The Jerusalem Temple and Emperor Julian’s “Invention of Tradition”

Abstract

Emperor Julian based his attempt to rebuild the Jerusalem temple in the spring of 363 CE on a version of Judaism that constitutes an “invented tradition” per the theoretical construct developed by Eric Hobsbawm and others in The Invention of Tradition (1983). Julian envisioned the rebuilt temple as a venue for animal sacrifice in honour of the god of the Jews—a god whom Julian identified as one in his Neoplatonic pantheon. He endeavoured to appropriate the ancient tradition of the Jewish cultic rites and their sacred site to fortify his own “Hellene” religious tradition, a combination of elements of ancient Greek and Roman traditions, mystery religions, and fourth-century Neoplatonism that emphasised the efficacy of animal sacrifice. From the point of view of Christian authors, the real motive lay in the emperor’s desire to assail Christianity and its own recently established tradition involving the destruction in 70 CE of the temple, namely that prophecy had been fulfilled and Christians had become the new “chosen people” of God. Julian’s attempt to rebuild the temple thus provides a lens through which to consider a complex interplay of various traditions. I argue that Julian was motivated by his Hellene religious commitment, not necessarily by anti-Christian sentiment—although his Hellenism was in some ways fundamentally incompatible with Christianity. Nor did Julian strive to restore ancient Jewish tradition primarily for the benefit of the Jewish community. Rather, through his “invented” version of their religious tradition, he sought to nurture his own.