6. The image would cause all to receive the _mark_ of the Beast. A mark is a token of recognition. Slaves, soldiers, and the devotees of various gods, were thus identified on their hands or foreheads, both before and after the time of St. John--slaves by the name of the Emperor on their forehead, and soldiers by his name on their hand. Mr. Elliott proves this by quotations from Valerius, Maximus, Ælian, Ambrose, and others. The devotees of particular gods gained admittance to the secret meetings of the worshippers of their respective deity, by a _mark_ by which they identified each other. At the present day the Hindoos are marked on the forehead by the hieroglyphic of the god they are consecrated to.
The mark of the beast, is its _name_, or the _number_ of its name. The ancients often used numbers to indicate names. "Among the Pagans, the Egyptian mystics spoke of Mercury, or Thouth, under the number 1218, because the Greek letters composing the name Thouth, when estimated according to their numerical value, together made up that number. By others, Jupiter was invoked under the mystical number 717; because the letters of { ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA WITH DASIA~} { ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER CHI~}{ ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}, _the beginning_, or _first origin_, which was a characteristic title of the supreme deity worshipped as Jupiter, made up that number: and Apollo under the number 608, as being that of { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, or { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, words expressing certain solar attributes. Again, the pseudo-Christian or semi-pagan Gnostics, from St. John's time downwards, affixed to their gems and amulets, of which multitudes remain even to the present day, the mystic word { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}, or { ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER BETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER XI~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, under the idea of some magic virtue attaching to its number 365, as being that of the days of the annual solar circle; and equal moreover with that of { ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER MU~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, or Mithras, the Magian name for the sun, whom they identified also with Christ. Once more, the Christian fathers themselves fell into the same fancies, and doctrine of mysteriousness in certain verbal numbers. For example, both Barnabas and Clement of Alexandria speak of the virtue of the number 318 as being that of { ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ETA~}{ ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~} the common abbreviation for Jesus crucified; and partly ascribe to its magical virtue the victory which Abraham gained with his 318 servants over the Canaanitish kings. Similarly Tertullian refers the victory of Gideon, with his 300 men, to the circumstance of that being the precise number of { ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER TAU~}, the sign of the cross. In the name of Adam, St. Cyprian discerned a mysterious numeral affinity to certain characteristics in the life and history of the second Adam, Jesus Christ. Irenæus notes the remarkable number 888 of the name { ~GREEK CAPITAL LETTER IOTA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON~}{ ~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, Jesus. And in the pseudo-Sibylline verses, written by Christians about the end, probably, of the second century, and consequently not long after Irenæus, we find enigmas proposed of precisely the same characters as that in the text;--the number being given, and the name required."--_Elliott's Horæ Apoc._, vol. iii., pp. 204-6.