Icon of John the Apostle./caption
In Chapter 24 of the Book of Matthew a distraught Jesus walked away from the Second Temple. Only moments before recorded the Son of Man had condemned the teachers of the law and the Pharisees presiding over the landmark for their failure to listen to his warnings and testifying against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets" before he dared them to Go ahead then and complete what your ancestors started!" (Matthew 23:31-32) At that point Jesus warned his disciples Do you see all these things?... Truly I tell you not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down" (Matthew 24:2).
Prior to this within his detailed (and disturbing) prophesies of the dark times ahead Christ condemned the Sanhedrin to hell (You snakes! You brood of vipers!") while pledging to send prophets and sages and teachers" to Jerusalem ― the city whose children hed often longed to gather... together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings" and yet remained willing ― acknowledging that Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town" (Matthew 23:33-34). Reminding the Pharisees that in their rejection of all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah whom you murdered between the temple and the altar" Jesus continued beseeching them to Look" at how your house is left to you desolate" before warning they will not see me again until (they) say Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord" (Matthew 23:37-39).
All these things Jesus prophesied would come on this generation" (Matthew 23:36) ― the last generation of the Second Temple: for a generation in the Bible lasts 40 years; and the Romans on order of its commander Titus crushed the bloody Zealot Revolt inside the Old City in 70 AD before enslaving and exiling many of the surviving Jews.
THE RISE OF NERO
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Bust of Nero at the Capitoline Museum Rome/caption
Nero Caesar Roman emperor from 54-68 AD was the last of the Julio-Claudians to reign. His 14-year reign is said to have represented everything decadent about the first century period in Roman history: self-indulgent cruel violent as well as a cross-dressing homosexual exhibitionist whose lavish parties combined with his burning Rome itself. His vices exacerbated the economic chaos plaguing Roman citizens since the days of Tiberius (r. 14-37 AD) the emperor at the time of Jesus crucifixion.
Neros mother was the daughter of Agrippina the Elder and great-granddaughter of Augustus (her grandmother was his daughter Julia) while her youngest brother was the late emperor Caligula . Both women were starved to death as well as Agrippinas older brothers by the order of Tiberius before Caligulas reign violently ended when his own Praetorian Guard murdered him allowing for her uncle Claudius (41-54 AD) to succeed to the imperial throne. After the death of her husband Agrippina like any lay gold-diggin black widow set her sights on Claudius whose third wife Messalina had been murdered on his orders for among other reasons adultery and attempted treason. After a short courtship they married; and soon thereafter Nero (at his mothers insistence) was adopted in 50 AD around the age of 12.
Claudius died in 54 AD likely after eating poisoned mushrooms ― a plate which Nero himself called the food of the gods. Fearful he might be passed over in favor of Britannicus (Claudiuss legitimate son) according to Suetonius Nero considered poisoning him afraid that the common people might be less attached to Claudiuss adopted son than to his real one. But Neros fears soon abated (at least temporarily) upon being selected the new emperor in 54 AD. With his ascent to the imperial throne his treacherous mother became the true power behind the imperial crown but only temporarily: for he ordered her to be stabbed to death due to her manipulative influence.
The emperors reign drifted from one catastrophe to next. First the Piso Conspiracy: an unsuccessful plot to kill Nero involving at least 19 senators as well as other leading citizens resulted in the executions of 41 individuals and contributed to Neros descent into paranoia. Next there was the failed Boudicca rebellion in Britain and numerous other insurrections in many outlying provinces including both Judea and Gaul; the latter two being reactions in part to increased taxes.
