Chapter 4 - Reviving the Nero-Antichrist

Summary

This chapter examines the notable revival of the Nero-Antichrist in the nineteenth century and tracks the resurgence and dissemination of the paradigm beyond late antiquity. Why the idea of the Nero-Antichrist regained its potency in this period has to do with the wider context of a nineteenth-century fascination with antiquity, with religious upheaval, with the fin de siècle anxieties about the end times, and with fin de siècle notions of decadence and decline. As case studies, the authors Ernest Renan, F. W. Farrar, and Oscar Wilde allow us to explore how late nineteenth-century thinkers in England and France worked with and reacted to prevailing conceptions of Nero, and negotiated his identification as the Antichrist. All three were finding a place for Christianity in an era intent upon positivist historiography; Wilde in particular shows that the scientific method was not the only option for interpreting the emperor’s role in Christian history.