A Tennessee born-again Christian has quit his job after receiving a wage slip marked "666" despite previously warning his employers of a serious aversion to the Number of the Beast.

Walter Slonopas, 52, toiled as a maintenance worker at Contech Casting in Clarksville until bosses issued him a Form W-2 bearing the satanic numerals. Despite assurances by Bob LaCourciere of Contech owner Revstone that three digits on the forms merely "refer to the order in which they were mailed out", Slonopas sees the dark hand of Satan at work.

According to the New York Daily News, Slonopas's first day on the job back in April 2011 saw him allocated the clock-in number 666. Once he'd made clear his "concerns", he was given a less mephistophelean ID code.

But fours months later a time-clock overhaul once again branded him as foretold in the Book of Revelation.

He duly walked out, returning a few days later when Contech apologised and gave him yet another clock-in number.

This time, though, Slonopas is gone for good, convinced the triple occurrence of the numerical triplet of doom is beyond coincidence. "God is worth more than money," he declared.

He's still asking Contech for a new Form W-2, until which time he's refusing to file his taxes. He said: "If you accept that number, you sell your soul to the devil."

Local paper The Tennessean rolled out theology professor Jay Phelan, of Chicago's North Park University, to clarify Slonopas's hard-line Christian stance. The prof explained: "It's a desire to be loyal to his faith and to not be identified with the Antichrist."

The egghead concluded: "The company ought to find a way to cut him some slack." ®