. ‘Just as was done in Africa’, Tyconius explains elsewhere, ‘so it is necessary that Antichrist is to be revealed in the whole world, and in the same way to be overcome everywhere by the church, where he was overcome by her in part for the purpose of showing the way that the last struggle will happen.’Footnote 10 In other words, the Donatist-Caecilianist divide is a legitimate foreshadowing, or recapitulatio, of the greater separation that will take place at the end of time.

Later Catholic writers did not share Tyconius’ views regarding the legitimacy of the Donatist communion. Nevertheless, the Expositio apocalypseos was extraordinarily popular among Latin exegetes of the late antique and early medieval periods. Hailed as a ‘rose among thorns’ by the Venerable Bede or, more crudely, ‘a precious gem embedded in dung’ by Primasius of Hadrumetum,Footnote 11 Tyconius’ recapitulative understanding of Revelation became the dominant mode of apocalyptic exegesis during this time period. Many of his successors appear to have simply adopted the Χις monogram, so critical for his distinctive interpretation of the mark, into their own commentaries; indeed, with one exception (the Liber genealogus tradition), all of the Latin exegetical texts which attest to the 616 variant are either directly or indirectly dependent on Tyconius.

The first known commenter to incorporate Tyconius’ explanation of the mark into his own work was Caesarius of Arles, whose Explanatio in Apocalypsin, written in about 537, illustrates well how Catholic writers were able to defuse Tyconius’ Donatist sympathies. After directly quoting the Donatist writer's explanation of the Χις monogram, Caesarius adds ‘in their opposition, the heretics make something similar to this sign for themselves. When they persecute Christ spiritually, they nonetheless seem to be glorified by the sign of the cross of Christ. For this reason, therefore, it is said that the number of the beast is the number of a man’.Footnote 12 Caesarius, in other words, is externalising Tyconius' ‘false church’ onto the ‘heretics’ (most likely the ‘Arian’ Ostrogoths who had controlled Arles only two years earlier) who mimic the trappings of Christianity, but whose true beliefs are inimical to it.

The next Latin exegetical text to reference the 616 reading is the anonymous De monogramma, which likely dates between the late sixth and seventh centuries.Footnote 13 The author is aware that both Victorinus and Primasius based their calculations on the alternate number 666, but is willing to simply accept both as valid interpretations: ‘Therefore this is the number: six “hundreds”, and six “tens” and one “six”, or, as it reads in the other form, “six hundred and sixteen”; and this number six truly is the fullness of perfection, both in itself and in its parts.’Footnote 14

Two further texts, this time from the eighth century, offer a glimpse into the continued use of the 616 variant in early medieval exegesis: a section of the so-called Irish reference Bible entitled De enigmatibus ex apocalypsi Iohannis, likely composed between 725 and 800,Footnote 15 and the Glossa in Apocalypsin, also known as the Cambridge gloss, which probably dates near the turn of the ninth century.Footnote 16 Both texts offer virtually identical interpretations of the passage in Rev. xiii.18, though neither appears to be dependent on the other. Rather, both commentaries likely relied on a lost Hiberno-Latin gloss on the apocalypse dating to the early 700s, which thus would also have included the 616 variant.Footnote 17 The lost gloss, as well as its two descendants, are clearly dependent on Tyconius for the number, as both surviving texts reproduce the Χις Christogram interpretation pioneered by the Donatist author.

Finally, there is the garbled witness of the Spanish monk Beatus of Liébana, whose Tractatus de Apocalipsin also dates to the late eighth century. Beatus does not consider the 616 reading a valid alternative to the 666 tradition; indeed, he does not know of it. However, since his interpretation of Rev. xiii.18 is largely derived from Tyconius’ Expositio apocalypseos, it preserves a garbled memory of the variant number. Here is the relevant passage, with direct quotations from Tyconius’ Expositio apocalypseos in bold:

His number, he said, is ACXY, which is in Latin numerals DCLXVI. From this number, following the Greeks, we can derive ‘ACXYME,’ since he originally wrote on account of those in Asia, who were its recipients. This is how AC and XY make DCLXVI. These markings make up the number, but reworked into a monogram they make up the mark and the name and the number, with this sign: ☧.Footnote 18

Beatus’ dependence on Tyconius is obvious, but the meaning of the strange insertion ‘ACXY’ is at first glance unclear. The bishop of Liébana's ingenious attempt to force the allegedly Greek numbers into compliance is unconvincing, if only because he has to add two Greek letters to the name (ME) to successfully calculate the dread number 666 (DCLXVI).Footnote 19 Instead, as Roger Gryson has argued, Beatus has probably mistaken Tyconius's DCXVI (616) for the nonsense word ACXY by confusing an uncial D for an A and a ligatured VI for a Y.Footnote 20 Beatus’ solution is ingenious, but ultimately serves as a reminder that, by the late eighth century, Latin memories of an alternate number for the beast were fading. Alongside the contemporary Cambridge Gloss, the apocalypse commentary of Beatus marks the last time that the 616 tradition is applied in Latin exegesis, even in garbled form. While several other writers from the seventh through ninth centuries show signs of being either directly or indirectly influenced by Tyconius’ apocalypse commentary, they do not include the 616 reading.Footnote 21

