Early Christians prophesied his return. It wasn't Jesus.

[00:00:00]He wasn't much older than 30 when he died. Some people called him the son of a god. And a lot of people thought he hadn't really died, but would actually return one day leading a mighty army to set things right in the world. You know who I'm talking about. I'm talking, of course, about the emperor Nero. That's right, the emperor Nero, the Roman Emperor. Now, a lot of us know that early Christians were waiting for the return of Jesus, of course. But what not a lot of people realize is that a lot of people around the Greco Roman world at the same time a little bit later but at the same time were waiting for somebody else to return. They were waiting for the return of the emperor Nero. Now in Nero's case unlike Jesus it wasn't a belief that he would come back from the dead. It was a belief that he hadn't really died. That he had escaped to the east and one day he would return to set things right. In this video, I want to introduce you to the legend of the return of Nero. It was an incredibly popular legend in the last quarter of the first century. So much so that it left an indelible imprint all over our New Testament, but on one book in particular, and that book of course is the book of Revelation. Once you wrap your head around this myth that Nero was expected to return, you can see that it actually has a really important impact on the other group of people who were waiting for somebody to return. Of course, Christians. I want to show you how this myth left its fingerprints on our New Testament and how it shaped the theology around Jesus' return. My name is CJ Kornweight. On this channel, I talk about where Christianity came from and how it works. If you haven't done so yet, consider taking a second and subscribing. Let's talk about the return of Nero.

[00:01:50]The Emperor Nero is a really fascinating character. He reigned from 54 to 68 CE.

[00:01:55]And of course, he's kind of most famous for persecuting Christians, and we'll get to that. And of course, when we study early Christianity, a lot of us remember Nero as this absolute monster, which in some ways he obviously was. But he also did a couple of really important things that are worth understanding if you want to understand the impact of Nero on the New Testament. First of all, Nero was sort of successful at bringing this sort of peace between Rome and this empire to the east that Rome had been at war with for a long time. The Parththeians, Rome and the Parththeians were two empires at war. And of course, Judea and the Galilee were actually caught in the middle. And if you know your history a little bit, you might remember that the Parththeians actually helped to back the last Hasminian king Antigonus II Metatias. He was backed by the Parththeians and of course was killed when Herod the Great came in and took over with the help of Rome. These were two empires at war. Judea was caught in the middle. But of course under the time of Nero, there was a sort of peace achieved between the two empires. We have this story about an Armenian king named Tidadis who's the brother of the Parthion king. and he comes to Rome and he's celebrated and there's parades all the way and a crown is placed on his head by Nero and it's a really powerful symbolic move that sort of symbolizes these two empires coming together. Now this is all going to be really important in a minute. Now the Parththeians love Nero so much that after Nero's death they the Parthion king wrote to the Roman Senate and asked that they continue to honor the memory of Nero. He loved the East. The East loved him. He led this sort of revival in like Henistic arts. he decided that he was going to finish um this canal across the Corinthian ismas which never never actually happened but he obviously wanted to do it and good on him and maybe he wasn't the most shy of characters because he built a 30 m bronze statue gilded bronze statue of himself in Rome but usually when we talk about Nero in the context of early Christianity everybody remembers one really horrendous thing that Nero did so there was this fire in Rome in the year 64 nobody really knows what exactly happened or how it got started. There's a rumor that it might have been Nero who actually started the fire. And of course, people actually did think it might have been Nero who started the fire. So to divert attention from himself, Nero blamed the Christians for starting this fire in Rome. And this prompted a really horrific horrific persecution of Christians that included things like um sewing Christians in animal skins and having them eaten by dogs or wild animals. um having Christians crucified and lit on fire to light Nero's garden parties is probably one of the ma most famous stories. This is the sort of really horrific stuff that Nero did and this is probably what makes Nero stick in our mind as this like terrible persecutor of Christians and rightly so. He did some absolutely horrendous horrendous stuff to Christians. Let me read this little excerpt from Tacitus where he tells us about this. Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations called Christians by the populace.

