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1 results

  • Chapter 3 - The Invention of the Nero-Antichrist

  • Shushma Malik, Roehampton University, London
  • Book:
    The Nero-Antichrist
    Published online:
    27 March 2020
    Print publication:
    16 April 2020, pp 79-126

  • Summary

    Christian writers, keen to interpret the apocalyptic scripture that had since become canonical, recognised the intrinsic importance of Nero’s role as first persecutor to the history of Christianity. According to tradition, Nero created the first martyrs, including the apostles Peter and Paul. Millennialists from the third century established the importance of a relationship between the first and last persecutors, affording Nero an apocalyptic role. To add detail to the paradigm, late-antique writers turned ted to non-biblical traditions – mostly classical historiography, but also the apocryphal Sibylline Oracles and Ascension of Isaiah. Here, they could find characteristics to populate their paradigm, be those the traits of the arch-destroyers of apocrypha, or those of the tyrannical Nero of classical texts.