Abomination of Desolation & the Early Church Fathers

[Peter]

Recently posted in a preterist section of another forum.

It's interesting to note that, even as close to the event as they were, there is nothing but confusion among the early church fathers regarding just exactly what the "abomination of desolation" was, or is, or is to be. While today's preterists have varying opinions as to whether it is an army, a statue, an ensign on a flag, etc, they agree on the dating of the event. While futurists understand it as an event that takes place yet in the future. Each having to believe the other to be virtually 100% in error regarding their understanding of the book of Revelation after chapter three. Isn't that peculiar? Our early church fathers seem to have been in no less of a state of confusion:

Irenaeus wrote this long before the Roman Empire had fallen to Islam.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130-202) Adversus haereses (inter A.D. 180/199) Book V, Chapter 26
"John and Daniel have predicted the dissolution and desolation of the Roman Empire, which shall precede the end of the world and the eternal Kingdom of Christ. The Gnostics are refuted, those tools of Satan, who invent another Father different from the Creator."

Lactantius Firminianous (4th Century) Divine Institutions (Divinae Institutiones) Book VII, Chapter 25, OF THE LAST TIMES, AND OF THE CITY OF ROME: "These are the things which are spoken of by the prophets as about to happen hereafter: ... The subject itself declares that the fall and ruin of the world will shortly take place; except that while the city of Rome remains it appears that nothing of this kind is to be feared. But when that capital of the world shall have fallen, and shall have begun to be a street, which the Sibyls say shall come to pass, who can doubt that the end has now arrived to the affairs of men and the whole world?"

St. Athanasius (296-372) "And when He Who spake unto Moses, the Word of the Father, appeared in the end of the world, He also gave this commandment, saying, "But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another" [Matt. 10:23]; and shortly after He says, "When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso readeth, let him understand); then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains: let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes" [Matt. 24:15]. Knowing these things, the Saints regulated their conduct accordingly." (Defense of His Flight [11])

Chrysostom (379)
"Or because he who had desolated the city and the temple, placed his statue within the temple." (The Ante-Nicene Fathers) For He brought in also a prophecy, to confirm their desolation, saying, "But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation,spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let him that readeth understand."(12) He referred them to Daniel. And by "abomination" He meaneth the statue of him who then took the city, which he who desolated the city and the temple placed within the temple, wherefore Christ calleth it, "of desolation." Moreover, in order that they might learn that these things will be while some of them are alive, therefore He said, "When ye see the abomination of desolation." (Of Matthew 24:1,2)

Did the story of a statue come along prior to three centuries after the fact? I don't know, but one would have thought that second century Irenaeus, would have at least thought it worthy of a mention. What we can see is that the early church fathers were in confusion with widely differing opinions as to just exactly what the abomination of desolation was, or was to be, and whether it occurred in the past or was to occur in their future. Their believing it a future event is consistent with futurism as well as consistent with the traditional continuous-historic context - an understanding that New Testament prophecy has been being fulfilled throughout the Christian era. Just the way Old Testament prophecy was steadily fulfilled such as in Daniel's kingdom "beasts".

How could an "abomination" have something to do with a temple that had been rendered desolate 37-38 years previously, when Jesus built His temple in three days as He prophesied, with even the physical temple veil even having been rent in twain? The temple perhaps being rendered desolate even before that from:

Mat 23:38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

If not the temple, then could an army sacking a town be considered an "abomination"?
It's no wonder our early church fathers were in such confusion in this regard.

That first century Christians may well have believed that the compassing of Jerusalem by armies was that which was prophesied, and fled the city, would seem a matter of historical record. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the prophecy was fulfilled as we observed from Irenaeus's first century opinion.

From all accounts Jerusalem was certainly devastated and perhaps a million Jews were killed. But were the "times of the Gentiles" in Jerusalem fulfilled? Once could hardly make the case for that when the Romans came back to kill another 1/2 to 3/4 of a million Jews less than 70 years later. And Jerusalem was compassed with armies not only in 70 AD but in 132, 639, 1099, 1187, 1948, 1967 and today. And those armies are sworn to the destruction of Israel and killing and "driving the Jews into the sea".

Our early church fathers could never have imagined, what we can see looking back through history, after 1200 years of Islamization of Jerusalem rendered the city so physically and spiritually desolate by the beginning of the 19th century, as the accounts of those how visited Jerusalem in the 19th century attest:

In "A History of the Jews" Paul Johnson writes on page 321:  "Between 1827 and 1839, largely through British efforts, the population of Jerusalem rose from 550 to 5,500 and in all Palestine it topped 10,000 - the real beginning of the Jewish return to the Promised Land. In 1838 Palmerston appointed the first western vice-consul in Jerusalem, W.T. Young, and told him 'to afford protection to the Jews generally'."