[00:04:54]Christristus for whom the name had its origin suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators Ponius Pilatus and a most mischievous superstition thus checked for the moment again broke out not only in Judea the first source of the evil but even in Rome where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular.

[00:05:17]Now, judging from this story and the truly horrific details, Nero was already obviously a little bit unhinged, but his mental state would decline in the coming years, and he would do things like um sending pe sending an expedition off to find like hidden gold in Africa based on this rumor about it. He famously murdered his wife and then proceeded to marry a young boy who apparently looked like his wife. And all of this, as well as his taxation strategy, which might have been the more important thing for some people, led to several of Nero's governors leading a rebellion against them. They sort of there's a little bit of infighting between them, but eventually they came for Nero himself.

[00:05:55]The head of the Ptorian Guard also turned on Nero, and Nero found himself in a position where he needed to get out of dodge. And apparently that's what he wanted to do. Apparently, he tried to leave town. And apparently he even thought about going to Partha trying to escape to the east which will become important in a minute. But as far as we know Nero ended up dying by suicide on July 9th 68 as kind of armies closed in.

[00:06:19]He was at a villa and people were kind of closing in and apparently he took his own life. That's how the story goes. Now of course some of the details in this story are a little bit muddy and they gave birth to a lot of rumors and we're going to go there in a minute. But there's one more thing you need to understand about Nero because it's going to be important for reading Revelation.

[00:06:37]In the year that followed Nero's death, we have what would be called the year of the four emperors. This was 6869.

[00:06:45]The first emperor was Galba who had been governor of Hispania. He was quickly overthrown by Ao who led a coup against Galba. Now Ao was a lot more friendly to Nero's memory. He died by suicide the same year and was quickly followed by Vitellius who was quickly murdered by Vespasian's troops and Vespasian became the emperor. Probably most notorious for our purposes for destroying the temple a couple years after this. The year 68 was a really bad year both in Rome and in Judea. And that's important because all of this sets the scene for understanding the Christian apocalyptic things that we see throughout the New Testament. but specifically specifically the book of revelation which comes about about this time.

[00:07:36]Now if you really want to understand Christian apocalypticism at the end of the first century there's one more thing you need to know. You need to know that with all of this sort of vagueness around Nero's death the rumor spread that Nero had not actually died. Rumor spread that Nero had actually escaped to the east to his old friends the Parththeians. And a rumor would spread and it would last a couple decades as far as we can tell. A rumor would spread that Nero was one day going to return.

[00:08:05]Some people said to set things right.

[00:08:06]Some people just said he would return with a huge Parthion army. But either way, Nero was expected to come back.

[00:08:13]Listen to what Suatonius says about this. So Sutonius says he met his death in the 32nd year of his age on the anniversary of the murder of Octavia.

[00:08:21]That's his wife. And such was the public rejoicing that the people put on liberty caps and ran all over the city. Yet there were some for who a long time decorated his tomb with spring and summer flowers and now produced his statues on the rostra in the French toga and now his edicts as if he were still alive and would shortly return and deal destruction to his enemies. The rumor was spreading that Nero was coming back.

[00:08:43]Listen to what Diosostum says. So as far as the rest of his subjects were concerned, there was nothing to prevent his continuing to be emperor for all times. Seeing that even now everybody wishes he were still alive and the great majority do believe that he is. Although in a certain sense he has died not once but often along with those who had been firmly convinced that he was still alive. It was believed that Nero was going to come back. And once you understand this, you can understand the book of Revelation. Let's look at it.

[00:09:20]So, Revelation, also known as the Apocalypse of John, is of course for most of us the last book in a modern New Testament. And it's kind of weird and kind of hard to understand, but it becomes a lot easier to understand once you understand this connection to Nero.

