¹ Irenaeus, Against heresies 5.30.1, trans. Michael Holmes, in The Apostolic Fathers in English, Grand Rapids, Mi 2006, 321.

² See Text und Textwert der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments, VI: Die Apokalypse, ed. Markus Lembke, Darius Müller and Ulrich B. Schmid, Berlin 2017, 130–3. The readings of Codex Ephraemi rescriptus (GA 04) and P. Oxy. 4499 (GA P115) are listed as numbers 13 and 14. It is also possible that the twelfth-century BL, ms Harleian 5778 (GA 110) preserves the number in the form χις, but the poor condition of the text makes a definitive judgement difficult.

³ See Mill, John, Novum testamentum graecum, Oxford 1707, 618Google Scholar, and Bengel, Johann, Novum testamentum graecum, Tübingen 1734, 825Google Scholar. Johann Wettstein also described the manuscript, though he did not include it among the witnesses to the text of Rev. xiii.18, in Prolegomena ad Novi testamenti graeci, Amsterdam 1730, 60. It had already vanished by the time Johann Michaelis wrote his Introduction to the New Testament 2.2 in 1793. Like Mill and Bengel, Constantin von Tischendorf lists Petavianus 2 as a witness to the 616 reading in Novum testamentum graece, i, Leipzig 1872, 983. In his list of witnesses to the 616 reading, Tischendorf also listed a lost manuscript allegedly used by Lorenzo Valla in his Adnotationes as a witness to the variant reading alongside Ephraemi rescriptus and Petavianus 2 (Novam testamentum graece ii. 983: ‘5. Χις’), but this seems to be a mistake: Valla's Adnotationes, published by Erasmus in 1505, does not include commentary on the variant number, nor did previous New Testament critics who used Valla as a textual witness (including Mill, Bengel and Wettstein) ever mention it.

⁴ Metzger, Bruce, A textual commentary on the Greek New Testament, New York 1971, 749–50Google Scholar. Metzger interprets the number as a Hebrew gematric cypher for ‘Nero Caesar’ and explains the variance between 666 and 616 as an alteration from a Greek form of Nero's name in Hebrew (‘nrwn qsr’ = 666) to a Latin form (‘nrw qsr’ = 616). See in support L. J. Lietaert Peerbolte, The antecedents of AntiChrist, Leiden 1996, 151, and M. Robert Mulholland Jr, Revelation, in Cornerstone biblical commentary, xviii, ed. Philip Comfort, Carol Stream, Il 2011, 521. But cf. Robert Mounce, The book of Revelation, Grand Rapids, Mi 1977, 262, who asserts that the 616 variant is better understood as an attempt to identify the beast with the Roman emperor Caligula (‘Gaios Caesar’ = 616).

⁵ The reading given in ms Harleian 1772, fo. 146 breaks off at ‘sexce -’, which led the early twentieth-century biblical scholar Edgar Buchanan to postulate that the missing text read ‘sexce[nti sedecim]’: The epistles and apocalypse from the codex Harleianus, London 1912, fo. 146. Such a reconstruction is almost certainly unwarranted.

⁶ Cf. Houghton, H. A. G., The Latin New Testament, Oxford 2016, 183CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Armenian Jerusalem Codex 4, the sole witness to the 616 reading outside the Greek and Latin languages, was also influenced by the Latin tradition. According to Fredrick Conybeare the text contains a ‘large Old Latin element’ in its readings – the likely source of the variant number: The Armenian version of Revelation and Cyril's scholia on the incarnation and epistle on Easter, London 1907, 116–17.

⁷ Tyconius, Expositio apocalypseos 4.46, FOTC cxxxiv. 139 (‘Hic est sapientia! Qui habet intellectum computet numerum bestiae; numerus enim hominis est, et numerus eius est DCXVI. Faciamus ergo numerum quem dixit accipi, ut in numero inueniamus nomen uel notam. “Numerus” inquit “eius est DCXVI.” Quem faciamus secundum Graecos, maxime quia ad Aisam scribit: Ego, inquit, sum A et ω. Sexcenti ergo et sedecim sic fiunt: Χις. Quae notae solutae numerus est, redactae autem in monogramma et notam faciunt et nomen et numerum. Hoc signo, , Christus intellegitur et ipsius ostenditur similitudo, quem in ueritate colit ecclesia, et cui se similem facit aduersitas’: CCSL 107A.187; italic original).

