The Beast in the Mirror
A journey to find the Antichrist
by
Theodore Three Bears
I have always believed in God, but I cannot say that in my past I was overly religious. I could attribute the passion I started to have to read the bible to my middle age crisis, but this would not be entirely true. The passion I see now is but the growth of a seed planted deep within my heart by the will of my GOD, who I call Yahovah. I started to see through fresh eyes the words of the Hebrew and Christian bible, and my love of knowing the will of my GOD through the words of HIS only begotten son Yeshua (Jesus) has taken me to places that years ago I would never have thought possible.
I thought about why if Christianity was the most popular religion in the world, claiming more adherents than any other religion, Christianity was now falling apart. Trying to find the answer, I discovered two Christ’s and two gospels. One for the actual disciples Jesus taught and the other for the gentile converts of Paul. Over time I came to understand that Paul was not a disciple of Jesus, for the teachings of Paul directly contradicted both Jesus and the laws of the GOD who Jesus told us to worship. In time, I made peace with myself, and rejected most of Paul’s teachings. Nevertheless as the events of the world started to unfold out of the pages of the bible and on to the television screens of 24-hour cable news, I was at a loss for an answer. I had to turn to the book the Apostle John wrote with his own hand, Revelation, because what I was witnessing was the end of the millennial rule of Christ. Revelation or as it was titled in Greek Ἀποκάλυψις, which means to uncover, was written in a style of Greek that is of a dialect neither pure attic or of a singular koine, this book has perplexed scholars and haunted the faithful. Now everything from about the war I was watching was pointing to what Ezekiel 2,500 years earlier wrote about the coming of the day of the LORD. Yet, nowhere can I find Daniel and the events of the beasts of chapter 13 of Revelation in what I am seeing now.
The Normal Possibilities
I only see a few options, either John was not inspired because he is making prophesies out of order, or even with the picture of the antichrist in the collective minds of almost 2,000 years of Christianity has failed to see this person and these event unfolded unnoticed before our eyes. Obviously if the sequence of events John prophesied about were to happen than all would see the rise of the beast with two horns, the gathering at Armageddon, the release of Satan, and then the gathering of the forces of Gog and Magod.
I looked at current events with an eye to finding the beast by finding his kingdom, thinking that finding his kingdom would narrow my search. As I looked at chapter 13 of Revelation, I could see what John was describing. John describes a theocracy, a government large enough to make it a global government in which the church makes the rules for the state to enforce. It is a kingdom where men rule the thoughts a person can have about GOD. It is a place where a church becomes the only place in which you can access GOD through. It is a place where one must receive the blessings of the church to live in. John said that a mark all would be required to have. It is a kingdom where all the transactions of normal life need the approval of the church. It is a place where there is both the functions of the church and of the state, but it is a place without separation. In this place, the church dictates to the state and the state executes, for the state receives its authority from the church. This kingdom persecutes those who do not give allegiance to the god that it creates. While there are other things that just did not make sense, a lamb with horns, and talking statues that come to life, I thought I had a good description of the place to look for in hopes of finding this man with horns like a lamb, or the little horn as Daniel called him.
I could only see two possibilities, the United Nations and the Islamic world. The UN seemed to be a good target as the possible nest of vipers that would be unleashed upon the world. It does have global aspirations, there is talk of a unified religion, which incorporates respect for all the worlds’ religions, and it seemed like a good place to start. The problem becomes how the UN takes overt control of all national governments. Here the Islamists seemed to be those who were likely to oppose a unified religion. For them it is Islam or nothing, and they are prepared to fight to the death over this, Americans I do not think will go into this coalition without a second civil war, it does not appear likely that the people of the world will gladly accept the UN as their new nation. Even countries like Russia and China only use the UN, they would never give their sovereignty to anyone but themselves, for the problem with dictatorships in a collation is that a dictatorship can never surrender its power. No, there is no easy way for the UN to take over the world. But, what if there was a natural catastrophe such as an asteroid striking or a volcano exploding in the middle of the ocean wiping out a third of the people as John describes in his visions of the seals and such. Ok, possible, but where does this happen I need to ask myself. Would it be in the Atlantic? This would surely destroy the UN headquarters in New York City, and the UN would need rescuing. Then what if it was in the Indian Ocean this happened in. America would be unaffected and remain strong, difficult for the UN to use an Indian Ocean event to take over the world. This leave the Pacific Ocean, clearly the loss of life from a tsunami a thousand feet high would destroy allot, both the Americas and Asia would suffer greatly. In America as in many places, the governments would not be able to control such as massive failure of its infrastructure as the people scrambled for help, leaving the people would be left to fend for themselves. If this happens making a takeover by the UN dependent in stopping a global guerilla war without the ability to defeat a central power in a decisive battle, a war that will take decades to win, for all that would be left intact would be Europe and parts of Africa. Europe has no standing army large enough to take on this task, and Africa is full of conflict that no government would risk sending troops around the world to implement worldwide control. The problem with the UN is that it simply cannot even take care of the little it does control. In light of this fact, the world is on the brink of Ezekiel’s war of Gog and Magog, it seems unlikely, that the events of chapter 13 will unfold rapidly enough to prove that it is the UN which humanity must beware of.
Moving on to the Muslims they also seemed to fit the description of the kingdom of the beast John was describing. Many Islamic countries are theocracies where the mullahs run the government. It is a place where deviation from the norm is punished swiftly and severely. Muslims like Jews have a mark indicating their religion, but it is not on their hands or forehead, it is on their penises. Both Muslims and Jews practice circumcision as Abraham was told to make on himself and all the males of his clan. Surely, circumcision cannot be the mark of the beast, if it is, than Yeshua and John both belong to the beast for both were circumcised. Revelations is a little sketchy on the details of the beast from the earth, so I look at Daniel to find hints of this person. Here seems like a good place to start, and try to fill in Daniel’s prophesies. I was looking to find an Islamic leader who would fit Daniel’s description. Yet, to make Daniel fit I found myself jumping through history to find very loose connections. The fact is every time I pulled on these strings, it simply unraveled. It took me back to the time of the crusades, and there I discovered a dark side of Christianity, I found that there was no Christ in Christianity. While I do not believe in the god of Muslims, I do not believe that they can rise to be the power that gives birth to the beast with two horns. If the Muslims were to try to take control of the world, it will bring about a nuclear war. India cannot be forgotten which sits on the underbelly of Eurasian Islam. They are a nuclear power, as is Israel. Eventually any move by the Muslims will be challenged decisively resulting in not only their destruction, but that of humanity as well.
An Alternative Few Will Contemplate
I found myself faced with the thought that none of this can ever make sense. I asked my GOD for understanding to do whatever my GOD wanted of me. I knew that my GOD wanted me to understand Revelations. I believe it was the Holy Spirit who touched me. She said to my soul that I needed to stop thinking as myself, in my times, and to think of how John saw things in his time. It seemed like good advice. Who was John? His true name was not John, but is Yochanon יוחנן and he was born a Jew, circumcised on his eighth day, and he was an actual disciple of Yeshua. He witnessed the whole mission of Yeshua. I had to ask myself was John one of the first Christians, or was he a Jew who believed that Yeshua was the promised Messiah and the only begotten son of GOD.
Even before I started to do this, when I looked at the very early times of the church, it was easy for me to see a conflict. There are those who are Jewish and those who are gentiles. The Jews who believed in Yeshua continued to focus their devotion on Yahweh, while the gentiles turned Yeshua into a god, a god in equality to the One that Yeshua called his GOD, Yahweh. As I searched for places in the bible where Yeshua declares himself GOD I come up very short. In places where it looks like he is saying so, the context of what he is saying proves he is speaking of something else. What strikes me as odd is that in John’s first and second epistle he tells us who is an antichrist. One denies either that Yeshua came in the flesh or that he is not the son of GOD. What is strangely missing is a warning about those who deny the divinity of Yeshua. If a person believes that Yeshua came in the flesh and is the son of GOD, but does not believe that Yeshua is GOD, this person is not an antichrist, for this person has passed the only two tests John gives for such a person. In my studies I keep returning to the warning Yeshua gave about someone who would come after him, someone the world would believe in more than Yeshua, and now I have this strange feeling that it is Christianity that I need to be looking at.
Taking the template of the kingdom of the beast I could clearly see that since the beginning of the fourth century until the time of Napoleon that Christendom was a theocracy with the will of the church being enforced at the point of the sword of the state. Honestly, who can deny this? In the name of Christ Jesus, countless millions perished to religious feuds, wars of conquest for wealth and power blessed by the church, inquisitions that sought to stamp out the freedom to know GOD, witch trials in the name of GOD by those both ignorant of GOD and controlling of women, and the millenniums of overall subjugation of the human spirit in the name of GOD. Christendom is a place where the kings enforce the edicts of the bishops. I could not deny that the Christendom fit the place that the beast would create.