[00:09:36]So, we're going to talk a little bit about Revelation. I need to kind of point to the dating. People have dated Revelation at a few different times. One is that perhaps it could have been written in the late60s, kind of around the time that all this happened. I'm actually kind of partial to this view myself, although there could be a later christoologgical gloss. Anyway, this stuff I can't talk about in this video, but we're kind of thinking either the late60s. Some have argued that it was actually written in the '9s during the reign of Domission and some have argued that it's written in the second century under the reign of Hadrien. I think that probably the majority of scholars lean towards dimmission in the '90s as sort of that middle position. I actually have been convinced reading the work of George Vancin that it was written in ' 68. I'll show you why. And I think it's really convincing. But however we date Revelation, it's clearly written with Nero in mind. And it's clearly written with some of this mythology bubbling underneath the surface. How do we know it's written about Nero? I mean, there's a lot of things we'll look at in a minute, but there's one clue that just cracks the book of Revelation wide open.

[00:10:35]And that clue is the famous mark of the beast. Revelation 13:18 says, "Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666."

[00:10:48]Now, this sounds really kind of hard to figure out. It sounds kind of like very esoteric. It's actually not that difficult. Revelation has a few different beasts, but there's one kind of recurring beast that we're going to look at. And the author of Revelation here gives us a clue about who the beast is. The beast is known by this number 666. And this number 666 is actually a coded clue. So to understand how this works, you need to know a couple things.

[00:11:15]First of all, Hebrew and Greek don't have numerical numbering systems. Hebrew and Greek just use letters of the alphabet for numbers. Now, this means that you can use numbers to clue to words or to people or to real things because ultimately you can like mix numbers and letters together. And people loved doing this. A lot of ancient writers love dropping these number clues into different documents, into prophecies, into magical texts. People love dropping numbers in as these kind of clues that the reader is supposed to kind of figure out. And the way that the reader figures it out is by adding up the letters of a certain word to get to that number. Numbers are letters. Okay, hopefully you got that so far. So, for example, we have this inscription in the graffiti from Pompei that says, "I love her whose number is 545."

[00:12:05]And you can see here the Greek letters working as numbers. 545. It's a clue we have to figure out. Whoever's reading this is supposed to like figure out which name would add up to 545. So that's really kind of what we're looking at when we look at this mark of the beast 666. And it's not actually too hard to figure out because if you take the word nironasar in Hebrew, Caesar Nero, those letters in Hebrew, if you add up those letters of the alphabet, it adds up to the number 666, the mark of the beast. Now, lest you think I'm trying to lead you astray with some wild thing and maybe there's something else that adds up to 666, we actually have even stronger evidence that this is Nero, because some manuscripts have a different number. Some manuscripts have 616. You can see this here in this fragment of Revelation from Anoxyus Papyrus. This fragment has 616, not 666.

[00:13:00]And the way you get to that is actually pretty simple. It's by taking the noon or the N off of Nero. So instead of saying emperor Niron, we're saying emperor Nero. And that letter, that slightly different um way of spelling it drops away and all of a sudden we have a different pneumatical number 616, but it still adds up to Nero. So either way we look at it, we are looking here at a clue in the mark of the beast that we are talking about the emperor Nero. And when you realize that this is about the emperor Nero and you see that the emperor Nero and this story about the return of Nero is all over Revelation, things all of a sudden become very clear. The beast in Revelation isn't some future antichrist. The beast in Revelation is a specific man who is already dead and expected to return. We know that Nero is expected to return.

[00:13:50]And the author of Revelation builds his entire vision of evil around this man, the beast. And it's interesting to note, and I want you to watch for this as we go through this because the author of Revelation also believes this story. The author of Revelation actually believes that Nero is going to come back, that Nero is expected to return. And it obviously creates a challenge for the author of revelation because the urgency of Nero's return is also supposed to be matched by the urgency of Christ's return. So how do you deal with this? So the author of Revelation actually paints a picture of two different returns. The return of a beast, the return of Nero, and the return of Jesus. So let's look at a couple verses from Revelation and see how we can see the story of Nero behind this once we read it.

[00:14:43]So, here are a few clues, and I'm just going to have to kind of point out what these are and say really quick, I think, what the interpretations are. But, Revelation 17:6, I saw the woman. This is this like evil woman described as a harlot, if I can use the old kind of King James language. I saw this woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. So, this is Rome. This is the Roman Empire personified the maybe the goddess Roma.

