Before Jerusalem Fell

Clcm.ent of Alexandria 77
Book 8 of the Sibylline Oracles was probably written by a Jew
sometime before A.D. 180 and during the reign of Marcus Aurelius,52
over a century after Nero’s death. Yet the Nero Redivivu.s myth is still
held, as is evidenced in 8:50-72, 139-159, 169-216. At 8:157 he is
called “the great beast,” and at 8:176 he is called “the former wretched
lord.”
Sibylline Oracles, Book 12, apparently was written around A.D.
235 by a Jew.53 Interestingly, in Book 12 “the Sibyl gives negative
accounts of emperors who were widely unpopular — Caligula (VSS.
50-67), Nero (VSS. 78-94), Nerva (VSS. 142-46), Commodus (VSS.
206-28), Septimus Severus (VSS. 256-68). The general attitude to the
emperors, however, is favorable. Praise is lavished on Augustus (VSS.
12-35), Domitian (VSS. 124-38), Hadrian (VSS. 163-75), and Marcus
Aurelius (VSS. 187-205) .“5 4
In this book Nero is called “terrible and
frightful, “ “a terrible snake,” one engaged in “making himself equal
to God.”5 5
Collins notes of the Jewish Sibylline Oracles, Book 13, that its
date of A.D. 265 is witness to the decline of the Nero legend. Instead
of actually expecting Nero himsel~ a traitor modeled after the Nero
legend will come. 56 It took two centuries for the Nero legend to begin
its decline, so dreadful an impact did Nero make on history. In
8:70-90 he is envisioned as arising from the dead to destroy Rome
and the world.
Nero, the First Imperial Persecutor
Third, for Christians he was especially a dreadful emperor.57 The
Roman historian Tacitus wrote of his persecution, which was not
only the first, but one of the cruelest in Rome’s gory history, that
Nero “inflicted unheard-of punishments on those who, detested for
their abominable crimes, were vulgarly called Christians. . . . So
those who first confessed were hurried to the trial, and then, on their
52. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” OTF’ 1:415-416.
53. Ibid., pp. 443-444.
54. Ibid., p. 443.
55. Sibylltne Oracles 12:79, 81, 86; OTP 14-47.
56. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” OTP 1:453.
57. For more information on the persecution under Nero, see Chaps 12 and 17 below.
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