The Liber genealogus tradition

So far, this article has examined Latin witnesses to 616 based on the Tyconian exegetical tradition. But there is another early witness to the apocalyptic number that does not appear to be dependent on Tyconius: the St Gall edition of the Liber genealogus.Footnote 22 The Liber genealogus is a chronography which uses biblical genealogies and imperial regnal years to narrate the history of the world from Adam to ‘the consulates of Hierus and Ardaburius’ – i.e. the year 427 ce.Footnote 23 Like the apocalypse commentary of Tyconius, this text was produced within the Donatist communion.Footnote 24

Interest in the Liber genealogus centres on the apocalyptic undercurrent that pervades the work. In his enumeration of the line of Cain, for example, the author draws a connection between the mark that God placed on the first murderer and the prophesied mark of the beast, ‘which if anyone now accepts on his forehead or his right hand, he too will drink of the wine of the wrath of God mixed in the bowl of his wrath and will be punished in the sight of his holy angels’.Footnote 25 More directly to the point, the Donatist author is familiar with the 616 variant and uses it in a radically different way than has been encountered thus far. This time, it serves as a means of validating the Nero redivivus legend:

Now there are twenty-eight years between the passion of the Lord and that of the apostles Peter and Paul: that is, their passion under the consuls Nero and Piso. For this was the first persecution under Nero, which will occur again under Enoch and Elijah. This is the same Nero whose name John called ‘616’ in the Apocalypse. ‘Here wisdom is overthrown,’ because the name of him who is called Antichrist may be calculated through numbers: 1, 13, 19, 9, 3, 17, 8, 9, 18, 19, 20, 18. Added together, their number is 154. Four times this number is 616, which is the name of Antichrist.Footnote 26

The author of the Liber genealogus, in other words, assumes (much like many modern writers) that Nero is the original referent of John's apocalyptic number. That number is 616, and its connection with Nero is rather straightforward. The numbers 1, 13, 19, 9, 3, 17, 8, 9, 18, 19, 20 and 18 are simply the Latin gematric values of the name ‘Antichristus’ (A = 1, N = 13, etc.).Footnote 27 Added together, they total 154. If one multiplies this sum by the number of letters in Nero's name (N-E-R-O, i.e., four), the number 616 is revealed. When compared with the Tyconian tradition, the anonymous author's gematric calculations can seem somewhat simplistic. They are, however, representative of a wider trend towards the Nero redivivus legend in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, as can be seen in the writings of Sulpicius Severus and the enigmatic poet Commodian, as well as the more sceptical Augustine.Footnote 28

Two further recensions of the Liber genealogus were produced, both of which retained the original compiler's 616 calculation. In 438 an anonymous editor, writing under the threat of a renewed Vandal invasion, updated the St Gall edition, correcting a number of perceived errors and adding extracts from several other texts to flesh it out. This edition is called ‘Florence’ after the city where the first two copies of this recension were discovered.Footnote 29 Given his retention of Caecilian's condemnation and additional comments supporting a separatist ecclesiology, the unnamed writer was almost certainly Donatist.

The revised version of the Liber genealogus adds several clarifying elements to the 616 passage, including explicitly writing out the letters that make up ‘AntiChrist’ alongside their numerical equivalents and specifying that the number is to be multiplied by four ‘according to the four letters of Nero's name’.Footnote 30 The Florence editor is aware, however, that 616 has a rival:

But this appears to disagree with the usual number that has been calculated, according to what other teachers have written about the number of the beast. For this is what the holy bishop Victorinus says: ‘His number, says the Holy Spirit, is the name of a human, and the number of his name is 666’, that is, ‘Antichrist’.Footnote 31

The Florence editor clearly suspects that something is wrong with the simple 616 calculation proposed by his predecessor. ‘We have added these things from the words of the distinguished bishop Victorinus and others’, he tells us, ‘because the total of the calculations given above for the name of Nero added together did not tally with the number of the beast.’Footnote 32 Nevertheless, he is unwilling to totally abandon the Nero redivivus legend, arguing instead that ‘Antichrist itself … will come in the spirit of Nero, and Saar is said to be the city in the west where he remains imprisoned up until now.’Footnote 33

The final revision of the Liber genealogus, known as Lucca after the location of the only known surviving manuscript, was first completed in 455 ce, then updated in 463. It is aware of both previous recensions, though it tends to incorporate Florence only in places where the St Gall edition is obviously incorrect. Unlike the previous two recensions, Lucca does not appear to have been edited by a Donatist writer. It is noteworthy, however, that despite his knowledge and partial incorporation of the Florence recension in the passage that contains the apocalyptic number, the Lucca editor ultimately declines to include his predecessor's speculations over 666. Instead, he reverts to the St Gall edition's simple gematric calculation.Footnote 34

The Lucca recension's updated edition of 463, however, appears to be the final witness to this particular exegetical trajectory. While the Liber genealogus is known to have influenced several graphical representations of the biblical genealogies from Visigothic Spain and several sections were incorporated into the Intexuimus, a seventh-century Visigothic commentary on Genesis, the apocalyptic passage containing the 616 reference was not among them.Footnote 35

A new witness to 616

So far this article has endeavoured to collate and briefly analyse all known references to the variant number 616 within the Latin tradition. It is certainly possible that more exist – indeed, in this section a potential new witness will be introduced. What is striking about these texts, however, is that with the exception of Universitätsbibliothek, Düsseldorf, ms B 3, whose basis for incorporating the number 616 is uncertain,Footnote 36 they are all united by one thing: their common dependence on exegetical writings originating within the Donatist communion. Two sources – Tyconius’ Expositio apocalypseos and the Liber genealogus – account for everything else on record within the Latin tradition (and indeed, all exegetical references to 616 in any language outside of Irenaeus’ hostile testimony in the second century). Remarkably, however, neither Donatist source appears to be dependent on the other, given their radically divergent interpretations of the apocalyptic number.