Many things needed clarification before I could accept this; after all, I am supposed to be on the good side of this spiritual fight. I needed absolute proof, not loose connections that unraveled when pulled. There were some things that I needed to understand, and finding only conjecture and fantasy being sold by Christians, I became determined to look at this from a Jewish perspective, and what I would find would make my blood run cold. If Christianity needed to be examined as a candidate for the kingdom of the beast, the time to search for him would be the time the church had the ability to control government. This brought me to the early fourth century and the rule of Constantine the Great.
The Prophets of Old
In Revelation John does not write much about how the beast from the earth takes control, as it appears John is more concerned with the aftermath. In what is called the Old Testament are three prophets who give clues of this person identity and the demonic controlling force. There is a danger here, because everything the prophets are speaking of are not directly related to him, but to other evil men who will follow in his authority. Isaiah and Ezekiel paint the best picture of this man and his controller in vivid detail from a supernatural-historical perspective, Daniel gives the details to the rise of this person.
Because Constantine is such a revered figure in Christianity, for Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant, it would be best to start with Daniel before going to Revelation. It seemed logical because Revelation has many possibilities if it is viewed as a future event, yet Daniel is giving me historical clues that I should be able to verify. After all there is no sense accusing someone if they have an airtight alibi.
Many believe that some of Daniel’s prophesies speak of a few men of history, such as Alexander the Great of Macedonia and King Herod of Judea. Daniel says that the man were are looking for would,
- Come from the chimera like beast with the ten horns, some believe a more specific location is from the area once under the control of Alexander the Great.
- He would come from an obscure past.
- Intrigue would be used in his rise to power.
- He would uproot three horns or kings in his rise to power.
- He would change the times and the laws appointed by GOD.
- He would set himself to be as a god and speak boastful things.
- He would make a peace treaty, to establish the continual sacrifice, for 7 years and break it in the middle to war against the saints.
- He would not honor the gods of his fathers, and he would honor his new god with gold and precious stones.
There were some things I knew would be difficult to find such as boasting words this person would have said. There were no video cameras then to record every word said, and even scribes would need to be careful of what went into history. Still these eight points should be found somewhere in the annals of history. If the prophets of old started to point to Constantine than following John should be easier.
Constantine the man, Constantine the little horn.
Rome is a composite beast in that it is made up of other nations or beasts. This is why I call it the chimera, and it is a name I borrowed from mythology and not from nature. As a composite beast, I am looking now at transitions. Assyria had a lion with wings as one of its emblems, Babylon also could be considered the lion with eagles’ wings, and archeological records show multiple stone carvings and statues depicting this creature in both kingdoms. The bear is identified as Media-Persia, and the ribs found in its mouth can be likened to Babylon, Egypt and Lydia. The leopard is traditionally identified with Greece, because to the speed a leopard has matches Alexander’s conquests all took place are remarkable speeds.
Alexander never went more westward than the Aegean Sea, but his eastward conquests included all the lands of the lion and bear. When Rome came into prominence it brought improved iron weapons into war much more than any other nation, thus we see it with Iron teeth, making the conquest of the lion, leopard and bear easy. The ten horns easily could be attributed to the political divisions the Romans used to administer the empire both before and after Rome took over the lands of the lion, bear and leopard. These divisions were called Senatorial Provinces and were ten in number. In 14 A.D. during the time Yeshua was alive, these ten provinces are Achaea, Africa, Asia, Crete-Cyrene, Cyprus, Gallia Narbonensis, Hispania Baetica, Macedonia-Thessalia, Pontus-Bithynia, and Sicilia.
Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus was born in 27 February 272 A.D. in the town of Naissus in the Macedonia province, which is today the town of Nis in southern Serbia. This verifies Daniel’s account that he would arise from the ten horns, but also specifically from the land of Javan. Although I believe that the Javan prophesy is meant for Alexander, I have enclosed it because many Christians believe this to be true.
Constantine’s father Flavius Valerius Constantius, also known as Constantius Chlorus because of his pale complexion, is a relative unknown before he became Emperor. Very little is known of him, he was a soldier who worked his way through the ranks and was appointed governor of two provinces before being appointed into Diocletian’s tetrarcy. During this period of time in Roman history it was not unheard of that a unknown soldier through bravery and loyalty could rise to become emperor. Yet, there is nothing remarkable about Constantius Chlorus’ genealogy to give him historical prominence. Further staining Constantine lineage is his mother Helena who was definitely the concubine of Constantius Chlorus but may not have been his wife. She was cast aside when Constantius Chlorus took Theodora the step-daughter of Maximian his co-emperor in 293. This confirms Daniel’s prophesy about an obscure past.
After the death of his father, the men of Constantius Chlorus were said to have unanimously elected Constantine I emperor of Britannia. Constantine at the time was not under the patronage of his father, rather he served the Emperor Galerius. In reporting the death of his father, Constantine off handedly tells Galerius that the title emperor was forced upon him. Galerius was furious and ordered the letter, portrait of Constantine and the messenger burned. However, his advisors convinced Galerius to recognize Constantine’s claim, and Galerius sent Constantine the purple robe of the emperors. Again, Daniel is confirmed that the man he warns about will use guile and deceit.
Constantine I was also not above marriages of connivance, and he would closely follow in his father’s steps and would take Maximian’s daughter Fausta as his wife. When Diocletian formed the tetrarchy this insured that Rome no longer depended on one man for leadership as it did under the old imperial rule, but it did create strife at the highest levels of roman politics. Marrying his daughter to Constantine I was Maximian’s attempt to strengthen his rule and the future the rule of his son Maxentius. Maximian knew not everyone of his friends would support his son, and using Fausta to shore his family’s political base was a shrewd move by Maximian. If Maximian only stopped there, but he returned from Constantine and turned on his own son and was forced to flee Rome and return to Constantine. There because of instability, a military council was called and Diocletian came out of retirement. In the end, the council deposed Maximiam and he was exiled to Arles where he announced that Constantine was dead. He tried to bribe the soldiers Constantine sent as a bodyguard, but was not successful. Alone Maximiam started to plot to kill Constantine. He made one fatal error, he tried to involve Constantine’s wife, his daughter Fausta in the plot. Fausta alerted Constantine to her father’s plans, and Constantine acted quickly. While pretending to forgive Maximian, Constantine had him commit suicide, and in 310 Maximian hanged himself. Maximiam was the first horn to be uprooted.
In a shrewd move on his own accord, Maximiam’s son, Maxentius quickly forgot the fact that Maximiam tried to dispose of him. He assumed the role of the vengeful son. As a rebel, he knew he would have no support from the powers of the Roman Empire, but as the son seeking to regain the honor of his father they would be forced to accept that Maxentius’ act was an honorable one. Without the support of the family Maximiam, Constantine knew he would need to justify his position and started his own rewriting of history, and developing a new lineage for his family. He had this proclaimed throughout the lands that he controlled. In rejecting the need of the support, he received from both Galerius and Maximiam, Constantine I supported a new myth. Based on the writings of the poet Virgil, Constantine had himself seen as the promised savior of Rome who would be given ruler ship of the whole world. The telling of is myth was uncannily similar to the one he would use later. Constantine experienced a divine vision of Apollo and Victory granting him laurel-wreaths of health and a long reign. In the likeness of Apollo Constantine recognized himself as this saving figure. This is proven by the coins Constantine had issued during this time that depict him standing on the side of Sol Invictus who is also known as Apollo. In the recorded word that can be directly attributed to the mouth of Constantine to prove he was speaking boastfully, it is difficult to prove. But, I am from the old school where actions spoke louder than words. In issuing this coin, Constantine is making himself not only equal to a god, but also predominant as Constantine’s profile appears in the foreground.
Constantine and Sol Invictus 313 A.D.
As a final act before retiring, Galerius ended the persecutions of Christians 3 years before Constantine, but Maxentius continued the practice. Maxentius declared war on Constantine for control of the western empire and Constantine sought to form an alliance with the emperor of the eastern provinces, Licinius. Constantine in an effort to strengthen his position sought an alliance and arraigned for his sister Constantia to marry Licinius in 312. Constantine met his brother-in-law Maxentius in 312 on the Milivan bridge in Rome. On that day Maxentius was thrown from the bridge and under the weight of his armor drowned. Using the vision he said he experienced in 310, he modified it so slightly as to make Sol Invictus and Yeshua appear the same, depending upon one’s religious bias. With the death of Maxentius, Constantine became the undisputed emperor of the western empire. Following in his father’s place in prophesy Maxentius became the second horn to fall to little horn.
