Revelation 13 Part 4
As we saw last week the letters Chi, Xi, and Stigma (χξς) make up the symbol of the beast.
The first letter Chi or 'X' is an abbreviation for Christ. We see from grammarly.com
Words change over time—their meaning, their usage, and even their spelling. Take Christmas and its shortened version, Xmas, for example. We see Xmas written nearly everywhere, from holiday advertisements to Christmas cards. The word Christmas comes from the combination of the words ‘Christ’ and ‘mass.’ But where did the X in Xmas come from, and what does it mean?
In the Greek alphabet, X is the symbol for the letter ‘chi.’ Chi (or X) is the first letter in the Greek word for Christ. In the early days of the Christian church, Christians used the letter X as a secret symbol to indicate their membership in the church to others.
If you know the Greek meaning of X, Xmas and Christmas essentially mean the same thing: Christ + mas = Christmas.
This fact is very well known as you can see this information is in common every day websites. Vox.com states:
How can the letter "X" stand for "Christ"?
In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the word Christos (Christ) begins with the letter "X," or chi. Here's what it looks like:
Χριστός
So how did that word get abbreviated?
In the early fourth century, Constantine the Great, Roman Emperor from 306-337, popularized this shorthand for Christ. According to legend, on the eve of his great battle against Maxentius, Constantine had a vision that led him to create a military banner emblazoned with the first two letters of Christ on it: chi and rho.
The Chi-Ro. One of the many Christograms of Jesus. A Christogram is a monogram or combination of letters that forms an abbreviation for the name of Jesus Christ, traditionally used as a religious symbol within the Christian Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christogram
Here is another Christogram of Jesus. You can see at the top right image the Letters, Chi, Xi, and Stigma.
So we know the first letter 'Chi', is the abbreviation for Christ. The second letter is 'Xi' or ξ. The word Stauros begins with the letter 'Xi". Stauros means:
Stauros (σταυρός) is a Greek word for a stake or an implement of capital punishment. The Greek New Testament uses the word stauros for the instrument of Jesus' crucifixion, and word is generally translated cross in Christian contexts. This article covers the use of the word for other contexts.
If you think the letter Xi or ξ looks like a serpent, then you are not the only one. 19th Century bible scholar Dr. E. W. Bullinger (Number in Scripture page 49) has this to say about the letter Xi.
* This letter ς (called Stigma) is used for the number 6. Why this letter and number should be thus associated we cannot tell, except that both are intimately connected with the ancient Egyptian "mysteries." The three letters SSS (in Greek ΣΣΣ) were the symbol of Isis, which is thus connected with 666. Indeed the expression of this number, Χξς, consists of the initial and final letters of the word Xριστος (Christos), Christ, viz., X and ς, with the symbol of the serpent between them, X—ξ—ς.
And as you can see above it states: Χξς, consists of the initial and final letters of the word Xριστος (Christos), Christ
And once again, we wee the letter Xi, coiled up like a serpent between the first and last letters of the word Christ.
So How Did This Beast Prosper?
So how is it that this beast and false religion prospered? The answer is by force. Phillip Jenkins writes a couple of interesting things in the book 'Jesus wars: How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years'. (Location 130 of 5800 Ebook)
"Horror stories about Christian Violence abound in other earas, with the crusades and inquisition as prime exhibits; but the intra-Christian violence of the fifth and sixth-century debates was on a far larger and more systematic scale than anything produced by the Inquisition.....Jerusam was occupied by an army of monks; in the name of the one incarnate nature, they pillaged, they burnt, they murdered....The Alexandrian Patriarch was murdered in the Cathedral.....The remains of his mangled corpse were delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the wind..... Many thousands were slain."
I'm going to go on and paraphrase a lot of what was written, but a Chalcedonian bishop coerced dissidents to the point of burning them alive and took the blood of lepers and dripping them one people until they "saw the error of their ways". When I say take the blood of lepers, I don't mean squeezing the blood out of lepers, putting it in a bowl, and pouring it on people who disagreed with them. I mean actually dragging lepers to the dissidents, so the dissident could see the leperous sores on the person, cutting the leper, and dripping blood of their body until the person "saw the truth". He goes on to write about how some people's hands were bound and communion was forced down their throat. I haven't even began to mention all the other gruesome forms of torture that "Christians" committed all to ensure their view of Christ survived. Many Christians put dissidents into prison and executed them.
Do you think that is why Yahuah warned in Revelation 13:9 : 9If any man have an ear, let him hear. 10He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
Even when some were not tortured, they were often deprived of all "quality of life" Clarke's Commentary of Revelation 13:17 states:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark - "If any," observes Bishop Newton, "dissent from the stated and authorized forms; they are condemned and excommunicated as heretics; and in consequence of that they are no longer suffered to buy or sell; they are interdicted from traffic and commerce, and all the benefits of civil society.
So Roger Hoveden relates of William the Conqueror, that he was so dutiful to the pope that he would not permit any one in his power to buy or sell any thing whom he found disobedient to the apostolic see. So the canon of the council of Lateran, under Pope Alexander III., made against the Waldenses and Albigenses, enjoins, upon pain of anathema, that no man presume to entertain or cherish them in his house or land, or exercise traffic with them.
The synod of Tours, in France, under the same pope, orders, under the like intermination, that no man should presume to receive or assist them, no, not so much as hold any communion with them, in selling or buying; that, being deprived of the comfort of humanity they may be compelled to repent of the error of their way."
There are many other examples of people being unable to buy or sell because of their beliefs. I have found on a couple of websites the mentioning of people receiving a mark on their right hand, however, I did not find proof of anyone receiving a mark on their right hand in any official sources. With that said, I do not believe Revelation 13 to be literal. The Beast is not a literal beast. The dragon is not a literal dragon. People calling fire down from heaven are not really calling fire down from heaven, nor is an image of the beast literally speaking.
This is just like how Yahusha was not being literal by saying in Revelation 3:12: 12Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God,
The children of Yahuah will not be a literal pillar, nor do I believe that Yahusha will literally write Yahuah on us. In Deuteronomy 6 Yahuah told Israel to take the words he had commanded them and bind them on their forehead and hand. I remember hearing a Bible teacher tell me that placing Yahuah's law on their forehead represented Yahuah's law being in our mind, and binding Yahuah's law on our hand represented Yahuah's law guiding our hands, or guiding our actions. I agree 100 percent. Likewise, the beast making everyone take a mark on their head and right hand meant that this false god would be in their minds and would control their actions.
Thankfully, Yahusha is coming back, and will destroy all of the false images of him, and will escort the children of Yahuah to the promised land. Their Yahuah, and the resurrected children of God will reign for 1,000 years. We will be reading about this in Revelation 14.