the dedication, twenty-two thousand
oxen, and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep. These considerations
might influence his designs; but the prospect of an immediate and
important advantage would not suffer the impatient monarch to expect
the remote and uncertain event of the Persian war. He resolved to erect,
without delay, on the commanding eminence of Moriah, a stately temple,
which might eclipse the splendor of the church of the resurrection on
the adjacent hill of Calvary; to establish an order of priests, whose
interested zeal would detect the arts, and resist the ambition, of their
Christian rivals; and to invite a numerous colony of Jews, whose stern
fanaticism would be always prepared to second, and even to anticipate,
the hostile measures of the Pagan government. Among the friends of the
emperor (if the names of emperor, and of friend, are not incompatible)
the first place was assigned, by Julian himself, to the virtuous and
learned Alypius. The humanity of Alypius was tempered by severe justice
and manly fortitude; and while he exercised his abilities in the civil
administration of Britain, he imitated, in his poetical compositions,
the harmony and softness of the odes of Sappho. This minister, to whom
Julian communicated, without reserve, his most careless levities, and
his most serious counsels, received an extraordinary commission to
restore, in its pristine beauty, the temple of Jerusalem; and the
diligence of Alypius required and obtained the strenuous support of the
governor of Palestine. At the call of their great deliverer, the Jews,
from all the provinces of the empire, assembled on the holy mountain of
their fathers; and their insolent triumph alarmed and exasperated the
Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem. The desire of rebuilding the temple
has in every age been the ruling passion of the children of Israel. In
this propitious moment 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 opened in liberal contributions, every hand claimed
a share in the pious labor, and the commands of a great monarch were
executed by the enthusiasm of a whole people.

Yet, on this occasion, the joint efforts of power and enthusiasm were
unsuccessful; and the ground of the Jewish temple, which is now covered
by a Mahometan mosque, still continued to exhibit the