By Mike Leno

During our Revelation seminar, my head elder brought out a chart with the Latin words "Vicarius Filii Dei" printed vertically. Beside each letter was its Roman numeral equivalent. And beside that was its numerical value. By totaling the entire column of values he came to the sum of 666. That, he told the class, tells us the identity of the beast power of Revelation.

I cringed as I heard the explanation. I didn't say anything in front of the class, a mixed group of church members and visitors from the community, but after the session was over I privately suggested that there were better ways of finding the identity of Revelation's beast power. The process of making letters into numbers seemed to me a rather risky method of Bible interpretation (other names such as Ellen G. White, for example, can be manipulated to equal 666) and the beast power is easily recognized by its spiritual characteristics. He remained resolute in his approach and I didn't argue. After all, I was the new young pastor, not even thirty years old, and he was a retired physician who had settled in this small Oregon coastal town to build up a church. He had almost single-handedly created a church where none existed before. So what could I know?

That would not be the only occasion to cringe during my initiation to this new form of evangelism called "Revelation Seminars." I went into the series thinking it would be a good way to teach people the book of Revelation. I even started preparing for each class by studying the biblical text and consulting various scholarly resources. Then I attempted to apply this information to the lesson each evening. I soon gave up this sort of preparation because, as I was quick to learn, Revelation Seminars had very little to do with the actual book of Revelation. The written lessons simply used terminology from Revelation in order to jump into doctrinal subjects.

Now, over twenty years later some things have changed. For one thing, Revelation Seminars are now more likely to deal with the book of Revelation. Some still use the text as simply a jumping off point into doctrinal subjects, but even that can be helpful when the text and context of Revelation are included. But some things have not changed, such as the disagreement over 666.

I was amused and a little distressed to read recent e-mail newsletters on this subject from Dr. Samuel Bacchiocchi. "Brother Sam" as he likes to be called, produces an incredible amount of writing and always with a scholar's thoroughness. Listening to him as well as reading him makes me think of drinking from Niagara Falls. He became well-known in Adventist circles thirty years ago when he began taking speaking appointments explaining his Sabbath and Sunday research at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He remains the only non-Catholic to not only complete a doctorate at that institution but also to receive a gold medal from the Pope for doing it. And that's all the more incredible when you consider that his published dissertation remains contrary to both tradition and Catholic scholarly opinion. Not surprisingly, some authorities in the Church of Rome remain less than accommodating to the existence of Bacchiocchi's writings.

I appreciate Brother Sam's willingness to crawl out on an intellectual limb and say what he thinks. Unfortunately he takes flack from Adventist conservatives because he demands Biblical evidence rather than conservative tradition to substantiate his beliefs. And he gets flack from Adventist liberals because he identifies with conservative causes in the areas of music and the role of women among other things. For my part, I will always applaud his tenacious regard for Biblical authority. I may disagree with him on occasion especially about the role of women but I have little sympathy with those who would vilify him for either conservative or liberal reasons. Whatever else you may think about Brother Sam, you cannot doubt his fidelity to the Bible as our rule of faith and practice.

Now Brother Sam has stuck his neck out once more; this time by explaining something that Adventist authorities have known since the early 1900s and Adventist scholars have openly acknowledged for at least twenty-five years. He has dared to expose the fact that finding the meaning of 666 by adding up the values of letters in a supposed title of the pope remains a patently irresponsible way of interpreting the Bible. As Bacchiocchi points out in detail, the evidence is overwhelming. Not only is the traditional way of calculating 666 from a supposed title for the Pope risky, it's downright fraudulent. He documents the origin of this interpretation, which you can read for yourself on his web site http://www.biblicalperspectives.com or by subscribing to his newsletter at the same site. When you go to the web site, look for archived newsletters on the papal tiara. Those and his many other articles are well worth reading.

With the help of Brother Sam's research, here are a few lowlights from the tale of the papal tiara. One of our pioneers in prophetic interpretation, Uriah Smith, included the numerological explanation of 666 in an article in The Review and Herald and in his book Daniel and the Revelation. Consequently it became a very popular explanation and, although never an official teaching of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, gained apparent validity from its use by many Adventist evangelists and authors. But Smith's suppositions and sources proved to be unreliable. In fact, investigations at the Vatican on two separate occasions yielded not a shred of evidence that the papal crowns, tiaras or miters ever had the words "Vicarius Filii Dei" on them." For example, in 1905 Chas T. Everson, an Adventist missionary serving in Italy somehow gained access to the papal tiaras at the Vatican. He sent to the General Conference actual pictures he had taken of the papal crowns. But at this point the story takes a strange twist. An artist modified one of the pictures and made it appear that the papal crown had the words "Vicarius Filii Dei." Southern Publishing then used the modified picture as an illustration in a publication of Smith's Daniel and the Revelation.

After reading Bacchiocchi's expose of the fake tiara I remembered I had actually seen a picture of it somewhere. Being curious, I dug out my tattered copy of Uriah Smith's Daniel and the Revelation. This particular edition was published by Pacific Press, which at the time had its main offices in Mountain View California. The copyright date of this edition is indicated as 1907 by Mrs. Uriah Smith. As I leafed through its pages I came across the offending picture on page 699 (too bad it couldn't have been 666). I have included a scan of this picture on this web site (see "The Fake Tiara." The picture reveals a jeweled papal crown with a cross on top and the words VICARIVS FILII DEI across its front. The caption below the picture says "THE POPE'S TIARA." Another caption at the bottom of the same page says, "FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN IN THE VATICAN MUSEUM."

