THE BEAST SPECIFICALLY CONCEIVED: NERO (A.D. 54-68)

NERO THE EMPEROR AT THE TIME OF THE WRITING: He is the sixth king "who is." Suetonius’ enumeration of the emperors was: Julius, Augustus, Tiberius, Gaius or Caligula, Claudius (the five kings who have fallen at the time that John is writing), Nero (one "who is"), and Galba - one who "has not yet come, but when he does come, he must remain for a little while" - seven months (Rev. 17:10)

NERO DEMANDED WORSHIP: Rev. 13:5-8. Inscriptions have been found in Ephesus in which Nero is called "Almighty God" and "Savior." He and Caligula "abandoned all reserve" in promoting emperor worship - they were the only two who demanded divine honors while still alive. Nero claimed to be Apollo.

NERO’S PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH

42 MONTHS IN DURATION: from November, A.D. 64 through June, A.D. 68. John banished to Patmos during this persecution (Rev. 1:9) and Peter and Paul died in A.D. 66 or 67.

PREDICTED PRECISELY BY JOHN: Rev. 13:5 - "The beast was given ... authority for forty-two months. ... He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them."

THE FEROCITY OF THE PERSECUTION: Tacitus reported that Nero "inflicted unheard-of punishments on those who, detested for their abominable crimes, were vulgarly called Christians" (Annals 15.44). The persecution claimed "an immense number" (Tacitus), "a vast multitude of the elect" (1 Clement 6).

NERO’S BEAST-LIKE CHARACTER

HE MURDERED HIS OWN FAMILY MEMBERS

HE "MARRIED" A BOY, THEN CASTRATED HIM

HE KICKED HIS PREGNANT WIFE TO DEATH

HIS SADISTIC SPORT: Suetonius writes that Nero "devised a kind of game in which, covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound to stakes." (The Lives of the Caesars, 6.29)

HE WAS EVEN CALLED "THE BEAST": Tacitus ... spoke of Nero's ‘cruel nature' that ‘put to death so many innocent men.' Pliny the Elder ... described Nero as ‘the destroyer of the human race' and ‘the poison of the world.' Juvenal tells of ‘Nero's cruel and bloody tyranny.' Apollonius of Tyana specifically states that Nero was called a ‘beast': ‘In my travels, which have been wider than ever man yet accomplished, I have seen man, many wild beasts of Arabia and India; but this beast, that is commonly called a Tyrant, I know not how many heads it has, nor if it be crooked of claw, and armed with horrible fangs. ... And of wild beasts you cannot say that they were ever known to eat their own mother, but Nero has gorged himself on this diet."

NERO’S NUMBER

Rev. 13:18 - "Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man: and his number is 666." (NASV)

THE HEBREWS HAD NO NUMERALS, and so, used letters to signify numbers, just as the Romans did. Neron Caesar (the Greek rendering, documented by archaeological finds), when transliterated into Hebrew (NRWN QSR) had a number of 666.

n =50 r =200 w =6 n =50 q =100 s=60 r =200

so we have

rsq nwrn = 666

FURTHER EVIDENCE: A well-documented textual variant has 616. A mere copyist's error? Bruce Metzger speculates: "Perhaps the change was intentional, seeing that the Greek form Neron Caesar written in Hebrew characters (nrwn qsr) is equivalent to 666, whereas the Latin form Nero Caesar (nrw qsr) is equivalent to 616. When writing a foreign name in Hebrew an “n” was added to names that end in “o”.

 

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