After Constantine defeated Maxentius, he and Licinius jointly issued the edict of Milan that gave religious freedom to all within the Roman Empire. What followed was an uneasy peace with Licinius who assumed total control of the east. Within a few years their relationship started to deteriorate, so when in 320 Licinius started persecutions a new, Constantine seen this as a legitimate reason to attack Licinius. For the next four years they fought several battles, culminating with the final and decisive battle of Chrysopolis. Constantine’s sister Constantia pleaded with her brother to spare the life of her husband, and Licinius was sent into exile. The following year Constantine had Licinius killed on the pretext that Licinius was conspiring to raise troops among the barbarians. With the death of Licinius, Constantine became the sole undisputed ruler of the whole Roman empire, replacing the tetrarchy with the original form of imperial rule of a single emperor. In 324 GOD’s word to Daniel was proven true, one obscure figure through intrigue rose in prominence to defeat three kings. The 11 kings of Daniel's the little horn are the Roman Tetrarchy of 11 kings (Augustuses and Caesars .) Yes. 11 kings, the little horn (1) and the 10 horns he grows up with, and Constantine did grow up with them. As the son of one of the first tetrarchs, Constantine was a hostage in the court of Diocletian in the east while his own father was Cesar in the west.
It was Constantine who enacted the law that made Sunday the official day of rest, he did this in honor of his God Sol Invictus, as can be seen in the decree he issued. "On the venerable day of the Sun let the Magistrates and the people residing in the cities rest, and let all workshops be closed," Edict of Constantine 321. While many wish to say that the early Apostles changed this and Constantine was in fact honoring Yeshua, only Paul worships on what he calls the Lord’s Day, while the disciples who knew Yeshua maintained the Sabbath, this is born out in the book of the Acts of the Apostles. The Sabbath, for the true disciples of Yeshua, is the only legitimate day of rest and it has never been changed, by GOD, Yeshua or the disciples Yeshua taught.
The law Constantine changed was the law of GOD, for GOD calls the Sabbath our day of rest. How he changes the seasons is to understand that in the Jewish Calendar, seasons are not marked by their month, or by a solar solstice or equinox, but by the holiday it falls in that time. Passover, was not just a holiday or holy day, it marked a season for the Jews. The first Council of Nicea changed Passover from the Jewish lunar calendar to that of the Spring Equinox, this had the result of making what Christians call both Passover and Easter, never to align with the Passover of the Jews. Constantine used his authority as both Emperor and supreme Roman high priest to enact this into Roman law.
Not long after the persecutions of Diocletian ended, the Church was in a very fragile state. Those who kept the word of Yeshua choose death, but many including a number of priests and bishops became what history would call traditors, the word we get traitor from. They gave up sacred scripture, and worse betrayed fellow Christians to the authorities.
There was a group of elect in Carthage who believed that those who became traditors forfeited their right to administer the sacrifice of the daily mass, in fact many believed that an ordinary Christian who betrayed their faith was no longer acceptable in the community of believers. These people, who history would call Donatists, believed that the hands of the traditor priest were soiled and unfit to administer the daily sacrifice. The daily or continual sacrifice is what Roman Catholics call Holy Communion, and is performed to commemorate the sacrifice of Yeshua.
The church of Carthage refused to reseat these people or to accept anyone who was ordained by the traditors. Carthage became the center for those who seen in Yeshua absolutes, and the bishop elect of Carthage, was selected by the former bishop, who himself was believed to traditor and a known sympathizer of Roman rule, and could not be seated as bishop. Caecilianus was the selected the bishop of the traditors, and was ordained in secret. Nevertheless, he could not be seated as the overall bishop of Carthage, because the majority of Carthage supported the Donatists puritanical view, and who were firmly against even accepting traditors back into the church, let alone as the elect. Caecilianus and his traitorous clan went to Constantine in 310 to complain about this issue. They appealed to Constantine to intervene on the grounds that the Donatists were creating a danger to the public law and order. I thought about the letter Caecilianus must have sent Constantine, and I wondered if Caecilianus ever used Romans 13 in his letter.
Without hearing the Donatists side, Constantine sided with the traditors. This was Constantine’s astute political shrewdness. If Constantine sided with the Donatists on the side of truth, there would be no profit for him in this. What could make the Donatists grateful that Constantine upheld the truth, after all he supposed to do this? Constantine had to see no profit in supporting either the Donatist or the truth. However, he had to see both the need to defend Roman rule and the political profit in giving authority to someone with skeletons in his closet. While the Donatists stood in GOD’s good truth, they could not be controlled. The traditors on the other hand needed Constantine’s support and protection, because they did not have the support of the truth. Constantine must have realized that he could easily bribe or coerce these people, something he could never do with the Donatists.
This is significant to Daniel, because of the growing problems in Carthage, Constantine was forced to addresses this issue again in 314 A.D. when he convened the religious Council of Arles. At Arles the traditors were not punished as was hoped by the Donatists, but Constantine did agree that any bishop or priest who was proved a traditor would be removed from office. By the middle of 317 A.D., no traditors were brought to justice, which seems to have irritated the Donatists. History does not tell us exactly what triggered Constantine’s rage, but within 3 ½ years of Arles Constantine set out to destroy the Donatists, but could not defeat them and by 321 A.D. seven years after the agreement of Council of Arles, Constantine had ended his war on the Donatists. This seems to tie in Daniel’s vision that the beast would make a seven-year peace treaty, and renege in the middle of it.
It can never be known with complete certainty the religion of Constantius Chlorus. Between Constantine I own desire to change his families heritage and early Christian scribes had erased all memory of him except for what they wanted to portray. However, as a military commander and emperor he would have been expected to participate in all special religious ceremonies for the various gods and goddess of the Empire, and he would also have been expected to make sacrifices to the emperor he served under. Many think Constantius Chlorus was a monotheistic worshipper of Sol Invictius, others say he was a closet Christian. Constantine I on the other hand approved the Trinity in 327 A.D. There never was a three-headed god in all the gods the Romans incorporated into their religion from the lands they conquered, and this was a first for Rome. The new Trinity was never the god of his fathers, and Constantine I showered his new religion and god with gold and precious stones that today are priceless, which also fulfills Daniel.
Eight out of eight points of Daniel’s prophesy matches exactly to Constantine I. While writing this I came to realize that a major prophesy of John was fulfilled at the same time. The prophesy of the seven heads.
Revelation 13:3 “And I saw one of its heads as slain to death, and its deadly stroke was healed, and all the earth did wonder after the beast,”
While I know historians can further divide this down further, by dynasties, the time of the good emperors, they would agree that from a general point of view the follow division of the Roman Empire could be seen in the following stages.
- The time of founding by Romulus and Remis.
- The time of the elected kings of the tribes of Rome.
- The time of the republic and the Senate.
- The time of the triumvirates of Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus and Marc Anthony, Octavian Augustus, and Lepidus.
- The time of the stable dynasties. During this period the inheritable title of emperor was unquestionable.
- The time of crisis when emperors were constantly at war against rivals, and any claimed right of inheritance was dependent upon the heirs ability to defend it.
- The time of the tetrarchy.
Diocletian formed what became known as the tetrarchy or four rulers, because Rome was already being ripped in half, being destroyed from within by the civil wars her generals fought to be emperor. This time of civil wars is known as the time of crisis. By officially splitting Rome into the eastern and western half, Diocletian insured that there would always be a protector of Rome to protect her borders, the east and west would support each other. In each half Diocleation further split the supreme office of Emperor into a Caesar and an Augustus to insure that no one man could wield total power over his half and in doing this Diocletian hoped to end the civil wars. He instituted the tetrarchy at the expense of the dynastic empire started under Caesar Augustus. In fact after Nero, it appeared the dynastic empire that started with the blood-line of Julius Caesar, and the unquestionable, inheritable right as a Caesar, to name your title died. Consolidating power in first in eastern capital of Roma and then the west at Nova Roma, Constantine revived the fifth head in 313 A.D. In terms of time, the seventh head only lasted a very short time, twenty years from 293 A.D. to 313 A.D.
Fire from Heaven
One of the several prophesies of John’s I knew that had to be directly associated to Constantine, if the rest could be believed. One is that he could make fire come from heaven. From the simple description John gave I had difficulty understanding is how this beast would make fire come down from heaven. It appeared obvious to me that anyone who could make fire come from heaven was someone who would be easy to spot, fooling the saints into believing simply did not make any sense.
Revelations 13:13 “He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.”