[00:15:09]This is this woman is Rome drunk with the blood of the saints. We know that in Nero's time there was this horrendous persecution that probably sets the backdrop for a lot of what is happening in Revelation. We are told in Revelation 17:9 that there is this beast with seven heads. And it says the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated. Now, at this point in Revelation 17, the author gets really specific and starts to talk specifically about what these kings actually are. So, Revelation 17:10 says, "Five have fallen, one is, the other is not yet come, and when he comes, he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, now this is the one. This is supposed to be Nero. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth, but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destructions. And this 10 horns that you saw are 10 kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour together with the beast. Now, the key thing here when we look at verse 10, this is where the author is getting really specific. So, we have these kings of whom five have fallen. Now, this is where you kind of have to count up Roman emperors and figure out where you actually get to. I'm with George Vancouin on this who argues that the five who have fallen are essentially just the first emperors like the the five emperors after Augustus bringing us to Nero. So this author is pretending to write about this series of emperors. So you can see in this great chart that Vancutin provides that we're probably either counting from Julius Caesar or Augustus. He leans towards Augustus suggesting that we are supposed to read this as being written in the time of Galba but it's probably actually being written in the time of Vitellius. Either way, we can see here what the author is doing. But then the author gives away a little bit about what the author knows.

[00:16:55]So the other has not yet come and when he comes, he must remain only a little while. So how does he know that that this emperor would reign like would stay for such a little bit. This is the year of the four emperors. And I think this is actually where we are seeing this being written. This is what George Vanin argues. I think this is really convincing. However, either way, there are different ways you can count this.

[00:17:15]And some scholars will count this as like significant emperors and focusing on like big significant emperors and ignore some of the little ones. There there are legitimately different ways of counting this. But either way, you get this story about the beast who was and was not. And I'm going to say more about that in a minute. But let me just grab one more. Revelation 13:3 because these clues are kind of sprinkled through Revelation. So Revelation 13:3 talking about this beast from the sea. I think still Rome, but anyway, um, one of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed. So, it seemed to have been slaughtered, but the mortal wound was healed. You can kind of see here. Now, I'm going to suggest very strongly that it's pretty obvious, especially once we know that 666 is the number of Nero, you can start to piece together, not with perfect like this is how this works, and it's going to be the same when we get to the sibling oracles in a minute. Obviously, there's a little bit of interpretation and scholars will differ over how exactly this kind of shakes down, but you can actually see that the author of Revelation is talking about events in his own time. And more than this, you have to look at this chart that Vanin gives in his article. I will link to that below. But this chart shows that the author is pretending to be writing somewhere late in the year of the four emperors and wants you to pretend that he's writing at the time of the emperor Nero prophesying that first of all there will be this short emperor who reigns after and then Nero will return. All of this is called prophecy xe event 2 prophecy after the fact basically prophecy after the event has already happened. and the author and this is like completely within the realm of what we see in Daniel. We see it in the gospel of Mark. We see it especially in the sibling oracles. Um sibling oracles for example talks about the eruption of Vuvius with this kind of language. This is a very normal way to create prophecy by pretending like you are seeing something that is very close and ready to happen but you're living a little bit before. And this is absolutely everywhere in Jewish and Christian literature. But I want to show you one more interesting thing that the author of Revelation does. I'm going to put the Greek up on the screen. I'll read it really quick, but I'll read it in English, too. But I want to show you this contrast between the two coming kings that the author of Revelation creates. So, the author of Revelation uses a really specific way to talk about Jesus. Jesus is described as the one who is and the one who was and the one who is to come. So in Greekos and this word is the same word that we get like in the gospels when John sends messengers to Jesus and says are you the coming one or should we expect another you see it in Hebrews too. This is a very coded way to talk about Jesus as the coming one. But look what we get when we talk about Nero. We get almost the same language but a subtle difference. In Revelation 17:8, we get the beast as the one who was and the one who is and the one who is about to come up to destruction. And later on in that verse, we get the beast as the one who was and the one who is not and the one who is to come. But that to come, it's interesting, it uses the Greek word. It doesn't you use it reserves that for Jesus. So even though it says that this beast is the one who's coming in a sense, it actually uses a different word to describe how he's coming. And it it's less it's kind of less of a title than homos which it reserves for Jesus. And it's more just like saying like, "Yeah, he's there."

