When a man hears the Message concerning the Kingdom and does not understand it, the Evil one comes and catches away what has been sown in his heart. This is he who has received the seed by the road-side.
But he who has received the seed on good ground is he who hears and understands. Such hearers give a return, and yield one a hundred for one, another sixty, another thirty.
»When you have seen (to use the language of the Prophet Daniel) the `Abomination of Desolation',« standing in the Holy Place« –let the reader observe those words–
»As soon, however, as you see the Abomination of Desolation standing where he ought not« –let the reader observe these words– then let those in Judaea escape to the hills;
»You search the Scriptures, because you suppose that in them you will find the Life of the Ages; and it is those Scriptures that yield testimony concerning me;«
Upon this he rose and went. Now, as it happened, an Ethiopian eunuch who was in a position of high authority with Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, as her treasurer, had visited Jerusalem to worship there,
Here is scope for ingenuity. Let people of shrewd intelligence calculate the number of the Wild Beast; for it indicates a certain man, and his number is 666.