Nero (Hastings' Dictionary)

The name of Nero does not occur in the NT, but he is the ‘Cesar’ to whom St. Paul appeals in Ac 25"; before whose tribunal] he was twice tried (assuming an earlier acquittal and later reimprisonment) ; and in whose imperial establishment the apostle had fellow-believers and probably converts (Ph 4”). Nero’s reign covers an important period of NT history, and his attitude towards the early Church had a memorable influence on its fortunes. Born in A.D.

37, of parents—Domitius and Agrippina— who both belonged to the family of the Czesars,* Nero was destined from childhood for the imperial throne by his ambitious mother, who first (A.D. 49) secured her own marriage to the emperor Claudius, her uncle; then the betrothal of Nero and Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina (the marriage being consummated four years later) ; finally, in A.D.

50, the adoption of Nero as the emperor’s son and designated successor, with the eunernera of Claudius’ own son, Britannicus. When Claudius died suddenly, in A.D. 54,+ Nero, mainly through his mother’s strategy, was peace- fully accepted as emperor by army, senate, and people (Tac. Ann. xii. 68, 69). rajan is said (Aur. Vict. Epit. Nero) to have described the first quinquennium of Nero’s τοῖα as far superior to any other period of imperial rule.

During those years he was under the guidance of Seneca, the philosopher (his tutor in boyhood), and of Burrus, prefect of the pratorian guard, an honest and virtuous soldier. By these counsellors the influence of Agrippina, originally potent, was at an early stage counteracted, and eventually sup- planted.

t The emperor’s exemplary clemency § in the beginning of his reign ; his habitual accessi- * Agrippina was a great-granddaughter of Augustus, and Domitius a grandson of Octavia the sister of Augustus. ἡ According to Pliny (ΗΝ xxii. 22), Tac. (Ann. xii. 66), and Suet. (Claud. 44), Claudius was poisoned by Agrippina. Suet., however, admits discrepancies 3 the reports as to occasion, administration of poison, and attendant circumstances. Tac. Ann. xiii. 2, δ, 6, 21, xiv. 2.

At the outset of his reign Nero gave, on one occasion, as military watchword, ‘The best of mothers.’ § Sen. de Clem. 1.1, 11, iL 1; Tac. Ann. xiii. 11; Suet. Nero, 10. The assassination of Silanus, soon after Nero's accession, was without his knowledge, and the compulsory suicide of Narcissus against his desire (Tac. Ann. xiii. 1); Agrippina being in both cases the responsible agent. NERO bility and liberal provision of s les and gesses (Suet.

Nero, 10, 11); his constitutional recognition of the authority of the senate (Tac. Ann, xiii. 45) ; his laudable endeavours to mitigate taxation and gn pa ΕΣ gs (ib. 50, τ aoe is vigorous forei icy against Parthian aggression and Betti: en retin call this secured favour for Nero personally, as well as respect for his government.

It caused, also, some toleration to be extended to his excessive vanity, adulterous amours, and scandalous nocturnal esca- pades, when he roamed in disguise throughout the city, and committed outrages on peaceful citizens (Tac. Ann. xiii. 12, 25, 46). It is difficult to believe that, within the first year of his reign, Nero (without his mother’s complicity and against her desire) deliberately poisoned Britannicus, his brother through adop- tion, a boy of fourteen.

The pany incidental reference (c. 78 A.D.) to the murder by Josephus (BJ τι. xiii. 1), and the later detailed account of Tacitus (Ann. xiii. 15 ff.), followed by Suetonius (Nero, 33) and Dio (61. 7. 4), amply prove that the crime was attributed to Nero soon after, if not before, his death. Motives are found in Nero’s, youthful jealousy and fear of an imperial rival whom even Agrippina might support. But (1) the remark of Tacitus (Amn. i.

