The Abomination of Desolation - St. Marys Coptic Orthodox Church

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ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION
out from the whole world. 1
He who shall come claiming the kingdom for himself, and shall
terrify those men of whom we have been speaking [the saints],
having a name containing the aforesaid number [666], is truly the
abomination of desolation. 2
What is stated by Paul in the words quoted from him, where he says,
“so that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is
God,” is in Daniel referred to in the following fashion: “And on the
temple shall be the abomination of desolations,” .... So many, out
of a greater number of passages, have I thought it right to adduce,
that the hearer may understand in some slight degree the meaning
of holy Scripture, when it gives us information concerning the devil
and Antichrist. 3
Elias came in the person of John [the Baptist], and is again to be the
precursor of the Lord's Advent: and in the matter of the
“Abomination of Desolation” which “stood in the holy place,” by
means of that idol of Jupiter which, as we read, was placed in the
temple in Jerusalem, and which is again to stand in the Church
through the coming of Antichrist, and all those things which follow
in the gospel, which we take as having been fulfilled before the
captivity of Jerusalem and still to be fulfilled at the end of this world.
In which matters neither view is opposed to the other, nor does the
first interpretation interfere with the second. 4
1 Hippolytus: Scholia on Daniel.
2 Irenaeus: Against heresies
3 Origen: Against Celsus.
4 Abbot Serenus: in Cassian; Conferences.