ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION. — Idolatrous profanation in the ravaged Temple, as the collapse of Jerusalem approached, foretold by Jesus. Jesus refers to Daniel (9:27; 11:31; 12:11) with the apocalyptic warning: “let the reader understand!”, adding the command to flee from Judea (Mt. 24:15; Mc. 13:14).
Daniel has the formula tiqqûṣim mêṯōmēm (9:27; many, following the Septuagint, Theodotion, and the Vulgate, also read tiqqûs here, in the singular), haṯ-ṯiqûṣ mêṯōmēm (11:31), siqqûs ṯōmēm (12:11), in announcing the future domination of the Romans (9:27; according to M.-J. Lagrange, J. Göttsberger, B. Rigaux, and P. F. Ceuppens, this passage too refers to Antiochus IV) or of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (11:31; 12:11). Siqqûs expresses the principal idea (in I Mach. 6:7; it appears alone: τὸ ββέλυγμα): “abomination, horror, loathsome thing”; it is a designation for pagan gods or idols (I Reg. 2:5; mostly in the plural: Os. 9:10, and frequently in Ier. and Ez.) or for what is connected with idolatrous worship (Zach. 9:7: the sacrificed flesh). Mēṯōmēm (or, in contracted form, ṯōmēm) is a participle with active sense: “devastator”; but, since it can be understood passively (Esdr. 9:3-4: “horrified, dismayed”), the Septuagint, Theodotion, and the Vulgate translate it as an abstract noun (“desolation” in the sense of devastation). I Mach. and the first two Synoptics reproduce the formula of the Septuagint: τὸ ββέλυγμα τῆς ἐργαώσεως. In the ancient Latin versions it is rendered effectively: exceratio vastationis (cf. H. Bevenot, in Revue Biblique, 45 [1936], pp. 53-65).
The meaning is: “the idolatrous worship of a devastator” will be “set up in a holy place” (Mt. 24:15) or “where it ought not” (Mc. 13:14). In the three passages, Daniel connects this idolatrous abomination with the cessation of Israel’s perpetual sacrifice: the desecration entails the abandonment of the Temple.
I Mach. 1:57 recognizes the fulfillment of Daniel’s prophecy in the “construction” of an idolatrous altar (βωμάς) upon the altar of holocausts on the fifteenth of Casleu in 168 B.C., an altar that Antiochus IV Epiphanes dedicated to his patron god Zeus Olympius (II Mach. 6:2), and in the sacrifice offered there ten days later (I Mach. 1:62). For Daniel, as for I and II Mach., this sacrilege marks the height of impiety. The Syriac version of II Mach. 6:2 has Ba'al ṯamim; indeed, tiqqûs ṯōmēm seems to parody Ba'al ṯamaim, the Semitic equivalent of Zeus Olympius. Proposed by E. Nestle in Zeitschr. für alt- test. Wiss., 4 (1894), p. 248, this explanation of the Danielic formula is considered by J. A. Montgomery (The Book of Daniel, Edinburgh 1927, p. 388) the only adequate one. The “abomination” was removed with the solemn purification on the twenty-fifth of Casleu in 164 (I Mach. 4:41-59; 6:7).
In the Gospels it is difficult to determine precisely what event Jesus alludes to when he proclaims “the abomination of desolation” which “stands” (Mc. has the masculine ἑατῆκατα, a construction according to sense, implying the intervention of a man) in the Temple. Christians recognized the foretold sign by fleeing to Pella in 67 (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III, 5; PG 20, 221). In the historical setting of the destruction of the Temple, which marks the definitive transition from Mosaic worship to the Christian economy, there was no erection of an altar of the kind involved in Antiochus’ profanation. The analogous order (38-40 A.D.) to erect a statue of Caligula in the temple was not carried out (Josephus Flavius, Ant. Ind., XVIII, 8, 8).
Three explanations are most common concerning the event to which Jesus applies Daniel’s oracle: 1) the sacrilegious excesses of the Zealots, who made the Temple their fortress (Josephus Flavius, Bell. Ind., IV, 3, 10 and 5, 1; cf. VI, 3 at the end); 2) the destruction of the Temple after the capture of Jerusalem; 3) the Roman standards, bearing idolatrous emblems, in the Temple area (Josephus Flavius, ibid., V, 6, 1). The first must be excluded because it was not idolatrous in nature (the biblical βλέλγη, found six times in the New Testament, always indicates idolatry). The first two are opposed by the attribute “erected,” which must refer not to events but to a thing, person, or symbol displayed in the Temple. Nor can the reference be exclusively to the insignia of the Roman army, “erected opposite the eastern gate while the Temple was burning, to which the soldiers offered sacrifices” (Josephus Flavius, loc. cit.), since Jesus gives a “sign” preceding the capture and destruction of Jerusalem.
The key is supplied by Lc. 21:20: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by an army, know that its desolation (ἐρῆμαις) is near.” The drama of the “abomination” unfolded in various successive stages. The first, which begins “the great tribulation,” was in 66 the appearance of the pagan standards of the besieger Cestius Gallus, who, encamped on Mount Scopus, attacked the Temple (Josephus Flavius, ibid., II, 19). At that point, as a result of the Zealots’ desecration, sacrifice and worship ceased. Idolatry (“abomination”) would finally triumph in 70 with the pagan standards over the destroyed Temple, which had already for some time been without a functioning altar. For the Jews, the pagan conqueror in Jerusalem was essentially an idolatrous profaner.
The formula has an eschatological reference. Jesus joins within the same prophetic picture the horrific events of 66-70 and those of the persecution by the Antichrist. Just as Antiochus Epiphanes Antichrist (v.), so the impious profanation by the “devastator,” while marking the end of the old worship, inaugurates the messianic opposition, the negative aspect of the new economy (cf. Apoc. 11:2 and Lc. 21:24). The intervention of the “man of sin,” who “takes his seat and displays himself in the Temple of God” (II Thess. 2:3-4), hinted at by the masculine form (ἑατῆκατα), characterizes the transition between the two ages. As in the whole Synoptic apocalypse (Mt. 24; Mc. 13), the perspective is twofold: the imminent and transient tribulation prefigures and initiates the long and painful gestation of the contested kingdom of God.