(P. australis and P. macrocephalus), there is but one of large size, though, since small adult jaws seven feet long occur, these may belong to another species, if not those of a female. Such is a brief and fragmentary outline of some of the memoirs published by this able comparative anatomist. His long continued labours brought him honours from every country in which science was appreciated. In private life he was no less esteemed than in his public duties. In every relation he bore himself with good taste and dignity, and he passed away honoured and esteemed by all for his high bearing, his prudence, and his great talents. WILLIAM C. M'INTOSH. ART. VI.-JULIAN AND JERUSALEM, a.d. 363. THAT * HAT the re-building of the Temple at Jerusalem, which was begun by the Emperor Julian in A.D. 363, was stopped by an outburst of fire from the foundations, Gibbon, on the authority of the contemporary and most trustworthy Latin historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, was not inclined to deny. The cause of the outburst Gibbon did not attempt to explain. When in Jerusalem in 1800, Dr. Clarke, the traveller,† identified certain reticulated, and therefore Roman, masonry at the sides of the area of the Mosque of Omar, with the foundations of the Julian Temple, progress in which was abandoned on account of the bursting forth of flames. Clarke leaves it for others to decide whether the balls of fire that burst from the ground were natural or supernatural. Dean Milman ‡ accepts the facts of an outburst of fire from the hill: of the flight of the workmen and of the stoppage of the work. He explains the outburst of fire by vapours fermenting in the caves of the hill. To Milman's explanation the objec * Decline and Fall, chap. xxiii. + Travels, Vol. IV., p. 387. tion seems fatal: (1) that on no other occasion are cave-vapours known to have fermented and burst forth in fire at Jerusalem, and (2) that on this occasion the outbreak was too timely to be accidental. With this outburst of flames on the site of the Temple at Jerusalem in A.D. 363, may be compared the outburst of flames in B.C. 288 which drove Brennus the Gaul emptyhanded from Delphi. The outburst of flame at Delphi, which was accompanied by an explosion and fall of rock, Bishop Warburton explains by the priests collecting vapours in one of the caves and setting them alight. Were there, in A.D. 363, in Jerusalem any means similar to those employed by the priests of Delphi, to frustrate Julian's attempt to rebuild the Temple? That the Christians had no such means, or if they had the means that they had not the opportunity of using them, may be admitted. It is less clear that in A.D. 363 the Jewish priests had not under their control an appliance more trustworthy than chance cave vapours to produce explosions and flames. The writer of the second book of the Maccabees (chapter i., verses 19-26), perhaps about B.C. 100, tells how, in B.C. 440, when the repairs to the city walls had been completed, Nehemiah determined to hold a formal purification and rededication of the altar and temple, which had been completed by Zerubbabel about eighty years before (B.C. 520). Nehemiah ordered the descendants of the priests to produce the sacred fire, which, before the Babylonian Captivity (B.C. 588), had been taken from the altar and hid privily in the hollow of a waterless well or pit, and therein made sure so that the place was unknown to all men. Under Nehemiah's orders the priests examined the pit. They found thick water. Nehemiah said, 'Draw the water and sprinkle the sacrifices.' The sun shone on the sprinkled sacrifices and a great fire was kindled. When the Persian king heard that certain temple water had turned into flame he considered it sacred. When he wished to shew favour to any one he gave him some of the * Julian, pp. 296-297. water. Nehemiah called the water Nepthar, that is, cleansing; most men called it Nephthal, that is, Naphtha. Neither the date nor the author of the second Maccabees is certain. Still it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion † that the tradition is correct that Nehemiah brought naphtha out of a pit near the temple; that this naphtha was known to the priests as sacred fire; and that from an indefinite time naphtha had been burned on the temple altar as sacred fire. It is, therefore, probable that down to the time of Julian's disaster (A.D. 363) a store of naphtha remained in a pit close to the temple, and that at that time the existence of the store was known to the descendants of the priests. How far had any of the priests the desire to put a stop to Julian's operations by a timely explosion? In support of the view that the outburst of fire which put a stop to Julian's undertaking was the intentional explosion by certain Jews of naphtha vapour in a cave or pit under the temple, it is necessary to shew :— 1. That certain of the Jews were anxious to stop Julian's work. 2. That in the neighbourhood of the Temple were caves, pits, or wells in which an explosion might be arranged. 