The significance of this fact will be addressed shortly. However, before doing so a new contribution to the status quaestionis must be introduced. Crucial as Tyconius and the Liber genealogus are to the argument of this article, they are not in fact the only witnesses to the 616 reading present within the Donatist exegetical tradition. A probable third witness to the variant number can be found within the Daniel series of a capitula set associated with the Donatist communion.

Capitula were the section divisions that served to orient readers of the text in late antiquity and the early medieval era, with accompanying series of titles (‘tituli’). The first known capitula sets in Latin date from the early third century.Footnote 37 Lists of these capitula and their titles were commonly placed immediately between the introductory prologue and the biblical text. During the late antique and early medieval eras, many such capitula lists jockeyed for preeminence, and among them were at least five capitula series that are known to have originated within the Donatist communion.Footnote 38 One covers the New Testament book of Acts and is attested in three manuscripts, while the other four, likely derived from a single capitula set and present in whole or in part in over thirty-two manuscripts, cover the major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.Footnote 39 On the basis of their shared style and grammar, these four capitula series are probably the work of one writer.Footnote 40

These four capitula sets for the major prophets were apparently quite popular in the late antique and early medieval world. Eighteen of the twenty-three known manuscripts which include capitula for Daniel, for instance, utilise the Donatist series or a derivative thereof.Footnote 41 Indeed, the very presence of a derivative series for the major prophets, which noticeably attempts to minimise the more conspicuously Donatist aspects of the original, indicates the pervasive influence of these capitula lists: despite being at least nominally aware of their origin, Catholic writers chose to use them anyway.Footnote 42 Much like Tyconius’ Expositio apocalypseos, their immediate utility appears to have outweighed their ‘heretical’ origin.

The capitulum which is particularly relevant to this article belongs to the Daniel capitula series, and covers the passage in Daniel vii.1–8 in which Daniel has a vision of four beasts coming out of the sea: a lion, a bear, a leopard and an indescribable ten-horned ‘fourth beast’. In Rev. xiii, this ten-horned beast, which now appears ‘like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth’,Footnote 43 is reimagined as the one whom later Christian writers would call the AntiChrist. It is this beast whose number, according to Rev. xiii.18, is either 666 or 616. Daniel capitulum 16, which covers this vision sequence, reads: ‘Ubi vidit Danihel quattuor bestias in figura CLIIII regum’ (‘Where Daniel saw four beasts, in the figure of 154 kings’).Footnote 44

The allusion to ‘154 kings’ is oddly specific. The number 154 does not appear in Daniel vii.1–8, nor indeed anywhere else in the text of Daniel. It is also unattested among other biblical or apocryphal books, nor does there seem to be any late antique witness, ecclesial or secular, who singles out the number for special attention. Unsurprisingly, it appears that many of the later editors of the capitula series did not quite know what to make of this number: of the fifteen manuscripts that include the list in its original form, five modify the reference to 154 into something more intelligible.Footnote 45 The situation is even more dire among the derived series: here, only one of the four witnesses preserves the original numbering.Footnote 46

So why the allusion to ‘154 kings’? Once again, it appears that the number was intended to invoke the identity of the apocalyptic beast on the basis of the number 616. The ‘four beasts’ of Daniel vii.1-8 are inextricably tied to the final beast that haunts the pages of Rev. xiii; by linking them with ‘154 kings’, the author of the capitulum appears to be appealing to the same sort of apocalyptic calculation already encountered in the Liber genealogus. There, the anonymous author multiplied 154 – the gematric value of the Latin word ‘Antichristus’ – by four – the number of letters in Nero's name – in order to link AntiChrist to a revived Nero figure. In Daniel cap. 16, the same figures are encountered under altered guise: 154 kings and four beasts, but the implied extrapolation seems clear enough. The four beasts which stand for 154 kings ought to be equated with the final beast figure of Rev. xiii not merely on the basis of shared thematic affinities, but also because they share his number: 154 times four equals 616. The author's ‘154 kings’ are difficult to identify, in other words, because they have no literal referent. Instead, they likely stand for all human kings, who embody even now the hidden workings of AntiChrist.

A Donatist exegetical trajectory?

A plausible third witness may therefore be added to the number of Donatist texts which show evidence of utilising the 616 tradition. None of these witnesses appear to be directly dependent on the others: Tyconius’ Christogram is unparalleled among known Donatist texts, and while the Liber genealogus does share a common calculative strategy with Daniel cap. 15, their casts of characters differ dramatically. To be sure, this preference for the number 616 probably did not function as a self-imposed identity marker: the Donatist editor of the Florence edition of the Liber genealogus, at least, clearly preferred the 666 tradition of Victorinus to the 616-based calculations of his predecessor. Nevertheless, the presence of these three apparently independent witnesses to the variant number within the Donatist communion, which together account for all future allusions among Catholic writers, strongly suggests that the Latin text of Rev. xiii.18 in common use among the dissident Church differed from the version(s) read by other Latin-speaking communities in late antiquity.