[00:20:36]Like that's kind of the way that it's describing this. And it sets up this really interesting contrast between the two coming kings. Jesus is the Arinos.

[00:20:46]Nero is the one who is, who was, and is going to destruction. It sets up this really interesting dichotomy between Nero and Jesus. And what we understand when we kind of watch this is that the author of revelation is actually living in these two stories. The author of revelation is talking about Jesus coming back in a world where there's somebody else expected to come back that is Nero.

[00:21:08]And the author of revelation has to describe and does in a lot of detail.

[00:21:12]Sometimes a little bit obscure and sometimes not so obscure. has to describe why the second coming of Jesus is the real deal and the second coming of Nero is this horrendous terrible thing that is going to need to be set right by God. There are two people coming back in Revelation, Jesus and Nero. And that is the key to reading it.

[00:21:37]Now, there's one more thing and I think in some ways this might make this even more interesting. Nurero did come back.

[00:21:44]There were Nuros that came back for decades after Nero's death. As far as I know, none of them were the real thing.

[00:21:51]But there were people who came back and claimed to be Nero. We have anti- Nurero, if I could call them that. We have imposters. Listen to what Tacitus says. About this time, Aaya and Asia were terrified while by a false rumor of Nero's arrival. The reports with regard to his death had been varied, and therefore many people imagined and believed that he was alive. Many came eagerly forward at the famous name prompted by their desire for a change and their hatred of the present situation. This is by the way Aaya and Asia like this is Asia specifically is where revelation is being written to.

[00:22:23]This is the kind of stuff that the people um who are receiving the book of revelation are having to deal with this.

[00:22:28]Verse 10. Many came eagerly forward at the famous name prompted by their desire for a change and their hatred of the present situation. The fame of the pretender was increasing from day to day when a chance shattered it. Let's look at Sutonius life of Nero. In fact, Sutonius says, "20 years later, when I was a young man, a person of obscure origin appeared who they gave out that he was Nero, and the name was still in such favor with the Parththeians that they supported him vigorously and surrendered him with great reluctance."

[00:22:58]Casius Dio in his reign, the reign of Titus, also the false Nero appeared, who was an aiatic named Tarantius Maximus.

[00:23:05]He resembled Nero both in appearance and in voice for he too sang to the accompaniment of a liar. He gained a few followers in Asia, Asia Minor. This is where Jon's communities are. And in his advance to the Euphrates attached a far greater number and finally sought refuge with Artabanis, the Parthion leader, who because of his anger against Titus, both received him and set about making preparations to restore him to Rome. So all of these writers think that there were different pretenders. None of them think that Nero actually did survive his death. But these stories are powerful.

[00:23:37]And obviously these Nero, according to Greek and Roman historians, these Nero um gained some followers. They gained some credibility. One of them went to Partha. So we have here the ongoing refusal of this Nero story to die. Just like Nero himself, this story wouldn't apparently just die. And it's interesting because this is all happening as a lot of our Christian literature is being written. And we have to wonder, we have to wonder to what extent these reports played into Christian literature. So 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 talks about the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god. So Christians were expecting some sort of this like we call it now like an antichrist type figure.

[00:24:22]And you get this sprinkled through the New Testament. What about Matthew 24:24, which was indeed written during the time when this narrow myth would be widespread. It says, "For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect." 1 John 2:18, "You have heard that Antichrist is coming. Even now, many antichrists have come." I'm not saying that all of these are talking about the Nero. We can't actually know that. But what I'm trying to point out is that the texts about Jesus coming back, the expectation of a return of Jesus coming back wasn't written in a vacuum. It was written in a world where men literally could show up claiming to be Nero and gain kind of large armies of followers. And all of this for Christians, all of this with the backdrop of Christians who are saying, "Yeah, Jesus is coming back too." Can you imagine what that felt like? And can you imagine how that influenced this Christian literature? Every time a neuroimpostor appeared in Asia Minor and gained followers, we have to wonder what Christians who could maybe read Revelation would be thinking about this.

