Historian, theologian, and author Edwin de Kock, in his 874-page book, The Truth about 666 and the

Story of the Great Apostasy (2011), identified numerous Catholic sources that apply the Latin title vicarius Filii Dei (vicar of the Son of God) to the pope. He also discovered no fewer than 100 instances of its use in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish translations over six hundred years. Additionally, his research found some 80 non-Catholics, mostly Protestants, who applied vicarius Filii Dei to the Roman Pontiff and calculated the number to be 666 based on Roman Numerals, before or in the time of Uriah Smith, the first Seventh-day Adventist writer to do so. De Kock showed that this explanation originated with a great German Lutheran scholar by the name of Andreas Helwig, who wrote Antichristus Romanus (The Roman Antichrist), which was published in three editions during 1600, 1612, and 1630. De Kocks book is dedicated to Helwig. Here are a few relevant passages from The Truth about 666: Helwig cites certain Hebrew names, such as Romith [sic], which yield 666, applied by writers to the pope. He also cites five Greek names, some reaching back to the third century, such as Lateinos, each similarly yielding 666. He then cites certain Latin names, used by, or applied by others to, the pope. These are (a) Vicarius Filii Dei, (b) Ordinarius Ovilis Christi Pastor, (c) Dux Cleri, and (d) Dic Luxeach likewise yielding 666. But the numerical value of vicarius Filii Dei was Helwigs own discovery. After a most diligent electronic search, including the Internet and computerized databases that cover the past few centuries, we find that nobody living before him has yet been shown to have spotted this equivalence. He focused on it increasingly, even to bringing that expression into the title of his book when it appeared for the last time, thirteen years before his death. Helwigs calculation follows: V I C A R I V S This is natural, simple, and based on five of the seven letters that in the Roman system have numerical values, namely i, v, l, c, and d. The letter u was originally the same as v, which can sometimes still be seen on monuments and tombstones. Helwigs discovery about vicarius Filii Dei = 666 in 1600 was of cardinal importance. . . 1 5 5 1 100 F I L I I 1 50 1 1 D E I 1 ___ 666 === 500

From that time [1735] . . . every few years and for the rest of the eighteenth century even before the French Revolutionone non-Catholic writer after the other explicitly mentioned this identification, in 1751, 1753, 1759, 1765, 1768, 1778, 1780, 1782, 1790, and 1791. After that, from 1793 onwards, there is a veritable avalanche of Protestant publications that deal with vicarius Filii Dei, mostly equating it with 666. In toto, from the time of Wolfius in 1735, there were about eighty such prophetic expositors, who scrutinized this topic before Uriah Smiths Thoughts Critical and Practical, on the Book of Revelation appeared in 1865. (See Appendix III.) They were not members of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, which then did not yet exist. Here are just three of the eighteenth-century examples that we have found. Interestingly, the first and third of them are from non-Christian sources. In 1753, a Deist publication referred to various religious leaders and said this about the pope: The Bishop of Rome stiles himself vicarius Filii Dei, the Vicar of the Son of God. It also hinted at, though it did not discuss, the number of the Beast, Apoc. xiii.18. Six years later, in 1759, James Ferguson (1710-1776), a famous Scottish astronomer, portraitist, and polymath, who delighted in figures while also studying prophecy, clearly mentioned the name-number equivalence. He worked out three tables establishing the numerical value of Romiith, Lateinos, and Vicarius Filii Dei. He pointed out that in his time the last mentioned was a title recognized by Catholics: The Papists call the Pope VICARIUS FILII DEI (The Vicar of the Son of God). And, if we take the sum of all the numeral letters in these three words, we shall find it also to be 666. Of the Protestants, Ferguson was apparently the first in Britain to enunciate this equation. Only against the background and as part of the whole Rev. 13 can we sensibly zoom in on what its last verse means. That Apocalyptic chapter is also bound up with the larger context of other Antichrist prophecies in the Bible. Together with the witness of history, prophetic contextuality is the key that enables us to eliminate all 666 identifications which have nothing to do with the papacy. Context, we say, context, context. On this, let us expand a little. Three dimensions of context are meant. The first is intratextual, that is, verse 18 is studied as part of and within Rev. 13 as a whole. The second is intertextual, which concerns the fact that elements of this chapter demonstrably allude to other Scriptures. Above all, these are the prophetic books of the Old Testament, most notably Daniel; Jesus Olivet discourse; and 2 Thess. 2:2-9. With the last mentioned, it is also legitimate to link up 1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; and 2 John 7; these are the only verses in the Bible which explicitly use the word antichrist and were authored by the same man as the one who wrote Revelation. The third dimension is extratextual: the words and symbols of Scripture reach out beyond themselves toward the events of history. As it was written, so it happens. And through the mysterious dynamics of eternity, prophecy is history in the future tense.