But this is said of the beast, i.e., the Roman empire, which is throughout clearly distinguished from the seven heads, i.e., the emperors. In Daniel, too, the beast is collective. Moreover, a distinction must be made between the death of one ruler (Nero) and the deadly wound which thereby was inflicted on the beast or the empire, but from which it recovered (under Vespasian).
[515] Lange on Romans, p. 29 (Am. ed.): "As the light and darkness of Judaism was centralized in Jerusalem, the theocratic city of God (the holy city, the murderer of the prophets), so was heathen Rome, the humanitarian metropolis of the world, the centre of all the elements of light and darkness prevalent in the heathen world; and so did Christian Rome become the centre of all the elements of vital light, and of all the antichristian darkness in the Christian church. Hence Rome, like Jerusalem, not only possesses a unique historical significance, but is a universal picture operative through all ages. Christian Rome, especially, stands forth as a shining light of the nations, which is turned into an idol of magical strength to those who are subject to its rule."
[516] In 2 Thess. 2:6, 7, to katechon is the Roman empire, ho katechon the emperor as its representative. This is the patristic interpretation to which some of the beat modern commentators have returned. Mediaeval sects and many Protestant writers found the great apostacy in the Papacy and the restraining power in the German empire; while papal commentators took revenge by fastening the charge of apostacy on the Reformation which was restrained by the Papacy. I believe in a repeated and growing fulfilment of this and other prophecies on the historic basis of the apostolic age and the old Roman empire.
[517] It is so represented in the Apocalypse 13 -18 after the Neronian persecution.
[518] Comp. Renan's portraiture of Nero, l.c. ch. I. He thinks that there is no parallel to this monster, and calls him un esprit prodigieusement déclamatoire, une mauvaise nature, hypocrite, légère, vaniteuse; un composé incroyable d'intelligence fausse, de méchanceté profonde, d'égoïsme atroce et sournois, avee des raffinements inouïs de subtilité."See also the description of Merivale, ch. LV. (vol. VI. 245 sqq.).
[519] Tacitus (Ann. XV. 41) gives the date quarto decimo [ante] Kalendas Sextiles ... quo et Senones captam urbem inflammaverant. Friedländer, I. 6, wrongly makes it the 17th July. The coincidence with the day when the Gauls had set fire to Rome (July 19, A. U. 364, or 453 years before), was considered a bad omen. It was in the tenth year of Nero's reign, ie., a.d. 64. See Clinton, Fasti Romani, I. Oxon. 1845, pp. 45, 46; Friedländer, l.c. I. 6; Schiller, l.c. pp. 173 sq.; Merivale, VI. 131, note. Eusebius, in his Chronicle, erroneously puts the fire in the year 66.
[520] For a description of the Circus Maximus see Friedländer, III. 293 sqq. The amphitheatrical rows of seats were eight stadia long, with accommodation for 150,000 persons. After Nero's reconstruction the seats amounted to 250,000 under Vespasianum, and subsequent additions raised the number, in the fourth century to 385,000. It was surrounded by wooden buildings for shopkeepers (among whom were many Jews), astrologers, caterers, prostitutes, and all sorts of amusements. Nero was most extravagant in his expenditure for the circus and the theatre to gratify the people's passion for Panem et Circenses, to use Juvenal's words.
[521] "Per sex dies septemque noctes," Sueton. Nero, 38 sex dies,"Tacit. Ann. XV. 4
[522] The nine days' duration is proved by an inscription (Gruter, 61. 3). The great fire in London in 1666 lasted only four days and swept an area of 436 acres. Comp. Lambert's Hist. of London,II. 91, quoted by Merivale. The fire in Chicago lasted only thirty-six hours, October 8 and 9, 1871, but swept over nearly three and one-third square miles (2,114 square acres), and destroyed 17,450 buildings, the homes of 98,500 people.
[523] Tacitus XV. 39: "Pervaserat rumor ipso tempore flagrantis urbis inisse eum domesticam scenam et cecinisse Troianum excedium." Sueton. c. 38: "Quasi offensus deformitate veterum aedificiorum et angustiis flexurisque vicorum [Nero]incendit Urbem ... Hoc incendium e turre Maecenatiana prospectans, laetusque 'flammae,'ut ajebat, 'pulchritudine,'halosin Ilii in illo suo scaenico habitu decantavit."Robbers and ruffians were seen to thrust blazing brands into the buildings, and, when seized, they affirmed that they acted under higher orders. The elder Pliny, Xiphilinus, and the author of the tragedy, Octavia, likewise charge Nero with incendiarism. But Schiller, l.c. 425 sqq., labors to relieve him of it.
[524] We do not know the precise date of the massacre. Mosheim fixes it on November, Renan on August, a.d. 64. Several weeks or months at all events must have passed after the fire. If the traditional date of Peter's crucifixion be correct there would be an interval of nearly a year between the conflagration, July 19, 64, and his martyrdom, June 29th.
[525] "Crucibus affixi," says Tacitus. This would well apply to Peter, to whom our Lord had prophesied such a death, John 21:18, 19. Tertullian says:"Romae Petrus passioni Dominicae adaequatur"(De Praescript. Haeret., c. 36; comp. Adv. Marc., IV. 5; Scorpiace, 15). According to a later tradition he was, at his own request, crucified with his head downwards, deeming himself unworthy to be crucified as was his Lord. This is first mentioned in the Acta Pauli, c. 81, by Origen (in Euseb. H. E., III. 1) and more clearly by Jerome (Catal. 1); but is doubtful, although such cruelties were occasionally practised (see Josephus, Bell. Jud., V. 11, 1). Tradition mentions also the martyrdom of Peter's wife, who was cheered by the apostle on her way to the place of execution and exhorted to remember the Lord on the cross (memneso tou Kuriou). Clement of Alexandria, Strom. VII. 11, quoted by Eusebius, H. E., III. 30. The orderly execution of Paul by the sword indicates a regular legal process before, or more probably at least a year after, the Neronian persecution in which his Roman citizenship would scarcely have been respected. See p. 326.
