Before Jerusalem Fell

242 BEFORE JERUSALEM FELL
a war at Zion in 66; after Nero’s death, the whole Roman Empire was
ablaze and at war during the year 69. The same homo novm who
conquered the Jews, Vespasian, was soon able to restore the power
of the emperors, but upon a new foundation.27
This was spoken of by Origen as the “abundance of peace that began
at the birth of Christ. “2 8
Latourette states that “the internal peace
and order which Augustus achieved endured, with occasional interruptions,
for about two centuries.”29
Due to this famed, empire-wide peace, Christ’s prophetic reference
to “wars and rumors of wars” (Matt. 246, 7), which were to
occur in His “generation” (Matt. 24:34), serves as a remarkably
significant “sign” (Matt. 24:3-8, 33) of the end of the Temple and the
Jewish age (Matt. 24:2, 3, 15-16). And as such they find expression
also in John’s version of the Olivet Discourse, i.e., Revelation.30
Revelation 6:4
The same text indicates civil war in “the land”: “it was granted
to take peace from the earth (lit., the land), and that men should slay
one another” (Rev. 6:4). Josephus is emphatic in his assessment of
the calamities that befell the Jews. He insists that the carnage wrought
by internecine strife in Israel wreaked more destruction upon themselves
than that brought upon them by the Remans. 3
1 One citation
will suffice as evidence:
There were, besides, disorders and civil wars in every city; and all
those that were at quiet from the Remans turned their hands one
against another. There was also a bitter contest between those that
were fond of war, and those that were desirous of peace. . . . [I]nsomuch
that for barbarity and iniquity those of the same nation did no
27. Reicke, New Estarnent Era, pp. 109-110.
28. Origen, Remans 1:3.
29. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A Htitov of Christiani~, 2nd cd., 2 vols. (New York
Harper & Row, 1975) 1:21. See also Joseph Ward Swain, % Harper HistoV of CiuiliZatwn,
vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Bros., 1958), pp. 15 lff. Wdliston Walker, A Histoty of tb
Christian Church, 3rd ed. (New York: Scribners, 1970), p. 3. John Laurence von Mosbeim,
Htitoy rfChri.rtiani~ in the First Three Centuria, vol. 1 (New York: Converse, 1854), p. 11.
30. It is interesting that John is the only writer of a canonical Gospel who omits
Christ’s Olivet Discourse announcement of the destruction of the Temple and the end
of the age. It would seem almost certain that this is due to the fact that he had treated
it earlier in his Revelation. See earlier discussion.
31. War$ 43:2, 10. Cp. 46:IQ 5:1:1,5.