To say more requires diving into rather murky waters. Because citations of the apocalyptic number are very rare among Latin writers prior to the late fourth century, it is uncertain when the 616 variant first entered the Latin tradition. It is not found in any known recension of the Old Latin text of Rev. xiii.18, though it is true that the earliest text-types associated with the Old Latin textual tradition either do not preserve the verse (text-type K, associated with Cyprian) or show evidence of potential contamination by Vulgate readings (text-type C).Footnote 47 A Latin translation of Irenaeus’ Against heresies which would have included his opposition to the offending number 616 was probably available by the early 200s, but this is hardly evidence for an independent Latin adherence to the variant number.Footnote 48 These uncertainties are compounded when turning to the Latin exegetical tradition. There are only two witnesses to the apocalyptic number prior to Tyconius: Victorinus of Poetovium's Commentarii in Apocalypsin 13.3, which probably dates to the 260s, and Gregory of Elvira's Tractatus de Epithalamio 18.14 and 17, which was composed in the early 370s. Both of these texts contain the reading 666, though it is interesting to note that neither writer necessarily reflects the Old Latin textual tradition: Victorinus, who according to Jerome spoke better Greek than Latin,Footnote 49 appears to have independently translated the book of Revelation from the Greek,Footnote 50 while Gregory shows signs elsewhere of having been influenced by Victorinus and may simply be following his predecessor's lead.Footnote 51

Almost nothing is known for certain, therefore, about the origin or prominence of the variant reading 616 in the Latin tradition prior to its use within the Donatist communion, nor, as has been demonstrated, does it appear in any known Old Latin manuscript. Unless the Donatist preference for the number was based on folk tradition rather than textual exegesis, therefore, it is likely that the Old Latin recension of Revelation in common use within the dissident Church was either unique to that Donatist communion or simply not very widespread outside it.

Unfortunately, the most complete witness to the text of Revelation within the Donatist communion is also its most idiosyncratic. The Old Latin recension used by Tyconius in the Expositio apocalypseos is very different from other known Donatist citations of Revelation, including those found in Tyconius’ own prior work, the Liber regularum.Footnote 52 Instead, Tyconius appears to have used a recension known as text-type S, which, though uncommon, is also attested in other texts dating from the fourth century and beyond.Footnote 53 It is worth noting, however, that text-type S probably did not include the 616 variant, which means that Tyconius is likely reverting back to an earlier recension when he includes it in his citation of Rev. xiii.18.

Other Donatist citations of Revelation are fragmentary, but suggestive. An analysis of their contents reveals a text that tends toward the older text-types C and K, albeit with multiple idiosyncrasies.Footnote 54 Some of these, no doubt, are easily explained by memory lapses or free quotations, such as Tyconius’ unparalleled addition of ‘et argento’ (‘and silver’) in the list of the Whore of Babylon's accoutrements (Rev. xvii.4) in Liber regularum 7.14 or the Abitinian martyrs’ extremely free adaptation of Rev. vi.9–11 in the Acta Saturnini.Footnote 55 Other differences, however, seem to reflect a genuinely divergent textual tradition. In addition to preserving the alternate number 616, for instance, the Liber genealogus also records the opening lines of Rev. xiii.18 as ‘hic sapientia vertitur’ (‘here wisdom is overthrown’) rather than the far more common ‘hic est sapientia’ (‘here is wisdom’). This variant is extremely rare, attested elsewhere only in the writings of the fifth-century Iberian presbyter Eutropius and the ninth-century archbishop Agobard of Lyon.Footnote 56 Similarly, the Donatist polemicist Fulgentius preserves a reading of Rev. xvii.15 that is noticeably different from most other textual traditions. The passage as preserved in Contra Fulgentium 12 reads: ‘Et dixit mihi angelus: Aquas quas vidisti, super quas sedet fornicaria illa, populi, turbae et nationes sunt’ (‘And the angel said to me: “the waters which you saw, above which that fornicatress sits, are people, crowds, and nations”’). In this short quotation, the word ‘angelus’ is paralleled only by Caesarius of Arles; ‘nationes’ by Beatus, Chromatius and a ps-Augustininan sermon entitled ‘De genesi in vigilia Paschae’; while ‘fornicaria’ appears to be unique to Fulgentius.Footnote 57

Of course, the fragmentary nature of such citations and the lack of overlap between them makes it difficult to tell whether Donatist exegetes were appealing to the same recension of the text.Footnote 58 Nevertheless, the recension or recensions used tend to be archaic in character, and sometimes preserve variant readings almost unique in the Latin tradition. This strengthens the case that the allusions to the variant number 616 by three different Donatist exegetes probably reflect a reading found in the Latin text of Revelation in common use within the dissident communion.

The objectives of this article were three-fold: to collate all currently-known references to the 616 reading in the Latin tradition and demonstrate their ultimate dependence upon Donatist sources, to introduce a new witness to that reading from a Donatist capitula series and to suggest that the text of Revelation prevalent among Donatist congregations, unlike those in use among other Latin-speaking Christian communities, likely included the variant number. Given these findings, it is reasonable to expect that any new witnesses to the number 616 that may be discovered within the Latin exegetical tradition will either be dependent (directly or indirectly) on a Donatist source – Tyconius’ Expositio apocalypseos being the most likely culprit – or will potentially be Donatist texts themselves.

