The apostles Peter and Paul died, probably, in the year 64, during the horrible slaughter ordered by Nero after the burning of Rome, which had been fired at his command and whose destruction he attributed to the Christians in order that he might have a pretext for new persecutions. St. John wrote the Apocalypse in the year 69. The reign of Nero was a bloody one, and martyrdom seemed to be the natural consequence of a virtuous life. Prodigies appeared on every hand; there were comets, falling stars, eclipses, showers of blood, monsters, earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and above all, there was the Jewish war and the destruction of Jerusalem. Never, perhaps, were so many horrors, so much cruelty and madness, so many catastrophes, crowded into so short a period as in the years 64–69 A.D. The little church of Christ was apparently dispersed. It was impossible to remain in Jerusalem. The horrors of the reign of terror of 1793, and of the Commune of 1871, were as nothing in comparison with those of the Jewish civil war. The family of Jesus was obliged to leave the holy city and to seek safety in flight. False prophets appeared, thus verifying former prophecies. Vesuvius was preparing the terrible eruption of the year 79, and already, in 63, Pompeii had been destroyed by an earthquake.
There was every indication that the end of the world was at hand. Nothing was wanting. The Apocalypse announced it.
But a calm followed the storm. The terrible Jewish war came to an end; Nero fell before Galba; under Vespasian and Titus, peace (71) succeeded war, and—the end of the world was not yet.
Once more it became necessary to interpret anew the words of the evangelists. The coming of Christ was put off until after the fall of the Roman empire, and thus considerable margin was given to the commentator. A firm belief in a final and even an imminent catastrophe persisted, but it was couched in vague terms, which robbed the spirit as well as the letter of the prophecy of all precision. Still, the conviction remained.
St. Augustine devotes the XXth book of the City of God (426) to the regeneration of the world, the resurrection, the last judgment, and the New Jerusalem; in the XXIst book he describes the everlasting torments of hell-fire. A witness to the fall of Rome and the empire, the bishop of Carthage believed these events to be the first act of the drama. But the reign of God was to continue a thousand years before the coming of Satan.