Thoughts that went through my mind were in themselves overwhelming. Meteor showers, distant volcano eruptions, some type of demonic power, UFO’s, who could know for sure. As I was searching through the Old Testament looking for some clue, I found the truth hidden in the verse itself. Fire from heaven is not unprecedented, and in fact is a common symbol in the Old Testament of GOD’s direct intervention, HIS acceptance and HIS protection. It is found in Exodus leading the Israelites as a pillar of fire, GOD sends fire down from heaven to destroy the soldiers sent to arrest Elijah, and of GOD accepting the sacrifices of David and Solomon by consuming their sacrifice with fire from heaven. No, there was no demonic meaning in what John writes. The day they saw Constantine entering Rome under the labarum, the common Christian would believe that GOD had rescued them from the on going persecutions of the Roman Empire. The memory of the persecution under Diocletian had not even been 10 years old when Constantine arrived to declare that Christians had freedom of worship in his empire. For even the most pious of the elect, it appeared that GOD had indeed sent his fire from heaven to consume the enemies of Yeshua and rescue them from evil, as HE did for Elijah.
After the first council of Niciea, Constantine gathered his distinguished guests his imperial apartments for a celebration. None had seen him march over the Milivan bridge, and he was asked about the experience and his vision. Constantine described what he saw a cross above the sun, with the words “in hoc vinces.” In fact, this vision of the cross above the globe of the sun, did make its way into imperial paraphernalia of Rome. It is officially known as the globus cruciger, but it is more commonly called the Coronation Orb, traditionally it signifies that Christ has conquered the earth. However, in every globus cruciger, except that of imperial Russia, the globe is plain gold, which is more an image of the sun than of the earth. The Russian globus cruciger is gold encrusted with precious stones, keeping with Daniel’s prophesies of the new god of this little horn being showered with gold and precious gems.
Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine’s biographer said that Constantine took him into his private quarters on that occasion and showed them the original labarum that he marched under. From Eusebuis’ life of Constantine you can read, "A long spear, overlaid with gold, formed the figure of a cross by means of a transverse bar at the top. At the summit of the whole was fixed a wreath of gold and precious stones, within which the symbol of the title of salvation was indicated by means of its first two letters, the letter P being intersected by X in the centre! From the cross bar of the spear was suspended a square cloth of purple stuff profusely embroidered with gold and precious stones. Beneath the crown of the cross, immediately above the embroidered banner, the shaft bore golden medallions of the emperor and his children."
The labarum of Constantine
If you strip away the cloth, jewels and medallions, and the Chi Rho from the center of the wreath, what Eusebius saw was the ankh, an ancient Egyptian symbol of the sun crossing the horizon centered on the Nile River, which has an uncanny resemblance to a man. Considering it was only a few months later that Constantine issued the Edict of Milan, Christians desperate for the end of persecutions looked past the obvious and seen only what they wanted to see. When looking at this verse from this perspective, it is reasonable early Christianity’s eager acceptance of divine intervention being the cause of the anointing of a new era. Later on to hide the truth, the church commissioned artists to depict the labarum into something that it was not.
The Anakh
Building the Bridge
As I read the description of the beast from the earth, I came to understand that John is not only speaking of Constantine the man. If Christianity were the religion of the beast, then Constantine would have needed to be the one to make it official. Yet, at the same time, I had Daniel, Ezekiel and Isaiah telling me that he is. Reading about the beast from the earth, I came to view this person as an official holding an office. He would also need to be the high priest of Christianity. The human being who holds the office was a man and all men die, but the man who holds the office lives on in the office. Of course, with all the evil done in the name of Yeshua, I thought of the Pope, but in order for John to support Daniel, Daniel, Ezekiel and Isaiah, direct connections to Constantine would be needed
If I could find the trail throughout history that would trace back to Constantine then Constantine would be the progenitor of this beast who speaks like a dragon, but has horns like a lamb. This is reasonable because John shows that the beast is not human, for in chapter 18 of Revelation John shows that at the end, it is a spirit that comes from his mouth. This is with support from testimonies of the word of the LORD, by Isaiah and Ezekiel. Understanding came in the first verse about him, by questioning it.
Revelations 13:11 “And I saw another beast coming up out of the land, and it had two horns, like a lamb, and it was speaking as a dragon. “
Only the lambs of goats have horns, was the first clue that I was looking at this all wrong. Remember to think like a Jew, a Jew who accepted Yeshua as the Messiah and the only begotten son of GOD. Horns have another meaning to Jews besides those on animals. Horns are also found on alters. In truth Constantine did have two alters, he was a worshipper of Sol Invictus until the day he died, but he did support the growth of Christendom in Imperial Rome. From a Christian perspective while Constantine constructed many new Christian churches, he did have two great churches one in Roma and the other in Nova Roma that would be known as Constantinople in tribute to his ego. How he spoke like a dragon can be seen in one of his official titles, the title that all Roman Emperors would use to unite the both the secular and religious half of the Empire, that of Pontiff Maximus.
The Pontiff Maximus was the highest religious office a Roman could hold. He was the the high priest of the Collegium Pontificum, and oversaw the Rex Sacrorum, Vestal Virgins and the 15 flamines. The Pontiff Maximus appointed the priests and priestesses to the many different religions, and it also the office coveted by Emperors because of the power invested in it. This title is completely pagan, and never has been used by Jewish priests or the disciples of Yeshua. Pontiff Maximus means the supreme bridge builder. In 382 A.D. this title was transferred to Pope Siricius, the bishop of Rome by Emperor Flavius Theodosius, and has been one of the official titles of all Popes since that date. Today this title is officially recorded in the Vatican as “Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church.”
Later on in Revelation John goes to show that it is a spirit that inhabits these men, that make them the beast with a very long life span in human reckoning. Scripture said that this beast would have dominion for three and a half years, or as Daniel wrote a time, times and half a time. If a time is a year, and a year to us is but a day to the LORD, then three and a half years to the LORD is 1,274 years to us. While mainstream Christians believe that a prophetic month is 30 years, a year to a group of Jews, the Karaites, who as Yeshua did, reject the oral laws and traditions, and base their calendar on 13 lunar months of 28 days in each month. It is plausible that Yeshua was telling John to use a lunar calendar. In this it is easy to see that there was a series of possessions of the spirit of the beast into men that lasts for 1,274 years. From the time of Constantine’s birth in February of 272 AD until the time of Martin Luther’s death in February of 1546, one can count exactly 1,274 years. Constantine established the Holy Roman Catholic Church with the authority of the dragon, and Luther successfully challenged that authority. In 1546, the Pontiff Maximus could not build a bridge far enough into the realm of death to make Luther retract his challenge, and the absolute control of the beast in the spiritual matters of men ended. Luther is in no way a hero for doing this, in his own way Luther also became the first daughter of the whore who rides the scarlet beast, too. In crossing the bridge to retrieve a son, Pope Paul III returned with a pregnant daughter.
No one knows with absolute certainty if Constantine ever was a Christian, Eusebius of Nicomedia said that he did baptize Constantine on his deathbed. Was this a common practice for early Christianity for people to wait until death to be baptized? I think of the sayings of Yeshua, about priorities in following him. After all is that not what a Christian is, someone who follows Yeshua? I guess some may say Constantine needed put the needs of the state above his own salvation, perhaps they may see it that way. Yet, I ask myself what would Yeshua say, especially when he said that if some were put the needs of their parents and children above their love for him, that they were not worthy to follow him. Even if the vast majority of Christian apologists want this is true, the fact is that Constantine still held the title Pontiff Maximus, the high priest of pagan polytheistic Collegium Pontificum until his death. The best an apologist can hope to prove is that Constantine became a Christian with his last breath, but with every breath before that final one Constantine spoke like the dragon that gave him his authority. Standing with one foot in this office, Constantine directed the formation of the early Holy Roman Universal Church, and under his seal as Pontiff Maximus, he in effect legalized into Roman law and enforced through power of the state, the edicts that the church councils would make.
Commerce in the Kingdom of the Antichrist
What about buying and selling? This is also supposed to be a way to identify the beast. To modern Christians this is the social security number, credit card or some implanted RIF device that attaches your physical person directly to the bank and the computers of the beast.
Revelation 13:17 “and that no one may be able to buy, or to sell, except he who is having the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”
As I thought about this, I realized that I might not find some law or church canon giving these privileges to those who had the mark. I realized that I would need to look for groups that were denied these privileges. This made a degree of sense to me, because today Christians are always talking about what they will not be able to do in the kingdom of the beast. It did not take too long to discover that Constantine was the author of the first anti-Semite laws, and there has been a steady stream of them from the Pontiff Maxiumus throughout the history of the church. It was not only until recently that the Catholic Church would stop formally accusing the Jews of deicide. Jews have been restricted in travel, in business, and in owning property. The only restrictions placed on Christians were those restricting their commercial and social intercourse with the Jews. A Jew was prohibited from marrying Christians, something they could not do because they did not have the mark of the beast. Jews could only live in certain areas, often paying exorbitant rent to their Christian landlords. Jews were restricted from being on the streets during the week before the Christian Easter. Looking at the history of Christendom, one can see a full picture of the absolute control in the affairs of men by the church, including socio-economic control.
