–allows the Jews to return to Jerusalem (361–363 CE)
–and gives permission (not exercised by the Jews) to rebuild the Temple.
Emperor Julian the Apostate: In his enterprise of anti–Christian restoration, the philosopher–emperor proposes to make Jerusalem a Jewish city and to rebuild the Temple; in a letter to the Jews he asks them to pray to their God for his success in the war against the Persians, “So that I should restore the holy city of Jerusalem with my own money”; but Julian is killed during his Persian campaign and the reconstruction of Jerusalem is brought to a halt, probably also because of an earthquake which the Christians see as a manifestation of God’s wrath at the apostate emperor.