From: "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" 
Subject: (urth) Numerological Wolfe
Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2002 15:16:02 -0700

I made a numerological reflection relevant to 5HC: 

> "666," the Number of the Beast, is "the number of a man." Kaballistically,
> 6 is a man and 3 is God; 666 is Man making a God of himself.)

> In Rev. 13 the number is six hundred, sixty, six, not three 6s. A 
> lot of people are confused on this, simply because we say "sixsixsix"
> and the English could be read either way. 

Well, yeah. The Arabic numeral system simply wasn't around when John
had his vision. Still, I misdoubt whether the standard translations
(like KJV's "six hundred, three score and six") are any better reflections
of the original Gk than a simple 666. I frankly find it very unlikely that
St John in writing this down was _un_aware of the hexaplicity of the three
components of his number.

I wasn't really familiar with the whole Solomon thing -- but I guess it
works in context.

Whatever meaning the number may have had to St John -- I think that is an 
entirely different question from what it may have meant to Gene Wolfe in 
the early-to-mid-'70s. And certainly it seems that much of the activity
at 666 Saltimbanque is oriented toward man deifying himself. 

And, really, given 
o the popular association of the number with a certain Caesar,
o the identity of GW's favorite fictional detective,
and
o the family's "real" last name
I find it extremely unlikely that GW would miss the opportunity to 
make _that_ association...

H'mmm. I have a couple of kind of separate things to say about 5HC. I'll
make them in a separate post or two.

--Blattid


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