⁸ See Roger Gryson, CCSL 107A, 310–11 n. 46. ‘C’ is a ‘lunate sigma’, an alternative form of Greek letter Σ widely used in late antiquity. When rendered at the end of a word in minuscule script, it becomes a final sigma (ς).

⁹ See Augustine, Contra epistulam Parmeniani 1.1.1.

¹⁰ Tyconius, Expositio Apocalypseos 1.41, FOTC xxxxiv. 56 (‘Sicut enim in Africa factum est, ita oportet in toto mundo reuelari antichristum et eodem modo ab ecclesia ubique superari, quo ab ea in parte superatus est ad ostendendum nouissimi certaminis modum’: CCSL 107A.126).

¹¹ ‘rosa in spinis’: Bede, Epistola ad Eusebium de expositione Apocalypsis, CCSL cxxiA.223, 233; ‘pretiosa in stercore gemma’: Primasius of Hadrumetum, Commentarius in Apocalypsin, ‘Prologue’, CCSL 92.1–2.

¹² Caesarius of Arles, Explanatio in Apocalypsin 11, trans. Weinrich, William, Latin commentaries on Revelation, Downers Grove, Il 2011, 88–9Google Scholar (‘Cui se similem facit haereticorum aduersitas, qui cum Christum spiritaliter persequantur, tamen de signo crucis Christi gloriari uidentur. Hoc ideo quia dictum est numerus bestiae numerus esse hominis’: CCSL cv.179).

¹³ Gryson, CCSL cvii.142–3.

¹⁴ De monogramma 65–8 (‘Sic est hic numerus: centum sexies, et decem sexies, et unum sexies, sive, ut in exemplari altero habet, sexcenti sedecim; et hoc senarium sonat numerum, tanquam in se et in suis vere esset plenitudo perfectionis’: CCSL cvii.152.)

¹⁵ See Gumerlock, Francis, Early Latin commentaries on the Apocalypse, Kalamazoo, Mi 2016, 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Martin McNamara, ‘Plan and source analysis of Das Bibelwerk, Old Testament’, in Irland und die Christenheit, ed. Pröinseas Ní Chatháin and Michael Richter, Stuttgart 1966, 86.

¹⁶ Gryson, CCSL cviii108G.36. For an English translation of the Cambridge Gloss see McAllister, Colin, The Cambridge Gloss on the Apocalypse, Turnhout 2020CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ See McNamara, Martin, ‘The newly-identified Cambridge apocalypse commentary and the Reference Bible: a preliminary enquiry’, Peritia xv (2000), 220Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Beatus, Tractatus de Apocalipsin 6.4 (‘Numerus, inquid, eius est ACXY, quod sunt in numero DCLXVI, quem faciemus secundum Grecos ACXYMe, quia primitus ut eum recipiant ad Asiam scribit. AC ergo XY sic fiunt DCLXVI. Quae notae solutae numerus est, redactae autem in monogramma et notam faciunt et nomen et numerum hoc signo ☧’: CCSL cviiC.710).

¹⁹ Even with these two additions, Beatus’ gematric calculations require some massaging in order to achieve the desired result. If he is reading the Latin ‘C’ as a Greek ‘K’ and the X as an Σ, the gematric calculation A = 1, K = 20, Σ = 200, Υ = 400, Μ = 40, Ε = 5 can be derived, which successfully adds up to 666 in standard Greek isopsephy.

²⁰ ‘Beatus l'atteste indirectement sous la forme ACXY, qui est un déformation de DCXVI (là où chiffres et lettres ne sont pas clairement distingués, le d oncial peut être facilement confondu avec un a oncial, et la ligature VI prise pour un Y’: Gryson, CCSL cviiA.310 n. 75.

²¹ Most notably Bede, Expositio Apocalypseos (710); Ambrose Autpert, Expositio in Apocalypsin (c. 760), the author of the Explanatio Apocalypsis per interogationem et responsionem (Alcuin?), Theodulf of Orleans, Expositio in Apocalypsin (810) and Haimo of Auxerre, Expositionis in Apocalypsin Beati Iohannis libri septem (c. 840). See Matter, E. Ann, ‘Latin reception of the Apocalypse in the early Middle Ages’, in McAllister, Colin (ed.), The Cambridge companion to apocalyptic literature, Cambridge 2020, 123–5Google Scholar, and Gumerlock, Francis, Carolingian commentaries on the Apocalypse by Theodulf and Smaragdus, Kalamazoo, Mi 2019, 23 n. 32Google Scholar.

