as occurring between the cities of Gaza and Maiuma in Palestine. The latter, originally a suburb of Gaza, had been raised by Constantius to the rank of an independent corporation. The people of Gaza had successfully petitioned the new emperor for a withdrawal of these privileges, and now in their exultation attacked their neighbours, and set fire to their chapels, with other acts of violence. Three brothers of a respectable family named Eusebius, Nestabus, and Zeno, were murdered with circumstances of great atrocity. The people were considerably alarmed by fear of what the emperor might do, and the governor arrested some of the ringleaders, who were brought to Antioch. In this case Julian's sense of justice seems entirely to have deserted him. Not only was no reprimand addressed to the people of Gaza, but the governor was himself put on his trial and deprived of his office. "What great matter is it if one Greek hand has slain ten Galileans?" were words well calculated to bear bitter fruit wherever they were repeated, and equivalent, as Gregory argues, to an edict of persecution (Greg. Or. 4, 93, p. 127; Sozomen—a Gazene himself—v. 9). Rode accepts most of this story, but rejects without sufficient reason the words attributed to Julian, p. 92, n. 12, who did and said many things in a fit of passion, of which his cooler judgment disapproved. Disturbances against the Christians broke out in many parts of Palestine. Holy places and holy things were profaned, and Christian people maltreated, tortured, and destroyed, sometimes in the most abominable manner (Chron. Pasch. p. 546, ed. Bonn.; Soz. v. 21; Philost. vii. 4).
Meanwhile Mark, bp. of Arethusa, a small town in Syria, who was said to have saved the life of the infant Julian, had refused to pay for the restoration of a temple which he had destroyed in the preceding reign. He was scourged in public, his beard was torn, his naked body was smeared with honey and hung up in a net exposed to the stings of insects and the fierce rays of the Syrian sun. Nothing could be wrung from him, and he was at last set free, a conqueror (Greg. Or. 4, 88–91, pp. 122–125; Soz. v. 10). Wherever he went, he was surrounded by admirers, and this case became a warning to the more temperate and cautious pagans not to proceed to extremities. Libanius intercedes for an offender, lest he should turn out another Mark (Ep. 730); and Sallust, the prefect of the East, admonished Julian for the disgrace this fruitless contest with an old man brought upon the pagan cause (Greg. l.c.; Sallust's name is not mentioned, but his office and character are described with sufficient clearness).
(c) Attempt to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem.—Julian had apparently for some time past wished to conciliate the Jewish people, and was quite ready to grant Jehovah a place, amongst the other local deities (cf. Frag. p. 295 C; St. Cyril. in Spanheim's Julian, pp. 99, 100, and p. 305, on Sacrifice). It seems probable, therefore, that his chief motive in wishing to restore the temple at Jerusalem was the desire to increase the number of divinities who were propitious to him, and to gain the favour of the Jewish God in the prosecution of his Persian campaign. This is substantially the account given by Socrates, who tells us that he summoned the Jews to him and asked why they did not offer sacrifice. They replied that it was not lawful for them to do so, except at Jerusalem, and he therefore determined to rebuild the temple of Solomon (Socr. iii. 20). This account agrees best with the statements of the emperor himself in his epistles and in his books against the Christians, and other motives attributed to him may be considered as subordinate (cf. Greg. Or. 5, 3, p. 149; Rufin. i. 37; Soz. v. 21). There is, however, an air of great probability in the statement of Philostorgius that he wished to falsify the prediction of our Blessed Lord as to the utter destruction of the temple (vii. 9). Nor could the enmity of the Jews against the Christians be otherwise than very pleasing to him (Greg. l.c. ἐπαθῆκε καὶ τὸ Ἰουδαίων φῦλον ἡμῖν). Julian provided very large sums for the work, and entrusted its execution to the oversight of Alypius of Antioch, an officer who had been employed by him in Britain and who was his intimate personal friend (Amm. xxiii. i. 2; Epp. 29 and 30 are addressed to him). The Jews were exultant and eager to contribute their wealth and their labour. The rubbish was cleared away and the old foundations were laid bare. But a stronger power intervened. To quote the words of Ammianus: "Whilst Alypius was strenuously forcing on the work, and the governor of the province was lending his assistance, fearful balls of flames, bursting out with frequent assaults near the foundations, and several times burning the workmen, rendered access to the spot impossible; and in this way the attempt came to a standstill through the determined obstinacy of the element" (xxiii. 1, 3). No doubt the Christians saw in this defeat of their oppressor not only a miracle of divine power, but a peculiarly striking fulfilment of the old prophecies in which fire is so often spoken of as the emblem and instrument of judgment (e.g. Deut. xxxii. 22, Jer. xxi. 14, and particularly, perhaps, the historical description of Lam. iv. 11, "The Lord hath accomplished His fury; He hath poured out His fierce anger, and hath kindled a fire in Zion, and it hath devoured the foundations thereof"). They thought also, of course, of our Lord's own words, now more completely verified than ever. Julian retained his wide knowledge of the text of Scripture, as we see by his writings, and these prophecies doubtless irritated him by their literal exactness. The "globi flammarum prope fundamenta erumpentes" of the heathen historian are an undesigned coincidence with the words of Hebrew prophecy.
>From heathen testimonies, and from the fathers and historians of the church, Dr. Newman has put together the following detailed account of the occurrence, in which he chiefly follows Warburton. The order of the incidents is, of course, not certain, but only a matter of probable inference; nor can we guarantee the details as they appear in the later writers. "They declare as follows: The work was interrupted by a violent whirlwind, says Theodoret, which scattered about vast quantities of lime, sand and other loose
