so
that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
The extent of his arrogance becomes evident in its result (hoste plus the infinitive; cf. 1:4; 1 Thess 1:7). He (auton is emphatic) takes his seat (kathisai is intransitive) in God’s
temple. What Paul means by “temple,” or more precisely “shrine,” (naos) is not clear. The word is used of
the physical body (1 Cor 6:19), but that does not fit this context. The church
also is called God’s temple (1 Cor 3:16; 2 Cor 6:16; Eph 2:21), and this
interpretation has had its patristic as well as modern proponents (see Giblin,
76–80). It has also been thought by some patristic and modern commentators that
Paul is referring to the heavenly temple, where God sits (Ps 10:4, “The Lord is
in his holy temple; the Lord, his throne is in heaven”; cf. Isa 66:1; Mic 1:2;
Hab 2:20; 1 En 14:17–22; 2 Bar 4:2–6; cf. Frame, 256).
The most obvious
identification is the Jerusalem temple and it is held by most commentators, but
problems attach to it. Although certain individuals in the OT (Isa 14:3–4; Ezek
28:2) and Nero (Sib Or 5.29–34) made
divine claims for themselves, and Gaius Caligula considered himself a god and
wished to have his statue erected in the temple (Josephus, Jewish War 2.184–85), nobody actually entered the temple
proclaiming himself to be God. It would appear that it is still the figure of
Antiochus IV Epiphanes as described in Daniel that is behind Paul’s language
here. The figure so described will halt worship to God and install the
abomination that makes desolate (Dan 9:27; 11:31; 12:11) and speaks against God
(11:36–37). Paul uses this language apocalyptically, as Matthew also does
(24:15).
The destruction of the
temple in a.d. 70 has also posed problems for interpreters who think that Paul
had the Jerusalem temple in mind. Patristic commentators overcame the problem
by claiming that the temple would be rebuilt. Some commentators, who hold that
the letter is pseudonymous, have seen in this a difficulty for their theory, if
the letter were written after the temple was destroyed (see discussion in
Wrede, 94–114; Trilling 1972: 126). This problem is more apparent than real;
other writings dating after a.d. 70, including Hebrews, convey an impression
that the temple was still standing (cf. Attridge, 8). Irenaeus, who thought
that Paul was referring to the Jerusalem temple and also echoed the passages in
Daniel, saw no problem in his position (Against
Heresies 5.25.4; see von Dobschütz 1909: 276–77). The usurpation of the
temple of God as the locus for claiming himself to be God symbolizes the
gravest act of defiance imaginable, and to express that is Paul’s intention as
he writes in starkly apocalyptic language. (Abraham J. Malherbe, The Letters
to the Thessalonians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary
[AYB 32B; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008], 420-21)
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