1) must be kept in mind that the histories of Nero and other oy emperors were ‘during their reign falsified through fear, and after death fabricated through hatred’ ; (2) Seneca, writing soon after Britannicus’ death (de Clem. i. 11), declares that Nero had never shed the blood of a Roman citizen nor of any human being in the world; (3) the details of the alleged murder are not inconsistent with Nero’s own allegation that Britannicus died in a fit of epilepsy.

t Sudden death was frequently ascribed to poison; and the later undoubted crimes of Nero might induce belief in his earlier guilt. Nero’s connexion (from A.D. 58) with Poppa (the wife of Otho, afterwards emperor), and her fatal ascendency over him, became the chief factor in his thorough demoralization, and a direct or indirect occasion of many of his crimes. Poppa coveted the pportsion of empress, and determined to secure the divorce and removal of the neglected Octavia.

Agrippina’s remanent influence stood in the way, and must be destroyed. Nero had already been partially alienated from his mother by her interference with his private habits as well as imperial administration ; and her vindictive dis- position had raised up enemies against her in the court. Poppa fostered filial estrangement and encouraged the animosity of courtiers.

The issue was Agrippina’s tragic death, of which two con- flicting accounts have come down, both inherently improbable—(1) Nero’s own statement to the senate (Tac. Ann. xiv. 11) that Agrippina, foiled in an at- tempt to compass his death, had atoned for her crime by suicide. An ambitious woman might have con- spired against a court-party from which she was excluded ; but Nero’s death would have destroyed her one hope of egeaning power. (1) The account of Tacitus (xiv.

3-8), followed by suetonius (Nero, 34), that Nerowas guilty of deliberate and persistent matricide, employing his freedman Anicetus, first to cause Agrippina to be shipwrecked, and then, on her escape, to assassinate her. The details of * Corbulo and Suetonius Paulinus, the two ablest generals of their day, were sent, the former in 55 to repel the Parthians, the latter in 58 to complete the subjugation of Britain.

¢ Apart from this incident, there is no actual evidence that the ancient Romans were acquainted with any poison which, after double dilution, could have caused instantaneous death or sudden lividness, as related by Tacitus. Undoubtedly, however, 8 distillation from the leaves of the cherry-laurel, which might then have been obtained from Asia Minor, would have produced the effect desired (Burnett's Med, Bot. ii. 117).

NERO 515 this record bristle with improbabilities: (a) the secret preparation of a vessel which would suddenly fall to pieces, without the majonty of the seamen knowing what would happen; (Ὁ) the hardened emperor caressing the mother whose murder he had arranged, and clinging fondly to her bosom ; (c) the virtuous Burrus and Seneca joining in the crime with a calculating callousness worse than that ascribed to Nero himself.

(d) Suetonius adds that Nero had thrice previously tried to poison Agrippina, who had fortified herself beforehand with antidotes! It is not improbable that Nero, under Poppea’s influence, believed in his mother’s conspiracy against the existing administration ; that in the midst of a nocturnal debauch he ordered her violent arrest; and that in the con- flict occasioned by her resistance she was killed. The death of Burrus, in 62 (not without some suspicion of poison, Tac. Ann. xiv.

5), relieved Poppa of another obstacle to her ambition ; and the appointment of Tigellinus as prefect of the pretorians in his stead provided her with a willing accomplice and Nero with another evil genius—a fresh instigator to vice as well as crime. Imperial orgies became viler and more shameless. Influential senators were removed from Rome and assassinated (Tac. Ann. xiv. 57, 59): Seneca, in despair, with- drew into private life (i+. 53-56). Poppza’s time had come.

Octavia, through perjured witness promannced ilty of infidelity, was divorced, nished, and finally murdered (Tac. xiv. 60-64). Poppwa was espoused, and before tlie close of the year, on the birth of a daugliter (who died in infancy), received the title of Augusta. The un- bounded extravagance which the empress and Tigellinus encouraged led to financial embarrass- ments.

These were relieved by charges of treason (followed by confiscation) against wealthy citizens, through which the upper classes were exasperated ; and by oppressive taxation, which made Nero un- popular even among those who would have toler- ated his crimes ; while the emperor’s exhibition of himself upon the stage, however acceptable to the lowest class, and publicly applauded, excited much private disgust (Tac. xiv. 14, 15). Before this time Nero’s relations with the Christians had begun. St.

Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, with its favourable reference to the Rete that be’ (13), had been written during the first quinquennium, to which also belongs the charge of superstitio externa (supposed by some to be Christianity) against Pomponia Grecina, wife of Aulus Plautius (Tac. Ann. xiii. 32; de Rossi, Roma Sotter. ii. 360ff.; cf. Lightf. Clement, i. 30 ff.) The apostle’s arrival in Rome took place, puberty, soon after semepinals death (see art. HRONOLOGY OF NT in vol. i. p.

424); his mild imprisonment, tolerated evangelization, and earlier trial, issuing in acquittal (according to the common theory), belong to the period of Poppwa’s ascend- ency. That St. Paul was tried by Nero in person, although not certain, is highly probable; for, amid much carelessness, the emperor was par- ticular in his attention to appeals from the pro- vinces in criminal cases.

He received from ig of his assessors a written opinion, and pronounced sentence personally from the tribunal on the fol- lowing day (Suet. Nero, 15; cf. Tac. Ann. xiii. 4) Poppea had leanings towards Judaism, is de- scribed by Josephus (Ant. XX. viii. 11) as θεοσεβής, and twice interceded with Nero on behalf of Jews (Jos. 1.5. and Vita, 3). She may not, however, have concerned herself with St.

Paul’s case ; and, in the absence of any powerful antagonistic influ- ence at court, the PA a of Festus would tell strongly in the apostle’s favour. The intervention of Seneca, the brother of Gallio (indicated in the apocryphal Passio Pauli, i.), is no more than NERO 516 sible.* Up to the time of Gallio’s proconsul- p (i.¢. A.D. 52-3 or 53-4), and probably for some urs afterwards, the Roman government regarded Christians, apparently, as only a sect of Jews.

The trial at Rome of a Christian who was also civis Romanus may have been, as Seta | suggests (Expositor, July 1893), the occasion of a more thorough investigation which enlightened the im- perial authorities as to the true relation between Christianity and Judaism. In A.D. 64 the tolerant attitude of Nero’s government towards Christianity was suddenly transformed into cruel hostility.

In July of that year took place the great fire at Rome, which raged for nine days, and through which, out of fourteen civic districts, three were orally and seven partially, destroyed. Nero was at Antium when the conflagration broke out. The measures taken by the government for the suppression of the fire (Tac. Ann. xy. 40) ; his own fearless super- vision of these efforts without a guard (ἐδ.

50); and the oceurrence of the disaster at a time when the im- perial finances were seriously embarrassed, render it highly improbable that Nero either instigated or deliberately extended the conflagration. But he probably gave occasion for the charge of com- plicity, which was widely believed at the time,t by previous sanitation reforms, laudable but keenly opposed (Lanciani, Anc. Rome, p.

122), unbecoming admiration of the magnificence of the spectacle, ill-disguised pleasure at the opportunity of re- building large portions of the city in a more magnificent style, and the significant annexation of a considerable part of the desolated area for the erection of his ‘Golden House.

’t The fact, more- over, that the flames, after temporary arrest, broke out afresh in the gardens of Tigellinus, gave some colour to the suspicion that if he had nothing to do with the original fire, he might, nevertheless, have caused the second outbreak (Tac. Ann. xy. 40).

§ The common belief in Nero’s guilt, and the danger of revolution, owing to itterness engendered in many thousands of ruined and homeless sufferers, led to the em- peror, either spontaneously, || or at the suggestion of PoppeaT or some malignant courtier, imput- ing the conflagration to the Christians.

* Some I eh ve Seneca, however, who had probably not yet retired, may have been an assessor ; and, in any case, to the equitable principles of administration established under his influence, the acquittal of St. Paul was largely due. t It is accepted as a fact Ὁ: Pliny (AN xvii. 1. 1), who wrote about 4.D. 77; also by Suetonius (Nero, 38) in a.p. 120. Tacitus writes (4.p. 115-117), ‘forte an dolo principis incertum,’ and a that older authorities were divided in opinion (Ann. xv.

Of this Golden House, which reached from the Palatine to the Eaquiline, and had triple colonnades a mile in length, Nero declared that ‘now at last he was housed like a human being’ ὍΣΣ Nero, 33; cf. Tac. Ann. xv, 42; Middlet. Anc. Rome, it. δ The story that ‘Nero fiddled while Rome was burning’ originated, doubtless, in the report (Tac. Ann. xv.

