The Olivet Discourse
Matthew 24, the temple and the coming, as the early church read it
Jesus' great prophecy on the Mount of Olives is the engine room of end-times debate. The disciples ask two things at once, when will the temple be destroyed, and what will be the sign of His coming, and Jesus answers both. The early church read it with a striking sobriety: much of the chapter (the abomination, the great tribulation, "this generation") describes the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, which it watched come true, while the sign of the Son of Man and the gathering point to His final, visible return. Not one or the other, but both. The Fathers below, with a plain restatement.
Each Father's words are verbatim and attributed (Catena Aurea, public domain, lightly corrected for scan errors). The box marked "In plain terms" is our own restatement, never the Father's words.
Matthew 24:1-2 · KJV…See ye not all these things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
"How means He this, 'that one stone shall not be left upon another?' Either as conveying the notion of its utter overthrow… for its parts were broken up to its very foundations… after the fate it underwent, the most captious might be satisfied that its very fragments have perished."
St. John ChrysostomJesus' opening prediction is brutally concrete and was brutally fulfilled: the temple was leveled to its foundations in AD 70, "its very fragments have perished." Chrysostom is not allegorizing here; he is pointing to a historical catastrophe that happened within the lifetime of the disciples' generation. That event anchors much of what follows.
Matthew 24:15-22 · KJVWhen ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation… stand in the holy place… then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains… For then shall be great tribulation… And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.
"Luke, in order to shew that the abomination of desolation foretold by Daniel had reference to the time of the siege of Jerusalem, repeats these words of our Lord, 'When ye shall see Jerusalem encompassed by armies, then know ye that its desolation draweth nigh.'"
St. Augustine"This we know was so done when the fall of Jerusalem drew near; for on the approach of the Roman army, all the Christians in the province, warned… miraculously from heaven, withdrew, and passing the Jordan, took refuge in the city of Pella… He says, 'When ye shall see,' because these things were to happen while some of them were yet alive."
Remigius and St. John Chrysostom"Or otherwise: It is a sign of His future coming that the Lord gives… For the Prophet spoke this of the times of Antichrist; and he calls abomination that which, coming against God, claims to itself the honour of God."
St. Hilary of PoitiersHere is the early church's balance. Most of the Fathers read "the abomination of desolation" and the "great tribulation" as the AD 70 siege, Luke even spells it out ("Jerusalem encompassed by armies"), and the church remembered acting on Jesus' warning: heeding it, the Christians fled Jerusalem to Pella before the city fell. Chrysostom underlines "while some of them were yet alive." And yet the same Fathers (Hilary here) also saw in it a pattern of "the times of Antichrist", a near fulfillment that foreshadows a final one. AD 70 first, with the end in view.
Matthew 24:30 · KJVAnd then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven… and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
"As, at the dispensation of the Cross, the sun was eclipsed, and darkness was spread over the earth; so when the sign of the Son of Man appears in heaven, the light of the sun, moon, and stars, shall fail… This we understand to be the sign of the cross, that the Jews may see… 'Him whom they have pierced.'"
OrigenWith the "sign of the Son of man" the discourse lifts past AD 70 to the end itself, the visible, glorious return, the heavens shaken, every eye seeing Him (the same event as 1 Thessalonians 4). Many Fathers took "the sign" to be the cross blazing in the sky, so that those who pierced Him would see Him come. This is not a secret event; it is the public arrival of the King.
Some careful readers take verse 30 differently, and their ground is Daniel. There "one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days" (Daniel 7:13): He travels up to the throne to receive a kingdom, not down to the earth. Jesus used the same words to the high priest, "Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven" (Matthew 26:64), and Caiaphas did not live to see a return. On this reading verse 30 is the enthronement of Christ, shown to that generation in the fall of the city that condemned Him, and the gathering of verse 31 is the gospel going out to the nations. We think the enthronement is truly in the words, and it is behind us. We also think the words reach further, for three reasons: the angels said He "shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11); John wrote "every eye shall see him" (Revelation 1:7); and Paul, "by the word of the Lord," takes the thief, the birth pains and the watching of this discourse and applies them to the day the dead are raised (1 Thessalonians 4:15 to 5:6). Daniel 7 itself goes on past the throne to the day the saints receive the kingdom (Daniel 7:27). Both horizons are in the chapter.
Matthew 24:34-35 · KJVVerily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.
"'Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled.' By saying 'Verily,' He gives asseveration to the truth… 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away,' to confirm their faith… it is easier to destroy things solid and immovable, than that aught should fail of my words."
St. Hilary and St. Jerome"This generation shall not pass" is the time-stamp the AD 70 reading hangs on: the temple's fall came within the disciples' own generation, exactly as Jesus solemnly ("Verily") swore. And the surrounding promise, "my words shall not pass away," is His guarantee that every word, the near judgment and the far return alike, is more certain than the universe itself.
The words, the mountain, and the historian
Three things confirm the reading above, and each can be checked.
