Ribera (1537-1591) published a commentary on the book of Revelation in which he assigned the first few chapters to ancient Rome but proposed that the bulk of the prophecies would be fulfilled in a brief three-and-one-half-year period at the end of the Christian era. He claimed that a single individual who would be the antichrist would rebuild the Jerusalem Temple and be received by the Jews, would pretend to be god, and conquer the world. The Protestant contention that the apocalyptic symbols of antichrist denoted an apostate religious system were therefore set aside, as the focus of the prophecies shifted to the far distant future.