“Hic autem sic se habentibus, et in omnibus antiquis et probatissimis et veteribus scripturis numero hoc posito, et testimonium perhibentibus his qui facie ad faciem Johannem viderunt (τούτων δὲ οὕτως ἐχόντων, καὶ ἐν πᾶσι δὲ τοῖς σπουδαίοις καὶ ἀρχαίοις ἀντιγράφοις τοῦ ἀριθμοῦ τούτου κειμένου, καὶ μαρτυρούντων ἀυτῶν ἐκείνων τῶν κατ᾽ ὄψιν τὸν Ἰωάννην ἑωρακότων, καὶ τοῦ λόγου διδάσκοντος ἡμᾶς ὅτι ὁ ἀριθμὸς τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ θηρίου κατὰ τὴν τῶν Ἑλλήνων ψῆφον διὰ τῶν ἐν ἀυτῷ γραμμάτων [ἐμφαίνεται]), et ratione docente nos quoniam numerus nominis bestiae, secundum Graecorum computationem, per literas quae in eo sunt sexcentos habebit et sexaginta et sex: ignoro quomodo erraverunt quidam sequentes idiotismum et medium frustrantes numerum nominis, quinquaginta numeros deducentes, pro sex decadis unam decadem volentes esse (οὐκ οἶδα πῶς ἐσφάλησάν τινες ἐπακολουθήσαντες ἰδιωτισμῷ καὶ τὸν μέσον ἠθέτησαν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ ὀνόματος, ν᾽ ψήφισμα ὑφελόντες καὶ ἀντὶ τῶν ἓξ δεκάδων μίαν δεκάδα βουλόμενοι εἶναι). Hoc autem arbitror scriptorum peccatum fuisse, ut solet fieri, quoniam et per literas numeri ponuntur, facilè literam Graecam quae sexaginta enuntiat numerum, in iota Graecorum literam expansam.... Sed his quidem qui simpliciter et sine malitia hoc fecerunt, arbitramur veniam dari a Deo.” (Contra Haeres. v. 30. 1: Harvey, vol. ii. pp. 406-7.) Here we obtain at once the authority of Irenaeus for receiving the Apocalypse as the work of St. John; we discern the living interest its contents had for the Christians of the second century, even up to the _traditional_ preservation of its minutest readings; we recognize the fact that numbers were then represented by letters(273); and the far more important one that the original autograph of the Apocalypse was already so completely lost, that a thought of it never entered the mind of the writer, though the book had not been composed one hundred years, perhaps not more than seventy(274).