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A letter attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem on the rebuilding of the Temple

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

S. P. Brock
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Extract

Before he set off on his fatal Persian expedition Julian appears to have issued certain instructions about the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Whether the initiative for this came from the Jewish community, or was from the emperor himself, is unclear, the sources being as divided on this point as they are on the exact nature of the events that brought the work to a halt. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, the one pagan account that survives,

‘… magnitudine operum gestiens propagare, ambitiosum quondam apud Hierosolymam templum, quod post multa et interneciva certamina, obsidiente Vespasiano, posteaque Tito, aegre est expugnatum, instaurare sumptibus cogitabat immodicis, negotiumque maturandum Alypio dederat Antiochensi, qui olim Britannias curaverat pro praefectis. cum itaque rei idem fortiter instaret Alypius, iuvaretque provinciae rector, metuendi globi flammarum prope fundamenta crebris assultibus erumpentes, fecere locum exustis aliquotiens operantibus inaccessum, hocque modo elemento destinatius repellente, cessavit inceptum’.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , June 1977 , pp. 267 - 286
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1977

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References

1 The following text is published by kind permission of the Harvard College Library and the Trustees of the British Library. A brief outline of the letter will be found in my ‘The rebuilding of the Temple under Julian: a new source’, PEQ, 07–12 1976, 103–7.Google Scholar

2 See in general Vogt, J., Kaiser Julian und das Judentum, Leipzig, 1939, 46–59Google Scholar; Adler, M., ‘The Emperor Julian and the Jews’, JQR, V, 07 1893, 615–51Google Scholar; Bacher, W., ‘Statements of a contemporary of the Emperor Julian on the rebuilding of the Temple’ [R. Aha], JQR, X, 10 1898, 168–72Google Scholar; Levy, J. (Hans Lewy), ‘Julian and the rebuilding of the Temple’ [in Hebrew], Zion, NS, VI, 1941, 1–32Google Scholar, reprinted in ‘Olamat nifgashim, second ed., Jerusalem, 1969, 221–54.Google Scholar

3 ‘History’, XXIII.1.2–3.

4 Adler, , op. cit., 634.Google Scholar

5 ‘… had so noteworthy an event happened in his own see, surely he (sc. Cyril) would have been the first to record it’, Adler, , op. cit., 649.Google Scholar

6 Catech., XV.15 (in PG, XXXIII, col. 889). Cyril's interest in the Gospel prediction is noted by a number of later writers, e.g. Rufinus, Socrates, Agapius. (Section 3 of Catech., XV is known in Syriac from a number of florilegia, e.g. British Library, Add. 7190, fol. 200b; Add. 17191, fol. 55a; Add. 14538, fol. 31b.)

7 No. 91 in L. H. Titterton's typescript catalogue.

8 Graf, G., Gesch. der christl. arab. Literatur (Studi e Testi, 118), Rome, 1944, 1, 335–7.Google Scholar Nor is there any mention in the ‘Life of St. Cyril’, in Armenian, published by Bihain, E., Le Muséon, LXXVI, 3 – 4, 1963, 319–48.Google Scholar

9 pp. 316–17.

10 19 Iyyar fell on a Monday 14 times in the century a.d. 300–400. The day could of course be worked out by someone with access to Easter tables.

11 I am most grateful to Dr. N. L. Rabinovitch for pointing this out to me after an earlier form of this paper had been read at a meeting of the British Association for Jewish Studies, in Oxford, July 1975. For an element of uncertainty about the exact day, Sunday or Monday, of the commencement of the rebuilding, see p. 277, n. 46.

12 See the table in Mahler, E., Handbuch der jüdischen Chronologie, repr. Hildersheim, 1967, 531 (the next year when this occurred was 420).Google Scholar

13 I use Harvard Syr. 99 as the basis for the text, since it alone is complete; the variants of Add. 14609 are given in the apparatus to the text and notes to the translation (a leaf is missing after fol. 122 in this manuscript, with the result that §§ 7–12 are lost). It is of course likely that in general Add. 14609 will offer a more reliable text, and in a few places it preserves readings which alter the sense of the passage: see p. 274, n. 21, pp. 274–275, n. 31–2, p. 275, n. 35. The following symbols are employed.

A = Add. 14609.

B = Harvard Syr. 99.

( ) = contraction resolved.

14 I translate B; the main variants of A are given in the footnotes.

15 Letter of Cyril bishop of Jerusalem.

16 A omits § 1.

17 pr. Cyril bishop of Jerusalem.

18 our Lord.

19 in all regions.

20 With (in) our Lord punishment.

21 in our own sight it specifically received it; greetings!

22 Just as, my brothers.

23 om. of God.

24 shook.

25 world suffered.

26 om. here.

27 the land suffered specifically.

28 om. great.

29 + and cities.

30 + your.

31 seeing that we too, because we (were) there, struggled for ourselves.

32 Not only were we not harmed by the earthquake that took place at God's (behest), but no Christian who was here (was harmed), but many.

33 om. heavy.

34 winds and strong storms.

35 the foundations as they had wanted; for it was in their mind to lay the Temple's foundations the following day.

36 fled and took refuge in.

