400 10 10 40 6 200 = 666
ר מ ע נ ו ש Romanus; and also
300 6 50 70 40 200 = 666
the Greek λ α τ ε ι ν ο ς Latinos,
30 1 300 5 10 50 70 200 = 666.
in each of which the exact mark is contained.
“It therefore evidently appears, that each name is both a mark and a number; a mark, when viewed as made up of so many letters, therefore called the mark of his name; a number, when viewed as made up of so many numerals, then called the number of his name. But when considered merely as a name, derived from Romiith, a Roman, or Romulus, the founder of Rome, a name common among men, it may then be properly called the mark, or number of a man.”—Fleming's Rise and Fall of Papacy.
To receive the mark of the beast, would be an acknowledgment of subjection to it. The connection of the beast and its image was so intimate, that submission to the one, was virtual submission to the other. To submit to the rites of the church modelled after the wild beast, to profess its faith, and to honor its authority, would be a reception of its mark. And all persons were compelled to do this, and give evidence of submission to its authority on the peril of their lives.
7. Those who should refuse the mark of the beast, were to be prohibited from buying and selling. The Lateran Council under Pope Alexander II., passed an act forbidding any to harbor heretics in their houses or to trade [pg 215] with them. The Synod of Tours passed a law that no one should assist them, “no, not so much as to exercise commerce with them in selling or buying.”[5]—Elliott. In 1179, the third Lateran Council sentenced certain heretics, “their defenders and harborers, to an anathema, and forbid, under an anathema, that any should presume to keep them in their house, or on their lands, sustain them, or transact any business with them.”—Lord. “It was just the same fearful penalty of interdict from buying and selling, traffic and intercourse, that had been inculcated long before by the Pagan Dragon's representative Diocletian, against the early Christians.”—Elliott.
So exact a correspondence between the wild beast and the Western kingdoms, the two-horned beast and the Eastern empire, and the image to the wild beast and the Roman Hierarchy, makes the symbolization of this chapter very intelligible. These three agencies will severally continue till the end of the world. The latter will be destroyed by the brightness of Christ's coming (2 Thess. 2:8), and the two former will then be taken and “cast alive into the lake of fire,” 19:20.