THE DEATHS OF PETER AND PAUL AND THE GREAT FIRE OF ROME
For the early Church history had arrived at the most critical point during the mid-1st century. It was then that the forces of Nero Caesar ― the personification of the Greco-Roman pagan god Apollo (Apollyon) which had emerged from the Abyss (Revelation 11) ― overpowered and executed the two lampstands (Apostles Peter and Paul) after completing their testimony of Jesus. The number of the Beast 666 (with 6 symbolizing the number of man in Judaism) coincides with the Jewish tradition that Nero converted to Judaism according to the Babylonian Talmud and has ever since been commonly attributed to him. The legs of fiery pillars likely refer to the Great Fire in Rome in July 64 AD possibly on Neros orders for the purpose of arresting and the mass slaughter of early Christians with the roaring lion representing one of the most popular forms of execution featuring feeding Christian slaves to lions (and other beasts of the earth) during sporting events. Near the height of the Neronic persecution in Rome in the public square of the great city" ― which the Bible figuratively called Sodom and Egypt (Rev. 11:8) ― did their bodies (presumably Peter and Paul the two lampstands) lie." And after three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them" at which time the Bible claims they stood on their feet and terror struck those who saw them" before ascending to heaven in a cloud while their enemies looked on" (Rev. 11:12). Around February 5 62 AD Peter and Paul were likely executed. We know that according to historical record it was at that very hour (which in biblical terms is applied generically and can mean day or week) a violent earthquake damaged the cities of Pompeii (not to be confused with the better-known volcanic destruction 17 years later) Herculaneum and other towns in Campania. Most importantly according to the Bible it was at that very hour... a severe earthquake and a tenth of the city (Rome) collapsed" with Seven thousand people" killed and the survivors (Christians in the vicinity of Rome) were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven." We are then told by John that The second woe had passed. The third woe is soon to come" (Rev. 11:14).caption id=attachment_32813 align=alignnone width=3108
Fire in Rome by Hubert Robert. A painting of the fire burning through Rome./caption
The greatest threat to Neros reign however was the Great Fire which began on July 19 64 AD and lasted for six days. It should be pointed out that by this time Peter and Paul had likely been dead for over two years. Save for some minor sketchy details the Great Fire of Rome is fairly well chronicled. Ten of the 14 districts of the city were destroyed hundreds died thousands were left homeless and looters ravaged the city. Whether Nero was inside Rome playing his lyre or he actually started the fire has been debated by historian ad nauseum for years. The Roman historian Suetonius wrote that Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas enrapt by what he called the beauty of the flames; then put on his tragedians costume and sang." Tacitus seemed more neutral when he wrote that A disaster followed whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor is uncertain as authors have given both accounts. What isnt debated is that the blame was laid on the persecuted Christians who had always viewed the dissolute Nero as the Antichrist. The end came almost like a flood for Nero. The fire the conspiracy the numerous insurrections and the empty treasury just proved too much for the Senate which finally declared Nero an enemy of the public before naming Galba as the new emperor. Realizing his days as emperor were over the official record states that Nero attempted suicide while in the villa of one of his freedman Phaon but he failed and needed help to take his own life. His last words were allegedly: What an artist dies in me. The Jews meanwhile suggest something different entirely: that in 68 AD after being declared a public enemy by the Roman Senate Nero Caesar now hateful even to himself from a consciousness of his crimes" disappeared from among 355 men his fate according to Severus uncertain given his body was never found ― perhaps a reference to what Revelation 13:3 reveals that One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound but the fatal wound had been healed." Given Nero Caesar may not have died at all since the Babylonian Talmud suggests that Nero who as Roman emperor held the title of Pontifex Maximus and thus a living god lived out his days as a Jewish convert in search of redemption there appears to be a parallel to the last portion of the verse that The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast." Oracles prophesying Neros return from beyond the Euphrates were current among the Jews. In both chapters 9 and 12 of the Book of Revelation John reveals that It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates" (Revelation 9:12) while The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and its water was dried up to prepare the way for the kings from the East." (Revelation 16:12) In Christian teachings Nero has been personified as the Antichrist with John describing this beastly man in Revelation 13:11-17 thusly:
