Vicarius filii dei: updated historical overview

by koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD); Visiting Professor, Department of Liberal Arts Education, Kyungpook National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea; Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College, Australia

             Like a door swivel on hinges, so 495 became the year when vicarius petri became vicarius Christi[1]  Vicarius means substitution or representation. The first use of vicarius filii dei was on a famous forgery, the Donation of Constantine discovered between c. 847-853[2] that was composed between years 752-774[3]. It was quoted by Pope Hadrian to Charlemagne in 778[4] and it became part of the False Decretals forged between 844-850[5] and was also incorporated in Gratian’s Decretum about 1148[6] and subsequently became part of official documents of the Catholic Church in which the Decretum was put together in the Corpus juris canonici an official textbook of the church in 1500 and published until 1879.[7] It was found that “canonists, the apologists, the bishops, the popes, the university and the whole clergy have successively used the Donation, the False Decretals, the Decretum, and the Corpus juris canonici in order to establish the claims of the hierarchy and supremacy of the pope through the centuries”[8] A Catholic Apologist Patrick Madrid admitted “variants of the phrase Vicarius Filii Dei being used in certain official Church documents, such as Pope Paul VI’s 1968 apostolic constitution Bafianae”.[9] The rejectionists of the use of vicarius filii dei by the Catholic Church officially have long claimed that it was never used by popes or the church in official documents.[10] Also Seventh-day Adventists through the decades made uninformed comments in the same direction. Some issues for Adventist Interpretation is important. Did Adventists originate Vicarius Filii Dei = 666?[11] The first connection of vicarius filii dei to a Latin counting system was done by Andreas Helwig [or Helwich] the rector of Berlin in 1600. He brought out two more editions, one in 1612 and a third one that was not discovered by Le Roy Froom earlier during his research on the topic in Europe, namely an edition in 1630 held in Sweden. The latest research on vicarius filii dei = 666 is by Edwin de Kock and a team of researchers and they have located this third copy of Helwig. Froom made two errors: his information is not complete. Secondly, he made a mistranslation of a paragraph by Helwig from the Latin that gave him the misguided impression that Helwig created a virtual title and did not use the actual title.[12] Resenters of VFD in Adventism thus objected through the decades that Helwig cannot create something that the official church never used. Also S. Bacchiocchi (1938-2008) thought, relying on Froom, that it was an expansion by Helwig and not the actual title.[13] The value of current Adventist research like E. de Kock 2011 et al and M. Schleifer online,[14] is that it is now established science that vicarius filii dei did exist early, was used by the official Catholic church, was used to exalt the supremacy of the pope, can be used interchangeably for vicarius Christi. The evidence for interchangeable use of vicarius Christi = vicarius filii dei [15]is overwhelming. Augustinus  Triumphus for example, wrote a work Summary of the Power of the Church in 1320 and in it he used at some Questions vicarius filii dei[16] and other Questions vicarius Christi.[17] There is an online original note in his handwriting by Catholic historian J. Quasten in which he admits that “the title Vicarius filii dei as well as the title Vicarius Christi is very common as the title for the Pope” (signed Dr. J. Quasten), dated to 5^th of March 1943.[18] 

The presence and use of the title vicarius filii dei is established. Traditional and progressive Adventists on both sides of the aisle came to realize that very well. There is the issue of the inscription vicarius filii dei on tiaras (three layered crown) or mitre (fish-like hat). A number of individuals claimed that they saw vicarius filii dei written on either a tiara or a mitre. De Kock and their team investigated the claims but could not find any evidence or data that it was actually written on a tiara or mitre. However, their investigation also brought the understanding that it may have been written there in earlier times but that during the invasion of France at the Vatican in 1798, those tiaras and mitres may have been stolen or destroyed.[19] De Kock concluded that the title vicarius filii dei is not on tiaras but on the popes themselves.[20] Therefore, whether the title “vicarius filii dei” was on the tiara or not is not the issue. Because it has been used by Catholic church officially through the centuries, and we find many evidences of the fact. Bacchiocchi also admitted in 2005 that vicarius filii dei may have been written on tiaras or mitres in the past although no evidence of it exists today.[21] When one investigates Catholic art through the ages, the inscription vicarius Christi can be found on a Belgium Tiara of 1890 which can be viewed online at Wikipaedia. Also in the Vatican’s Salone Sistino at the top floor building that is the north end of the Cortile del Belvedere from east to west, the papal tiara of the pope standing on Christ’s right, apparently reads vicarius Christi.[22]

Jon Paulien also concluded that Vicarius filii dei is the best gematria [science of numbers as meaning something] on 666 though he also said that “it is far from airtight or compelling”.[23]