1. The Greek of “this generation”
Here is verse 34 word by word, from the Greek text the site holds.
| Greek | Sounded out | English |
|---|---|---|
| ἀμὴν | amēn | Truly |
| λέγω | legō | I tell |
| ὑμῖν | hymin | you |
| ὅτι | hoti | - |
| αὕτη | hautē | this |
| ἡ | hē | - |
| γενεὰ | genea | generation |
| οὐ | ou | {will} not |
| μὴ | mē | . . . |
| παρέλθῃ | parelthē | pass away |
| ἕως | heōs | until |
| ἂν | an | . . . |
| πάντα | panta | all |
| ταῦτα | tauta | these things |
| γένηται | genētai | have happened |
Hautē hē genea is “this generation,” and hautē is the word for the one close at hand, not a distant one. Matthew uses genea thirteen times: four in the genealogy of chapter 1, counting “fourteen generations,” and nine in the mouth of Jesus, every one of them of the people standing in front of Him: the generation like children in the market (11:16), “an evil and adulterous generation” (12:39), “O faithless and perverse generation” (17:17), and one chapter before this one:
Matthew 23:36 · KJVVerily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.
That is said of the blood of the prophets coming on the men He was speaking to. Ou mē parelthē is the strongest denial Greek has, “will by no means pass away.” Heōs an panta tauta genētai is “until all these things have happened”; the verb is the plain word for happening, the same one as verse 6, “all these things must come to pass.” And “all these things” is the same phrase as the verse before it: “when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors” (24:33). What the disciples would see, their generation would live to see. Two verses later the words change: “of that day and hour knoweth no man” (24:36). The chapter turns there from “these things,” which were dated, to “that day,” which is not.
2. The mountain: a coming some of them lived to see
Eight chapters earlier Jesus had already said that some of the men in front of Him would see Him come before they died.
Matthew 16:28 · KJVVerily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.
Matthew 17:1-3 · KJVAnd after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
“After six days.” Matthew puts the transfiguration straight after the promise, and Peter, one of the three, says later that this is what he saw:
2 Peter 1:16-18 · KJVFor we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount.
Chrysostom read it that way in the fourth century:
“He willing to assure their very sight, and to show what kind of glory that is wherewith He is to come, so far as it was possible for them to learn it; even in their present life He shows and reveals this; that they should not grieve any more, either over…”
St. John Chrysostom, Homily LVI on Matthew · 4th centuryBarnes: “This cannot refer to the end of the world, and there is no need of referring it to the destruction of Jerusalem.” Gill: “which is not to be understood of his personal coming in his kingdom in the last day.” So when Jesus said in chapter 16 that some standing there would see the Son of man coming in His kingdom, the words were kept within their lifetime, on a mountain six days later. When He said in chapter 24 that this generation would see all these things, the words were kept the same way, within their lifetime, in the year 70. He did not say “this generation” loosely either time.
3. The historian who watched it happen
Josephus was a Jewish priest and general who surrendered to Rome and watched the siege from the Roman side. He was not a Christian and had no reason to help Matthew 24 come true. This is what he recorded of the years before the city fell:
“Thus there was a star 20 resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews' rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, 21 [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple. Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner 22 [court of the] temple, which was of brass, and vastly heavy, and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, and rested upon a basis armed with iron, and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, which was there made of one entire stone, was seen to be opened of its own accord about the sixth hour of the night. Now those that kept watch in the temple came hereupon running to the captain of the temple, and told him of it; who then came up thither, and not without great difficulty was able to shut the gate again. This also appeared to the vulgar to be a very happy prodigy, as if God did thereby open them the gate of happiness. But the men of learning understood it, that the security of their holy house was dissolved of its own accord, and that the gate was opened for the advantage of their enemies. So these publicly declared that the signal foreshowed the desolation that was coming upon them. Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities.”
Flavius Josephus, The Wars of the Jews, Book VI · written about AD 75Set that beside Luke’s form of the same discourse:
Luke 21:20 · KJVAnd when ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.
Luke 21:22 · KJVFor these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
Armies around the city, a temple gate opening itself, chariots in the clouds over Judea, all before the year 70, recorded by a man who was there. The site’s Josephus page holds his account whole. None of this settles the day no one knows. It settles that “this generation” meant what it says.
Where this stands among the traditions
The early church read the Olivet Discourse as answering both of the disciples' questions: the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in AD 70 (which it lived through and remembered, the flight to Pella, "this generation"), and the final, visible coming of Christ. The historic traditions, Orthodox, Catholic, and Reformation alike, have largely kept this AD-70-and-the-end reading. The modern dispensational system, by contrast, detaches almost the whole chapter from AD 70 and relocates it to a future seven-year tribulation, which forces it to read "this generation" as something other than the one Jesus was speaking to. The loss to notice is the loss of the AD 70 anchor that the early church took for granted, and with it the loss of how exactly Jesus' words came true within the very generation He addressed. (See the letters The End Times, Armageddon & Babylon, and Eschatology at a Glance.)
Patristic text from the Catena Aurea (public domain, transcription lightly corrected). Scripture in the King James Version; the plain-language lines are our own restatement, not the Fathers' words. This passage in the Study Bible; Matthew 24 at BibleHub.