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Rev 17:11. Καὶ αὐτὸς ὄγδοός ἐστι, καὶ ἐκ τῶν ἑπτά ἐστι, is both himself eighth, and is of the seven) Καὶ, καὶ, is equivalent to both, and. Ὄγδοος is a part the predicate, therefore it is put without the article: the pronoun, αὐτὸς, cohering with it, is also a part of the predicate, adding emphasis to the eighth, in so far as he himself is contradistinguished from the seven. The eighth, and the seven, are masculines, so that the noun king or kings is to be understood.
There is here an intimation of that long celebrated and great Adversary, whom all antiquity and the whole Church of Rome regard as one individual and extraordinary man. Bernard, who is called the last of the Fathers, has hit the matter closely enough. For in his late age, in his sixth discourse on the psalm, Qui habitat [Psalms 111], after bitter lamentations concerning the corrupt state of the Church and its ministers, he says, “It remains that the Man of Sin be revealed, the Son of Perdition, the demon, not only of the day, but even of the mid-day, which is not only transformed into an angel of light, but is also exalted above everything which is called God, or which is worshipped.” Of the Reformers, who in other respects had their attention especially fixed upon their own times, and not without reason, Francis Lambert acknowledged, that one remarkable adversary, the Son of Perdition, was hereafter to come and he mournfully described that calamity.-Exeg. Apoc. pp. 183, 193, 215, 265. Among the Propositions of Hier. Zanch was this: Although the kingdom of Antichrist has long ago been revealed; and he who holds the primacy in it, and reigns, is the true Antichrist; yet it is not in opposition to the Sacred Writings, to say, that just before the end of the world there shall come one of remarkable character, and outstripping all men in iniquity, the true and perfect Antichrist, who may even work miracles. For in a pre-lection at Argentina on the end of the world, he had discoursed to this purpose, and was blamed on that account by others. The Divines of Heidelberg, A. 1561, approved of this Proposition, and those of Zurich even confirmed it, in these words besides others: “Since wickedness becomes greater from day to day, and is increased without measure, there is no reason why there should not at last arise some one κατʼ ἐξοχὴν [by pre-eminence], who may very far outstrip in his impiety the other enemies of the Gospel, and whom the Lord may altogether destroy with the breath of His mouth.” see Zanch Misc. Theol. pp. 1, 18, 21, 44, 48. And in no other way, on this subject at least, Jo. Brent replied in the same year to Jo. Marpach: “I should be unwilling odiously to contend about Antichrist; we know that the Papacy is antichristianity. But it may perhaps happen, that among the Popes there may arise one, who may surpass all the rest in impiety, craft, deceits, cruelty, and tyranny, and may give occasion to the Son of God to hasten His coming for the complete destruction of the Papacy, and the judgment of the quick and dead. The Lord will take care concerning this matter: we will perform our own duty, and will wait for the coming of the Lord.” Compare the Epistle of Lud. Crocius, inserted among those of Voss; Heding. on 2Th 2:3; Weismann’s Inst. p. 1121, lin. 5, 6; the Patmos of H. Horchius, p. 70; C. B. Michaëlis on Dan. pp. 247, 248. “What if we should concede to the Papists,” says Bailly, “and in this the orthodox ARE NOT OBSTINATE, that in the long series of Romish antichrists there should at the end of the world arise one more wicked than his brethren, though they are most wicked, by a kind of ἐξοχῇ [pre-eminence] of wickedness,-one who should closely resemble the days of Antiochus: they themselves would gain nothing by this concession.”-Op. Hist. et Chron. f. 244. Vitringa says appropriately to this passage: That the beast itself is also the eighth king, according to the order of his predecessors. Thus it can without any difficulty be imagined, that after these kings of mystic Babylon one is still to be expected just before the close of the power of Antichrist, who shall slay the witnesses of Christ, and rage against the Church above all others; and of him the Spirit had especially prophesied under the name of the Beast: ch. Rev 11:7. And all at the present day, who take the prophetic times, and among these the 42 months of the beast, in their ordinary signification, agree, namely, in ascribing so short a power to the one king. I am not accustomed to rely on testimonies of human authority: the truth has no need of them; but when there is a possibility of its being supposed that any doctrine is paradoxical, it is expedient to collect the anticipations of the truth which lie concealed in the minds of men. This one, last king, will differ most widely from all his predecessors, as in malignity, so in the manner of his destruction. They for the most part die by a natural death; he shall be given alive to eternal torment: ch. Rev 19:20; 2Th 2:8.-ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ, of the seven) Primasius admirably says, LEST you should esteem this one, whom, he calls eighth, OF ANOTHER RACE, he has subjoined, He is of the seven.