The Nero-Antichrist: Founding and Fashioning a Paradigm

Shushma Malik challenges the assumption that biblical writers considered Nero to be the Antichrist and deconstructs the associations between Nero and the Antichrist in the New Testament. She demonstrates that the Nero-Antichrist paradigm was a product of late antiquity and was revived in the nineteenth century to inform debates about the era's fin-de-siècle anxieties and religious controversies.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 244 pages
Publication date: 08 February 2024
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

It has long been assumed that biblical writers regarded Nero as the Antichrist. This book challenges that notion. Shushma Malik begins by questioning the assumption that literary representations of Nero as a tyrant would have been readily recognizable to those in the eastern Roman Empire, where the majority of Christian populations resided. She then proceeds to deconstruct the associations often made by scholars between Nero and the Antichrist in the New Testament. Instead, Malik argues that the Nero-Antichrist paradigm emerged in late antiquity. By drawing upon established traits and themes from classical historiography, late-antique Christians utilized Nero as a tool to explore and convey the nature of the Antichrist. This approach proved fruitful, and the paradigm was revived in the nineteenth century through the works of philosophers, theologians, and novelists to inform discussions about the era's fin-de-siècle anxieties and religious controversies.

It has long been assumed that biblical writers regarded Nero as the Antichrist. This book challenges that notion. Shushma Malik begins by questioning the assumption that literary representations of Nero as a tyrant would have been readily recognizable to those in the eastern Roman Empire, where the majority of Christian populations resided. She then proceeds to deconstruct the associations often made by scholars between Nero and the Antichrist in the New Testament. Instead, Malik argues that the Nero-Antichrist paradigm emerged in late antiquity. By drawing upon established traits and themes from classical historiography, late-antique Christians utilized Nero as a tool to explore and convey the nature of the Antichrist. This approach proved fruitful, and the paradigm was revived in the nineteenth century through the works of philosophers, theologians, and novelists to inform discussions about the era's fin-de-siècle anxieties and religious controversies.

Weight: 368g
Dimension: 151 x 229 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781108798358