Diogenes the Cynic

It's a numerical anagram for Nero. No real mystery there.

Agnostic Theist

So, this is the 1000 years of Christ's reign?

Ben C Smith

Yes, they do. That he was the one who lent his name, Caesar, to the line of Roman emperors probably helped.

Ben.

Diogenes the Cynic

That would have ended already, actually. It's been 2000 years, after all.

Ecrasez L'infame

I understand that the idea that 666 is Nero is a piece of folklore - I don't think there's any evidence that is the intended solution, and there is an counter-argument somewhere that it isn't (I forget the details, but it's something to do with needing to write Nero's name is Greek and then using Hebrew letter-values. I'll look it up in the unlikely event that anyone's interested).

To me, the point about substituting letter values to find out who it refers to is arbitrary and unsatisfying. The number of permutations are so large that just about anyone can be made to add up to 666 if you choose the right alphabet, initials, titles, etc. And what's the point of having a code that you need to know the answer to before you can see what it means? Since AFAIK we have no evidence that the code was based on letter-values, I always preferred to think that it is more algorithmic - that once you know the key, you can unambiguously identify who it referred to. In this view, the solution itself is probably uninteresting, but the fact that the early Christians used proper codes would be important.

Regards

Robert