he last ministries to the dead were performed by two nurses* of his innocent childhood, and by an early cast-off mistress (Acte) whom he had once sincerely loved (i. 50).
The obscurity of Nero’s death led to the wide- spread belief that he had not really died, but was in concealment or had escaped to Parthia, and would reappear to re-claim the empire for the Ceesarean dynasty, of which he was the last repre- sentative. In pe of his crimes and misrule, which the troubles that followed his death par- tially overshadowed, a party in the empire re- mained loyal to his memory, and several ecenies Neros arose to take advantage of the belief in his survival (Tac. Hist. i. 2, ii. 8; Suet. Nero, 57). The belief extended to Jewish and Christian circles. It is embodied in Bk. iv. (νν. 19 17%) of the Sibylline Oracles, which is else dated 6. 80 A.D. and is probably of purely Jewish origin (Harnack, Chronol. p. 582); also in Bk. ν. 8-98 by a Christian Sibyllist, who hints (v.*!°") at Nero’s revival rather than survival. Such revival is more |
distinctly referred to at the close of the Carmen
Apologeticum of Commodian (c. 250 A.D.); by
(Pseudo ἢ Victorinus, who writes of Neroas ‘to be | raised’ (Comm. Apoc.); and by Augustine (de Civ. | Dei, xx. 19), who mentions two current notions |
of his time,—that of pagans, who supposed Nero to be still alive, and that of Christians, who ex pected him to rise from the dead as Antichrist |
ge, one of these nurses, was recently dis | lace where Nero perished (Lancian
NERO
According to some writers, the expectation of Nero's return finds expression even in the Book of Revelation (135 17! )—in the description of the beast whose ‘deathstroke was healed,’ ‘ which was and is not,’ and is ‘of or from the seven kings’ and ‘an eighth.’* That the pages be (even if the date in the end of the reign of Domitian, as attested by lrenwus, adv. Her. ν. 30, be a ager should contain reminiscences of Nero and the Neronian persecution, is only what might have been anticipated. The reference to the beast may have been suggested not merely by Dn 7, but by a designation of Nero in Christian circles as ‘mala bestia’ (Lact. de Mor. Pers. 2, who may there reproduce an Gs handed down from former times), and by his vile habit of covering himself with the skin of a wild beast, and in that disguise assaulting men and women (Suet. Nero, 29). The war of the beast with the saints (Rev 137), the cry of the slain martyrs, ‘How long?’ (6%), and the description of ‘Babylon’ as drunken with their blood (17° 18"), may be reminiscences of the trucu- lent tribulation of A.D. 64. The fact of the number 666 being the equivalent of Neron Kaisar written in Hebrew characters may be more than a coin- cidence.t But the recognition of such Neronian colouring (more or less) appears to the present writer quite compatible (1) with rejection of dubious references to the literal return or revival of Nero (so Zickler, Comm. tm loc.), and (2) with the view ¢ that the beast is not Nero exceptionally as an individual, nor even the Roman government exclusively, but rather the entire antichristian world-power, represented, in the time of the writer, by the ungodly and persecuting pagan empire, and embodied, throughout the ages, in all that is opposed to the progress of Christ’s kingdom.
After every possible allowance is made for exaggerations on the part of those unknown original authorities on whom Tacitus and others relied, Nero remains a moral monstrosity. His fundamental vice appears to have been vanit rather than eruelty. Originally well disposed, even amiable and generous, he became through inordinate vanity the moral prey of base and self- seeking flatterers, and intolerant of all who could not, or would not, pander to his insatiable lust for applause. This morbid vanity made him crave for notoriety not only in what was harmless, but in extravagance, wantonness, reckless exercise of despotic power, and provision of fresh stimulants to the jaded popular appetite for exciting ‘ pleasure.’ Vanity, moreover, constrained him to regard as enemies to be removed all whose character or popu- larity detracted from his own reputation, and as indispensable victims those whose wealth would be serviceable for the tification of his cravings. The only possible palliation of his later enormities is the supposition that through vicious indulgence of his passions he had become, at intervals, in- sane (Wiedemeister and Baring-Gould).
* Bleek, Intr. NT, 233; Reuss, Hist. Th. Chr. Bk. iv. ch. iv. ; Renan, Antich. chs. xiii. xvi.; Farrar, Early Days of Chris- tianity, chs. xxvii. xxviii. ; Bousset, Offend. Joh. The composi- tion of the Apoc. is referred by these writers to the time of Galba or of Vespasian (a.p. 03-69, and the alleged reference to Nero Redivivus is s ted with the appearance about that time of a pseudo-Nero in the island Cythnus (Tac. Hist. ii. 8). The most significant alle parallel, however, between the Beast and the returning Nero (viz. ‘one of the seven kings’ who is ‘ fallen,’ yet to be ‘an eighth’) depends on a disputa' ble exegesis of ix τῶν irra ἐστι. This rendering, ‘is one of’ (instead of ‘proceedeth on although grammatically tenable (cf. Ac 215), is not in accord with the usus of Rev, which elsewhere inserts εἷς (713 157 171 219),