11 Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. 12 And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. 13 He performs great signs so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men. 14 And he deceives those who dwell on the earth by those signs which he was granted to do in the sight of the beast telling those who dwell on the earth to make an image to the beast who was wounded by the sword and lived. 15 He was granted power to give breath to the image of the beast that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many as would not worship the image of the beast to be killed. (Revelation 13:11-17)Ironically the last words of Nero reportedly What an artist in me dies" translates to the spirit of the patron deity of Delphi Pythian Apollo: an oracular godthe prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Compare this to Revelation 12:9 where we are told that during the war in Heaven the angels of the Lord led by Michael cast out that serpent of old called the Devil and Satan who deceives the whole world" before the inhabitants of the earth and the sea are warned the devil has come down to you having great wrath because he knows that he has a short time" (Revelation 12:12). Since Satan is a spiritual being he must take on a human as his host: and after the fifth trumpet sounded John reported he saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace" causing both the sun and the air to be darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth." Henceforth we draw the conclusion that Nero Caesar is the Beast of the Earth the god emperor of the Roman Empire (Beast of the Sea during the forthcoming Flavian Dynasty post-Year of the Four Emperors) who Judea acknowledged as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon but in Greek he has the name Apollyon." It is noteworthy too that Nero Caesar perceived himself as the personification of the Greco-Roman god Apollo: the national divinity of the Greeks recognized as a god of archery music and dance truth and prophecy healing and diseases the Sun and light poetry and more. Seen as the most beautiful god and the ideal of the kouros (a beardless athletic youth) Apollo is considered to be the most Greek of all the gods and unlike his fellow contemporaries within the Greco-Roman pantheon his name never changed despite the obvious language difference. Furthermore as Apollo is often referred to as the averter of evil he was also viewed as the god who affords help and wards off evil the provider of medicine and healing the deliverer of men from epidemics and yet was characterized as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague with his arrows as the penalty of his wrath in cases of infidelity from his cult. The connection of Apollyon/Apollo/Abaddon to Nero Caesar and the Beast of the Earth (representing the Roman Empire post-Year of the Four Emperors through the run of the Flavian Dynasty from 69-96 AD with the death of Domition) to the star which fell to the earth with the key to the Abyss is understood to directly refer to Isaiah 14:12-15:
How you are fallen from heaven O morning star (Vulganate: Lucifer) son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground You who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol To the lowest depths of the Pit."
THE LAST PROPHESIES OF DANIEL AND JOHN
Indeed it is John the Apostle who lasts to the end of the 1335 days described in Daniel 12 to record that Eden was restored once the power of the holy people had been broken in 70 AD by the Romans (Daniel 12:7). In the last chapter of Revelation (Revelation 22) we learn from the angel of the Lord that These words (shared with John) are trustworthy and true" for The Lord the God who inspires the prophets sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place" before relaying a message from Jesus himself: Look I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy written in this scroll."The last prophesy John recorded was during the reign of Vespasian The Destroyer of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD. The prior five including Nero Caesar (The Beast of the Earth) are described as The Beast of the Sea or the Roman Empire itself during the chaos of The Year of the Four Emperors (68-69 AD). They were the five to have fallen (Claudius Nero Galba Otho and Vitellius) one who is (Vespasian) one who is not (Trajan the seventh head who destroyed the Second Temple during the Siege of Jerusalem while a general who ruled just two years from 79-81 AD). Finally there was Domitian: the youngest brother of Trajan and self-proclaimed god emperor destined to be recorded as the last emperor of the Flavian Dynasty from 79-96 AD according to John. As the Roman Empire itself is The beast which once was now is not and yet will come up out of the Abyss and go to its destruction" Domitian may actually be Babylon the Great the Prostitute Riding the Beast due to his choice of Minerva as his patron goddess and who according to John belongs to the seven and is going to his destruction" (Revelation 17:9-11). The Roman Empire itself would not fall until the Ottoman Empires sack of Constantinople in 1453 knocked out the last iron leg from Nebuchadnezzars statue featured in Daniels dream.
