emperor (Mommsen, Provinces, i., 344 f.). The Asiarchs probably organised and pushed the new religion, even more than the local magistrates (cf. xiii. 11 f.). At any rate the cultus, attaching itself like mistletoe to institutions and local rites alike, shot up profusely ; polytheism found little trouble in admitting the emperor to a place beside the gods, and occasionally, as in the case of Augustus and Apollo, or of Domitian and Zeus, “ the emperor was represented as the deity incarnate in human form” (C. B. Ρ. i. 53 f.), The islands also shared in this cult, as they had previously shared in the worship of the Ptolemies. At Thera, for example, a pagan altar has been found which was dedicated “to the almighty Caesar, the son of God” (contrast Apoc., ii. 18). This divi filius title was one of the most common and least conventional of what John called βλασφημίας ὀνόματα.
The inevitable clash between this cult and the sensitive monothe- ism of Judaism was struck during the latter years of the insane madcap, Caligula (39-41 a.p.). His pretensions to divinity would have been ridiculous, if they had not been dangerous. But he deified himself in literal earnest by means of incense, gestures, and clothing (cf. Joseph. Antiq. xviii. 7-8, xix. 1-2 ; Suet. Calig. 22) ; and the climax of his insults to Judaism—the proposed erection of his statue in the temple at Jerusalem—was only averted by the prudent temporising of Petronius and the murder of the emperor himself. Under Claudius matters righted themselves. Still, the shock of the crisis (cf. Eus. H. E. ii. 5-6) left a deep impression on the conscience of the Jews. It revived the worst memories of Antiochus Epiphanes, and the dread remained, as Tacitus allows, that some other emperor might attempt what Caligula had failed in (cf. Spitta 490 f.). Echoes of this are ta be heard possibly in 2 Thess. and the synoptic apocalypse as well in Apoc. xili., which (according to many critics)! is based upon a source either Christian (Erbes 19 f., Bruston, Briggs) or Jewish (Spitta, Pfleiderer, de Faye, O. Holtzmann, Rauch adding xvi. 13-14, 16), dating from this period. On this view, the general tenor
1 Otherwise, xii. 18 - xiii. 7 is held to contain a Jewish fragment (Kohler, J. Weiss), concluded in xix. 11-21, which dates from 7ο Α.Ρ. Similarly Schmidt, Weyland. Wellhausen, and others (Neronic). “ Caligula”, in Hebrew (Gaskulgas = Dy
ords0)) as in Greek (ΓΑΙΟΣ KAICAP) is equivalent by gematria to 616, the variant to which Irenzus objected (cf. on xiii. 18); but so is KAICAP OEOC (Deissmann: Licht vom Osten, 199 f.) as well as the shortened form of “ Nero Caesar” For a discussion of the Beast’s number, see the recent symposium by Clemen, Corssen, Bruston, and Vischer in Preuschen’s Zeitschrift fir die neutest. Wiss. IQOI-1904.