Numerological Wolfe

I made a numerological reflection relevant to 5HC:

Well, yeah. The Arabic numeral system simply wasn't around when John had his vision. Still, I misdoubt whether the standard translations (like KJV's "six hundred, three score and six") are any better reflections of the original Gk than a simple 666. I frankly find it very unlikely that St John in writing this down was _un_aware of the hexaplicity of the three components of his number. I wasn't really familiar with the whole Solomon thing -- but I guess it works in context. Whatever meaning the number may have had to St John -- I think that is an entirely different question from what it may have meant to Gene Wolfe in the early-to-mid-'70s. And certainly it seems that much of the activity at 666 Saltimbanque is oriented toward man deifying himself. And, really, given o the popular association of the number with a certain Caesar, o the identity of GW's favorite fictional detective, and o the family's "real" last name I find it extremely unlikely that GW would miss the opportunity to make that association... H'mmm. I have a couple of kind of separate things to say about 5HC. I'll make them in a separate post or two.

Not to disagree, but just to provide a bit more for anyone interested: The text of Rev. 13:18 is not "hex, hex, hex," (6,6,6) but "hexakosioi hexekonta hex" (600,60,6). But of course you are right: Three sixes is significant, since man was made on the sixth day. Goliath is 6 cubits and a span high, and his spearhead weight 600 shekels (1 Sam. 17). Nebuchadnezzar's idol in Daniel 3 has dimensions of 60x6 cubits. Numerologically, 666 is a climactic extension of this theme. Also, 666 is the triangular of 36 (6x6). So, sixes abound in this number. What we see in all this, and climactically in 666, is man's attempt make himself god by his own bootstraps. He never gets to God's gift of sabbath ("7") -- God's elevation of him by grace into "little godhood," as another line of posts has been discussing. He just keeps multiplying himself over and over. This is pretty much a standard thematic understanding of these multiplied sixes, and of course it fits perfectly with the first 5HC novella -- as you say: man deifying himself. I doubt if Wolfe made the connection to Solomon (though that's what any synagogue-trained 1st c. Jew hearing the passage would first think of), and I agree that Wolfe may have enjoyed thinking of Nero in this connection, since that is a frequently encountered specific understanding of 666 as a code. That would be secondary, though. The multiplication of 6s never getting to 7 is the more basic thematic link. Nutria

And now we see another significance of "Number Five." By this generation (which probably isn't the fifth at all; "that number is either far too small or too large"), the Wolfes are not even able to make it as far as Number Six ("I am not a prisoner...I am a free man!"); they are no longer quite human...

Good thot. Either that, or that an evil No. 6 is coming someday, which is how I've taken the last sentence. BTW, thematically this feature might be linked to Wolfe's story "To the Seventh" in Stranger Travellers. Of course, the seventh here refers to chess, and when the pawn gets to the eighth after dying on the seventh, he becomes a Queen (the bride of Christ). Still, 6 as inadequate and stuck in time versus 7 as fulfilling and completing humanity -- the two stories make a nice complement. The one thing the "Wolfes" in 5HC refuse to do is "die" and be truly transformed. Nutria