Message 12

The Case for Nero- The Beast

• Believed to have had a part in killing his adopted father Claudius, Nero later went on to murder Claudius’ son Britannicus in order to secure his claim to the throne.

• The young emperor killed almost everyone close to him including his mother, his aunt and his pregnant wife Poppaea after she had complained about him coming home late from the races.

• When Claudius’s daughter Antonia refused to take her place, she was executed along with virtually every other member of his family including relatives by marriage.

• Nero married a young boy named Sporus, dressed him in the fine clothes of an empress and paraded him through the streets of Rome.

• Because of his unnatural lust for blood, Nero also enjoyed watching a certain Egyptian ogre rip apart living men and eat their raw flesh.

• Unheard of for one crowned king of an empire, Nero was known to wander the streets and taverns at night sometimes attacking men on their way home. If they offered resistance, they were killed and their bodies dropped down the sewer. He would also sometimes break into shops and sell the stolen goods at the palace

• The following account was written by the Roman historian Tacitus in his book Annals published a few years after the event. Tacitus was a young boy living in Rome during the time of the persecutions.

• "Therefore, to stop the rumor [that he had set Rome on fire], he [Emperor Nero] falsely charged with guilt, and punished with the most fearful tortures, the persons commonly called Christians, who were [generally] hated for their enormities. Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius, but the pernicious superstition - repressed for a time, broke out yet again, not only through Judea, - where the mischief originated, but through the city of Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all quarters, as to a common receptacle, and where they are encouraged. Accordingly first those were arrested who confessed they were Christians; next on their information, a vast multitude were convicted, not so much on the charge of burning the city, as of "hating the human race."

• What’s more Apollonius of Tyana, a first century Roman seer, is recorded to have said:

• In my travels, which have been wider than ever man yet accomplished, I have seen many, 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.[lvii]

So Who Is the Beast?• The first beast is the entirety of the Roman

Empire and more specifically Nero• The second beast with 2 horns is the Roman

army’s conquest led by Titus and Vespasian• The BEAST has NOTHING to do with the Man

of lawlessness of 2 Thess. NOR the word ANTICHRIST nor Daniel’s prophecies.