Introduction

It has traditionally been assumed that biblical writers considered Nero to be the Antichrist. This book refutes that view.

Challenging Assumptions

Beginning by challenging the assumption that literary representations of Nero as tyrant would have been easily recognisable to those in the eastern Roman empire, where most Christian populations were located, Shushma Malik then deconstructs the associations often identified by scholars between Nero and the Antichrist in the New Testament.

The Nero-Antichrist Paradigm

Instead, she demonstrates that the Nero-Antichrist paradigm was a product of late antiquity. Using now firmly established traits and themes from classical historiography, late-antique Christians used Nero as a means with which to explore and communicate the nature of the Antichrist.

Revival in the Nineteenth Century

This proved successful, and the paradigm was revived in the nineteenth century in the works of philosophers, theologians, and novelists to inform debates about the era's fin-de-siècle anxieties and religious controversies.