The possibility
666 and the Mark
The image, the mark and the number of Revelation 13: what I hold the mark to be, and where each part of my reading is weighed in full.
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The end of Revelation 13 brings together three things: an image of the beast that is given breath and speaks (13:14–15), a mark without which "no one could buy or sell" (13:16–17), and a number that "stands for a person" (13:18). People ask me about these more than anything else on this site. Here is how I hold them together.
What the mark is, in my reading
The mark joins two things: an oath and a technology.
- The technology is the means of buying and selling: a system of identity and payment without which, in the end, no one can take part in ordinary life. Such tools are being built now (The Second Beast, card 11).
- The oath is the allegiance that belongs to God alone, given to the beast: the worship of Revelation 13:15 and 14:9.
- The mark is one's ability to use the technology. It is granted only to those who take the oath. Those who refuse the oath cannot use the technology, and so cannot buy or sell.
This is why I have written that we will recognize the mark when we realize that we cannot buy or sell without it, and that to receive it we must worship the Antichrist. Both conditions belong to it. A technology alone is not the mark, and neither is an oath alone; the mark is the one made the price of the other. That is also why it cannot fall on anyone unknowingly: it is received person by person, by a choice (What the Mark Is).
It follows that no one takes the mark today by using a digital wallet, a payment card or a form of identity. Neither condition is met. What I ask readers to do now is to understand the choice before it is offered, and to settle in their hearts that no convenience and no livelihood is worth the honor that belongs to God.
The mark, on each person who accepts it, is in my reading the abomination of desolation itself: the body, the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), given over to the beast (The Timing).
Where each part is weighed
| Part | My grade | Standing | Set out on |
|---|---|---|---|
| An image that speaks (Revelation 13:14–15) | Possible | Not yet seen | The Second Beast, card 10: whether artificial intelligence is the image, the means of the mark, or both |
| Control of buying and selling (Revelation 13:16–17) | Probable | Not yet seen | The Second Beast, card 11: the identity and payment systems now being built, and who is building them |
| A number that calls for wisdom (Revelation 13:18) | Ungraded | Against, as now argued | The First Beast, card 13: 666 Fifth Avenue and John 6:66, offered as observations, not proofs |
My earlier writing on artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and on the digital identity China now requires of its clergy, is set out on card 11; the pandemic, as a foreshadowing, on The Timing.
The number
I do not fit 666 to anyone's name, and I ask my readers not to. With St. Irenaeus, it is "more certain, and less hazardous, to await the fulfilment" (Against Heresies V.30.3). The two observations I have made run against the Fathers' rule, and I have graded them so (What the Tradition Says).
The other seal
Revelation never leaves us with only the beast's mark. God's servants are sealed on their foreheads before the trial begins (Revelation 7:3), and we were sealed already at Baptism and Confirmation. The question is not whether we will be marked, but whose mark we will bear.