[00:25:26]They must be thinking, is this it? Is this the fulfillment? Is this the beast?

[00:25:30]Is this the Antichrist? Is this the famous beast come back to life? You can imagine what it would be like to live in the context of this myth, this story about the return of Nero. And I'm not going to talk about it too much in this video, but there's one more place that this story about Nero coming back leaves a really, really heavy mark. And that is on the so-called sibling oracles. These are Jewish texts written in the voice of a civil, the voice of an oracle who can see the future. And listen to what Sibeline oracles 4 says. Then a great king will flee from Italy like a runaway slave unseen and unheard over the channel of the Euphrates, which is the borderline for the most part between Rome and Partha. when he dares to incur a maternal curse for repulsive murder.

[00:26:11]Nero murdered his mother and many other things confidently with a wicked hand.

[00:26:14]And then a little bit later, Selene Oracles book four. Then the strife of war being aroused will come to the west and the fugitive from Rome will also come brandishing a great spear having crossed the Euphrates with many myriads.

[00:26:28]This myth is alive and well in Jewish writing with writers who believed that Nero would come back, cross the Euphrates with a mighty army, and come to fight to take Rome back.

[00:26:45]So, where does this all leave us? I made a video not too long ago where I talked about the title Son of God. And gospel writers knew somebody who was the son of God. And it wasn't Jesus. The emperor was known as the son of the divine. In Latin, it's deeilious, son of the divine. But in Greek, this literally gets translated into the son of God. The huos to fe. And when we look at the cities where Christianity spread, these cities that John is writing to in Asia Minor are places where the emperor is being worshiped in the emperor cult.

[00:27:19]Pergamum is one of the most important seats in this emperor cult. And this is the backdrop of revelation. But even going back further, it's the backdrop of Paul's letters. You see all of these communities, the places where the stories about Jesus that we currently have in Greek, the places where a lot of them came from were the places where these stories about the emperor being the divine son were alive and well. And that's what obviously people heard in many cases when they heard the stories of Jesus. And this is just another part to this story because we have this book of revelation ostensibly written to these seven churches in Asia Minor. Each of these seven churches is based in an important city in a region where the emperor cult was thriving. And Revelation is written to people expecting the returns of two kings, the return of Jesus and the return of Nero.

[00:28:09]And it needs to set up a difference between the two and create a contrast and help these people who are hearing about the return of Nero maintain the hope for the ultimate return of Christ.

[00:28:21]And until you understand that and the distinction that Revelation creates, you won't understand Revelation. And once you see it, the mystery around this book, I mean, it's still super weird.

[00:28:32]So, it's not like we can just like unpack every single thing, but you get the sense that Revelation wasn't written for this far off future time thousands of years from now. The author, like most prophecy, by the way, this is all prophecy is like this. The author writing Revelation is urgently obsessed with his time. Urgently obsessed with the situation that him and his communities are in and the events that would shortly come. Thank you so much for taking the time to watch. If you love talking about this stuff, I run a community where we have conversations about interesting questions like this. I interview Bible scholars. Um, I do all my interviews there for Footnote Famous.

[00:29:08]It's a great community. If you want to check it out, I will leave a link in the comments down below to check that out.

[00:29:12]And I'd love to know in the comments down below what you think of all this.

[00:29:15]Did you know about this story of Nero returning? It's sometimes referred to as Nero Reevas, but we're getting away from saying that because Rudivas literally means like resuscitated. And it's not actually a story about Nero coming back from the dead. It's just a story about Nero coming back. Did you know about it?

[00:29:30]What did you think? What other things does it open up as you think about early Christian literature? Stories about the Antichrist, for example. All of this stuff is really important context to understanding the writings of the New Testament. Thank you as always for taking the time to be here and to listen, and I'll see you next time.