Citizenship can also be defined by those who are not denied the full protection of a nation’s laws. Using this logic, I would include my country’s Jim Crow laws passed against the newly freed black slaves as proof that the lack of full citizenship is in what they are prohibited from. The laws passed that excluded those outside Roman Catholic citizenship can be seen in what benefits were denied to them, but given to others. Some laws were universal in discrimination, while others were more specific. Reading these laws you may start to understand benefits in taking the mark. However, with benefits come obligations.
No Jew shall marry a Christian woman, nor shall any Christian man marry a Jewess; for if anyone should be guilty of an act of this kind, he will be liable for having committed the crime of adultery, and permission is hereby granted to all persons to accuse him. Emperor Valentinian 388 A.D.
Jews may not enter imperial service. Jews who have already taken the oath for service may remain, except those in the armed service. Jews are not prohibited from becoming advocates or decurions. Honorius, Theodosius Codex Theodosius XVI.viii.24
Persons who join Judaism from Christianity shall have their property confiscated. Constantius, Codex Theodosius XVI.viii.7
“... and every sect unfriendly with the Catholics should be driven out of every city in order that they may not be sullied by the contagious presence of criminals. We deny to Jews or pagans the right of pleading a case in court or of serving as soldiers.” (Const. Sirm. No. 6; 425.)
Jews are forbidden to withhold inheritance from descendants who had accepted Christianity. Third Lateran Council Canon 26 1179 A.D.
Jews were not the only ones targeted; under Imperial Roman law Jews did have some minimal degree of protection. However, people believing in Yeshua (Jesus,) but not holding to the Trinity or Nicene Creed lost all protections.
Altars and worship places of non-Catholic religions shall be confiscated. Valens, Valentinian, Gratian Codex Theodosius XVI.v.4
Heresies (not defined herein) may not be taught. Gratian, Valentinian, Theodosius Codex Theodosius XVI. v. 5
Heretics are defined as those who do not observe the Nicene faith. Their teachings are forbidden. A definition of the Trinity, ousia, is established. Catholic churches throughout the empire are to be returned to orthodox bishops. Gratian, Valentinian, Theodosius Codex Theodosius XVI. v. 6
Anyone who disagrees with the Catholic Christian Church even on a minor point of doctrine is considered a heretic. Arcadius, Honorius Codex Theodosius XVI. v. 28
While the following is not an official imperial decree, it was made under the color of Title I of Constantine which states, “Judicial decisions made by bishops are to be upheld. Enforcement is to be the responsibility of the prefect. If a party to a lawsuit may request the case to be heard by a bishop rather than a secular judge, the request is to be granted.”
The Seventeenth Council of Toledo 694 A.D. Stated that Jews were to be deprived of their property, which was to be given to their Christian slaves, and enslaved themselves.
For in God's mercy, We hope that the good example of the clergy will lead the straying laity back to the straight path. You will be able to give these orders and commands easily and confidently, in that neither your property nor your privileges are hired to Jews; furthermore you do no business with them and you neither lend them money nor borrow from them. Thus, you will be free from and unaffected by all dealings with them. Pope Benedict XIV
Even today the church of Constantine continues to control its members. Recently the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem is embroiled over the sale of part of Jerusalem to the Jewish state that it owns, called the Jaffa Gate. There is still much anti-Semitism alive from this schizophrenic whore. The old Patriarch Irenios, leased land to the Israelis for 99 years. He was replaced by Theofilos, who has also been threatened by his own bishops if he did not annul the lease. "The deal must be canceled and Theofilos knows this. We as a church will fight any smuggling of real estate to Jewish organizations," Atallah Hanna, the church's archbishop of Sebastia. The proof of the loss of a benefit in not bowing before the beast Constantine created is excommunication. "The electorate was blackmailed into supporting Theofilos," Irenios said. "They were told by fathers and brotherhood members and others that if they didn't vote for Theofilos, they would be kicked out of the church. Documents were made to be signed, including a letter that said 'I will not stand with Irenios.'"
The benefit in this case is complete citizenship with full rights and privileges. Under the Christian Emperors of Rome, full citizenship became a religious orthodoxy that mandates how Rome and the church that Imperial Rome built, would define the bounds.
It is necessary that the privileges, which are bestowed for the cultivation of religion, should be given only to followers of the Catholic faith. We desire that heretics and schismatic’s be not only kept from these privileges, but be subjected to various fines. Constantine Augustus. Codex. Theodosius. XVI.v.1:
We desire that all the people under the rule of our clemency should live by that religion which divine Peter the apostle is said to have given to the Romans, and which it is evident that Pope Damasus and Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity, followed; that is that we should believe in the one deity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with equal majesty and in the Holy Trinity according to the apostolic teaching and the authority of the gospel. Gratian, Valentinian and Theodosius Augusti. Codex Theodosius XVI.i.2:
On the Lord's day, which is the first day of the week, on Christmas, and on the days of Epiphany, Easter, and Pentecost, inasmuch as then the [white] garments [of Christians] symbolizing the light of heavenly cleansing bear witness to the new light of holy baptism, at the time also of the suffering of the apostles, the example for all Christians, the pleasures of the theaters and games are to be kept from the people in all cities, and all the thoughts of Christians and believers are to be occupied with the worship of God. And if any are kept from that worship through the madness of Jewish impiety or the error and insanity of foolish paganism, let them know that there is one time for prayer and another for pleasure. And lest anyone should think he is compelled by the honor due to our person, as if by the greater necessity of his imperial office, or that unless he attempted to hold the games in contempt of the religious prohibition, he might offend our serenity in showing less than the usual devotion toward us; let no one doubt that our clemency is revered in the highest degree by humankind when the worship of the whole world is paid to the might and goodness of God. Theodosius Augustus and Caesar Valentinian. Codex Theodosius XV.v.1
NOTE: As can be seen from the last phrase above this affected the whole world.
A former priest James Carroll, in his ground-breaking work, the Sword of Constantine definitively shows how the laws promulgated under Constantine lead directly to the Holocaust of the 20th century. While some will deny the Nazis were Christians, it needs to be pointed out that over 75% of the SS (Schutzstaffel) identified themselves as catholic, and Adolph Hitler himself was baptized a catholic and was even an altar boy in his hometown church.
The accumulation of anti-Semitism
In the end, a person’s life was controlled by the church. There are many more edicts passed that were enforced by the sword. The Holy Roman Catholic Church, more specifically the supremacy of Trinitarian Christianity, became the final arbitrator of a man’s life, defining whom he could associate with, whom he could buy from and sells to, and to whom he should hold contempt for.
Name, Mark or Number, Please.
As I wrote this I thought of the totalitarian governments of the twentieth century, the Nazis and Communists and how everyone had to have an identity card to prove who they are, but this too is only a modern Christological fantasy, if Constantine is indeed the beast. John does not say a person need all three, he specifically uses the Greek word ἢ which means a logical “or” to indicate any and all positive alignment to name, mark and number. Although they are separate, they must be related in some form.
What is a name in the most generic sense? It is what you are called, a label to identify you. This name must identify you as belonging to the beast. Many thought the name Mohammad is the name of the beast, but Mohammad does not identify a Muslim as belonging to Mohammad, it is an Arabic name and nothing more. For we are referring to a false god, and although Allah may be a false god, Mohammad is not the name of the god Muslims worship. There are some Christians named Mohammad, and Bruce while an European name is not Christian.
The false god I am seeing is named Christ, and Christians are his people. As a Christian all bear his name Χριστιανός Christianós in Greek the suffix “ian” means belonging to, a part of, and the second suffix “os” simply makes it plural. This name is not always on a drivers license and sometimes not even on a birth certificate, but you will find it on a baptismal certificate or as a declaration, such as “I am a Christian, I belong to Christ.” The name of the beast is Christ and all Christians inherit his name into theirs.
What should be understood that this is an invented word of Paul of Tarsus. Until Paul arrived in Antioch, those who believed in Yeshua haMessiah were not called Christians, they were Jews who believed that Yeshua was the promised Messiah or a group of gentiles who aligned themselves with the Jews and who also believed that he was the Messiah. Men like Peter, John, James, Stephen were called Ebonites or the poor ones, because they amassed no wealth and immediately gave all donations to alleviate the suffering of the poor.