42) that he sang, during the fire, of the ruin of Troy—a report based prob- ably on the fact that, a year after the fire, the emperor, with questionable taste, read in public his ‘T7'roica,’ a m con- a7 ae allusions to the recent fire (Renan, Hino. Lect. p. δῖ, ! Nero might have heard from Jews, at St. Paul's trial, calumnies inst the Christians, which, although proved to be baseless in the apostle’s case, would now suggest themselves to the emperor as a convenient foundation for his charge.

“« Clement of Rome (Ep. to Cor. 5,6) writes that the Christians suffered ‘through envy and genlousy The reference is indefi- nite, but may apply (in part) to Jews in Nero’s time who em- ployed Poppwea as a medium for fixing the charge of arson on the Christians (Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, i. 64). ** There seems to be no good reason for questioning the accuracy of Tacitus’ reference to Christians as the sole objects of persecution in connexion with the fire.

The ‘ingens multitudo’ of victims (Tac. Ann. xv. 44) referring to judicial executions, ned not ἜΡΙΣ more than several hundreds, Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ch. xvi.) conjectures that the real victims were Jewish Zealots who had received the name Galilewans from ‘udas of Galilee (Ac 537), and thus were afterwards confounded with Christian ‘Galilwans’; but there is no evidence that the jlausibility would be given to the eps by their ane of pagan temples, many of which perished (Tac. Ann. xv.

41), by their supposed disloyalty and ‘hostility to society’ (ib. 44), and by their expectation of an impending destruction of the world by fire (2Th 15, 2P 37), According to Tacitus, ‘those in the first place were brought to trial who made open profession’ (t.¢. of the Chris- tian faith). ‘Thereafter, on information elicited from these, a great multitude were convicted, far less on the charge of incendiarism than of odiwm humani generis.

’ The injustice of conviction was equalled by the brutality of execution. Some were ‘covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs’ ; and the culmination of inhumanity was reached when others, robed in the tunica molesta, covered with pitch, were ‘set on fire at nightfall’ to illuminate the imperial gardens on the occasion of Circensian games (Tac. Ann. xv. 44)—a fiendish exaggeration of the penalty of death by fire inflicted on malignant incendiaries (Juy. vili. 235).

Nero does not appear to have organized any persecution of Christians beyond the city of Rome;* but the notorious treatment of them there could not fail to influence provincial governors in dealing with other charges made against Christians within their respective territories.

In the Neronian persecution we dis- cern a distinct stage in the development of imperial policy regarding Christians out of prosecution for alleged particular crimes into prosecution on ac- count of Christian faith and profession. Whether this development was completed under Nero is disputable. Ramsay, to whom, mainly, is due the abandonment of the old La that persecution ‘for the name’ began under Trajan, maintains (Church in Rom. Emp. p. 242ff.

, and Expositor, July 1893) that while the substitution of the charge of ‘hostility to society’ for that of arson was a notable development, the condemnation of Christians even on the later charge ‘was pro- nounced in respect not of the name, but of serious offences (flagitia) connected with the name,’ and that ‘Christianity had not yet come to be recog- nized as in itself a crime.’ There would have been otherwise no occasion (he argues) for an lengthened second trial of St.

Paul as describe in2Ti4. Sanday (Ezxpos., June 1893) and Hardy (Christianity and the Rom. Govt.) hold that odiwm humani generis is not a definite charge, but an assumed characteristic of Christianity, and that the condemnation of Christians on this account is tantamount to a proscription of the name. They appeal to 1 P 415; but Ramsay, while not denying the Petrine authorship of the Epistle, dates it c. 80 A.D. At some date soon after the horrors of A.D. 64—perhaps in 65 (see art.

