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Prior to giving this warning to flee, Jesus said that the Temple was to be destroyed (Mark 13:1). Four of his disciples asked, “When?” (Mark 13:4). In verse 14 Jesus answers their “When?” with his “Then.” “But when you see the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not to be (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” (Mark 13:14)
The Romans set up their standards to worship and make sacrifices in the Temple while it burned. Religion in ancient Rome encompasses the ancestral ethnic religion of the city of Rome that the Romans used to define themselves as a people, as well as the adopted religious practices of people brought under Roman rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious and attributed their success as a world power to their collective piety in maintaining good relations with the gods.
The Romans are known for the great number of deities they honored, a capacity that earned the mockery of early Christians. The presence of Greeks on the Italian peninsula from the beginning of the historical period influenced Romans culture, introducing some religious practices that became fundamental to their worship.
Three historical events shed light upon this passage:
In 167 BC Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Jerusalem Temple.
This appears to be the event referred to in Daniel 9:27, 11:31, and 12:11. Jesus’ words “the abomination of desolation” (an idol) are a direct quotation from Daniel. The phrase “abomination of desolation” is found in these three places in the book of Daniel:
- “And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.” (Daniel 9:27)
- “Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate.” (Daniel 11:31)
- “And from the time that the regular burnt offering is taken away and the abomination that makes desolate is set up, there shall be 1,290 days.” (Daniel 12:11)
Antiochus IV Epiphanes was a Hellenistic Greek king of the Seleucid Empire from 175 BC until his death in 164 BC. He was son of King Antiochus III the Great. His original name was Mithradates; he assumed the name Antiochus after he ascended the throne.
The old City of David was fortified anew by the Syrians and made into a very strong fortress, completely dominating the city. Having thus made Jerusalem a Greek colony, the king’s attention was next turned to the destruction of the national religion. A royal decree proclaimed the abolition of the Jewish mode of worship; Sabbaths and festivals were not to be observed; circumcision was not to be performed; the sacred books were to be surrendered and the Jews were compelled to offer sacrifices to the idols that had been erected. The officers charged with carrying out these commands did so with great rigor; a veritable inquisition was established with monthly sessions for investigation. The possession of a sacred book or the performance of the rite of circumcision was punished with death. On Kislev (Nov-Dec) 25, 168, the “abomination of desolation” (an idol) was set up on the altar of burnt offering in the Temple and the Jews required to make obeisance to it. This was probably the Olympian Zeus.
In 40 AD, the Roman emperor Caligula attempted to have his statue installed in the Temple and worshipped as god. However, his intention was never fulfilled.
Caligula, properly Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, was Roman emperor from AD 37–41. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula’s biological father was Germanicus, and he was the great-nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius.
Caligula’s religious policy was a departure from that of his predecessors. According to Cassius Dio, living emperors could be worshipped as divine in the east and dead emperors could be worshipped as divine in Rome. Augustus had the public worship his spirit on occasion, but Dio describes this as an extreme act that emperors generally shied away from. Caligula took things a step further and had those in Rome, including senators, worship him as a tangible, living god.
In 70 AD, Titus, who was at war with Jewish Zealots, destroyed the Temple, but not until it had been desecrated.
The Siege of Jerusalem in the year 70 was the decisive event of the First Jewish-Roman War. The Roman army, led by the future Emperor Titus, with Tiberius Julius Alexander as his second-in command, besieged and conquered the city of Jerusalem which had been occupied by its Jewish defenders in 66.
The siege ended with the sacking of the city and the destruction of its second Temple. The destruction of both the first and second Temples is still mourned annually as the Jewish fast, Tisha B’Av. The Arch of Titus, celebrating the Roman sack of Jerusalem and the Temple, still stands in Rome.
The account of Josephus described Titus as moderate in his approach and, after conferring with others, ordering that the 500-year-old Temple be spared. According to Josephus, it was the Jews who first used fire in the Northwest approach to the Temple to try and stop Roman advances. Only then did Roman soldiers set fire to an apartment adjacent to the Temple, a conflagration which the Jews subsequently made worse.
By August of 66 AD there were plenty of “armies encompassing Jerusalem” inside and outside (Luke 21:20). Jerusalem was a holy place where such armies ought not to be standing.
The Zealot leaders brought their armies right into the temple and camped there (where they definitely ought not to be). Josephus, a priest concerned for the sanctity of the temple, was horrified at this abomination, and even more so when the Zealot factions began killing each other, the priests, and the innocent worshippers right there inside the temple. This indeed was a horrific abomination which caused its desolation.
The Romans considered it abominable when blood of their countrymen was shed in their pagan temples. Josephus tells how the blood of priests and common people was shed inside the Temple. The masses murdered in the temple, thus polluting it.
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