Nero Redivivus--Interesting Random Facts

My church has been working through a series on Revelations.  In the sermon today, it was mentioned that many scholars believe that 666 was referring to Nero.  

But that raises a question, doesn't it?  If Nero was long dead by the time Revelation was written, then why is the author of Revelation prophesying about Nero coming back?

Well, Dale Martin explains this in his Yale Courses on the New Testament series.  

Watch episode 23 from about 38:20 to see Dale Martin talk about this.

This refers to a great myth from the ancient world called Nero redivivus. The myth was that Nero was such a terrible, terrible, terrible bad man that even though he had been assassinated he was going to rise from the dead someday. Or some people believed he wasn't ever dead,  he escaped and he was off living with Parthians, who were these people who lived on the very eastern corner of the Roman Empire. The idea was Nero was still alive somewhere and he was going to raise an army of Parthians, and he was going to come back and he was going to wage war and take over the Roman Empire again. Or he was going to rise from the dead and raise an army and take over the empire again.

I thought this was quite interesting when I first listened to Dale Martin's lectures back in 2013.  I was thinking about it again today after today's sermon.  But the thought also occurred to me: "I've never heard this Nero redivivus thing anywhere else.  I wonder how true it is?  I mean, you would think that Yale University professors would know their stuff, so what Dale Martin says must be at least somewhat reliable.  But why haven't I come across Nero Redivivus anywhere else?"

So, I did a Google search for it, and sure enough, there's a whole Wikipedia article on it.  Which is quite fascinating.  It turns out this Nero Redivivus thing had a lot of different forms, and meant different things to different people.  Some people were actually welcoming a return of Nero, believing he would bring stability back to the empire.  Some Jews apparently were also welcoming the return of Nero, because they believed that he would deliver vengeance on Rome for the destruction of Jerusalem. And of course the Christians wrote a lot about Nero Redivivus.

Check out the whole article.  It's fascinating stuff.