Apparently two of our publishing houses, whether knowingly or unknowingly, participated in an outright fraud. 100 years later this would all be a tempest in a teapot, and a very old one at that, were it not for the fact that many of us have a hard time changing our minds. When something that we once considered to be based on unassailable evidence turns out to be wrong, we want to hide our heads in the sand rather than face the truth. Some of us, however, go a little further than that. When I wrote to Brother Sam about the opposition he was getting over the papal tiara story, he wrote back saying, "I wish you could see the hate mail I'm receiving." He later sent me the following example:

You truly are a good Jesuit and are doing the job you have taken an oath to do, Know this, God knows you to. You could stand on a stack of your bibles and swear all day long that you wern't a Jesuit and I would not believe you. I we both get to heaven then and only then would I believe you are not one..
Remove me from your email list,NOW.
But you go ahead steal all those that are willing to listen to you and your serpent tongue, for neither you nor they have the willingness to uphold the old landmarks and standards. I may not have the supposed knowledge that you have but sometimes were to smart????? for our own good. Like I say you're a good Jesuit and should have nothing to fear from their poison, knives, guns etc. Just God.

The character of such writing remains self-evident. Ironically however, even some relatively thoughtful people will use a lack of evidence as evidence to support their position. Some have suggested, for example, that the Catholic Church must have hidden the evidence of a papal crown with the pope's title on it. And this supposition then gives reason to hang onto an idea that never had sufficient supporting evidence in the first place. It's the old proof of conspiracy reasoning. If no evidence of a conspiracy exists, then that is proof that one exists! Such circularity hurts our credibility as well as our understanding of scripture.

But suppose the picture was authentic? Suppose, for example, that the good folks at Pacific Press searched their archives and found irrefutable evidence that the picture was not faked and that the papal tiara in Rome really did appear the way it was printed in Daniel and the Revelation? That would indeed be earthshaking. But so what? What would be the consequence of that revelation? First, those of us who care about evidence would immediately change our minds. We would retract everything we said about the picture being a fraud, and happily so. But, and here's the real punch line to the story, it would not change the fact that identifying the beast power through numerology remains a faulty method of biblical interpretation. It doesn't really matter what amazing things we might discover with this method. It fails to measure up to the standards of good methodology for biblical study. It remains on the level of horoscopes and palm reading because in using it, people tend to see what they are looking for.

As for the supposed Jesuit identity of Brother Sam, that theory would be hysterically funny if it weren't so hurtful. Sadly he has endured such idiocy for 30 years for no reason other than some don't like what he says. About 24 years ago I was privileged to host Dr. Bacchiocchi at my home in Springfield, Oregon. I had arranged a radio interview for him in the nearby city of Eugene. During the years since, I have invited him to speak at several churches where I served as pastor. He has always been a blessing and sought to build up the church through Biblical study. He would freely acknowledge that he remains a fallible human being with the same inherent tendency to bias that we all have. But I have also observed a willingness to learn and grow that we would all do well to emulate. He remains one of many scholars I have known over the years and continue to admire and learn from.

But ultimately, Dr. Bacchiocchi is not the issue here; and neither are your ideas or mine. The big issue here is whether or not we will let the Bible be its own guide to interpretation. Will we seek to be ever more faithful to what the Bible is and says rather than impose our ideas and expectations on it? That process remains a lot more difficult than we often imagine. It is a lot easier to approach the Bible with an idea of how it should have been written and what the nature of inspired writings should be rather than let the nature of the Bible itself teach us those things. And when we approach Revelation, we should find the meaning of its numbers and symbolic language within the context of scripture.

Perhaps Paul's experience in Berea best illustrates the lesson in all this. He had just come from Thessalonica where his opponents had stirred up a mob and made unfounded accusations based on partial truths. This made ministry impossible there so he left. But Acts 17:11 notes:

Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

Keep in mind that these folk could not stop by their local Berean Book Store and pick up the latest paperback edition of the Bible complete with cross references and maps. Their "Bible" was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which we call the Old Testament. Furthermore, these scriptures only existed in the form of scrolls and were likely housed in a synagogue. And that implies that a rabbi must have allowed people access to the scrolls and even studied with them every day. Knowing how modern rabbis and synagogues protect their precious scrolls, you can imagine what an unusual and intentional act this was to make sure Paul's message was biblically validated. But people who care about evidence for their faith are willing to go out of their way for the sake of truth. And they don't let tradition stop them.

But there is another aspect to this that I hope we can learn. And that is the practice of disagreeing without being disagreeable--being when necessary, the loyal opposition. We will not all agree on everything. As I am fond of telling my members, if we both think exactly alike, one of us is unnecessary.

Regarding the issue at hand, I suspect that no amount of evidence will convince everyone that the pope never had a tiara with his title on it. And some people will continue to use a numerological approach to interpreting 666. If you are one of those people, I will continue to vigorously appose what you say, and at the same time defend your right to say it. I will be your loyal opposition.

In the final analysis, what we have in common is far more important than how we differ. And what we have in common is most importantly this: we are all sinners, desperately in need of a savior. And our savior has provided salvation as a gift of grace, which we receive by faith. On that we should take our stand.