A Mark So Common No One Could See IT
Constantine and the church he formed seems like a good match for the beast from the earth, but what of the mark that people are to receive on their foreheads and right hands. With Revelation as a warning, the mark would need to be so innocuous no one would notice it. It would also need to be universally accepted as to appear common place. It would also need to be something that was connected to Constantine.
What mark is so common and so innocent that Christians would hold out their hand or present their forehead to be sealed with it? What symbol would fit on both the forehead and the right hand? There is only one symbol that is in existence today that fits this description. The cross. In Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, and Protestantism blessing are made with the sign of the cross. The word John uses the word didomi which has the meaning to give, but it also means “commit to some one something to be religiously observed.” This definition comes from Strong’s concordance. A blessing sealed with the cross would certainly meet this criteria.
For Roman Catholicism and the Protestant churches that came out of the Reformation, blessings are made with the sign of the cross on the forehead. Roman Catholics used to make and is still acceptable to make the cross using the Greek letter Chi which resembles an Ò, while the Protestants usually use a cross that resembles a plus sign Ê. Not all Protestants make the sign of the cross, as some treat it as a papal obscenity, but enough do to consider it a universal sign. A more visible demonstration would be Ash Wednesday; is that black mark on the foreheads of people leaving the Catholic Churches that day not a cross?
Ash Wednesday
To receive a blessing from a Greek Orthodox Bishop the petitioner kneels, places their right hand in their left hand, palm outward. He or she then presents the palm of the right hand to the Bishop who makes the sign of the cross on their right hand as he blesses this person.
The word John uses that is traditionally translated as “on” is ἐπί Epi, but it can also mean the preposition “by.” In both Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches the sign of the cross is made “by” the right hand. They differ only in the number and position of the fingers.
Revelation 13:16 “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads,”
The word is for receive that John uses is Didomi has several meanings such as to give something to someone to his advantage, to bestow a gift, or to give or commit to some one something to be religiously observed. The word Poieo that is translated as “to cause,” but not one of the many definitions of poieo means a “forced” acceptance. Obviously, combining poieo and didomi people are accepting this mark as a gift, taking the advantages the mark gives, or observing it as religious identity. To accept this freely they are not realizing the danger. John is trying to warn of the danger with the word mark, he uses the word Charagma that does mean a brand, like a stamp, but he also had the word Stigma that he could have used. Stigma would have been a better word if he were talking about a visible tattoo. He was given Charagma because of an archaic meaning to the word, which means to be bitten by a serpent. We all know the serpent in Greek is Draco or dragon, and is a synonym for Satan. In the time of John Charagma’s common usage was also that of a graven and idolatrous image. There is a symbol in continual use today, as it was for almost two millennium, that matches John’s description. This symbol was also important to Constantine himself, he was told to conquer under this sign, the cross.
Constantine’s vision
The Number of the Beast
What about the number of the beast? Before you can determine the number of the beast, you need to determine which beast John is referring to. In researching Revelation from a Christological perspective, I see much confusion as to whom this beast is. In Revelation 13:12 “and all the authority of the first beast doth it do before it, and it maketh the land and those dwelling in it that they shall bow before the first beast, whose deadly stroke was healed,” John uses the greek word Protos πρῶτος which is translated both times as “the first.” While it does mean the first, as in a progenitor, it can also mean the one before and simply the predecessor. When I first read this verse, I found it a little strange that in the same sentence John says the beast is the first twice. After researching protos I see John was pointing out two different beasts. It is easy to think that John is speaking of the beast from the sea, this beast is the first beast in the chapter, and it is easy to see in verse 4 in the thirteenth chapter that this beast has a mortally wounded head that comes back to life. In truth, Constantine receives his civil authority from the beast from the sea, but receiving his spiritual authority to speak as a dragon comes from the beast who comes out of the abyss, which is the first time John uses the word beast, and it is this beast that Constantine will make people bow down to, and not Yeshua. After I divulge the meaning of the number of the beast, I will show the connection. I mention this only to clarify that John is speaking of two beasts, the one who is the first and inhabits Constantine, and the one that is not the first, but still precedes Constantine as the Roman Empire. By commanding trusting Christians to obey the pagan civil government of Rome, Paul is who actually makes men bow down before the beast. The very first beast that John is referring to is Abaddon who ascends from the pit, and it is Abbadon-Apollyon who has the wound that is healed.
How to Form the Number of the Beast.
Here is the wisdom! He who is having the understanding, let him count the number of the beast, for the number of a man it is, and its number is six hundred, sixty and six.
Or is it? Recently in Oxyrhynchus, Egypt a fragment of the oldest version of Revelation was found. Surprising every one was that the number written was 616 and not 666. While 616 is a relatively new number for scholars to ponder, 666 has been around for a very long time and is engrained in peoples collective conscience. Before I move on to both numbers now is a good time to take a detailed look at what John is saying in this verse when he talks about counting the number.
The concept of a gematria is not unique to Hebrew it also applies to Greek. In Greek, the gematria, is known as Isopsephia, which means equal to the pebbles. He reinforces this concept with the word Psephizo meaning to count with pebbles, he could have used another word for count, if he was looking towards the Hebrew gematra where every letter of the word is added together, this word would be Sumpsephizo. John was referring to the common Isopsephia technique of taking the first letters of the initials of a man and counting them. These are Greek letters to indicate the initials of the beast. Even though Hebrew was the language of John’s soul, he was not using Hebrew when he wrote these numbers down, because when he was using the Hebrew to indicate a special meaning he said that its meaning was in Hebrew, such as Abaddon and Armageddon. However, he speaking to us of a far deeper Hebraic meaning to this that you will see shortly.
Under the rules of the gematria, letters and words have a numeric value. A man could have a number attached to his name through his initials, which were a common way of writing. For instance the tattoo worn by roman soldiers, SPQR, had a number in Greek 200 + 80 + 90 + 100 or 470 and the number would have been 60 + 80 + 20 + 200 or 360 in Hebrew. To avoid eavesdropping, zealots would not say roman soldiers in fear of being overheard. Instead, they would encode this into words that on the surface had no bearing on Roman soldiers, so in front of them they could talk openly by using a code word that equaled 360. Only to the initiates would a word that totaled 360 be referring to Roman Soldiers. If the Roman soldiers were identified by the initials on their arms, the Judeans could have called them the many things in Hebrew other than Roman Legionaries. They could be called Amramites (which also means exalted), impregnable, the sleeper, cotton, porch, or the debt, because these numbers all equaled 360 in Hebrew. The use of initials in determining the gematria number of a man, or in this case, men, is perfectly valid, especially when used as a code.
Taking 666 first, you find Χ x ϛ as the letters that appear on the manuscripts used to make the bible.
Χ pronounced chi and has a value of 600.
x pronounced xi and has a value of 60.
ϛ pronounced stigma and has a value of 6.
Now to 616, you find Χ x ϛ as the letters that appear on the Oxyrhynchus manuscript which predates the ones used to make the bible.
Χ pronounced chi and has a value of 600.
I pronounced iota and has a value of 60.
ϛ pronounced stigma which has a value of 6.
As initials, they the beginning of a series of words that indicate the name of the beast.
Understanding that ϛ is an obsolete Greek letter for two letters s and t. This st is called a ligature, it was a scribal technique to conserve space on parchment, and it is not used anymore, but was widely used in the time of John. A ligature is the binding of two letters to make one letter. Understanding that a ligature can be an individual letter at the time John wrote Revelations is important. When ϛ expands to ST it becomes the first letters of the word Stauros which means crucified. At the time John wrote, there was also a letter in common Greek called the digamma represented as ϝ that normally meant 6 to the Greeks who used a dialect called Attic Greek. It was not until the Middle Ages that ϛ, which is called stigma, took on the role of a pure number. How this took on the significance of 6, is to realize that as a ligature of S and T which have the values of 200 and 300 respectively, their powers which are 100 each, are equal and dropped, leaving the product of their root that is 2 and 3 equals 6. In fact, look at the name for S sigma, add to that the T from the letter Tau and you get the word stigma. Greek, while a universal language at the time John wrote, was not spoken universally, as there were many dialects, such as Attic and Koine. Therefore, ϛ can be a valid representation of 6.