Both traditionalists as well as progressive thinkers in Adventism are not much at variance with the facts on the ground regarding vicarius filii dei. Those who do gain proper knowledge, do upgrade their views. What creates the divide between the two groups of scholars is really the issue, whether one can bring the gematria of Helwig with his connection of vicarius filii dei with the Latin counting system as 666 specifically to a New Testament text like Revelation 13:18 for exegesis? Helwig and a host of scholars like the Scottish pastor Robert Fleming 1660-1721 answered in the affirmative. Let us take the question outside of Revelation to the rest of the Bible. Can one bring the Greek history of Alexander’s four generals to the text of Daniel’s leopard-like animal with four heads? If the exegete is already doing it in Daniel, then one would expect him/her to do it also in Revelation 13. The four-headed leopard-like animal finding application with Alexander’s generals are hundreds of years after Daniel so that hundreds of years application in Revelation 13 after the time of John the disciple who wrote Revelation, would not be a problem either. Helwig outlined certain tests that the title in Revelation 13:18 must meet. According to Froom, he “shows that the mystic name (1) must yield the required number; (2) must agree with the papal order; (3) must not be a vile name applied by enemies, but acceptable to Antichrist himself; and (4) must be one of which he can boast.”[24]

All other title gematria, like Ellen White or Nero or any other cannot qualify since it must be a title that is not only used by enemies but by the people or institution itself. The editor of Our Sunday Visitor 15 November 1914 tried to show that his name also end with 666. What actually caused the gematria skepticism among some scholars in Adventism, is not that something is wrong in applying the tool, but due to inroads of other systems in the Historicistic model of Adventism, whether mutational systems like Idealism cannot supply a better or accommodation orientated model. De Kock illustrated how two doctorates in 1977 (Desmond Ford) with Preterism inroads, and 1983 (Beatrice S. Neall) with Idealism inroads became the well from which the dissenters tapped their phraseology on the matter.[25]  Whereas the General Conference conclusion on vicarius filii dei on this matter stated “As being the key we have every right to calculate the numerical values of its letters to the exact total of 666,”[26] others wished to back-down for whatever reasons. Every Adventist dissenter on the application of Historicism to Revelation 13:18 and their substitution of it with another system, cited from the Neall’s doctorate. Mervyn Maxwell (1985) cited Neall and doubted whether VFD could be used for the beast.[27]

There is another important factor. Revelation does not say the number as triple 6, in Greek

“ἕξ ἕξ ἕξ,” but it is “six hundred sixty and six” (ἑξακόσιοι ἑξήκοντα ἕξ) in Greek to be calculated.

Some people argue why we use the method of gematria to interpret Rev 13:18. The reason is very simple. The Bible says the name of the first beast has its number, and then asks the readers to count or calculate the number. Adventists were not first who calculated the number of the name of the beast as 666. Many reformers, scholars and pastors before Adventist pioneers have used the method and applied to vicarius filii dei as 666, and the Adventist church is just a continuation of Reformation tradition to apply the same method. H. La Rondelle also cited Neall for his views on VFD.[28] Those who refused the application of vicarius filii dei = Latin 666 are Prescott in 1933, Ranko Stefanović in 2001, Diestre Gil in 2004, Bacchiocchi in 2005.[29] W. Prescott took the Catholic objections of Our Sunday Visitor too seriously and relied on Idealistic sources by using A. Deismann and J. A. Seiss as well as the Catholic John Dawson Gilmary Shea (1892-1987) to design his own alternative.[30] Prescott (like Shea) said that not Latin but Greek gematria should be used.[31] This argument of Greek rather than Latin is used by all dissenters to the Latin application in Revelation 13:18.[32]

Can one use Latin in Revelation when it was written in Greek? When Jesus died on the cross, one of the three languages was Latin because it was the period of the fourth beast of Daniel’s prophecies period, the Roman imperial period. The language of the beast is Latin for both Pagan Rome and the Holy Roman Empire. Should gematria be used for the rest of the Bible? No. In Revelation 13:18 it is explicitly required from readers to do that. Nowhere else in both testaments are there any such request. Gematria is the Jewish Middle-Ages “game-room”.

Rejecting the gematria application, they reverted to symbolic meanings. Neall’s position in 1983 was this: “It is more likely the meaning [of 666] is to be found in the symbolic value of the number six itself.”[33] The result is that they began to indicate that six is an imperfect number but seven is perfect, therefore 666 is imperfection but 777 is perfection.[34] Bacchiocchi felt that all numbers in Revelation are spiritual and in this he shares the view of the Spiritualist interpreter in the 18^th century, Dr. Emanuel Swedenborg.[35] A trend that one can see in the alternative Idealistic inroad systems of the dissenters to Historicism application, is that they switched eschatology with ontology. W. Pannenberg did that with his eschatology.