CHRONOLOGY OF NT in vol. i. p. 420)—occurred St. Paul’s second imprisonment and trial, issuing in his martyrdom. By this time the ferocity of yokeeedison had abated; and the apostle, while confined in the Mamertine dungeon, appears to have been tried in an orderly manner (2 Ti 4), and would probably be condemned under the charge of ‘odium,’ or as a disturber of the imperial Zealots were ever so called. Merivale (Romans under Empire, ch. liv.) and H. Schiller (Gesch. d. rom. Kais. p. 433 ff.)

suppose that the persecution assailed both Jews and Christians, to whom the name of ‘the Christ’ alike belonged, but that the memory of the Christian sufferers alone was preserved. The silence of Josephus, however, who professes (Ant. xx. viii. 3) to record accurately all that happened to the Jews under Nero, and especially their calamities, tells heavily against both theories ; while the limitation of the persecution to Christians by Tacitus is confirmed, so far, by Suetonius (Nero, 16).

The earliest writer who asserts an extension of the imperial persecution to the provinces is Orosius (Hist. vii. 7), who wrote δ. 400 4.D. Regarding a mutilated inscription found at Pompeii, of doubtful interpretation, but supposed to refer to a bloody persecution of Christians there, prior to 4.0. 79, see Aubé, Perséc. Ὁ. 415 f., and Schaff, Apostolic Christianity, p. 384. ce. art. PETER. ‘The alleged banishment of St. John under Nero (contrary to Iren. adv. Her. v. 30, and Eus. HZ iii. 18.

20) rests mainly + on what is regarded as strong internal evidence for the com- position of Rev in 68-69 (see REVELATION [Book The Neronian persecution was the first of three outstanding events in close succession (the OF)). destruction of Jerusalem and the settlement of St. John in Asia being the other two) which paved the way for the consolidation of Jewish and Gentile Christendom.

Amid common peril and suffering, the sectional friction noted in Ph 1°" would decline and mutual sympathy increase ; while the fiery ordeal would rid the Roman Church at once of Judaizing false brethren who alienated Gentile believers from the Jewish Christian com- munity, and also of Gentile professors whose lax morality prejudiced Jewish believers against Gentile Christians as a whole. In A.D.

65 the widespread discontent aroused by the conflagration and its supposed origin, by the divorce and death of Octavia, and by the emperor’s murderous pea and extortionate levies, issued in a powerful conspiracy being organized, the ob- ject of which was to depose Nero, and to enthrone Calp. Piso, a man of noble birth, great wealth, and general popularity.

Many senators, knights, and other influential persons were drawn into the oe including Fenius Rufus, one of the prefects ; lautius, consul-elect ; Lucan the poet, Seneca’s nephew ; and Senecio, one of Nero’s most intimate courtiers. The conspiracy was prematurely dis- closed by the imprudence or the treachery of some who were implicated, and the leaders of the movement were put to death. Among others condemned without evidence was Seneca, whom Nero constrained to commit suicide.

A reign of terror ensued. ‘The city was thronged with funerals, the Capitol with victims’ (Tac. Ann. xv. 71). On flimsy pretexts, almost every prominent citizen whose virtue rebuked Nero’s vices, whose wealth tempted his cupidity, or whose popularit excited his jealous fear, was mercilessly executed. The most notable victims were the senators Thrasea and Scrranus, whose death Tacitus (Ann. xv. 21) ascribes to Nero’s passionate desire to ‘ extirpate virtue itself.

’ Petronius, long a prime favourite, killed himself to avoid execution. The cruelty of the emperor was matched by the callousness of a populace whose hostility he averted by largesses and spectacles ; by the servility, also, of a debased senate which condoned the condemnation of its noblest members.

It outdid the former deification of deceased emperors by decreeing the erection of a temple to Nero, as to a god, in his lifetime ; and it voted divine honours to Poppa, at the instance of the emperor, for once remorseful, when he had killed her with a kick during pregnancy (Tac. Ann. xv. 74, xvi. 21 f.) Amid his career of shameless debauchery, un- natural self-prostitution, and murderous frenzy, Nero remained a devotee of art.

He played on the lyre, and was vain of his voice; he posed as an orator, and wrote tolerable poetry; he attained * Nevo occupies a prominent place in apocryphal and legend- ary ‘Acta of Apostles,’ particularly in the Acts of Peter and Paul. He is there represented as deceived by Simon Magus hha zh a magic trick) into the belief that Simon after being eheaded had come to life again, Ultimately, when Simon attempts to fly, Peter’s invocation causes him to fall into the Via Sacra and to be killed.