Throughout Revelation John is making references to Paul and Paul’s gospel. In the letters there are two references, the first being that the Ephesians rejected Paul as an apostle and this is born out in the Acts of the Apostles. Secondly is the word Νικολαϊτών Nicolaitans which means “nikos” which means both conqueror or destroyer, “laos” which means the people, and “ian” which means belonging to. These are the people, who as the name suggests, joined the destroyer to subjugate the people, and it is only with Paul we find the formula to do this in the hierarchy of his churches full of popes, bishops, priests, pastors and deacons that rule over the people. The third pointer to Paul is in the tasting of the little scroll, which tastes sweet when first eaten, but soon turns the stomach with its poison, and Paul’s gospel is simple, just believe that the Messiah dies for your sins without any repentance. Finally there is the use of the ß (stigma) and the only reference to this word is in Galatians where Paul states he bears the brands or stigmata (stigma-ta the final ta is the plural) of the Lord. Paul is stating that he was tattooed or branded for these are the only acceptable uses of the word stigma, there is no other. If Paul did have himself tattooed or branded I often thought what would he have engraved, Jesus Christ Crucified, or perhaps a cross? It is hard to say because he does boast of both in Galatians 6:14 which is very close to his revelation that he bears the mark of servitude. Revelation is an affront to Paul and the religion that would be based upon his writings. For a time I even thought that the resurrection of Paul by including his writings at the Council of Nicaea was also talking about giving life to the beast killed with the sword.
John tells us to count the pebbles each pebble is the first letter of the name of a man. It is starting to appear that the Christendom is the kingdom of the beast, there needs to be something that can identify the king of this kingdom. Remember what John wrote, that only those with the name, mark, and number can join into this dark kingdom. Now I will show how these three tie intogether for both 666 and 616.
C is the Greek letter Chi it is also the first letter in Christos or Christ.
x is the Greek letter Xi which also is the first letter of the word Xulon which means a wood or tree.
ϛ is the Greek ligature letter st which is the first letter of the word Stauros which means crucified.
How 666 would read is “Christ crucified to a tree,” or it could read “Christ pierced on the tree,” if you prefer to think of stigma as a piercing, but this is the wrong word. The correct word used to indicate the way Yeshua was pierced would be nuvssw Nusso. There is something subtly wrong with this, which has made people loose families, careers and fortunes searching this out. The number 666 always leads to more questions. Evidence suggests that the early church fathers of the second century changed this from 616. If I apply the same overlay to this using 616 the results will astound you. Bishop Irenaeus in the 2nd Century, influenced by his pagan upbringing was an early believer in the Trinity, and he was one of the first to say that 616 was a scribal error, his reasoning was that 666 was the evil trinity of imperfection. Yet, the trinity is not found or hinted in the Torah or any other book in the Old Testament, therefore Irenaeus’ reasoning is contaminated and not definitive proof the number was always 666.
C is the Greek letter chi it is also the first letter in Christos or Christ.
I is the Greek letter iota which also is the first letter of the word Iesus which means Yeshua or Jesus.
ϛ is the Greek ligature letter st which is the first letter of the word Stauros which means crucified.
C i ϛ are the initials for Χριστός Ιησούς σταυρωμένος or transliterated Christos Iesous Stauros or “Christ Jesus Crucified,” and this phrase can be traced back to Paul, and the true use of the word stigma.
“From now on let no one trouble me, for I bear in my body the ‘marks’ of the Lord Jesus.” Galatians 6:17
Stigma στίγμα defined in Strong’s concordance is found in the Greek lexicon under number 4742 and has only one entry.
a mark pricked in or branded upon the body. To ancient oriental usage, slaves and soldiers bore the name or the stamp of their master or commander branded or pricked (cut) into their bodies to indicate what master or general they belonged to, and there were even some devotee's who stamped themselves in this way with the token of their gods.
In reading the accounts of Paul’s journeys one sees how he was often in the involuntary company of soldiers, and this seemed to have impressed him greatly, as he developed a whole treatise on how Christians, like soldiers need to prepare themselves for battle using how the soldiers dressed themselves. Seeing soldiers dress and undress, Paul would have noticed the tattoos and the pride the soldiers wore them. Is it possible the first mark of the beast was a tattoo that consisted of only 3 letters, C i ϛ ? When you look at what Paul wrote to the Galatians only 3 verses before the surprising mention of stigmata, it makes an honest man pause to think.
But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14
Unfortunately ungodly men altered the truth of the bible, and instead of faithfully translating the words exactly, they changed the meaning and in doing so created a cult of deception and the truth that GOD wanted us to have was the first casualty.
But this is not enough to throw away a life time of faith for. Although the new evidence presented by the Oxyrhynchus parchment seemed to point to 616 and not 666, it was not enough. Yet, when I think about the warning John makes as he closes Revelation about adding or subtracting, I could not get that out of my mind. In all the other books of the Bible no other has this warning.
“For I testify to every one hearing the words of the prophecy of this scroll, if any one may add unto these, God shall add to him the plagues that have been written in this scroll, and if any one may take away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the scroll of the life, and out of the holy city, and the things that have been written in this scroll.” Revelation 22:18-19
666 or 616 A biblical answer.
As I said, John was a Jew, and Hebrew not Greek was the language of his soul. While he may have identified in Greek the name the beast, I asked myself what do these numbers mean in the Hebrew gematria. The number 666 is the value of the word Sethur, meaning “Hidden,” which seems to indicate that looking in this direction the true meaning would still be hidden and need to go further. While there are other words that have a total value of 666, the fact that one meaning is “hidden,” casts reasonable doubt, and the GOD of Yeshua is not a GOD who instills doubt in those HE loves. But, there is a name that adds up to 616 in Hebrew and has direct bearing on this beast, it is כְּר֔וּב מִמְשַׁ֖ח and that means the anointed cherub, and you will find this name in Ezekiel 28.
It is in the twentieth eighth chapter of Ezekiel that we are introduced to the “anointed cherub,” but in the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah he receives his name. It is Heylel, who is called the angel of light, and there are numerous similarities between the descriptions of both Isaiah and Ezekiel to indicate that they are talking about the same person. As the anointed cherub Heylel has the value of 616, but his name does not equal 616, it equals 75. There is another word that equals 75 that directly relates to Heylel’s stated intention. It is Micah HkiIym which means “Who is like YHWH.” Here is where something becomes interesting if we create a proper name from Heylel and the anointed cherub we arrive at the number 691 which just happens to be hbytn krd. and in Hebrew means “the well trodden pathway.” This has a direct implication against the warning Yeshua gave in Matthew 7:13 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.” It is difficult to deny that “a well trodden way,” is not the same as a path that the Yeshua said that many people will take.
So far, 616 seemed to be the right number. Then I noticed something else, the prophet who announces the coming of Yeshua, Isaiah is the only book in the bible that has the two numbered verses that have both 666 and 616 respectively in it. While scripture was not numbered in the time of John, still no other book has this coincidence. Remember, the Psalms were not a single monolithic book in the time of John, they still comprised a collection of five books, with the Psalms named not numbered, while the Psalms were collated into a single book, Isaiah remained unchanged.
Isaiah 66:6 “The sound of noise from the city! A voice from the temple! The voice of the Lord, Who fully repays His enemies!” This sounds an awful lot like what happened to Paul when he was at the temple for the last time, as you can read in the book of Acts 21:30 “And all the city was disturbed; and the people ran together, seized Paul, and dragged him out of the temple; and immediately the doors were shut.”
Isaiah 61:6 “But you shall be named the priests of the Lord, They shall call you the servants of our God. You shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, And in their glory you shall boast.”
I think the proof now leans incontrovertibly towards 616 as the true number of the beast. If I follow 666 that will get me close, but not close enough. Close in that Paul was a vessel for this beast to inhabit, as has countless others, but not to the beginning. If you made it this far then I imagine your head is full of questions and doubts. When I realized what GOD was showing me, I too was full of doubt.
The image that he gives life to.
Revelation 13:14-15 “And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast, telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived, and there was given to it to give a spirit to the image of the beast, that also the image of the beast may speak, and [that] it may cause as many as shall not bow before the image of the beast, that they may be killed.”
The word spirit used by John is Pneuma which is a general word having 18 meanings, one of which is the demonic indwelling. The crucifix has already spoken to countless people, but perhaps the most famous documented account is around 1205 A.D. at St Damian’s in Italy when Francis of Assisi in which the JeZeus* on the crucifix said, "Rebuild my church, which is falling into ruin."
The talking Crucifix of St Damian
We hear accounts all the time of pictures of JeZeus speaking to people. This is consistent of what John is saying, it is the image that speaks. Yet, this is not unique to Christendom and has its roots in Greco-Roman paganism there a countless stories of statues speaking all over the Italian and Peloponnesian peninsulas. However, in Christianity is this overlooked, and is called a blessing. In making this appear divine the church has been hiding the truth under the noses of her faithful.
