Dominica XXIV et Ultima post Pentecosten

From the Holy Gospel according to Matthew

Matt 24:15-35
At that time, Jesus said unto his disciples: When ye shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the Prophet, stand in the Holy Place, (whoso readeth, let him understand.) And so on.

Homily by St. Jerome, Priest at Bethlehem.
Bk. IV Comm. on Matth. XXIV
This injunction to whoso readeth, to understand, showeth that there is here something mysterious. In Daniel we read as followeth: "And in the midst of the week the sacrifice and the oblations shall be taken away and in the temple there shall be the abomination of desolation, even until the consummation of the time and a consummation shall be given to the desolation." ix. 27. It is of this same thing that the Apostle speaketh, when he saith that a man of iniquity, even an adversary, shall be exalted against whatsoever is called God, or is worshipped so that he shall even dare to stand in the temple of God, and to show himself as God whose coming shall, according to the working of Satan, destroy and banish away from God all who shall receive him.

This prophecy may be understood either (first) simply of Antichrist, (secondly) of the statue of Caesar, which Pilate set up in the Temple, or (thirdly) of the statue of Hadrian on horse-back, which hath stood, even until our own day, upon the site of the Holy of Holies. In the Scriptures of the Old Testament "abomination" is a word very often used for an idol, and the farther title "of desolation" is added to identify an idol erected upon the site of the desolate and ruined temple.