Rev 13:18 [Textus Receptus (Elzevir) (1624)]838
Ὧδε ἡ σοφία ἐστίν. ὁ ἔχων τὸν νοῦν, ψηφισάτω τὸν ἀριθμὸν τοῦ θηρίου· ἀριθμὸς γὰρ ἀνθρώπου ἐστὶ, καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς αὐτοῦ χξςʹ.
Critical Apparatus :
A Textual Commentary On Revelation 13:18
(a) In discussing the early rise of various readings, Tischendorf speaks (p. xiij.) of the want of reverence for “the written letter,” on the part of the early Christians, and this he considers to be the cause of some of the variations. The fact of such want of reverence may, however, be doubted, and of course the consequence drawn from the supposed fact would then fall to the ground . For Irenæus shows us what the early Christians thought and felt as to the text of Scripture : in discussing the various reading which, even in his day, had found its way into the text of Rev. xiii. 18 (616 for 666), he speaks positively as to the point that the true reading is 666 ; a fact which he learned from those who had known the apostle John face to face : and then he alludes to those who had introduced the reading 616, an erroneous number, which he was willing to suppose to have originated in transcriptural – “We think that pardon will be granted by God to those who have done this simply and without malice.” He would have used very different language, had he supposed that indifference existed as to the words and letters of Holy Scripture. It is far more in accordance with what we know, to attribute the early origin of various readings in the New Testament to the ordinary causes, which must have operated all the more rapidly, from the frequency with which the Scriptures were transcribed, for the use of individuals and Christian communities in the first ages.
(S. P. Tregelles, An Account of the Printed Text of the Greek New Testament, p. 120)