A promising locus for the latter option is the mass of anonymous theological texts deriving from North Africa – sermons, polemical treatises, exegetical guides – which are constantly being identified, many of which remain accessible only in manuscript form. Several of these texts have already been identified as Donatist in origin, including a corpus of sixty catechetical sermons and a preaching handbook.Footnote 59 Finding the 616 variant in these texts, and in particular the 154 x 4 gematric strategy already noticed in the two anonymous Donatist writings above, should be considered potential markers of Donatist origin, similar to the occurrence of the charged word ‘traditor’.

The substantial Donatist contribution to biblical scholarship in the late antique and early medieval eras has only recently been noticed.Footnote 60 In highlighting the dissident Church's apparently unique preservation of the alternate number of the beast in Rev. xiii.18, yet another example of its exegetical vibrancy has been brought to light.

References

1 Irenaeus, Against heresies 5.30.1, trans. Michael Holmes, in The Apostolic Fathers in English, Grand Rapids, Mi 2006, 321.

2 See Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, VI: Die Apokalypse, ed. Markus Lembke, Darius Müller and Ulrich B. Schmid, Berlin 2017, 130–3. The readings of Codex Ephraemi rescriptus (GA 04) and P. Oxy. 4499 (GA P115) are listed as numbers 13 and 14. It is also possible that the twelfth-century BL, ms Harleian 5778 (GA 110) preserves the number in the form χις, but the poor condition of the text makes a definitive judgement difficult.

3 See Mill, John, Novum testamentum graecum, Oxford 1707, 618Google Scholar, and Bengel, Johann, Novum testamentum graecum, Tübingen 1734, 825Google Scholar. Johann Wettstein also described the manuscript, though he did not include it among the witnesses to the text of Rev. xiii.18, in Prolegomena ad Novi testamenti graeci, Amsterdam 1730, 60. It had already vanished by the time Johann Michaelis wrote his Introduction to the New Testament 2.2 in 1793. Like Mill and Bengel, Constantin von Tischendorf lists Petavianus 2 as a witness to the 616 reading in Novum testamentum graece, i, Leipzig 1872, 983. In his list of witnesses to the 616 reading, Tischendorf also listed a lost manuscript allegedly used by Lorenzo Valla in his Adnotationes as a witness to the variant reading alongside Ephraemi rescriptus and Petavianus 2 (Novam testamentum graece ii. 983: ‘5. Χις’), but this seems to be a mistake: Valla's Adnotationes, published by Erasmus in 1505, does not include commentary on the variant number, nor did previous New Testament critics who used Valla as a textual witness (including Mill, Bengel and Wettstein) ever mention it.

4 Metzger, Bruce, A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, New York 1971, 749–50Google Scholar. Metzger interprets the number as a Hebrew gematric cypher for ‘Nero Caesar’ and explains the variance between 666 and 616 as an alteration from a Greek form of Nero's name in Hebrew (‘nrwn qsr’ = 666) to a Latin form (‘nrw qsr’ = 616). See in support L. J. Lietaert Peerbolte, The antecedents of AntiChrist, Leiden 1996, 151, and M. Robert Mulholland Jr, Revelation, in Cornerstone biblical commentary, xviii, ed. Philip Comfort, Carol Stream, Il 2011, 521. But cf. Robert Mounce, The book of Revelation, Grand Rapids, Mi 1977, 262, who asserts that the 616 variant is better understood as an attempt to identify the beast with the Roman emperor Caligula (‘Gaios Caesar’ = 616).

5 The reading given in ms Harleian 1772, fo. 146 breaks off at ‘sexce -’, which led the early twentieth-century biblical scholar Edgar Buchanan to postulate that the missing text read ‘sexce[nti sedecim]’: The epistles and apocalypse from the codex Harleianus, London 1912, fo. 146. Such a reconstruction is almost certainly unwarranted.

6 Cf. Houghton, H. A. G., The Latin New Testament, Oxford 2016, 183CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Armenian Jerusalem Codex 4, the sole witness to the 616 reading outside the Greek and Latin languages, was also influenced by the Latin tradition. According to Fredrick Conybeare the text contains a ‘large Old Latin element’ in its readings – the likely source of the variant number: The Armenian version of Revelation and Cyril's scholia on the incarnation and epistle on Easter, London 1907, 116–17.

7 Tyconius, Expositio apocalypseos 4.46, FOTC cxxxiv. 139 (‘Hic est sapientia! Qui habet intellectum computet numerum bestiae; numerus enim hominis est, et numerus eius est DCXVI. Faciamus ergo numerum quem dixit accipi, ut in numero inueniamus nomen uel notam. “Numerus” inquit “eius est DCXVI.” Quem faciamus secundum Graecos, maxime quia ad Aisam scribit: Ego, inquit, sum A et ω. Sexcenti ergo et sedecim sic fiunt: Χις. Quae notae solutae numerus est, redactae autem in monogramma et notam faciunt et nomen et numerum. Hoc signo, , Christus intellegitur et ipsius ostenditur similitudo, quem in ueritate colit ecclesia, et cui se similem facit aduersitas’: CCSL 107A.187; italic original).

8 See Roger Gryson, CCSL 107A, 310–11 n. 46. ‘C’ is a ‘lunate sigma’, an alternative form of Greek letter Σ widely used in late antiquity. When rendered at the end of a word in minuscule script, it becomes a final sigma (ς).

