A review of, 'The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm', a book by Shushma Malik

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MrMacSon
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A review of, 'The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm', a book by Shushma Malik

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Shushma Malik, The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm. Classics after Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. xv + 228. ISBN 978-1-108-49149-5.


Shushma Malik’s book discusses the origins and the modern revival of the idea that the apocalyptic ‘beast’ in Revelation 13 is to be identified with the Roman emperor Nero. Malik’s theory (laid out in the introduction and subsequently corroborated in a detailed analysis of literary and material sources) is that the paradigm of ‘Nero as Antichrist’ was formed in late antiquity rather than, as has often been claimed in biblical scholarship, in the first century. Malik argues convincingly that ‘the Bible’s eschatological adversaries do not bear enough of a similarity to the historical Nero to warrant the assumption of intent on the part of its authors’ (17). Many of the characteristic attributes of the Antichrist could just as well apply to other emperors of antiquity, and others (such as the mortal wound which the beast receives to its head in Rev. 13.3) do not match our sources on Nero’s death (as he did not receive a head wound, but committed suicide by stabbing himself) ...

... The Introduction (Chapter 1) defines the Nero Myths that evolved around the figure of the historical emperor, Chapter 2 (‘Nero and the Bible’) gives a thorough overview of Nero in Biblical Studies and perceptions of Nero in first-century pagan accounts. The result (namely, that for first- and second-century Christians, the biblical Antichrist was not linked to the figure of Nero in any particular way) leads to the main question of Chapter 3 (‘The Invention of the Nero-Antichrist’), which deals with the gradual equation of Nero and the biblical Antichrist, which Malik links particularly to the influence of the Millennialists. She also points out the importance of pagan models, which by late antiquity had established a conventional paradigm of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emperors (including oppositions such as Nero as an ‘Anti-Augustus’) and could easily be used by Christian authors of the time, who were steeped in classical pagan literature and its traditions. A useful appendix with a list of early-Christian references to the Nero-Antichrist, a bibliography, and a concise yet detailed index complete the book.

Especially pleasing is the fact that the author often quotes her sources in the original languages, ancient and modern, accompanied by English translations so that the book is helpful to specialists and the general public alike ..

... The Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and Early Modern times all took their interest in Nero’s wickedness, including the blasphemous aspects that were attached to his legacy. Typically, the Middle Ages considered Nero a predecessor of the Antichrist, especially since the medieval Legenda aurea, among others, preserved the story of Peter’s and Paul’s deaths during his reign ... A number of medieval legends associate Nero (and his tomb) with demons, and ‘Nero’ becomes a common slur for a wicked and potentially blasphemous ruler.

Boccaccio explicitly mentions Nero’s sacrilegious nature, his execution of S. Peter and Paul and of Seneca, and compares Nero to a beast who allegedly offers humans to an Egyptian cannibal to be eaten alive (De casibus illustrium virorum 7.4). Taken together, these details might well echo the now traditional Nero-Antichrist paradigm. Erasmus in his Institutio principis Christiani lists Nero among the cruel emperors who are incarnations of the devil and bound to bring calamity and disaster on humankind.

In his Encomium Neronis, an eminently political work mostly directed at the senate of the city of Milan, Girolamo Cardano (1501–76) dedicated two substantial chapters (63–4) to the refutation of the well-known accusations that Nero was a blasphemous persecutor of the first Christians, including the apostles Peter and Paul.

Some of these threads of transmission may also play out in the modern reception that Malik links predominantly to ancient sources (mainly because the ancient sources are part of the traditional school curriculum and therefore well known to learned authors and readers at the time).

To sum up, the book is especially useful to show in an exemplary fashion how an ancient (or, as Malik argues successfully, a late antique) paradigm plays out ...

https://histos.org/documents/2021RR13Be ... nMalik.pdf


Last edited by MrMacSon on Tue Jan 25, 2022 1:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Kunigunde Kreuzerin
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Re: A review of, 'The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm', a book by Shushma Malik

Post by Kunigunde Kreuzerin »

MrMacSon wrote: Mon Jan 24, 2022 2:07 am Shushma Malik, The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm. Classics after Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, pp. xv + 228. ISBN 978-1-108-49149-5.


Malik’s theory (laid out in the introduction and subsequently corroborated in a detailed analysis of literary and material sources) is that the paradigm of ‘Nero as Antichrist’ was formed in late antiquity rather than, as has often been claimed in biblical scholarship, in the first century.

This is not really surprising. Isn't it? But it's good that it was analyzed in more detail.
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