Dagon and the Pope being now identified, this brings us
naturally and easily to the long-sought name and number of the
beast, and confirms, by entirely new evidence, the old Protestant
view of the subject. The name "Lateinos" has
been generally accepted by Protestant writers, as having many
elements of probability to recommend it. But yet there has been
always found a certain deficiency, and it has been felt that
something was wanting to put it beyond all possibility of doubt.
Now, looking at the subject from the Babylonian point of view, we
shall find both the name and number of the beast brought home to
us in such a way as leaves nothing to be desired on the point of
evidence. Osiris, or Nimrod, whom the Pope represents, was called
by many different titles, and therefore, as Wilkinson remarks, *
he was much in the same position as his wife, who was called "Myrionymus,"
the goddess with "ten thousand names."
Among these innumerable names, how shall we ascertain the name at
which the Spirit of God points in the enigmatical language that
speaks of the name of the best, and the number of his name? If we
know the Apocalyptic name of the system, that will lead us to the
name of the head of the system. The name of the system is "Mystery"
(Rev. xvii. 5). Here, then, we have the key that at once
unlocks the enigma. We have now only inquire what was the name by
which Nimrod was knows as the god of the Chaldean Mysteries. Tat
name, as we have seen, was Saturn. Saturn and Mystery are both
Chaldean words, and they are correlative terms. As Mystery
signifies the Hidden system, so Saturn signifies the Hidden god.
* To those who were initiated the god was revealed; to all else
he was hidden. Now, the name Saturn in Chaldee is pronounced
Satur; but, as every Chaldee scholar knows, consists only of four
letters, thus--Stur. This name contains exactly the Apocalyptic
number 666:--
If the Pope is, as we have seen, the legitimate representative
of Saturn, the number of the Pope, as head of the Mystery of
Iniquity, is just 666. But still further it turns out, as shown
above, that the original name of Rome itself was Saturnia, "the
city of Saturn." This is vouched alike by Ovid, * by
Pliny, * and by Aurelius Victor. * Thus. then, the Pope has a
double claim to the name and number of the beast. He is the only
legitimate representative of the original Saturn at this day in
existence, and he reigns in the very city of the seven hills
where the Roman Saturn formerly reigned; and, from his residence
in which, the whole of Italy was "long after called by
his name," being commonly named "the Saturnian
land." But what bearing, it may be said, has this upon
the name Lateinos, which is commonly believed to be the "name
of the beast"? Much. It proves that the common opinion
is thoroughly well-founded. Saturn and Lateinos are just
synonymous, having precisely the same meaning, and belonging
equally to the same god. The reader cannot have forgotten the
lines of Virgil, which showed that Lateinos, to whom the Romans
or Latin race traced back their lineage, was represented with a
glory around his head, to show that he was a "child of
the Sun." * Thus, then, it is evident that, in popular
opinion, the original Lateinos had occupied the very same
position as Saturn did in the Mysteries, who was equally
worshipped as the "offspring of the Sun." Moreover,
it is evident that the Romans knew that the name "Lateinos"
signified the "Hidden One," for their
antiquarians invariably affirm that Latium received its name from
Saturn "lying hid" there. * On etymological grounds,
then, even on the testimony of the Romans, Lateinos is equivalent
tot he "Hidden One;" that is, to Saturn, the "god
of Mystery." *
While Saturn, therefore, is the name of the beast, and
contains the mystic number, Lateinos, which contains the same
number, is just as peculiar and distinctive an appellation of the
same beast. The Pope, then, as the head of the beast, is equally
Lateinos or Saturn, that is, the head of the Babylonian "Mystery."
When, therefore, the Pope requires all his services to be
performed in the "Latin tongue," that is as
much as to say that they must be performed in the language of "Mystery";
when he calls his Church the Latin Church, that is equivalent to
a declaration that it is the Church of "Mystery."