9 See Augustine, Contra epistulam Parmeniani 1.1.1.

10 Tyconius, Expositio Apocalypseos 1.41, FOTC xxxxiv. 56 (‘Sicut enim in Africa factum est, ita oportet in toto mundo reuelari antichristum et eodem modo ab ecclesia ubique superari, quo ab ea in parte superatus est ad ostendendum nouissimi certaminis modum’: CCSL 107A.126).

11 ‘rosa in spinis’: Bede, Epistola ad Eusebium de expositione Apocalypsis, CCSL cxxiA.223, 233; ‘pretiosa in stercore gemma’: Primasius of Hadrumetum, Commentarius in Apocalypsin, ‘Prologue’, CCSL 92.1–2.

12 Caesarius of Arles, Explanatio in Apocalypsin 11, trans. Weinrich, William, Latin commentaries on Revelation, Downers Grove, Il 2011, 88–9Google Scholar (‘Cui se similem facit haereticorum aduersitas, qui cum Christum spiritaliter persequantur, tamen de signo crucis Christi gloriari uidentur. Hoc ideo quia dictum est numerus bestiae numerus esse hominis’: CCSL cv.179).

13 Gryson, CCSL cvii.142–3.

14 De monogramma 65–8 (‘Sic est hic numerus: centum sexies, et decem sexies, et unum sexies, sive, ut in exemplari altero habet, sexcenti sedecim; et hoc senarium sonat numerum, tanquam in se et in suis vere esset plenitudo perfectionis’: CCSL cvii.152.)

15 See Gumerlock, Francis, Early Latin commentaries on the Apocalypse, Kalamazoo, Mi 2016, 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Martin McNamara, ‘Plan and source analysis of Das Bibelwerk, Old Testament’, in Irland und die Christenheit, ed. Pröinseas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter, Stuttgart 1966, 86.

16 Gryson, CCSL cviii108G.36. For an English translation of the Cambridge Gloss see McAllister, Colin, The Cambridge Gloss on the Apocalypse, Turnhout 2020CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 See McNamara, Martin, ‘The newly-identified Cambridge apocalypse commentary and the Reference Bible: a preliminary enquiry’, Peritia xv (2000), 220Google Scholar.

18 Beatus, Tractatus de Apocalipsin 6.4 (‘Numerus, inquid, eius est ACXY, quod sunt in numero DCLXVI, quem faciemus secundum Grecos ACXYMe, quia primitus ut eum recipiant ad Asiam scribit. AC ergo XY sic fiunt DCLXVI. Quae notae solutae numerus est, redactae autem in monogramma et notam faciunt et nomen et numerum hoc signo ☧’: CCSL cviiC.710).

19 Even with these two additions, Beatus’ gematric calculations require some massaging in order to achieve the desired result. If he is reading the Latin ‘C’ as a Greek ‘K’ and the X as an Σ, the gematric calculation A = 1, K = 20, Σ = 200, Υ = 400, Μ = 40, Ε = 5 can be derived, which successfully adds up to 666 in standard Greek isopsephy.

20 ‘Beatus l'atteste indirectement sous la forme ACXY, qui est un déformation de DCXVI (là où chiffres et lettres ne sont pas clairement distingués, le d oncial peut être facilement confondu avec un a oncial, et la ligature VI prise pour un Y’: Gryson, CCSL cviiA.310 n. 75.

21 Most notably Bede, Expositio Apocalypseos (710); Ambrose Autpert, Expositio in Apocalypsin (c. 760), the author of the Explanatio Apocalypsis per interogationem et responsionem (Alcuin?), Theodulf of Orleans, Expositio in Apocalypsin (810) and Haimo of Auxerre, Expositionis in Apocalypsin Beati Iohannis libri septem (c. 840). See Matter, E. Ann, ‘Latin reception of the Apocalypse in the early Middle Ages’, in McAllister, Colin (ed.), The Cambridge companion to apocalyptic literature, Cambridge 2020, 123–5Google Scholar, and Gumerlock, Francis, Carolingian commentaries on the Apocalypse by Theodulf and Smaragdus, Kalamazoo, Mi 2019, 23 n. 32Google Scholar.

22 The edition is called ‘St Gall’ after the location of one of the two manuscripts known to contain it: St Gall Stiftsbibliothek 133 located in the Abbey Library of St Gall, Switzerland. The other witness to the text is Vittorio Emanuele ii 1325, held at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele ii, Rome.

23 Liber genealogus (St Gall), 628 (‘ad consolatum Hieri et Ardabu’: MGH, AA ix.196).

24 For general discussion of the Liber genealogus see Inglebert, Hervé, Les Romains chrétiens face à l'histoire de Rome, Paris 1996, 599–604Google Scholar; Rouse, Richard and McNelis, Charles, ‘North African literary activity: a Cyprian fragment, the stichometric lists and a Donatist compendium’, Revue d'histoire des textes xxx (2000), 212, 219–24Google Scholar; and Hoover, Jesse, The Donatist Church in an apocalyptic age, Oxford 2018, 197–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Liber genealogus (St Gall), 38, citing Rev. xiv.9–10 (‘quem nunc si quis acciperit in fronte sua aut in manu dextera, bibet et ipse de uino irae Dei mixto in poculo irae eius et punietur in conspectu sanctorum angelorum eius’: MGH, AA ix.162–3).