²² The edition is called ‘St Gall’ after the location of one of the two manuscripts known to contain it: St Gall Stiftsbibliothek 133 located in the Abbey Library of St Gall, Switzerland. The other witness to the text is Vittorio Emanuele ii 1325, held at the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale Vittorio Emanuele ii, Rome.

²³ Liber genealogus (St Gall), 628 (‘ad consolatum Hieri et Ardabu’: MGH, AA ix.196).

²⁴ For general discussion of the Liber genealogus see Inglebert, Hervé, Les Romains chrétiens face à l'histoire de Rome, Paris 1996, 599–604Google Scholar; Rouse, Richard and McNelis, Charles, ‘North African literary activity: a Cyprian fragment, the stichometric lists and a Donatist compendium’, Revue d'histoire des textes xxx (2000), 212, 219–24Google Scholar; and Hoover, Jesse, The Donatist Church in an apocalyptic age, Oxford 2018, 197–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ Liber genealogus (St Gall), 38, citing Rev. xiv.9–10 (‘quem nunc si quis acciperit in fronte sua aut in manu dextera, bibet et ipse de uino irae Dei mixto in poculo irae eius et punietur in conspectu sanctorum angelorum eius’: MGH, AA ix.162–3).

²⁶ Liber genealogus (St Gall) 614 (‘A passione enim domini usque ad apostulorum Petri et Pauli anni sunt XXVIII: passio Nerone et Pisone consolibus. Persecutio enim prima haec fuit Neronis, quae iterum futura est sub Enoch et Helia. Hic Nero ipse est, cuius nomen Iohannis in apocalypsi uocauit DCXVI. Hic sapientia uertitur, ut computetur per eras nomen illius, quae dicitur Antichristus: I, XIII, XVIIII, VIIII, III, XVII, VIII, VIIII, XVIII, XVIIII, XX, XVIII, ut numerus collectus assis CLIIII; hoc quater facit assis DCXVI, qui est nomen Antichristus’: MGH, AA ix. 194).

²⁷ The St Gall editor's calculation is hampered by minor instances of textual corruption: the number for the initial ‘A’ is missing, the value for the letter ‘I’ reads ‘VIII’ instead of the correct ‘VIIII’, the numbers for ‘H’ and ‘R’ have been switched, and the second-to-last ‘S’ reads ‘XVIIII’ instead ‘XVIII’. Nevertheless, the basic intention is clear, and the value of the missing or corrupt numbers can be supplied from the Florence recension of the text.

²⁸ Cf. Sulpicius Severus, Chronica 2.28 and (quoting Martin of Tours) Dialogi 1.42; Commodianus, Instructiones 41; and Augustine, De civitate Dei 20.19.3.

²⁹ These manuscripts are Plutei 20.54 and S. Maria Novella 663, both held at the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence. Several other copies have since been found in Cesena (Cesena Malatestiana D.XXIV.1) and León (Escorial b-I-9).

³⁰ Liber genealogus (Florence), 615 (‘secundum litteras IIII nomen Neronis’: MGH, AA ix.194).

³¹ Liber genealogus (Florence), 616 (‘Sed haec ad certum computationis numerum discrepare uidetur, iuxta quod alii doctores de numerum bestiae tractaverunt. Sic enim ait sanctus Victorinus episcopus: numerus eius, ait spiritus sanctus, nomen hominis est, et numerus nominis eius, DCLXVI, id est, Antichristus’: MGH, AA ix.194–5).

³² Liber genealogus (Florence), 619 (‘Ideo ista de egregii Victorini episcopi uel aliorum dicta subiunximus, quia suprascriptum computum collecta summa ex nomine Neronis ad numerum bestiae non conueniebat’: MGH, AA ix.195).

³³ Liber genealogus (Florence), 620 (‘Ipse autem Antichristus, ut in secretis legitur de tribu Dan filii Iacob patriarche, ueniet in spiritu Neronis, et Saar dicitur ciuitas in occidente, ubi adhuc tenetur inclusus’: MGH, AA ix.195). The identity of Saar is unknown, though it may be connected with ‘Sor’, an ancient name for Tyre, and, by extension, Carthage: cf. Optatus, Contra Parmenianum Donatistam, 3.3.