Thus, by this very name of the Pope's own choosing, he has with
his own hands written upon the very forehead of his apostate
communion its divine Apocalyptic designation, "MYSTERY--Babylon
the great." Thus, also, by a process of the purest
induction, we have been led on from step to step, till we find
the mystic number 666 unmistakably and "indelibly
marked" on his own forehead, and that he who has his
seat on the seven hills of Rome has exclusive and indefeasible
claims to be regarded as the Visible head of the beast.
The reader, however, who has carefully considered the language
that speaks of the name and number of the Apocalyptic beast, must
have observed that, in the terms that describe that name and
number, there is still an enigma that ought not to be overlooked.
The words are these: "Let him that hath understanding
count the number of the beast--for it is the number of a
man" (Rev. xiii. 18). What means the saying, that the "number
of the beast is the number of a man"? Does it merely
mean that he has been called by a name that has been borne by
some individual man before? This is the sense in which the words
have been generally understood. But surely this would be nothing
very distinctive--nothing that might not equally apply to
innumerable names. But view this language in connection with the
ascertained facts of the case, and what a Divine light at once
beams from the expression. Saturn, the hidden god,--the god of
the Mysteries, whom the Pope represents, whose secrets were
revealed only to the initiated,--was identical with Janus, who
was publicly known to all Rome, to the uninitiated and initiated
alike, as the grand Mediator, the opener and the shutter, who had
the key of the invisible world. Now, what means the name Janus?
That name, as Cornificius in Macrobius shows, was properly Eanus;
* and in ancient Chaldee, E-anush signifies "the
Man." By that very name was the Babylonian beast from
the sea called, when it first made its appearance. * The name
E-anush, or "the Man," was applied to the
Babylonian Messiah, as identifying him with the promised seed of
the Woman. The name of "the Man," as applied
to a god, was intended to designate him as the "god-man."
We have seen that in India the Hindoo Shasters bear witness, that
in order to enable the gods to overcome their enemies, it was
needful that the Sun, the supreme divinity, should be incarnate,
and born of a Woman. * The classical nations had a legend of
precisely the same nature. "There was a current
tradition in heaven," says Apollodorus, "that
the giants could never be conquered except by the help of a
man." * That man, who was believed to have conquered
the adversaries of the gods, was Janus, the god-man. In
consequence of his assumed character and exploits, Janus was
invested with high powers, made the keeper of the gates of
heaven, and arbiter of men's eternal destinies. Of this Janus,
this Babylonian "man," the Pope, as we have
seen, is the legitimate representative; his key, therefore, he
bears, with that of Cybele, his mother-wife; and to all his
blasphemous pretensions he at this hour lays claim. The very
fact, then, that the Pope founds his claim to universal homage on
the possession of the keys of heaven, and that in a sense which
empowers him, in defiance of every principle of Christianity, to
open and shut the gates of glory, according to his mere sovereign
will and pleasure, is a striking and additional proof that he is
that head of the beast from the sea, whose number, as identified
with Janus, is the number of a man, and amounts exactly to 666.
