ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION. - Idolatrous profanation in the devastated Temple, at the approach of the collapse of Jerusalem, foretold by Jesus. Jesus refers to Daniel (9:27; 11:31; 12:11) with the warning of an apocalyptic nature: "let the reader understand!", adding the command to flee from Judea (Mt. 24:15; Mk. 13:14).
Daniel has the formula tiqqûṣim mêṯōmēm (9:27; many, following the Septuagint, Theodotion, the Vulgate, read tiqqûs here too, in the singular), haṯ-ṯiqûṣ mêṯōmēm (11:31), siqqûs ṯōmēm (12:11), in foretelling the oppression of the Romans (9:27; according to M.-J. Lagrange, J. Göttsberger, B. Rigaux, P. F. Ceuppens, this passage too would refer to Antiochus IV) or of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (11:31; 12:11). Siqqûs expresses the principal idea (in I Macc. 6:7 only τὸ βδέλυγμα appears): "disgrace, horror, horrible thing"; it is a descriptive designation of the pagan gods or idols (I Reg. 2:5; mostly in the plural: Hos. 9:10, and often in Jer. and Ez.) or of what is connected with idolatrous worship (Zech. 9:7: the sacrificed meats). Mêṯōmēm (or, in contracted form, ṯōmēm) is a participle with active sense: "devastator"; but, since it can be understood in the passive sense (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 Macc. and the first two Synoptics reproduce the Septuagint formula: τὸ βδέλυγμα τῆς ἐρημώσεως. In the ancient Latin versions it is rendered effectively: exsecratio vastationis (cf. H. Bevenot, in Revue Biblique, 45 [1936], pp. 53-65).
The sense is: "the idolatrous worship of a devastator" will be "set up in the holy place" (Mt. 24:15) or "where it ought not" (Mk. 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 Macc. 1:57 sees the fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy in the "construction" of an idolatrous altar (βωμός) upon the altar of holocausts on the 15th of Kislev in 168 B.C., an altar that Antiochus IV Epiphanes dedicated to his patron god Zeus Olympios (II Macc. 6:2), and in the sacrifice offered upon it ten days later (I Macc. 1:62). For Dan. as for I and II Macc. such sacrilege marks the culmination of impiety. The Syriac version of II Macc. 6:2 has Ba'al ṯamim; indeed tiqqûs ṯōmēm seems to parody Ba'al ṯamaim, the Semitic equivalent of Zeus Olympios. Proposed by E. Nestle in Zeitschr. für alt-test. Wiss., 4 (1894), p. 248, this explanation of the Danielic formula is regarded by J. A. Montgomery (The Book of Daniel, Edinburgh 1927, p. 388) as the only adequate one. The "abomination" was removed with the solemn purification on the 25th of Kislev in 164 (I Macc. 4:41-59; 6:7).
In the Gospels it is difficult to specify to which event Jesus alludes in preaching "the abomination of desolation" that "stands" (Mk. has the masculine ἑστηκώς, a construction according to sense, which implies the intervention of a man) in the Temple. The 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 passage from the Mosaic worship to the Christian economy, the erection of an altar of the type of Antiochus's profanation did not occur. The analogous order (38-40 A.D.) to erect in the temple the statue of Caligula was not carried out (Flavius Josephus, Ant. Jud., XVIII, 8, 8).
Three explanations are more common, regarding the event to which Jesus applies Daniel's oracle: 1) the sacrilegious excesses of the Zealots who made the Temple their fortress (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Jud., IV, 3, 10 and 5, 1; cf. VI, 3 end); 2) the destruction of the Temple after the capture of Jerusalem; 3) the Roman standards, bearing idolatrous emblems, on the area of the Temple (Fl. Josephus, ibid., V, 6, 1). The first is to be excluded because it was not idolatrous in nature (the biblical βδέλυγμα, 6 times in the New Testament, always indicates idolatry). Against the first two stands the attribute "set up," which must refer not to events, but to a thing or person or symbol exhibited in the Temple. Nor can the insignia of the Roman army be understood exclusively, "erected facing the eastern gate, while the Temple was burning, to which the soldiers offered sacrifices" (Fl. Josephus, loc. cit.), since Jesus gives a "sign" prior to the capture and the disaster of Jerusalem.
The key is given by Lk. 21:20: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by an army, know that its devastation (ἐρήμωσις) is near." The drama of the "abomination" unfolded in various progressive phases. 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 (Fl. Josephus, ibid., II, 19). Then, as a result of the slaughter by the Zealots, the sacrifice and the worship cease. Idolatry ("abomination") will triumph finally in 70 with the pagan standards upon the destroyed Temple, already long deprived of an effective altar. The pagan victor in Jerusalem was essentially, for the Jews, an idolatrous profaner.
The formula has an eschatological reference. Jesus unites in the same prophetic picture the horrendous events of 66-70 and those of the persecution of the Antichrist. As Antiochus Epiphanes is the type of the Antichrist (v.), so the impious profanation of the "devastator," while it marks the end of the old worship, inaugurates the messianic opposition, the negative aspect of the new economy (cf. Apoc. 11:2 and Lk. 21:24). The intervention of the "man of sin" who "takes his seat and exhibits himself in the Temple of God" (II Thess. 2:3-4), hinted at by the masculine form (ἑστηκώς), characterizes the passage between the two eras. As in the whole Synoptic apocalypse (Mt. 24; Mk. 13), the perspective is twofold: the imminent and transitory tribulation prefigures and begins the long and painful gestation of the contested kingdom of God.
Bibliography14 works
Antonino Romeo