Before Jerusalem Fell

The Identip of the Sixth King 157
The Epistle of Barnabas 4:4 speaks of ten kings upon the earth:
“Ten kings shall reign upon the earth, and a little king shall rise up
after them, who shall subdue under one three of the kings.” The three
subdued kings represent Galba, Otho, and Vitellius . 42
The tenth
must be Vespasian, which indicates a start from Julius.43 According
to many scholars, this work was written around the year A.D. 100.W
Thus, it too is in the era of John’s Revelation, and it necessarily
implies that the emperor count in that era began with Julius.
The earlier Sibylline Oracles, as well, follow the pattern of beginning
with Julius. Book 5 of the Sibylline Oracles speaks cryptically
of Julius:
There will be the first prince who will sum up twice ten with his initial
letter. He will conquer long in wars. He will have his first letter of
ten, so that after him will reign whoever obtained as initial the first
of the alphabet.45
Collins’s note on this reference specifies that it is to Julius Caesar
%
Book 8 of the Sibylline Oracles is dated at A.D. 180. 47
The
reference at 8:135-138 to there being “fifteen kings” requires a counting
of Julius. Collins notes of this section that it speaks of “Roman
kings, beginning with Julius Caesar and counting Galba, Otho, and
Vitellius.”48 Sibylline Oracles 11:26 lff. mention Julius as the first of
the Roman emperors.
42. Bell notes that “no ancient writer of whom I have knowledge omits these three
men from his account of Roman history. . . . [A]n ancient writer could no more have
omitted them from his list of emperors than a modern American historian could omit
William Henry Harrison, the ninth president, who caught pneumonia at his inauguration
in 1841 and died a month later. His influence on the course of American history was
absolutely nil, but he was duly elected, inaugurated, and therefore must be reckoned in
any accurate listing of men who have held that otlice. The same principle applies to
Galba, Otho and Vitellius” (Albert A. Bell, Jr., “The Date of John’s Apocalypse. The
Evidence of Some Roman Historians Reeonsidered,” New Te~tarnmt ,$.tudie~ 10 [1977-
78] :99)
43. Robinson, Redating, p. 243.
44. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., Th Ank-Nicene Fathers [ANF], 10
vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, [late 19th c.] 1975) 1:133-135. In their introductory
remarks, Roberts and Donaldson mention Hilgenfeld (1866) as one “who has devoted
much attention to this Epistle” and who “holds that ‘it was written at the close of the first
century by a Gentile Christian of the school of Alexandria. . . .’”
45. Sil#ne Onwles 5: 12-15; OTP 1:393.
46. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” OTP 1:393.
47. Ibid., p. 416.
48. Ibid., p. 421, note q.