3. That a secret store of naphtha, sufficient to cause a serious explosion, was in the charge of certain of the Jews, Those who do not regard the outrush of fire on Julian's workmen as a miracle have contended that the outbreak was either natural, or was the work of the Christians. In his account of the explosion Warburton seems to have disposed of both of these explanations. Against the explanation that the explosion was natural Warburton contends that with so few recorded outbursts at Jerusalem, and with the freedom from outburst which marked the building of Solomon's (B.c. 1000), Zerubbabel's (B.C. 520), and Herod's (B. C. 7) temples, the * Compare Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. II. p. 176. † Ibid., Vol. V., pp. 465, 487. chance that a natural explosion should happen immediately on the beginning of Julian's work is a no-chance. Its timeliness seems conclusive against Dean Milman's view that the explosion was natural. Warburton's reply to those who would trace the explosion to the Christians seems equally complete. In the excited state both of Jewish and of Greek feeling against them, the Christians, during the progress of Julian's work, would not have been allowed access to the temple foundations.† The third alternative, namely, that the explosion was the work of a Jew, seems hardly to have been considered. The reason why this explanation has not been suggested is probably that the work of repairing the temple was popular with the Jews, who were helping with labour as well as with money and materials. According to the Christians the Jews were as much elated with Julian's favour as if they had found a prophet of their own.§ In this propitious moment, says Gibbon, the men forgot their avarice, and the women their delicacy: spades and pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and purple. Every purse was open in liberal contributions, every hand claimed a share in the pious labour, and the commands of a great monarch were executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people.' In spite of the enthusiasm of the mass of the Jews, to the stricter prophets and priests Julian's attempt could not fail to be hateful. The elaborate purification and rededication by Nehemiah (B.C. 440), described in Second Maccabees, marked the change from a royal chapel to a priestly temple. Zerubbabel (B.C. 520), a descendant of David, was the last person not a High Priest who shared the management of the temple. How jealously the priests guarded their control over the temple was shewn in the time of Herod the Great (B.C. 16-7), when, though a Jew by religion, Herod had to * Warburton's Julian, p. 305. § Ibid., pp. 68, note, and 70. + Ibid, p. 260. Ibid., pp. 50, 91. || Decline and Fall, chap. xxiii. Encyclopædia Britannica, article 'Temple.' leave the building of the Temple to the High Priest, and content himself with building its Courts.* Similarly when, in A.D. 117, the Emperor Hadrian offered to rebuild the temple, his offer was refused by the priests. † Later in Hadrian's reign (A.D. 133), the Jews revolted, and tried to rebuild the Temple. For this revolt they were punished by being forbidden to approach the Holy City. Once more, under Constantine (A.D. 334), the Jews attempted to revolt; this attempt was crushed, and Hadrian's law against Jews coming to Jerusalem was strictly enforced. The zealous Jews were not less anxious than the mass of the people that the temple should be rebuilt. But they were jealous that the honour of re-building the temple should belong solely to the Jews. To the stricter Jews, Julian, not less of a warrior and much less of a Jew than Herod, could not be acceptable. Their objection to him would be increased by Julian, in his recent letter to the Community of the Jews, assuming to decide that the time for re-building the temple laid down in the Hebrew Scriptures had arrived. That the leaders of the Jews opposed Julian's project is stated by the Christian writers, who, to their astonishment, found that the Jew leaders explained the miraculous outburst of fire, not as a proof that Christ was a true Prophet and God, but as a proof of the wrath of Jehovah against the profanity of accepting the help of one who was no Jew in rebuilding Jehovah's House. It follows that the zealous Jews approved the outburst of fire. These Jews would have ready access to the neighbourhood of the works: some of them, like Nehemiah, would be acquainted with the store of naphtha or sacred fire, which, in the ruin of the Temple (A.D. 70), had remained unused for nearly three hundred years, but still fresh in its rock-hewn pit. Under these conditions they would be * Williams, The Holy City, Vol. I., pp. 109, 119. Warren, Underground Jerusalem, p. 62. So unbending were the priests that, according to Captain, now General Sir Charles Warren (Underground Jerusalem, p. 73), Herod was not allowed to enter the Temple or any of the Courts. + Kuenen's Hibbert Lectures, p. 333. Warburton's Julian, pp. 133, 225. |