But there is something further still in the name of Janus or
Eanus, not to be passed over. Janus, while manifestly worshipped
as the Messiah or god-man, was also celebrated as "Principium
Deorum," * the source and fountain of all the Pagan
gods. We have already in this character traced him backward
through Cush to Noah; but to make out his claim to this high
character, in its proper completeness, he must be traced even
further still. The Pagans knew, and could not but know, at the
time the Mysteries were concocted, in the days of Shem and his
brethren, who, through the Flood, had passed from the old world
to the new, the whole story of Adam, and therefore it was
necessary, of a deification of mankind there was to be, that his
pre-eminent dignity, as the human "Father of gods and
men," should not be ignored. Nor was it. The Mysteries
were full of what he did, and what befel him; and the name
E-anush, or, as it appeared in the Egyptian form, Ph'anesh, * "The
man," was only another name for that of our great
progenitor. The name of Adam in the Hebrew of Genesis almost
always occurs with the article before it, implying "The
Adam," or "The man." There is the
difference, however--"The Adam" refers to man
unfallen, E-anush, "The man," to "fallen
man." E-anush, then, as "Principium
deorum," "The fountain and father of gods," is
"FALLEN Adam." * The principle of Pagan
idolatry went directly to exalt fallen humanity, to consecrate
its lusts, to give men license to live after the flesh, and yet,
after such a life, to make them sure of eternal felicity. E-anus,
the "fallen man," was set up as the human Head
of this system of corruption--this "Mystery of
Iniquity." Now, from this we come to see the real
meaning of the name, applied to the divinity commonly worshipped
in Phrygia along with Cybele in the very same character as this
same Janus, who was at once the Father of gods, and the
Mediatorial divinity. That name was Atys, or Attis, or Attes, *
and the meaning will evidently appear from the meaning of the
well-known Greek word Ate, which signifies "error of
sin," and is obviously derived from the Chaldean Hata,
"to sin." Atys or Attes, formed from the same
verb, and in a similar way, signifies "The Sinner."
The reader will remember that Rhea or Cybele was worshipped in
Phrygia under the name of Idaia Mater, "The mother of
knowledge," and that she bore in her hand, as her
symbol, the pomegranate, which we have seen reason to conclude to
have been in Pagan estimation the fruit of the "forbidden
tree." * Who, then, so likely to have been the
contemplar divinity of that "Mother of knowledge"
as Attes, "The sinner," even her own husband,
whom she induced to share with her in her sin, and partake of her
fatal knowledge, and who thereby became in true and proper sense,
"The man of sin,"--"the man by whom
sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all, because all have sinned." * Now at Attes, this "Man
of sin," after passing through those sorrows and
sufferings, which his worshippers yearly commemorated, the
distinguishing characteristics and glories of the Messiah were
given. He was identified with the sun, * the only one god; he was
identified with Adonis; and to him as thus identified, the
language of the Sixteenth Psalm, predicting the triumph of our
Saviour Christ over death and the grave, was in all its greatness
applied: "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor
suffer thine Holy One to see corruption." It is
sufficiently known that the first part of this statement was
applied to Adonis; for the annual weeping of the women for Tammuz
was speedily turned into rejoicings, on account of his fabled
return from Hades, or the infernal regions. But it is not so well
known that Paganism applied to its mediatorial god the predicted
incorruption of the body of the Messiah. But that this was the
fact, we learn from the distinct testimony of Pausanias. "Agdistis,"
that is Cybele, says he "obtained from Jupiter, that no
part of the body of Attes should either become putrid or waste
away." * Thus did Paganism apply to Attes "the
sinner," the incommunicable honour of Christ, who came
to "save His people from their sins"--as
contained in the Divine language uttered by the "sweet
psalmist of Israel," a thousand years before the
Christian era. If, therefore, the Pope occupies, as we have seen,
the very place of Janus "the man," how clear
is it, that he equally occupies the place of Attes, "the
sinner," and then how striking in this point of view
the name "Man of sin," as divinely given by
prophecy (2 Thess. ii. 3) to him who was to be the head of the
Christian apostacy, and who was to concentrate in that apostacy
all the corruption of Babylonian Paganism?
The Pope is thus on every ground demonstrated to be the
visible head of the beast. But the beast has not only a visible,
but an invisible head that governs it. That invisible head is
none other than Satan, the head of the first grand apostacy that
began in heaven itself. This is put beyond doubt by the language
of Rev. xiii. 4: "And they worshipped the Dragon which
gave power into the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast?