26 Liber genealogus (St Gall) 614 (‘A passione enim domini usque ad apostulorum Petri et Pauli anni sunt XXVIII: passio Nerone et Pisone consolibus. Persecutio enim prima haec fuit Neronis, quae iterum futura est sub Enoch et Helia. Hic Nero ipse est, cuius nomen Iohannis in apocalypsi uocauit DCXVI. Hic sapientia uertitur, ut computetur per eras nomen illius, quae dicitur Antichristus: I, XIII, XVIIII, VIIII, III, XVII, VIII, VIIII, XVIII, XVIIII, XX, XVIII, ut numerus collectus assis CLIIII; hoc quater facit assis DCXVI, qui est nomen Antichristus’: MGH, AA ix. 194).

27 The St Gall editor's calculation is hampered by minor instances of textual corruption: the number for the initial ‘A’ is missing, the value for the letter ‘I’ reads ‘VIII’ instead of the correct ‘VIIII’, the numbers for ‘H’ and ‘R’ have been switched, and the second-to-last ‘S’ reads ‘XVIIII’ instead ‘XVIII’. Nevertheless, the basic intention is clear, and the value of the missing or corrupt numbers can be supplied from the Florence recension of the text.

28 Cf. Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.28 and (quoting Martin of Tours) Dialogi 1.42; Commodianus, Instructiones 41; and Augustine, De civitate Dei 20.19.3.

29 These manuscripts are Plutei 20.54 and S. Maria Novella 663, both held at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. Several other copies have since been found in Cesena (Cesena Malatestiana D.XXIV.1) and León (Escorial b-I-9).

30 Liber genealogus (Florence), 615 (‘secundum litteras IIII nomen Neronis’: MGH, AA ix.194).

31 Liber genealogus (Florence), 616 (‘Sed haec ad certum computationis numerum discrepare uidetur, iuxta quod alii doctores de numerum bestiae tractaverunt. Sic enim ait sanctus Victorinus episcopus: numerus eius, ait spiritus sanctus, nomen hominis est, et numerus nominis eius, DCLXVI, id est, Antichristus’: MGH, AA ix.194–5).

32 Liber genealogus (Florence), 619 (‘Ideo ista de egregii Victorini episcopi uel aliorum dicta subiunximus, quia suprascriptum computum collecta summa ex nomine Neronis ad numerum bestiae non conueniebat’: MGH, AA ix.195).

33 Liber genealogus (Florence), 620 (‘Ipse autem Antichristus, ut in secretis legitur de tribu Dan filii Iacob patriarche, ueniet in spiritu Neronis, et Saar dicitur ciuitas in occidente, ubi adhuc tenetur inclusus’: MGH, AA ix.195). The identity of Saar is unknown, though it may be connected with ‘Sor’, an ancient name for Tyre, and, by extension, Carthage: cf. Optatus, Contra Parmenianum Donatistam, 3.3.

34 It can be ascertained that the Lucca editor is aware of the Florence recension because while he does not include the passages which speculate about the number 666, he does retain the Florence editor's statement that AntiChrist will come ‘in the spirit of Nero’ from a city in the west, a passage not present in the St Gall recension.

35 On the graphical representations in Visigothic Bibles see Yolanta Zaluska, ‘Les Feuillets liminaires’, in El ‘Beato’ de Sain-Sever, ed. Xavier Barrali Altet and others, Madrid 1984, 241–2. For the Intextuimus see Gorman, Michael, ‘The Visigothic commentary on Genesis in Autun 27 (S. 29)’, Recherches augustiniennes xxx (1997), 206Google Scholar. The ‘unknown source’ he lists for fos 38–40 is in fact the Liber genealogus.

36 As mentioned above, however, given the text's otherwise solidly Vulgate reading, the variant number has likely been supplied via interaction with a Latin exegetical tradition ultimately dependent on Tyconius.

37 See Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 199.

38 On the Donatist provenance of these five tituli see ibid. 20; Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, ‘Les Particularités éditoriales des Bibles comme exégèse implicite ou proposée: les sommaires ou capitula donatistes’, in Lectures bibliques, Brussels 1982, 7–21; Bruyne, Donatien De, ‘Cassiodore et l'Amiatinus’, Revue bénédictine xxxix (1927), 265Google Scholar; and Chapman, H. J., ‘The Codex Amiatinus and Cassiodorus’, Revue bénédictine xxxix (1927), 16–17Google Scholar.

39 Bogaert, ‘Les Particularités éditoriales’, 9–11.

40 It is important to remember that biblical codices in late antiquity did not usually contain all the books of the Bible bound together in a single volume. The author of the capitula for the major prophets was likely working with the text of the major prophets alone.

41 This is Series A in the Benedictine Vulgate. Form a is the original Donatist text, while form b is the derivative. For the Daniel manuscripts see Benedictine Vulgate 16, 19–20. Series A is also used in 15 of the 17 surviving capitula for Isaiah (Benedictine Vulgate 13, 10), 22 of 24 for Jeremiah (Benedictine Vulgate 14, 11), and 26 of 29 for Ezekiel (Benedictine Vulgate 15, 9 –10).

42 The derivative text (Series Ab), found in four manuscripts, is primarily associated with Codex Amiatinus. Relevant examples of Amiatinus’ ‘corrections’ include the deletion of Jeremiah cap. 7, Series Aa (‘De aqua aliena, hoc est falso baptismo’) or the alteration of Jeremiah cap. 8, Series Aa (‘Non prodesse baptisma hereticorum’) to ‘Non prodesse baptisma hereticorum extra ecclesiam’ (Series Ab).

