616 or 666? The number of the beast and Revelation 17.

And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

1. Caesar, 2. Augustus, 3. Tiberius, 4. Caligula, 5. Claudius, 6. Nero, 7. President Unknown of the United States of America.

If Nero was when these verses were written and the beast had already been then, it follows that the beast has to be one of the first five Caesars. And since 616 may refer to Caligula, that number would be consistent then with Revelation 17:10-11.

If, one the other hand, the number is 666, Nero is indicated and the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth does not refer to the time when the verse was written, but is a mere description of the coming and going of the beast through time.

This seems possible enough, because if Nero was during the time of writing of these verses it would have been wise to mislead any possible censors by letting it appear as if Nero couldn't be the beast, because he was and the beast was not.

I am assuming in both cases that the eighth king is not only one, but two of the seven kings, the seventh and a prior one, because the way that the seventh is described indicates it. But this assumption is not essential, unless somebody wanted to make the thus newly introduced unknown seventh king the first occurrence of the beast, which, however, is only possible with the abstract understanding of the passage of the beast through the times. If we understand the temporal statements in Revelation 17:11 concretely, the seventh king would thus be unknown and irrelevant.

I have tried to figure out the symbolic content of Nero as a ruler. I haven't found out much. Nevertheless, the post Die Demut der Caesaren contains an interpretation of both Caligula and Nero as rulers. I don't necessarily think this whole line of thought amounts to much. In any case the beast is the US Army respectively its Commander in Chief, whether he'll resemble Caligula or Nero won't probably make much of a difference.