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ZAKHORIUM
PTEN

A project the rabbis never even mention

Date

362CE

362–363 CE

The emperor who sought to reverse Christianization planned to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple but died first; the failure seems to have mattered little to Jewish life.

Political historyReligious history31.7772°N 35.2350°E
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From Temple to Talmud: each bar is an event of the period; this one is in coral.

Sourced narrative

Each block is a verifiable statement. The number opens the cited page; amber or coral blocks flag tradition or contested interpretation.

8 statements

03

After the Bar Kochba Revolt, many Jews probably saw themselves as continuing their ancestral traditions. There was no longer a Temple, but it remained important, at least as a memory and a symbol of what had been lost and might yet be regained.

01

Julian, the emperor whom Christian sources nicknamed 'the Apostate', launched the rebuilding of the Temple in 362 CE. The project belonged to his attempt to turn the empire back from Christianization, and it may also have been meant to bring Jews to his side in the war with Persia.

04

On the Western ('Wailing') Wall, what survives of the enclosure of Herod's Temple complex, an inscription echoes a verse of Isaiah 66: seeing it would gladden the heart and make bones flourish like grass. Scholars think it may date from that moment, as a reaction to the attempt to restore the Temple.

02The failure

Julian died before finishing the project: assassinated by a Christian or killed in battle, depending on which sources one follows. Hope for restoration did not prevent adaptation to a world without the Temple. Julian's failure seems to have made little difference: rabbinic sources never mention it, a sign that the Temple's presence or absence already mattered little to Jewish religious life.

03The memory of the Temple

Jews developed customs that kept the memory of the Temple's loss alive, such as the fast of Tisha B'Av and the breaking of a glass at weddings, and continued to pray for its restoration, looking to the messiah rather than to foreign rulers. After Bar Kochba's defeat and Julian's failure there was no prospect of rebuilding the Temple, but it remained the rabbis' model of worship: they tied the timing of the three daily prayers to the sacrifices, adopted the Temple's 'Amen', deferred to priests and Levites and required prayer facing the Temple. There is no evidence, however, that they tried to rebuild it: their religious life presupposed its absence.

Context

The major turning point came with Constantine the Great (324 to 337), founder of Constantinople. After a divine vision on the eve of a battle, he and nearly all his successors used legislation and the state to support Christianity and reduce the influence of the Jews. With the exception of Julian (361 to 363), Christianity would have imperial backing from the fourth century on.

§ 01Geography

Where it happened

Gazetteer coordinates (Pleiades for ancient places; Natural Earth and Wikidata for modern ones) over modern physical geography (Natural Earth). Coastlines and the Dead Sea have changed since antiquity.
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§ 02Museum

Objects and images

Each item states whether it is an ancient object, a modern photograph or a later artistic interpretation.

§ 04Network

Connections

§ 05Bibliography

Further reading

  • Guy Stroumsa, The End of Sacrifice: Religious Transformations in Late Antiquity (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2009).

    Religious transformations of late antiquity (a short introduction) · recommended in Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 153

§ 06Apparatus

Sources on this page

  1. 01Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 520inspect
  2. 02Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121inspect
  3. 03Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121inspect
  4. 04Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121inspect
  5. 05Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121inspect
  6. 06Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 121inspect
  7. 07Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 151; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 151inspect
  8. 08Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 124; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 124; Efron, Lehmann and Weitzman, p. 520inspect
  • Documented evidenceAttested by contemporary evidence: texts, inscriptions, coins, papyri or archaeology.
  • Scholarly reconstructionHistorians' inference from indirect evidence.
  • Tradition or narrativeA literary, traditional or religious account; significant in itself, but not independently verified.
  • Contested interpretationScholars explicitly disagree; see the positions in the debate.
  • Illustrative reconstructionA hypothesis or visual scheme to guide reading; not a historical claim.