37 whence.

38 om. glorious.

39 psalms.

40 + between.

41 those (who).

42 the Jews.

43 The folio of A containing the rest of the letter is lost.

44 Commentary in Brok, M. F. A., De Perzische expeditie van Keizer Julianus volgens Ammianus Marcellinus, Groningen, 1959, 21–5.Google Scholar

45 363 or 365 according to Vogt, op. cit., 48. J. Bernardi states that there are reasons for supposing that it was written in February 364 (see Texte und Untersuchungen, LXIII, 1957, p. 177, n. 2).Google Scholar

46 In B the work on the foundations clearly began on the Sunday, but A (see p. 275, n. 35) implies that only the preparatory digging took place that day, and that the rebuilding was to take place on the Monday, i.e. 19 Iyyar, the day after Lag ba-'Omer.

47 Note that A, of the sixth century, already has ‘Jeremiah’.

48 cf. Vincent, and Abel, , op. cit., 11, 855–60Google Scholar; Jeremias, J., Heiligengräber in Jesu Umwelt, Göttingen, 1958, 61–7.Google Scholar

49 e.g. mentioned by the pilgrim Theodosius (Geyer, , op. cit., 142Google Scholar). Note also that Isaiah and Zechariah are the only two prophets commemorated in the old Jerusalem calendar: of. A. Renoux, in PO, XXXVI, 2, 188. A less likely possibility is that ‘Jeremiah’ is a corruption of ‘Hezekiah’, whose tomb was also shown, but the term ‘prophets’ militates against this.

50 In Isaiam (PL, XXIV, 49)Google Scholar and Comm. Matt. (PL, XXVI, 177).Google Scholar For what may be the plinth of the statue (wrongly) identified as that of Hadrian, see CIL, III, Supplement 6639.

51 This is stated by two eyewitnesses, Origen and the Bordeaux pilgrim, whereas Dio Cassius and Jerome imply that a pagan temple had been erected on the former site of the Jewish Temple; cf. Wilkinson, J., ‘Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem during the Byzantine period’, PEQ, 07–12 1976, 75–101.Google Scholar

52 For archaeological evidence of destruction of buildings in the vicinity of the Temple at this time, see Mazar, B., The excavations in the Old City of Jerusalem, near the Temple Mount. Preliminary report of the second and third seasons, Jerusalem, 1971, 23Google Scholar (Mazar also publishes here an inscription on the masonry below ‘Robinson's Arch’, containing Isaiah lxvi, 4, which certainly belongs to a time when hopes for the restoration of the Temple were running high).

53 I was not yet aware of the existence of part of the text in Add. 14609 when I wrote the article published in PEQ, 07–12 1976, 103–7.Google Scholar

54 For what follows, see my ‘Notes on some texts in the Mingana collection’, Journal of Semitic Studies, XIV, 2, 1969, 211–15.Google Scholar (The manuscript there referred to as Harvard Syr. 91 is our manuscript B, which now bears the number Syr. 99.)

55 cf. the episode of the synagogue doors. Even in the case of the crosses on the garments (with no parallel in Ephrem, but cf. Gregory) the account in our letter is free from most of the later legendary accretions.

56 My explanation of the ‘church of the Confessors’ obviously presupposes a Greek original.

57 Dan. ix, 27.Google Scholar

58 Matt, , xxiii, 37.Google Scholar

59 Matt, , xxi, 5Google Scholar taken from Zech, , ix, 9.Google Scholar

60 Delete seyame, with Beck.

61 4 Kings xviii, 21.

62 Matt, , xxiii, 35.Google Scholar

63 Zech, , ix, 9.Google Scholar

64 The editor supplies ‘Julian was killed’; since Julian's death fell in June (26), and not May, it is preferable to keep the text. For 27 lyyar, cf. Ethiopian synaxary, PO, 1, 5, 533.

65 The Greek text adds a reference to Daniel.

66 New edition in Bihain, E., ‘L'épitre de Cyrille de Jérusalem à Constance sur la vision de la croix (BHG3 413)’, Byzantion, XLIII, 1973, 264–96.Google Scholar The appearance is celebrated liturgically on 7 May; the year is usually thought to be 351, but according to H. Grégoire and P. Orgels it is 350 (see Byzantion, XXIV, 1954, 596–9Google Scholar), while J. Vogt argues for 353 (‘Berichte über Kreuzeserscheinnngen aus dem 4 Jahrhunderts n. Chr.’, AIPHO, IX, 1949, 602–3).Google Scholar

67 No. 205 in Bidez, J. and Cumont, F., Imp. Caesaris Flavii Claudii Iuliani Epistulae, Paris, 1922, 282 ff.Google Scholar In their prefatory remarks the editors suggest that the letters are taken from the Syriac Julian romance: they certainly do not feature in any extant part of that text.

68 Nor is there anything in Barhebraeus' Chronicon.

69 A translation of this (not very reliable: see below !) is to be found in Gollancz, H., Julian the Apostate, London, 1928, 117–26.Google Scholar

70 Syriac, , p. 116, 11. 10–12Google Scholar; English translation, p. 126 (top).

71 Probably one of the Church historians is meant.