Who is able to make war with him?" This language shows
that the worship of the dragon is commensurate with the worship
of the beast. That the dragon is primarily Satan, the arch-fiend
himself, is plain from the statement of the previous chapter
(Rev. xii. 9): "And the Dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the
world." If, then, the Pope be, as we have seen, the
visible head of the beast, the adherents of Rome, in worshipping
the Pope, of necessity worship also the Devil. With the Divine
statement before us, there is no possibility of escaping from
this. And this is expressly stated, that before Judas committed
his treason, "Satan," the prince of the
Devils, "entered into him," took complete and
entire possession of him. From analogy, we may expect the same to
have been the case here. Before the Pope could even conceive such
a scheme of complicated treachery to the cause of his Lord, as
his been proved against him, before he could be qualified from
successfully carrying that treacherous scheme into effect, Satan
himself must enter into him. The Mystery of Iniquity was to
practise and prosper according "to the working"--i.e.,
literally, "according to the energy or mighty power of
Satan" (2 Thess. ii. 9). * Therefore Satan himself, and
not any subordinate spirit of hell, must preside over the whole
vast system of consecrated wickedness; he must personally take
possession of him who is its visible head, that the system may be
guided by his diabolical subtlety, and "energised"
by his super-human power. Keeping this in view, we see at once
how it is that, when the followers of the Pope worship the beast,
they worship also the "dragon that gave power the
beast."
Thus, altogether independent of historical evidence on this
point, we are brought to the irresistible conclusion that the
worship of Rome is one vast system of Devil-worship. If it be
once admitted that the Pope is the head of the beast from the
sea, we are bound, on the mere testimony of God, without any
other evidence whatever, to receive this as a fact, that,
consciously or unconsciously, those who worship the Pope are
actually worshipping the Devil. But, in truth, we have historical
evidence, and that of a very remarkable kind, that the Pope, as
head of the Chaldean Mysteries, is a directly the representative
of Satan, as he is of the false Messiah of Babylon. It was long
ago noticed by Irenaeus, about the end of the second century,
that the name Teitan contained the Mystic number 666; and he gave
it as his opinion that Teitan was "by far the most
probably name" of the beast from the sea. * The grounds
of his opinion, as stated by him, do not carry much weight; but
the opinion itself he may have derived from others who had better
and more valid reasons for their belief on this subject. Now, on
inquiry, it will actually be found, that while Saturn was the
name of the visible head, Teitan was the name of the invisible
head of the beast. Teitan is just the Chaldean form of Sheitan, *
the very name by which Satan has been called from time immemorial
by the Devil-worshippers of Kurdistan; * and from Armenia or
Kurdistan, this Devil-worship embodied in the Chaldean Mysteries
came westward to Asia Minor, and thence to Etruria and Rome. That
Teitan was actually known by the classic nations of antiquity to
be Satan, or the spirit of wickedness, and originator of moral
evil, we have the following proofs: The history of Teitan and his
brethren, as given in Homer and Hesiod, the two earliest of all
the Greek writers, although later legends are obviously mixed up
with it, is evidently the exact counterpart of the Scriptural
account of Satan and his angels. Homer says, that "all
the gods of Tartarus," or Hell, "were called
Teitans." * Hesiod tells us how these Teitans, or "gods
of hell," came to have their dwelling there. The chief
of them having committed a certain act of wickedness against his
father, the supreme god of heaven, with the sympathy of many
others of the "sons of heaven," that father "called
them all by an opprobrious name, Teitans," * pronounced
a curse upon them, and then, in consequence of that curse, they
were "cast down to hell," and "bound
in chains of darkness" in the abyss. * While this is
the earliest account of Teitan and his followers among the
Greeks, we find that, in the Chaldean system, Teitan was just a
synonym for Typhon, the malignant Serpent or Dragon, who was
universally regarded as the Devil, or author of all wickedness.
