A Christian Perspective

The outcome of that which was foretold regarding the Jewish people has [already] been said and demonstrated. But as he, the Word of God [Jesus], also prophesied regarding these places themselves, we must look at his words on them.

Now, when the rulers of the Jews would not accept the purity of [Jesus’] doctrine and its dissemination or his rebukes, they acted to rid their city of him. He, then, leaving Jerusalem, pronounced these words over their city: Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which has killed the prophets and stoned those who were sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as the hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. See, your house is left desolate! For I say to you, you will not see me again until you say, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” (Matthew 23:37–39; Luke 13:34–35). Impurity [and] pollution defined their actions thereafter, and this was the sin in which they dared to persist against our savior. And it was right that not only the inhabitants of the city but also the land itself, of which they were so proud, should be made to suffer the things that the deeds of its inhabitants warranted. And these they did suffer! For it was not long before the Romans came against the city. They killed some of the inhabitants in war, destroyed others by famine, led others away in captivity, and persecuted others. They burned the captive [city] and Temple and reduced them to utter desolation.

The things that took place afterward were foretold by our savior, from his foreknowledge as the Word of God, by means of those who are [now] before us. For he named the whole Jewish people the children of the city, and he called the Temple their house. And he testified that they should, on their own wicked account, bear the vengeance to be inflicted. For many times he would have gathered their children together beneath the yoke of the worship of God, just as before, even as he had cared for them since long ago and had, in every age, instructed them by one or another of the prophets and called them, but they would not heed his call. Because of this, he delivered a judgment against them and said, See, your house is left desolate! It was therefore deliberately that he said that not [only] the city itself should be desolate but [also] the house that was within it, that is, the Temple, which he would no longer allow to be called his, or “the house of God,” but [only] theirs. He also prophesied that it should be desolate in no other way than as deprived of the providential care that was formerly exerted over it. Accordingly, he said, See, your house is left desolate!

It is right that we should marvel at the fulfillment of this prediction, since this place had never undergone such a complete desolation as this. Not at the time when it was razed to its foundations by the Babylonians on account of [the Israelites’] great wickedness, their worship of idols, and their pollution in the blood of the prophets, for the whole period of the desolation of the place in those times was seventy years, since it was not fully said to them at that time, See, your house is left desolate! Nor was it [then as] forsaken [as now], since soon after, an event occurred that dignified it with a renewal much more illustrious than its former state, as one of the prophets had foretold: The glory of this latter house shall be greater than that of the former (Haggai 2:9). Therefore, after the announcement of our savior that they should so be left, and their house come, by the judgment of God, to utter desolation, the sight itself gives those who visit those places the most complete fulfillment of the prediction. The period [of desolation] has also been many years, not merely double the desolation of seventy years, which was that in the time of the Babylonians, but more than four times [its duration], confirming the judgment pronounced by our savior.

On another occasion, our savior, walking beside the aforementioned Temple as his disciples marveled at the building that surrounded it and pointed out to him the greatness and beauty of the Temple, responded to them, Do you not see all these things? I say to you, not one stone will be left here on another that will not be thrown down (Matthew 24:2). The scriptures also show that the whole building and the magnificent ornamentation of the Temple deserved to be considered miraculous, and for proof [of this], some remaining vestiges of its ancient decorations remain even now. But of these ancient things, the greatest miracle of all is the divine word [declaring] the foreknowledge of our savior, which fully announced to those who were marveling at the buildings [of the Temple] the judgment that there would not be left in the place at which they were marveling one stone on another that would not be razed. For it was right that this place undergo a complete destruction and desolation on account of the audacity of its inhabitants, since it was the residence of impious men. And exactly what was predicted has come to pass: the whole Temple and its walls, as well as those ornamented and beautiful buildings within it, which surpassed all description, have suffered desolation from that time to this! This [desolation] also increases over time, and so has the power of the Word gone on destroying that in many places no vestige of [the Temple’s] foundations is now visible, as anyone who wishes can see with his own eyes.

Adapted from the translation ofSamuel Lee.