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'''χξς΄''' refers to a biblical number for "the Beast", found in the [[Book of Revelation]] of the [[New Testament]].
The number found in most manuscripts, and modern translations of the Greek text, is '''666''' although various modern studies show the number could be '''616''' based on [[w:Papyrus 115|Papyrus 115]] from the 3rd century. <ref> St. Irenaeus, from the 4th century dicsusses this in his famous work. </ref> No one has ever satisfactorily deciphered the riddle behind this number although many theories have been raised by denominations outside of the Orthodox church. The most widely accepted theory connects the cryptogram of the Greek numerals to the letters of the alphabet, since numbers in ancient Greek were represented by letters. ''Gematria'', a type of cryptogram that assigns numerical values to alphabetic characters, is one form of this numerological exercise. The numeric 666, DCLXVI in Roman numerals which like Greek represents numbers with alphabetic letters, in ancient Greek was represented as χξς Chi, Xi, and Vau.