Page:Mahometanism in its relation to prophecy - or, an inquiry into the prophecies concerning antichrist, with some reference to their bearing on the events of the present day (IA mahometanisminit00philrich).pdf/188

 I have already had occasion, in a foregoing chapter of this work, to give my interpretation of this remarkable prophecy, and I have shown that it relates to the name of Mahomet, and that it has been already so explained, as Father Salmeron assures us, in his "Præludia in Apocalypsin," by various Byzantine Greek authors, such as Cedrenus, Zonaras, and Euthymius: and as this learned author, Father Salmeron himself, adopts the same interpretation of the beasts of this thirteenth chapter of the Apocalypse, as referring to Mahomet, and the empires that sprang from him, it is clear this interpretation of the mystic numerals, 666, must be also that which he himself adopts, although he mentions, as I myself have already done, other interpretations also. The Oxford friar, Father Roger Bacon, has also adopted this same interpretation; and the learned Anglican, Mr. Forster, affirms that, in his opinion, this interpretation has higher claims to being the correct one than any other advanced by other commentators.

It must be borne in mind that the Apostle expressly tell us that "it is the number of a man," consequently it seems clear that we must seek for the solution of the mystic number in the name of a man, rather than of a nation or of a system; hence, although the