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Engraving of Daniel in the Lions Den by Gustave Dove 1880./caption
Of all the parallels between Daniel and John there exists one notable difference: the scrolls in which they recorded what was revealed to them. For example in Revelation 10 John writes of a mighty angel descending from Heaven with a little scroll robed in a cloud with a rainbow above his head. Yet this was no ordinary angel; and the details of his appearance grow increasingly apocalyptic: possessing a face like the sun" he also placed his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land" and gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion." What we are told here is that as he yelled the seven thunders spoke. Beyond this point a voice from Heaven instructed John to Seal up what the thunders have said and do not write it down" (Rev. 10:1-4) prior to that angel cursing at the Lord that There will be no more delay!" in expressing his every intention to rid the world of the disciples of Christ who would populate the earth and all that is in it and the sea and all that is in it." This angel Satan himself had announced to the world through his pride defiance and full knowledge of his own mortality that it would be he and not the Son of Man to see that the mystery of God will be accomplished by subverting the authority of the Messiah as the true iron scepter of the Most High. This is a direct reference to 1 Kings 13:11-32 where Satan fashioning himself as the old prophet living in Bethel deceived the man of God from Judah into traveling to his house to eat bread and drink water against Gods command because he thought him to be the Messiah. After burying the bones of the old prophet beside those of the man of God from Judah Satan mocked the Lord: defiantly declaring that the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true. There is abundant reasoning to suggest that the prince of this world has indeed been hard at work and that most of his work not only has been completed but in fact ended in failure just as the Bible prophesied. From the time Nero Caesar was crowned Emperor of Rome in 54 AD the year Satan was laid low chained to the earth for a thousand years by the angel of the Lord (Revelation 20:1) to the Schism between the Latin and Greek churches in 1054 AD is 1000 years; and given Satan and his angels were cast out of Heaven by Michael and the angels of the Lord according to Revelation 12:9 and that John wrote But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury because he knows that his time is short" (Revelation 12:12) we can imply the 1000 year reign where the saints came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years" because They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands" occurred during that period (Revelation 20:4). The two books (Daniel and Revelation) end in the same setting: for Daniel who looked and there before him stood two others one on this bank of the river and one on the opposite bank" (Daniel 12: 5-6); and for John what the angel revealed as the river of the water of life as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city" and standing on each side of the river the tree of life bearing twelve crops of fruit yielding its fruit every month" and whose leaves... are for the healing of the nations." Likewise both men are told that those whose names are found by that time in the book" (Daniel 12:1) will be in the presence of The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city and his servants will serve him" and They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads" (Revelation 22: 3-5). As it was in Eden before the sins of Adam and Eve so it will be again: No longer will there be any curse… There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 22: 3-6). Like was prophesied to Daniel so too was the same to John: At the time (of the end) Michael the great prince who protects your people will arise" (Daniel 12:1). This is where John describes the time war broke out in heaven" where Michael and his angels fought against the dragon… and his angels" and defeated them for the dragon was not strong enough and they lost their place in heaven" (Revelation 12: 7-8).The great dragon that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan who leads the whole world astray… and his (four) angels with him" was (as he current is) filled with fury because he knows that his time is short." After listening to the seven thunders speak John was instructed from heaven to instead Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down." And there was something else peculiar: the voice John heard from Heaven (presumably the Lord) spoke to him once more: Go take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land." So he did; and the prideful angel Satan asked him to Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey" (Revelation 10: 9-10). It was in Satans scroll where his dark plans for Jesus disciples were revealed: for after his failure to destroy The woman ― the personification of the Church of Jesus Christ after she was given the two wings of a great eagle so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness where she would be taken care of for a time times and half a time out of the serpents reach" ― the dragon was enraged at the women and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring those who keep Gods commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus" (Revelation 12:14-17). And ironically John is instructed with something else by the angel: Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll because the time is near." The reasoning for the two divergent commands to Daniel and John with respect to the scrolls appears the same: to John he is told to Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy" (Revelation 22:10-11) ― and for Daniel Many will go here and there to increase knowledge... Many will be purified made spotless and refined but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand but those who are wise will understand" (Daniel 12:10). Daniel is told that the blessed one will reach the end of 1335 days (Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1335 days" to be exact in Daniel 12:12) before he is finally instructed to roll up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end" (Daniel 12:4). But John is never informed: indeed John the Baptist/John of Patmos never speaks of himself in the first person until he proclaimed perhaps because of undue pride that I John am the one who heard and saw these things." Ironically here he mistakenly prostrates before the angel of the Lord disclosing the words of the scroll (Revelation 22:9). For a single moment John forgot that it was God who revealed himself to Moses as I AM THAT I AM in Exodus 3:14; or that Christ declared I am the Alpha and the Omega the First and the Last the Beginning and the End" (Revelation 22:12) and therefore that day or hour no one knows not even the angels in heaven nor the Son but only the Father (Matthew 24:36). Finally after Jesus instructed Daniel to Go your way to the end... because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end he is told he will rest and then at the end of the days he will rise to receive (his) allotted inheritance" as one of the 144000 sealed in Revelation 7:1-8. But John the disciple Jesus loved warns if anyone adds anything to the words of the prophecy of this scroll... God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll; while for those who take words away from this scroll of prophecy... which are described in this scroll of prophecy He will take away any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City. (Revelation 22:18-19). Otherwise the price for his disciples share in the tree of life and in the Holy City was paid by Jesus on the cross.