The history of the cross and crucifix can be traced back to the time of Constantine. Before this time, the fish was the most common symbol of Christianity. It was innocuous to the casual viewer, it represented the life giving qualities of the Messiah, and even its Greek name was associated through the Greek Isopsephia technique in giving further meaning to each letter of the Greek word for fish. ΙΧΘΥΣ or using the Latin alphabet ICTUS which served as an acronym for Ἰησοῦς Χριστός, Θεοῦ Υἱός, Σωτήρ or Jesus Christ, God Son, Savior. Early Christians would use making the symbol of the fish as secret handshakes are used today. If a Christian wanted to know if the person they were speaking to was also a Christian they would draw an arc with their foot on the ground, if the other person was a Christian they too would draw an arc with their foot. What could be seen from the air was a fish. After the fish was seen by both, the one who drew the first line would casually erase it as proof that this was not an accident.
The earlist symbol
The use of the cross in Christianity can be directly traced back to Helena the mother of Constantine. Some believe that she was a Christian, and without direct proof to refute this we must give her the benefit of the doubt and agree. Does this make her a “true” Christian? During his youth, Constantine was given as a hostage to Emperor Galerius. This was a common practice among the Romans. They would trade children in order to insure loyalty and to prevent revolts. After his father divorced Helena, as a concubine, her access to her son was limited, and Constantine and his mother must have relished the little time they had together. If human nature is any indicator of continuity in people then like today, Helena must have found a degree of comfort and acceptance among the Christians and would have converted in a gesture of respect and love.
Did Constantine embrace Christianity as a gesture to his mother? Perhaps, and equally they both may have seen the advantage in Christianity over overtly pushing Sol Invictus as the new god of the New Rome. Helena had first hand experience with Christians and knew that they already had a hierarchical organizational structure. Whether on his own or with the help of Helena, Constantine would see that if he controlled the top, the top would control the bottom and everything in-between.
Helena set out to discover both the Holy Places and relics of her god. She founded the church of the Holy Sepulcher, and is said to have discovered the “true cross.” Her methodology in determining the true cross is without archeological basis, and after one woman touched the cross and recovered from an unknown illness, Helena declared it the true cross from which the savior hung. After which combined with Constantine’s vision, Christendom went through a cross mania, and the cross now replaced the fish as the symbol of the Savior. The earliest crosses used in worship can be traced directly back to this time. Would anyone think it unreasonable, if Helena claimed to have discovered the true cross, the next question on the minds of the people would be, when the Christ hung on the cross what did it look like?
Crucifix’s are icons, that is art that is created to tell a story. The story being told with a crucifix is the passion of the Christ. As art they can be both two and three dimensional, that is pictures and statues. Icons are the primary symbol of worship in Eastern Orthodoxy, but unfortunately, any church paintings during the time of Constantine are lost, due to both time destroying the fragile nature of paint being applied to plaster and the Muslims destruction of anything they believed to be blasphemous when Constantinople was conquered and renamed to Istanbul. As an art form, Icons can be directly traced to the time of Constantine.
As a three dimensional object the crucifix is not as well documented as the labarum was by Eusebius, but as an two dimensional icon they can be found into to the time of Constanine. The earliest three dimensional crucifix in existence is the crucifix of the monastery of Xeropotama at Mount Athos, reportedly given by Pulcheria regent and sister to Theodosius II. This crucifix is reportedly made from the “true cross” that Helena, the mother of Constantine discovered during her trip to the Holy Land, the figure is believed to be either ivory or bone, at the foot is a gold replica of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher with diamonds and sapphires of extraordinary size. As most religious artifacts of antiquity it has not been scientifically dated, and it is reported to have been given between 408 A.D. and 416 A.D. This date coincides with her rule of regent, when she would have had the power to access the artifacts of Helena. This date is important in another way in that if true, it places the crucifix during the period when Christianity was unified, making it the second oldest symbol of Nicene Christianity after the labarum. This symbol is mandated for worship by the Pontiff Maximus Innocent III when he wrote to the King of France, “On Good Friday also, contrary to the law of old, they walk through the streets and public squares, and meeting Christians who everywhere according to custom go to adore the Crucifix, they deride them and strive to prevent them from this duty of adoration.” The crucifix was widely used by Roman Catholic Orthodoxy and was the universal symbol found in churches until the second generation of Protestant reformers rejected its use. It is used by Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Coptic, Anglicans and Lutherans to this day.
Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!
These words echoed over the Rhineland from the time of the crusades until the ovens of Hitler were extinguished. There is no doubt, for history is replete with accounts of Roman Orthodox Catholic atrocities against pagans, Jews, and heretics. To say the number of people killed as a result of wars of religion, church sponsored inquisitions, programs and the holocaust brought about by church doctrine was in the hundreds of millions would just begin to see the scope.
Forced conversions started soon after the Council of Nicaea formulated the Trinitarian doctrine, this was primarily focused on pagans and on a group called Arians, who rejected that Jesus was created with the same substance of GOD and was equal to the Father. Pagans were converted to Christianity and Arians to Trinitarian Christianity, there was nowhere for them to run to, so their options were to convert to the catholic orthodoxy or die. Forced conversions did not reach their peak until after Francis unleashed his hordes of brown robbed warriors armed only with a crucifix on the world in 1209. These brown robbed monks were accompanied by soldiers who were sent to protect them, but in reality, they were there to intimidate, not to protect. During the Spanish Inquisitions Jews were so impoverished that many could only leave the land with the clothes on their backs. Standing on the docks waiting for the starving Jews to disembark were the brown robed Franciscans with a loaf of bread in one hand and a crucifix in the other, offering food for conversion.
Yet for me the most poignant triumph of the human spirit occurred in Germany during the period of the Crusades. As the crusaders were making their way across Europe, it was routine to steal from the Jews. In one town in Germany, they were told that the Jews should be given a final chance to “embrace the cross” as the slogan went during this time. A young beautiful Jewish girl given the opportunity to save her live, but instead she chose to throw herself in the river and drown. The last words she spoke were the Shema of her ancestors, “Hear o Israel the Lord your Yahweh is one.” After she did this, the crusaders stopped trying to convert the Jews on the community and simply slaughtered them all. Drowning was not common, for Jews who refused the “invitation,” their end was a swift sword blade across their necks. What is interesting to note that to a Jew, a saint is a person who died with the Shema on their lips in defiance of false gods.
Not to diminish the value of any human life, as pagans and heretical Christians suffered along side the Jews, but it is hard to deny that it is the Jews who constantly suffered the most under these pogroms, and people seeking to legitimize cold blooded murder turn to Constantine I for the first anti-Jewish laws of the age of Christianity.
The Cross and Crucifix cannot be bad things?
I do admit that this has been a sore point with me. After all, I like most of you have been raised to adore, if not worship at the foot the cross and crucifix. I sought that I could justify this with the words of Paul. In Galatians 3:3 he writes “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree").” While I hate Paul’s theology and believe that it will lead to ones destruction because even though Paul elevates Yeshua to a God, he destroys the foundation on which Yeshua stood. However, here for a moment I hoped to prove Paul correct.
In Deuteronomy 21:22-23 we read what Paul was referring to. “If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God.” Now this does not come nowhere near close to what Paul is telling the Galatians. Notice that this starts out with, “If a man committed a sin,” it is obvious that Yeshua never committed a sin, let alone a sin that justified his death. If Yeshua committed a sin, than how could he have been the perfect sacrifice? In fact the good thief who died that day with Yeshua, made a dying declaration, he said in Luke 23:41 "And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong."
Was Yeshua cursed by God? Yeshua had a stated purpose to do the will of his Father, and we find that in the hours preceding his execution he said that he had done all that GOD had asked of him. What I find difficult to swallow in accepting Paul’s logic is that John wrote in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” How can someone who was loved and trusted so much by GOD, that GOD sent him to save us from our sinful life, someone who had done everything that GOD had asked of him, become a curse to GOD? It cannot be! Paul is wrong again, and GOD’s word remains true.
If we believe the words of Yeshua, his Father, and their faithful servants, more than the words of Paul, Popes, Bishops, Priests and Pastors, it is here in Deuteronomy we can discover why this symbol, the crucifix and the cross in general, have indeed been a curse to Christendom. As a Catholic I know that is only a few days a year that the crucifix is covered in churches, otherwise it hangs there above the altar day and night for all to see. This is what has cursed our land, and all who dwell in it. Instead of the rewards, that Paul said we would have, we have received only GOD’s curse. A curse to be separated from the truth of GOD and who Yeshua truly is. Because of this curse, we all suffer. It is time that we as believers in Yeshua remove him from the tree and permit him to enter our hearts, as he promised us he would during his last supper.
What am I trying to say?
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), which had as its letter picture an X - a symbol or sign of "Covenant". Consequently, the aleph-tav (
) symbol literally means "Strength of the Covenant" when used in original Hebrew text and was placed to create emphasis as a direct object pointer to the workings of YHVH (both
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