³⁴ It can be ascertained that the Lucca editor is aware of the Florence recension because while he does not include the passages which speculate about the number 666, he does retain the Florence editor's statement that AntiChrist will come ‘in the spirit of Nero’ from a city in the west, a passage not present in the St Gall recension.

³⁵ On the graphical representations in Visigothic Bibles see Yolanta Zaluska, ‘Les Feuillets liminaires’, in El ‘Beato’ de Sain-Sever, ed. Xavier Barrali Altet and others, Madrid 1984, 241–2. For the Intextuimus see Gorman, Michael, ‘The Visigothic commentary on Genesis in Autun 27 (S. 29)’, Recherches augustiniennes xxx (1997), 206Google Scholar. The ‘unknown source’ he lists for fos 38–40 is in fact the Liber genealogus.

³⁶ As mentioned above, however, given the text's otherwise solidly Vulgate reading, the variant number has likely been supplied via interaction with a Latin exegetical tradition ultimately dependent on Tyconius.

³⁷ See Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 199.

³⁸ On the Donatist provenance of these five tituli see ibid. 20; Pierre-Maurice Bogaert, ‘Les Particularités éditoriales des Bibles comme exégèse implicite ou proposée: les sommaires ou capitula donatistes’, in Lectures bibliques, Brussels 1982, 7–21; Bruyne, Donatien De, ‘Cassiodore et l'Amiatinus’, Revue bénédictine xxxix (1927), 265Google Scholar; and Chapman, H. J., ‘The Codex Amiatinus and Cassiodorus’, Revue bénédictine xxxix (1927), 16–17Google Scholar.

³⁹ Bogaert, ‘Les Particularités éditoriales’, 9–11.

⁴⁰ It is important to remember that biblical codices in late antiquity did not usually contain all the books of the Bible bound together in a single volume. The author of the capitula for the major prophets was likely working with the text of the major prophets alone.

⁴¹ This is Series A in the Benedictine Vulgate. Form a is the original Donatist text, while form b is the derivative. For the Daniel manuscripts see Benedictine Vulgate 16, 19–20. Series A is also used in 15 of the 17 surviving capitula for Isaiah (Benedictine Vulgate 13, 10), 22 of 24 for Jeremiah (Benedictine Vulgate 14, 11), and 26 of 29 for Ezekiel (Benedictine Vulgate 15, 9 –10).

⁴² The derivative text (Series Ab), found in four manuscripts, is primarily associated with Codex Amiatinus. Relevant examples of Amiatinus’ ‘corrections’ include the deletion of Jeremiah cap. 7, Series Aa (‘De aqua aliena, hoc est falso baptismo’) or the alteration of Jeremiah cap. 8, Series Aa (‘Non prodesse baptisma hereticorum’) to ‘Non prodesse baptisma hereticorum extra ecclesiam’ (Series Ab).

⁴³ Rev. xiii.2 (NRSV).

⁴⁴ Daniel cap. 16, Series Aa (Benedictine Vulgate 16, 23).

⁴⁵ Cf. Benedictine Vulgate 16, 23. The revised manuscripts either change the number to ‘four kings’ or ‘54 kings’.

⁴⁶ Cf. Benedictine Vulgate 16, 23. The other three manuscripts either modify the number to ‘four kings’ or delete it altogether.

⁴⁷ For text-types C and K see Gryson, CCSL cviiA, 83–4, and Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 181–2. Both can be found in Vetus Latina: die Reste der Altlateinischen Bibel 26.2: Apocalypsis Johannis, ed. Roger Gryson, Freiburg 2000, 7.511. Text-type C is primarily associated with the Old Latin text used in Primasius of Hadrumetum's Commentarius in Apocalypsin. Primasius’ text reads 666, but Gryson cautions that his lemmata are sometimes influenced by Vulgate readings: CCSL cviiA, 84.

⁴⁸ See St Irenaeus of Lyons against the heresies, book I, in Ancient Christian Writers, lv, trans. Dominic Unger and John Dillon, New York 1992, 14–15.

⁴⁹ Jerome, De viris illustribus, 74.

⁵⁰ See Dulaey, Martine, Victorin de Poetovio, premier exégète latin, i, Paris 1993, 24Google Scholar, and Houghton, Latin New Testament, 182.