It was Typhon, according to the Pagan version of the story, that
killed Tammuz, and cut him in pieces; but Lactantius, who was
thoroughly acquainted with the subject, upbraids his Pagan
countrymen for "worshipping a child torn in pieces by
the Teitans." * It is undeniable, then, that Teitan, in
Pagan belief, was identical with the Dragon, or Satan. *
In the Mysteries, as formerly hinted, an important change took
place as soon as the way was paved for it. First, Tammuz was
worshipped as the bruiser of the serpent's head, meaning thereby
that he was the appointed destroyer of Satan's kingdom. Then the
dragon himself, or Satan, came to receive a certain measure of
worship, to "console him," as the Pagans said,
"for the loss of his power," and to prevent
him from hurting them; * and last of all the dragon, or Teitan or
Satan, became the supreme object of worship, the Titania, or
rites of Teitan, occupying a prominent place in the Egyptian
Mysteries, * and also in those of Greece. * How vitally important
was the place that these rites of Teitan or Satan occupied, may
be judged of from the fact that Pluto, the god of Hell (who, in
his ultimate character, was just the grand Adversary), was looked
up to with awe and dread as the great god on whom the destinies
of mankind in the eternal world did mainly depend; for it was
said that to Pluto it belonged "to purify souls after
death." * Purgatory having been in Paganism, as it is
in Popery, the grand hinge of priestcraft and superstition, what
a power did this opinion attribute to the "god of
Hell"! No wonder that the serpent, the Devil's grand
instrument in seducing mankind, was in all the earth worshipped
with such extraordinary reverence, it being laid down in the
Octateuch of Ostanes, that "serpents were the supreme of
all gods and the princes of the Universe." * No wonder
that it came at last to be firmly believed that the Messiah, on
whom the hopes of the world depended, was Himself the "seed
of the serpent"! This was manifestly the case in
Greece; for the current story there came to be, that the first
Bacchus was brought forth in consequence of a connexion on the
part of his mother with the father of the gods, in the form of a "speckled
snake." * That "father of the gods"
was manifestly "the god of hell;" for
Proserpine, the mother of Bacchus, that miraculously conceived
and brought forth the wondrous child--whose rape by Pluto
occupied such a place in the Mysteries--was worshipped as the
wife of the god of Hell, as we have already seen, under the name
of the "Holy Virgin." * The story of the
seduction of Eve * by the serpent is plainly imported into this
legend, as Julius Firmicus and the early Christian apologists did
with great force cast in the teeth of the Pagans of their day;
but very different is the colouring given to it in the Pagan
legend from that which it has in the Divine Word. Thus the grand Thimblerigger, by dexterously shifting the peas, through means of
men who began with great professions of abhorrence of his
character, got himself almost everywhere recognised as in very
deed "the god of this world." So deep and so
strong was the hold that Satan had contrived to get of the
ancient world in this character, that even when Christianity had
been proclaimed to man, and the true light had shone from Heaven,
the very doctrine we have been considering raised its head among
the professed disciples of Christ. Those who held this doctrine
were called Ophiani or Ophites, that is, serpent-worshippers. "These
heretics," says Tertullian, "magnify the
serpent to such a degree as to prefer him even to Christ Himself;
for he, say they, gave us the first knowledge of good and evil.
