Before Jerusalem Fell

278 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
imperial developments under Nero, rather than any spec~lc legal
datum relative to Christianity. Nevertheless, there is evidence pointing
to an actual confrontation that meets the expectations of the
passage even when literally interpreted.
Domitian and the Emperor Cult
What is more – and this is a crucial point – it should not be a
forgone conclusion that the emperor cult played a role even in the
later (alleged) Flavian persecution under Domitian. “Domitian’s predilection
for being styled dominus et deus nester, ‘our Lord and God’,
stimulated a satirical response in many of his subjects, but would
have been regarded as plain blasphemy by Christians, for whom
there was ‘one God, the Father, . . . and one Lord, Jesus Christ’ (1
Cor. 8:6). But there is no record that this precipitated a clash between
him and the Christians .’ ys
’
Henderson views the material of Revelation differently, but in a
way fully capable of a Neronic interpretation:
The work is full of allusions to a persecution of the Christians as
Christians, and especially for refusing to “worship the Beast” (i.e., in
this connection the Emperor) = dissenters from Caesar-worship. . . .
The great crime is “Caesar-worship.” This of course suits Domitian.
But ji-om other eoiderzce it suits Nero as well – when the Christians
suffered as Christians. . . . Caesar-worship, e.g. at Pergamum, is just
as prominent to a local writer under Nero as later.88
Historian Philip Schaff comments that “the unmistakable allusions
to imperial persecutions apply much better to Nero than to Domitian.
“8 9
Even late date advocate Ramsay admits that the statements
drawn from Revelation as evidence of the Domitianic persecution are
“entirely uncorroborated: not even indirect evidence supports
them. . . . We are reduced to mere general presumptions and estimates
of probabilities. . . . This is the one contemporary account
that has been preserved of the Flavian procedure.”g” To which
87. F. F. Bruce, New Testament Htitoy (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969), p. 412.
88. Henderson, Nero, p. 440.
89. Philip Schaff, Histoy of the Christian Church, 8 VOIS. (Grand Rapids: Eerdrnans,
[1910] 1950) 1:428. More will be said on this matter of the extent and ~avity of the
persecution in Chap. 17.
90. William M. Ramsay, The Lettirs to Sewn Churcha (Grand Rapids: Baker, [1904]
1963), p. 99.