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.
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.
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 drift 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.