120 



E. J. SEWELL, ESQ.^ ON TOMPEII. 



"Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem 

 Quam quae sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus . . . .''^ 



and it is one of the characteristics of archaeological discovery 

 that, even where it does not furnish us with absolutely fresh 

 knowledge, it adds so much force and vividness to what was 

 known before, but known only in a dry and lifeless way, as to 

 make it almost new knowledge so far as its practical effect is 

 concerned. 



Pompeii has only been partially dug out, and Herculaneum 

 very little, so that no one can tell what new facts they may yet 

 yield. Dr. Deissmann has drawn attention to one which may 

 almost rank as new, viz., the use in " grafhti " of methods of 

 indicating names by numerals exactly like that used in the 

 Apocalypse by St. John for indicating " the Beast." He 

 mentions (Light from the Ancient East, p. 276) some words 

 scribbled on a wall in Greek — ^CKoy ^9 apiO^o^ ^fie. " I 

 love her whose number is 545." In this case any lady of the 

 writer's acquaintance could easily discover whether her name 

 fitted the conditions or did not, while strangers would have 

 nothing to guide them as to the person meant. So in the case 

 of the author of the Apocalypse, he must have known when he said 

 (Eevelation xiii, 18), " Let him that hath understanding 

 count the number of the beast : for it is the number of a man, 

 and his number is six hundred three score and six," that 

 circumstances familiar to his Christian readers would make it 

 easy for them to fit the number to a name, but that without the 

 guidance they had, strangers would not be able to do so with 

 any certainty. 



The point however is that in the Pompeian " graffiti ' it is 

 Greek letters that are used, whereas most modern " exegetists 

 have assumed that ' gematria was a specifically Jewish form of 

 the numerical riddle, and therefore attempts have often been 

 Tiiade" to find the name corresponding to the number 666 (or 

 616 another reading) by means of the Hebrew alphabet. It 

 seems doubtful whether the Christian readers of the Apocalypse 

 in the end of the first century would include a sufficient number 

 of persons acquainted with the Hebrev/ letters and their 

 numerical value to allow the allusion to be at all generally com- 

 prehensible if it were based on Hebrew letters. On the other 



^ Or as Francis translates it — 



"... what we hear, 

 With weaker i)assion will affect the heart, 

 Than when the faithful eye beholds the part. 