"    In 1835 Alphonse de Lamartine wrote: “Outside the city of Jerusalem, we saw no living object, heard no living sound. . .a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, in the highways, in the country.”[7]

    In 1844, William Thackeray writes about the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem: “Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the stony brakes; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course of the ride.”[8]

    In 1857, the British consul in Palestine, James Finn, reported: “The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population.”[9]

    In 1866, W.M. Thomson writes: “How melancholy is this utter desolation. Not a house, not a trace of inhabitants, not even shepherds, to relieve the dull monotony …  Much of the country through which we have been rambling for a week appears never to have been inhabited, or even cultivated; and there are other parts, you say, still more barren.”[10]

    In 1867, Mark Twain – Samuel Clemens, the famous author of “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer”, toured the Holy Land. This is how he described the land: “There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent; not for thirty miles in either direction… One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings … Nazareth is forlorn… Jericho lies a mouldering ruin… Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation… untenanted by any living creature…  A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”[11]

    In 1874, Reverend Samuel Manning wrote: “But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude…. Day by day we were to learn afresh the lesson now forced upon us, that the denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the very letter — “the land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants.” (Jeremiah, ch.44 v.22)[12]

    In 1892, B. W. Johnson writes: “In the portion of the plain between Mount Carmel and Jaffa one sees but rarely a village or other sights of human life… A ride of half an hour more brought us to the ruins of the ancient city of Cæsarea, once a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, and the Roman capital of Palestine, but now entirely deserted… I laid upon my couch at night, to listen to the moaning of the waves and to think of the desolation around us.”[13]"

The desolation is irrefutable, but where's the "abomination"?

Matthew 24 verses 1-14 would seem a complete picture of the Christian era, since Jesus prophesies the destruction of the temple - every stone - just as it was fulfilled, and verse 14 closes at the end.

Then verse 15 begins a description of the end, with verse 37 concluding this section at the end, with the Second Coming of Christ. (verse 38 to 51 then go on to describe of what conditions would be like in the time of the end)

The answer to the verse 3 question "Tell us, when shall these things be? and what [shall be] the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"

Matthew's gospel seems to deal with "WHAT" the abomination is:
Matthew 24:15 When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) 16 Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains

Strong's - stand
New Testament Greek Definition:
2476 histemi {his'-tay-mee}
1) to cause or make to stand, to place, put, set
1b) to make firm, fix establish
2a1a) of the foundation of a building

Mark embellishes on "WHERE":
Mark 13:14 But when ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not, (let him that readeth understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains:

Luke's on "WHEN", as well as what it is that gets desolated:
Luke 21:20 And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh  21  Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.

There are certainly fates worse than death. Like a Christian or Jew having one's 9 year old daughter pressed into sexual service in the harem of a conquering antichrist reprobate - both for the parents and the daughter, and being compelled to prostrate oneself to an Arabian pagan black stone idol in the SW Arabian desert five times a day, while praying in the "vain repetitions of the heathen". Like tha which became of the countries in the rest of the middle east.

Once again:
"Tell us, when shall these things be? and what [shall be] the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?"

I believe the sign - symbol - we are given of the Islamic desolation of Jerusalem that began in 639, and THE false prophet Muhammad's Islamic kingdom "beast" as the final foe of God's people in this "time of the end", is the Dome of the Rock, that the Islamic antichrists founded on the temple mount in 688. It remains as that symbol even after the Crusades, as the Crusaders decided the building was too beautiful to destroy. Yet all around the eaves of the building are verses written in mosaic that echo the blasphemous founding verses:

"O you People of the Book, overstep not bounds in your religion, and of God speak only the truth.  The Messiah, Jesus, son of Mary, is only an apostle of God, and his Word which he conveyed unto Mary, and a Spirit proceeding from him.  Believe therefore in God and his apostles, and say not Three.  It will be better for you.  God is only one God. Far be it from His transcendent majesty that he should have a son."

The Dome of the Rock was not built over the "threshing floor of Ornan", as the location of the Eastern gate as well as the "Dome of the Tablets (or spirits)" attest, but rather the dome of the rock is located in what was "the court that is without the temple", or court of the gentiles, where even unwashed slaves were allowed.

If we do as we are instructed:

Job 8:8 For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers:  9  (For we [are but of] yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth [are] a shadow:)

We find those great men of God that forged the reformation, whose context for understanding Old and New Testament prophecy was within the traditional continuous-historic context, also understood a "language" of prophecy of "each day for a year":

Thieleman van Braght - Martyrs Mirror, pages 21-24: 'a thousand two hundred and threescore days, which reckoned according to prophetic language means as many years… let it be reckoned as it may, say we, as a very long period of time.' 

Matthew Henry, in his 'Commentary of the Whole Bible', "….if the beginning of that interval could be ascertained, this number of prophetic days, taking a day for a year, would give us a prospect of when the end might be."

Isaac Newton - "She is nourished by the merchants of the earth, three times or years and an half, or 42 months, or 1260 days: and in these Prophecies days are put for years." - Observations Upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St.a John - Chapter 3

Jamison, Faucett & Brown commentary - "..... in the wilderness 'a thousand two hundred and threescore days.' In the wider sense, we may either adopt the year-day theory of 1260 years..."

So what might we discover if we employ this day/year language of prophecy, that seems to have been so well known among the reformers, to those 1260 "day" and 42 "month" prophecies referenced by them?