⁵¹ See Karl Shuve, ‘Origen and the Tractatus de Epithalamio of Gregory of Elvira’, Studia Patristica l (2011), 199–201.

⁵² Notice, for instance, the differences between the Liber regularum and the Expositio apocalypseos in Tyconius’ citations of Rev. xvii.4 (‘Purpura cocco et auro et argento lapidusque pretiosis … habens poculum aureum in manu plenum execrationum et immunditiarum totius terrae’: Liber regularum 7.14.2; ‘Purpura et cocco et adornata auro et lapide pretioso et margaritis, habens calicem aureum in manu sua, plenum exsecrationum et immunditiarum fornicationis eius’: Expositio apocalypseos. 6.4) and Rev. xxi.19 (‘Omnem lapidem optimum’: Liber regularum 7.14.2; ‘Omni lapide pretioso’: Expositio apocalypseos 7.41).

⁵³ Gryson notes that traces of text-type S are found in Ambrosiaster, interpolated sections of Cyprian's Testimonia ad Quirinum, the Mozarabic liturgies, some parts of the biblical text preserved in the ninth-century Book of Armagh and the marginalia of a single manuscript of Bede's Apocalypse commentary found in Durham Cathedral Library (CCSL cviiA.86).

⁵⁴ Some notable examples of affinities toward the C and K text-types include the use of the word ‘punietur’ instead of ‘cruciabitur’ in Rev. xiv.10 in Liber genealogus 4.8; ‘laedere’ for ‘nocere’ in Rev. ix.10 in Tyconius, Liber regularum 5.6.1; ‘testor’ for ‘contestor’ in the anonymous Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae 10, ed. A.-G. Hamman, Patrologia Latina Supplementum, Paris 1969, i.178; and ‘mittentes’ for ‘mittent’ in Rev. iv.10 in a Donatist stichometric list known as the Indiculum: Mommsen, ‘Zur Lateinischen Stichometrie’, Hermes xxi (1886), 145–6.

⁵⁵ ‘Quicumque adiecerit ad librum istum apicem unum aut litteram unam, adiiciat illi Deus innumerabiles plagas; et quicumque deleverit, deleat partem eius Dominus de libro vitae’: Acta Saturnini 21 (Maier, Le Dossier du Donatisme 1.88). The Vulgate reads: ‘Si quis adposuerit ad haec adponet Deus super illum plagas scriptas in libro isto et si quis deminuerit de verbis libri prophetiae huius auferet Deus partem eius de ligno vitae.’

⁵⁶ Eutropius, De similitudine carnis peccati 84; Agobardius, Adversum dogma Felicis 34.

⁵⁷ Caesarius, Explanatio in Apocalypsin, homily 15 (‘angelus’); Chromatius, Tractatus in Mathaeum 18.3.2; Ps-Augustine, ‘De genesi in Vigilia Paschae’; Beatus, Tractatus de Apocalipsin prol. lib. sec. 89.1 (‘nationes’).

⁵⁸ This author is aware of only one case of overlap: both Liber genealogus 32 and Tyconius, Liber regularum 4.17 cite a portion of Rev. xi.8.

⁵⁹ The set of sixty Donatist sermons is known as the Vienna corpus. Its dissident origin was first noticed by Leroy, François, ‘Vingt-deux Homélies africaines nouvelles attribuables à l'un des anonymes du Chrysostome Latin (PLS 4) [Vienne O.N.B. Ms. Lat. 4147]’, Revue bénédictine civ (1994), 123–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More recent discussions of the collection include Leslie Dossey, Peasant and empire, Berkeley, Ca 2010, 162–7; Shaw, Brent, Sacred violence, Cambridge 2011, 419–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Alden Bass, ‘Fifth-century Donatist catechesis: an introduction to the Vienna sermon collection ÖNB M.LAT. 4147’, unpubl. PhD diss. Saint Louis, Mo 2014. The preaching handbook, which consists of a collection of eleven diverse texts including the Liber genealogus, Prophetiae ex omnibus libris collectae and several onomastic lists, was first identified as a unified whole in Rouse and McNelis, ‘North African literary activity’, 189–238.

⁶⁰ Note, for instance, Maureen Tilley, The Bible in Christian North Africa, Minneapolis, Mn 1997; Rouse and McNelis, ‘North African literary activity’, 212–17; and Houghton, The Latin New Testament, 20–2.