[526] So Gibbon (ch. XVI.), more recently Merivale, l.c. ch. 54 (vol. VI. 220, 4th ed.), and Schiller, l.c., pp. 434, 585, followed by Hausrath and Stahr. Merivale and Schiller assume that the persecution was aimed at the Jews and Christians indiscriminately. Guizot, Milman, Neander, Gieseler, Renan, Lightfoot, Wieseler, and Keim defend or assume the accuracy of Tacitus and Suetonius.
[527] Ant. XX. 8, 2, 3.
[528] So Ewald. VI. 627, and Renan, L'Antechist, pp. 159 sqq. Renan ingeniously conjectures that the "jealousy" to which Clement of Rome (Ad Cor. 6) traces the persecution, refers to the divisions among the Jews about the Christian religion.
[529] Orosius (about 400), Hist., VII. 7: "Primus Romae Christianos suppliciis et mortibus adferit [Nero],ac per omnes provincias pari persecutione excruciari imperavit."So also Sulpicius Severus, Chron. II. 29. Dodwell (Dissert. Cypr. XI., De Paucitate martyrum, Gibbon, Milman, Merivale, and Schiller (p. 438) deny, but Ewald (VI. 627, and in his Com. on the Apoc.)and Renan (p. 183) very decidedly affirm the extension of the persecution beyond Rome. "L'atrocité commandée par Néron,"says Renan, "dut avor des contre-coups dans les provinces et y exciter une recrudescence de persécution." C. L. Roth (Werke des Tacitus, VI. 117) and Wieseler (Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren, p. 11) assume that Nero condemned and prohibited Christianity as dangerous to the state. Kiessling and De Rossi have found in an inscription at Pompeii traces of a bloody persecution; but the reading is dispated, see Schiller, p. 438, Friedländer III. 529, and Renan, p. 184.
[530] Apoc. 2:9, 10, 13; 16:6; 17:6; 18:24.
[531] 1 Pet. 2:12, 19, 20; 3:14-18; 4:12-19.
[532] At the close, 1 Pet. 5:13. not on page 384
[533] "Those who survey," says Gibbon (ch. XVI.)."with a curious eye the revolutions of mankind, may observe that the gardens and circus of Nero on the Vatican, which were polluted with the blood of the first Christians, have been rendered still more famous by the triumph and by the abuse of the persecuted religion. On the same spot, a temple, which far surpasses the ancient glories of the capital, has been since erected by the Christian pontiffs, who, deriving their claim of universal dominion from a humble fisherman of Galilee, have succeeded to the throne of the Caesars, given laws to the barbarian conquerors of Rome, and extended their spiritual jurisdiction from the coast of the Baltic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean." Comp. Renan, L'Antechr. p. 177: "L'orgie de Néron fut le grand baptême de sanq qui désiqna Rome, comme la ville des martyrs, pour jouer un rôle à part dans l'histoire du christianisme, et en étre la seconde ville sainte. Ce fut la prise de possession de la colline Vatcane par ces triomphateurs d'un genre inconnu jusque-là ... Rome, rendue responsable de tout le sang versé, devint comme Babylone une sorte de ville sacramentelle et symbolique."
[534] Tertullian mentions it in connection with the crucifixion of Peter and the decapitation of Paul as apparently occurring at the same time; De Praescript. Haer., c.36: "Ista quam felix ecclesia (the church of Rome) cui totam doctrinam apostoli sanguine suo profuderunt, ubi Petrus passioni Dominicae adaequatur, ubi Paulus Joannis exitu coronatur, ubi Apostolus Joannes, posteaquam in oleum igneum demersus nihil passus est, in insulam relegatur." Comp. Jerome, Adv. Jovin., 1, 26, and in Matt. 22: 23; and Euseb., H. E., VI. 5. Renan (p. 196) conjectures that John was destined to shine in the illumination of the Neronian gardens, and was actually steeped in oil for the purpose, but saved by an accident or caprice. Thiersch (Die Kirche im Apost. Zeitalter, p. 227, third edition, 1879) likewise accepts the tradition of Tertullian, but assumes a miraculous deliverance.
[535] Rev. 11:7; 13:1; 17:1, 3, 5. Comp. Daniel's description of the fourth (Roman) beast, "dreadful and terrible and strong exceedingly," with "ten horns,"Dan. 7:7 sqq.
[536] Rev. 17:6.
[537] Rev. 18:2. Comp. also Rev. 6:9-11.
[538] This refers either to the crucifixion, or more probably to the edict of Claudius, who banished the Jews and Jewish Christians from Rome. See above, p. 363.
[539] Confessed what? Probably the Christian religion, which was already regarded as a sort of crime. If they confessed to be guilty of incendiarism, they must have been either weak neophytes who could not stand the pain of the torture, or hired scoundrels.
[540] This is to be understood in the active sense of the reputed enmity to mankind, with which Tacitus charges the Jews also in almost the same terms ("Adversus omnes alios hostile odium," Hist. V. 5). But Thiersch and others explain it of the hatred of mankind towards the Christians (comp. Matt. 10:22, "Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake").