§ 4. JULIAN THE APOSTATE. 5£
Alypius witli the supervision of tlie building, and promi^d, if he should return victorious from the Persian war, to honor mth. his own presence the solemnities of reconsecration and the restoration of the Mosaic sacrificial worship.'
His real purpose in this undertaking was certainly not to advance the Jewish religion ; for in his work against the Christians he speaks with great contempt of the Old Testament, and ranks Moses and Solomon far below the pagan lawgivers and philosophers. His object in the rebuilding of the temple was rather, in the first place, to enhance the splendor of his reign, and thus gratify his personal vanity ; and then most probably to put to shame the prophecy of Jesus respecting the destruction of the temple (which, however, was actually fulfilled three hundred years before once for all), to deprive the Christians of their most popular argument against the Jews, and to break the power of the new religion in Jerusalem.'^
The Jews now poured from east and west into the holy city of their fathers, which from the time of Hadrian they had been forbidden to visit, and entered with fanatical zeal upon the great national religious work, in hope of the speedy irruption of the Messianic reign and the fulfilment of all the prophecies. Women, we are told, brought their costly ornaments, turned them into silver shovels and spades, and carried even the earth and stones of the holy spot in their silken aprons. But the united power of heathen emperor and Jewish nation was insufficient to restore a work which had been overthrown by the judgment of God. Repeated attempts at the building were utterly frustrated, as even a contemporary heathen historian of conceded credibility relates, by fiery eruptions from Bubterranean vaults;^ and, perhaps, as Christian writers add,
' Jul. Epist. 25, which is addressed to the Jews, and is mentioned also by Sozo men, v. 22.
" Gibbon, ch. xxiii. : " The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected with the ruin of the Christian church."
' Julian himself seems to admit the failure of the work, but, more prudently, i» silent as to the cause, in a fragment of an epistle or oration, p. 295, ed. Spanh., iiccording to the usual interpretation of this passage. He here asks : Ti nep) toi ei p-hirnvai, Tov Trap avroiS; rpirov avaTpantyTos, iyeipofj-tvov 5e ouSe vvv: "What wili
56 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
by a violent whirlwind, lightning, earthquake, and miraculooi eigns, especially a luininoua cross, in the heavens,' so that the
they [i. o., the Jewish prophets] say of their own temple, whicli has been three tiiiuA destroyed, and is not even now restored?" " This I have said (he continues) \vith no wish to reproaeh them, for I myself, at so late a day, had intended t" rebuild it for the honor of him who was worshipped there." He probably saw in the event a sign of the divine displeasure with the religion of the Jews, or an accidental misfortune, but intended, after his return from the Persian war, to attempt the work anew. It is by no means certain, however, that the threefold destruction of the temple here spoken of refers to Julian's own reign. lie may have meant, and probably did mean, the destruction by the Assyrians and the destruction by the Romans ; and as to the third destruction, it may be a mere exaggeration, or may refer to the profanation of the temple by Antiochus, or to his own reign. (Comp. VVarburton and Lardner on this point.) The impartial Ammiauus Marcellinus, himself a professed pagan, a friend of Julian and his companion in arms, tells us more particularly, lib. xxiii. 1, that Julian, being desirous of perpetuating the memory of his reign by some great work, resolved to rebuild at vast expense the magnificent temple at Jerusalem, and committed the conduct of this enterprise to Alypius at Autioch, and then continues : " Quum itaque rei fortiter instaret Alypius, juvaretque provinciae rector, metuendi globi Jlanunarum prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentcs fccere locum exustis aliquoties operantibus inaccessum ; hocque modo clemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum." ("Alypius, therefore, set himself vigorously to the work, and was assisted by the governor of the province, when fearful balls of fire broke out near the foundations, and continued their attacks until they made the place inaccessible to the workmen, after repeated scorchings ; and thus, the fierce element obstinately repelling them, he gave up his attempt.") Michacli-s, Lardner (who, however, is disposed to doubt the whole story), Gibbon, Guizot, ililman (note on Gibbon), Gieseler, and others, endeavor to explain this as a natural phenomenon, resulting from the bituminous nature of the soil and the subterranean vaults and reservoirs of the temple hill, of which Josephus and Tacituj speak. When Herod, in building the temple, wished to penetrate uito the tomb of David, to obtain its treasures, fire likewise broke out and consumed the workmen, according to Joseph. Antiqu. Jud. xvi. Y, § 1. But when Titus undermined tht temple, A.D. 70, when Hadrian built there the yElia Caj)itolina, in 135, and when Omar built a Turkish mosque in G44, no such destructive phenomena occurred as far OS we know. We must therefore believe, that Providence itself, by these natural causes, prevented the rebuilding of the national sanctuary of the Jews.
* Gregory Nazianzen, Socrates, Sozoraen, Theodoret, Philostorgius, Rufinus, Ambrose, Chrysostom ; all of whom regard the event as supernatural, although they differ somewhat in detail. Theodoret speaks first of a violent whirlwind, which Bcattered about vast quantities of lime, sand, and other building materials, and was followed by a storm of thunder and lightning ; Socrates mentions fire from heaven, which melted the workmen's tools, spades, axes, and saws ; both add an earthquake, which threw up the stones of the old foundations, filled up the excavation, and, &t Rufinus has it, threw down the neighboring buildings. At length a calm sueceedeo iLe commotion, and according to Gretrory a luminous crosa surrounded by u circU