across the Empire. As part of this policy, Julian permitted the Jews to begin building a Third Temple. Rabbi Hilkiyah, one of the leading rabbis of the time, spurned Julian's money, arguing that gentiles should play no part in the rebuilding of the temple.

According to later ancient sources, including Sozomen (c. 400-450 CE) in his Historia Ecclesiastica and the pagan historian and close friend of Julian, Ammianus Marcellinus,