This, however, does not prevent Nero from ordering Peter to be crucified and Paul to be beheaded. { The external evidence includes (1) the title of the Syriac Version of Rev (ascribed to 6th cent.); (2) the Syriac Apoory- phal History of John (Wright’s Trans. ii. 56); (3) Hieron. ado. Jov. i, 26, where (if the reading be correct) Tertullian is in- accurately reported as ascribing to Nero St. John’s torture prior to exile. Regarding St.

Peter’s alleged arrival in me and gh Gas about the same time, see some proficiency in painting and sculpture; he acted on the public stage, and was an accomplished charioteer (Tac. Ann. xiv. 14, 21; Suet. Nero, 52, 53). A visit to Greece, long projected, and accomplished in A.D. 66, provided ee with the opportunity not only of gratifying his artistie tastes, but of enjoying an apparently greater appreciation of his talents than even a servile Roman crowd could supply.

National Greek games, which recurred in successive years, were all crowded into the period of his visit, so that he might be awarded every notable prize for music, acting, and chariot-racing, and attain the coveted distinction of ‘periodonikes,’ or universal victor. He rewarded Greek adulation by declaring Achaia ‘free’; and endeavoured at once to benefit Greek commerce and to glorify himself by initiating a scheme—soon given up—for piercing the Isthmus of Corinth (Suet. Nero, 23f.; Dio, Ixiii.

10-16). The visit to Greece caused no interruption in the course of imperial bloodshed. Rich victims were to be found in Achaia, asin Italy. Ignoble jealousy and fear prompted Nero to summon from the East the brilliant conqueror Corbulo, only to condemn him to immediate suicide, the general’s sole crime being that he had been urged, but had refused, to proclaim himself emperor. In Rome executions and confiscations continued under the delegated authority of Helius, a freedman (Dio, | Ixiii.

12, 17). Meanwhile, however, disaffection among citizens and armies had developed into an organized conspiracy to place Galba, governor of Hither Spain, on the throne; and when Nero returned to Rome in the spring of 68, loaded with | laurels, it was already too late to stem the tide of | insurrection. Sycophantie senators and courtiers deserted him; the preetorian guard was seduced | by bribes from its mercenary allegiance.

Eventu- ally, Nero fled from Rome in disguise to the suburban villa of a faithful freedman ; and, after exclaiming Qualis artifex pereo! stabbed himself on the approach of emissaries from the senate, to avoid a more painful and ignominious doom (Suet. Nero, 42-49). A touching incident lights up the ‘loom of this closing ‘tragedy of the Casars.

’ 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), | Fritzsche, Annal, iii. 1 (1831); Reuss, l.c. ; Renan, p, 415 ff. ; Farrar, vol. ii. 292 ΠΥ,, Zéckler, Com. on Apoc. and others. Jewish Christians were familiar with Gematria, the numerical indication of names (Farrar in Hapos. 1879, ν. 369). The non-identification, however, of Nero with the 666 by any early writer is significant. } Hengst., Auberlen, Lange, Alf., Mill, and others.

NETHANEL LrreraTors.—Tacitus, Annales, esp. the edition of Furneaux, with Introduction and Appendices ; Suetonius, Nero ; Dio Cassius, Hist. Rom.; Merivale, Komans under the Empire; H. Schiller, Geach, d, rom, reg es ore (i808) b mend Leen in Rom. Emp. ; articles in Expositor (1 y ommsen, and Ramsay; Hardy, Christianity and Rom, Government: Arnold, Neronische Christenver/. ; on's Intr. NT; Baring- Gould, Tragedy of the Caesars; Renan, Antichrist; Reuss, Chr. Th. in Ap. Age (tr.), vol i.

; Farrar, Early Days of Chris- tianity ; Aubé, Perséc. de [ gh G. H. Lewes, ‘Was Nero a Monster?’ in Cornhill Mag., July 1863; Wiedemeister, Casar- enwahnsinn ; Lipsius, Apocr, Apgesch.; Bruston in Revue de Théol., Sept. 1895. H. Cowan.