It was from a perception of his power and majesty that Moses was
induced to erect the brazen serpent, to which whosoever looked
was healed. Christ Himself, they affirm, in the Gospel imitates
the sacred power of the serpent, when He says that, 'As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so much the Son of
Man be lifted up.' * They introduced it when they bless the
Eucharist." These wicked heretics avowedly worshipped
the old serpent, or Satan, as the grand benefactor of mankind,
for revealing to them the knowledge of good and evil. But this
doctrine they had just brought along with them from the Pagan
world, from which they had come, or from the Mysteries, as they
came to be received and celebrated in Rome. Though Teitan, in the
days of Hesiod and in early Greece, was an "opprobrious
name," yet in Rome, in the days of the Empire and
before, it had become the very reverse. "The splendid or
glorious Teitan" was the way in which Teitan was spoken
of at orb of day and viewed as a divinity. Now, the reader has
seen already that another form of the sun-divinity, or Teitan, at
Rome, was the Epidaurian snake, worshipped under the name of "AEsculapius,"
that is, "the man-instructing serpent." *
Here, then, in Rome was Teitan, or Satan, identified with the "serpent
that taught mankind," that opened their eyes (when, of
course, they were blind), and gave them "the knowledge
of good and evil." In Pergamos, and in all Asia Minor,
from which directly Rome derived its knowledge of the Mysteries,
the case was the same. In Pergamos, especially, where
pre-eminently "Satan's seat was," the
sun-divinity, as is well known, was worshipped under the form of
a serpent and under the name of AEsculapius, "the
man-instructing serpent." According to the fundamental
doctrine of the Mysteries, as brought from Pergamos to Rome, the
sun was the one only god. * Teitan, or Satan, then, was thus
recognised as the one only god; and of that only god, Tammuz or Janus, in his character as the Son, or the woman's seed, was just
an incarnation. Here, then, the grand secret of the Roman Empire
is at last brought to light--viz., the real name of the tutelar
divinity of Rome. That secret was most jealously guarded;
insomuch that when Valerius Soranus, a man of the highest rank,
and, as Cicero declared, "the most learned of the
Romans," had incautiously divulged it, he was
remorselessly put to death for his revelation. Now, however, it
stands plainly revealed. A symbolical representation of the
worship of the Roman people, from Pompeii, strikingly confirms
this deduction by evidence that appeals to the very senses. Let
the reader cast his eyes on the woodcut herewith given . * We
have seen already that it is admitted by the author of Pompeii,
in regard to a former representation, that the serpents in the
under compartment are only another way of exhibiting the dark
divinities represented in the upper compartment. Let the same
principle be admitted here, and it follows that the swallows, or
birds pursuing the flies, represent the same thing as the
serpents do below. But the serpent, of which there is a double
representation, is unquestionably the serpent of AEsculapius. The
fly-destroying swallow, therefore, must represent the same
divinity. Now, every one knows what was the name by which "the
Lord of the fly," or fly-destroying god of the Oriental
world was called. It was Beel-zebub. * This name, as signifying "Lord
of the Fly," to the profane meant only the power that
destroying the swarms of flies when these became, as they often
did in hot countries, a source of torment to the people whom they
invaded. But this name, as identified with the serpent, clearly
reveals itself as one of the distinctive names of Satan. And how
appropriate is this name, when its mystic or esoteric meaning is
penetrated. What is the real meaning of this familiar name? Baal-zebub just means "The restless Lord," *
even that unhappy one who "goeth to and fro in the
earth, and walketh up and down in it," who "goeth
through dry places seeking rest, and finding none." From
all this, the inference is unavoidable that Satan, in his own
proper name, must have been the great god of their secret and
mysterious worship, and this accounts for the extraordinary
mystery observed on the subject. * When, therefore, Gratian
abolished the legal provision for the support of the fire-worship
and serpent-worship of Rome, we see how exactly the Divine
prediction was fulfilled (Rev. xii. 9): "And the great
dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the DEVIL, and
SATAN, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the
earth, and his angels were cast out with him." * Now,
as the Pagan Pontifex, to whose powers and prerogatives the Pope
and served himself heir, was thus the High-priest of Satan, so,
when the Pope entered into a league and alliance with that system
of Devil-worship, and consented to occupy the very position of
that Pontifex, and to bring all its abominations into the Church,
as he has done, he necessarily became the Prime Minister of the
Devil, and, of course, come as thoroughly under his power as ever
the previous Pontiff had been. * How exact the fulfilment of the
Divine statement that the coming of the Man of Sin was to be "after
the working or energy of Satan." Here, then, is the
grand conclusion to which we are compelled, both on historical
and Scriptural grounds, to come: As the mystery of godliness is
God manifest in the flesh, so the mystery of iniquity is--so far
as such a thing is possible--the Devil incarnate.
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