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even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, this γενεά shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled. But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Mat 24:33, Mat 24:34, Mat 24:36).
From this brief sketch of the course of the thought it clearly appears that the Lord speaks expressly neither of the destruction of Jerusalem, nor yet of the time of that event. What is to be understood by βδέλυγμα τ. ἐρ He supposes to be known to the disciples from the book of Daniel, and only says to them that they must flee when they see this standing in the holy place, so that they may escape destruction (Mat 24:15). Only in Luke is there distinct reference to the destruction of Jerusalem; for there we find, instead of the reference to the abomination of desolation, the words, “And when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that its ἐρήμωσις is nigh” (Luk 21:20). According to the record of all the three evangelists, however, the Lord not only connects in the closest manner the tribulation commencing with the appearance of the βδέλυγμα τ. ἐρ, or with the siege of Jerusalem, with the last great tribulation which opens the way for His return, but He also expressly says, that immediately after the tribulation of those days (Mat 24:29), or in those days of that tribulation (Mar 13:24), or then (τότε, Luk 21:27), the Son of man shall come in the clouds in great power and glory. From this close connection of His visible παρουσία with the desolation of the holy place or the siege of Jerusalem, it does not, it is true, follow that “by the oppression of Jerusalem connected with the παρουσία, and placed immediately before it, the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans cannot possibly be meant;” much rather that the discourse is “of a desecration and an oppression by Antichrist which would come upon the τόπος ἅγιος and Jerusalem in the then future time, immediately before the return of the Lord, in the days of the θλῖπσις μεγάλη” (Kliefoth). But just as little does it follow from that close connection - as the eschatological discourse, Matt 24, is understood by most interpreters - that the Lord Himself, as well as His disciples, regarded as contemporaneous the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans and His visible return in the last days, or saw as in prophetic perspective His παρουσία behind the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and thus, without regard to the sequence of time, spoke first of the one event and then of the other. The first conclusion is inadmissible for this reason, that the disciples had made