43 Rev. xiii.2 (NRSV).

44 Daniel cap. 16, Series Aa (Benedictine Vulgate 16, 23).

45 Cf. Benedictine Vulgate 16, 23. The revised manuscripts either change the number to ‘four kings’ or ‘54 kings’.

46 Cf. Benedictine Vulgate 16, 23. The other three manuscripts either modify the number to ‘four kings’ or delete it altogether.

47 For text-types C and K see Gryson, CCSL cviiA, 83–4, and Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 181–2. Both can be found in Vetus Latina: die Reste der Altlateinischen Bibel 26.2: Apocalypsis Johannis, ed. Roger Gryson, Freiburg 2000, 7.511. Text-type C is primarily associated with the Old Latin text used in Primasius of Hadrumetum's Commentarius in Apocalypsin. Primasius’ text reads 666, but Gryson cautions that his lemmata are sometimes influenced by Vulgate readings: CCSL cviiA, 84.

48 See St Irenaeus of Lyons against the heresies, book I, in Ancient Christian Writers, lv, trans. Dominic Unger and John Dillon, New York 1992, 14–15.

49 Jerome, De viris illustribus, 74.

50 See Dulaey, Martine, Victorin de Poetovio, premier exégète latin, i, Paris 1993, 24Google Scholar, and Houghton, Latin New Testament, 182.

51 See Karl Shuve, ‘Origen and the Tractatus de Epithalamio of Gregory of Elvira’, Studia Patristica l (2011), 199–201.

52 Notice, for instance, the differences between the Liber regularum and the Expositio apocalypseos in Tyconius’ citations of Rev. xvii.4 (‘Purpura cocco et auro et argento lapidusque pretiosis … habens poculum aureum in manu plenum execrationum et immunditiarum totius terrae’: Liber regularum 7.14.2; ‘Purpura et cocco et adornata auro et lapide pretioso et margaritis, habens calicem aureum in manu sua, plenum exsecrationum et immunditiarum fornicationis eius’: Expositio apocalypseos. 6.4) and Rev. xxi.19 (‘Omnem lapidem optimum’: Liber regularum 7.14.2; ‘Omni lapide pretioso’: Expositio apocalypseos 7.41).

53 Gryson notes that traces of text-type S are found in Ambrosiaster, interpolated sections of Cyprian's Testimonia ad Quirinum, the Mozarabic liturgies, some parts of the biblical text preserved in the ninth-century Book of Armagh and the marginalia of a single manuscript of Bede's Apocalypse commentary found in Durham Cathedral Library (CCSL cviiA.86).

54 Some notable examples of affinities toward the C and K text-types include the use of the word ‘punietur’ instead of ‘cruciabitur’ in Rev. xiv.10 in Liber genealogus 4.8; ‘laedere’ for ‘nocere’ in Rev. ix.10 in Tyconius, Liber regularum 5.6.1; ‘testor’ for ‘contestor’ in the anonymous Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae 10, ed. A.-G. Hamman, Patrologia Latina Supplementum, Paris 1969, i.178; and ‘mittentes’ for ‘mittent’ in Rev. iv.10 in a Donatist stichometric list known as the Indiculum: Mommsen, ‘Zur Lateinischen Stichometrie’, Hermes xxi (1886), 145–6.

55 ‘Quicumque adiecerit ad librum istum apicem unum aut litteram unam, adiiciat illi Deus innumerabiles plagas; et quicumque deleverit, deleat partem eius Dominus de libro vitae’: Acta Saturnini 21 (Maier, Le Dossier du Donatisme 1.88). The Vulgate reads: ‘Si quis adposuerit ad haec adponet Deus super illum plagas scriptas in libro isto et si quis deminuerit de verbis libri prophetiae huius auferet Deus partem eius de ligno vitae.’

56 Eutropius, De similitudine carnis peccati 84; Agobardius, Adversum dogma Felicis 34.

57 Caesarius, Explanatio in Apocalypsin, homily 15 (‘angelus’); Chromatius, Tractatus in Mathaeum 18.3.2; Ps-Augustine, ‘De genesi in Vigilia Paschae’; Beatus, Tractatus de Apocalipsin prol. lib. sec. 89.1 (‘nationes’).

58 This author is aware of only one case of overlap: both Liber genealogus 32 and Tyconius, Liber regularum 4.17 cite a portion of Rev. xi.8.

59 The set of sixty Donatist sermons is known as the Vienna corpus. Its dissident origin was first noticed by Leroy, François, ‘Vingt-deux Homélies africaines nouvelles attribuables à l'un des anonymes du Chrysostome Latin (PLS 4) [Vienne O.N.B. Ms. Lat. 4147]’, Revue bénédictine civ (1994), 123–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recent discussions of the collection include Leslie Dossey, Peasant and empire, Berkeley, Ca 2010, 162–7; Shaw, Brent, Sacred violence, Cambridge 2011, 419–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Alden Bass, ‘Fifth-century Donatist catechesis: an introduction to the Vienna sermon collection ÖNB M.LAT. 4147’, unpubl. PhD diss. Saint Louis, Mo 2014. The preaching handbook, which consists of a collection of eleven diverse texts including the Liber genealogus, Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae and several onomastic lists, was first identified as a unified whole in Rouse and McNelis, ‘North African literary activity’, 189–238.

60 Note, for instance, Maureen Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa, Minneapolis, Mn 1997; Rouse and McNelis, ‘North African literary activity’, 212–17; and Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 20–2.