An example from Stefanović in 2001 has it about 666 that ““The number six has understandably been regarded as a symbol of man, in that it falls short of seven, which is the divine number. On this basis the threefold six may be understood as indicative of a human or humanistic trinity, that is to say a counterfeit of the divine Trinity, with all the pretensions to supreme power and authority that such a counterfeit implies. It may perhaps be inferred from the context that this pseudo-trinity is that of Satan (the dragon) plus antichrist (the first beast) plus the false prophet (the second beast), who are united in the one diabolical objective, namely, to dethrone the Creator and to enthrone the creature and to substitute the image of the beast for the image of God in man.”[36] He also cited from Neall “As Beatrice S. Neall suggests, the number 666, ‘represents the refusal of man to proceed to seven, to give glory to God as Creator and Redeemer.”[37]

Bacchiocchi sees all numbers in Revelation as human analogies which ties in with Pannenberg’s shift to ontology for eschatology.

“My study suggests that numbers are used in Revelation as human analogies to help readers grasp truths that transcend human comprehension.” He continued “the endtime showdown is not about names or numbers per se, that is, Sunday versus Sabbath, First Day versus Seventh-day, but about what these two days represent: Self-centered worship versus God-centered worship. It is within this context that THE MARK AND NUMBER OF THE BEAST must be understood.”

A Rodriquez in the Sabbath School Quarterly of 2002 at Thursday June 6 said: “The Bible does not say that the number is the added numerical value of the letters of a name. Some see in the meaning of 666 a symbol of humanity separated from God. Humans were created on the sixth day, and the number can stand as a symbol for humanity without divine rest (the seventh day).”[38]

De Kock pointed out that the inroads of Idealism in Historicism is like small-pox or leprosy. Catching a little of it threatens severe sickness and even death for the entire body.[39]

With these inroads in proper biblical interpretation of mutating Historicism with Idealism, of history substituted for symbols and spiritualization of data, many others followed.

The Andrews Study Bible downplays 666 with a Trinity parody. This is similar to Francis Noll, the founder of Our Sunday Visitor in 1930 who said: “Who are the dragon, beast, and false-prophet of Apocalyptic chapters 12 and 17?” and Noll answered: “They make up together, as it were, an ‘infernal trinity’ in sharp contrast to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.” The way the Andrews Study Bible has 666 is: ““666. God’s number in Revelation is seven, so multiples of the number six may represent and emphasize counterfeit and falling short (see notes on vv. 1-17). Note the sixes in Dan. 3:1.”[40]

Carlos Olivares in 2004 summarized Adventist phenomenology wrongly by saying that “A la luz de la historia y documentos oficiales, hoy en la iglesia adventista no se admite como veraz el título, prefiriendo una interpretación simbólica” (In the light of history and official documents the title is not, in today’s Adventist Church, admitted as a true one, a symbolic interpretation being preferred).”[41] In a secular affected area, this may hold true but not with biblical foundational Adventist believers.

They wrongly triplicate the six in their arguments and identifications: 6-6-6 instead of the biblical six hundred – and sixty – and six. Kenneth Jørgensen pointed this out in a paper he read 9 August 2006 at a meeting in Michigan at Camp Au Sable, near Grayling.[42] Jørgensen showed that in Greek it is abbreviated in some manuscripts as cxz (hi xi stigma) or written  out in full like in the New Testament. Both appeared in manuscripts. It is not zzz . De Kock indicated that such an interpretation of 6 separated from 6 separated from 6 is a Hindu-Arabic method of numbers and does not belong to the ancient Levant systems.[43] Goldstein in 1935 tried to argue that the I and V in vicarius is not additive 5 + 1 but substractive 5-1 thus IV.[44]

However, Eric W. Weisstein (1996) demonstrated that the Romans used the additive system and the subtractive system is only after the year 1450.[45]

Another issue that the dissenters share is that they equalize the mark, number and name of the beast of Revelation 13:17-18. Stefanović put it this way that the mark of the Beast is the same thing as its name. His analysis of Rev. 13:17 has it: “The mark, that is, the name of the beast, or the number of his name.”[46]

The Pioneers Bates, Holt [after 1844] and James White [The Present Truth March 1850] and also Uriah Smith (1865) had identified the Mark of the Beast as Sunday observance and Ellen White in Great Controversy (1888) also described it such. “But Prescott in 1933, Ranko Stefanović in 2001, Diestre Gil in 2004, Bacchiocchi in 2005, as well as others after them have brushed it aside by muddling together the mark, the name, and the number of the Beast.”[47] Bacchiocchi said conflating the mark, number and name of the Beast:  “Traditionally Adventists have interpreted the Mark of the Beast to be the enforcement of Sunday observance and the Number 666 of the Beast the papal title VICARIUS FILII DEI, allegedly inscribed in the papal tiara. We shall see that this interpretation poses a problem because it differentiates between the Mark and Number of Beast [sic]. Such a differentiation can hardly be justified exegetically, because the text suggests that the Mark, the Name, and the Number are essentially the same thing.”

So finally one can conclude that “two men sat behind bars: the one saw mud – the other one stars.”[48]