There was an aborted project under Roman emperor Julian ( 361 – 363 CE ) to rebuild the Temple . Julian is traditionally called Julian the Apostate due to his policy of reversing Emperor Constantine 's Christianization campaign by restoring traditional religious practices and holy places across the Empire . It was as part of this policy , Julian permitted the Jews to build 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 various ancient sources , including Sozomen ( c. 400 – 450 CE ) in his '' Historia Ecclesiastica '' and the pagan historian and close friend of Julian , Ammianus Marcellinus , the project of rebuilding the temple was aborted because each time the workers tried to build the temple using the existing substructure , they were burned by terrible flames coming from inside the earth and an earthquake negated what work was made : The failure to rebuild the Temple has been ascribed to the Galilee earthquake of 363 CE , and to the Jews ' ambivalence about the project . Sabotage is a possibility , as is an accidental fire . Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of the time . When Julian was killed in battle after a reign of less than three years , the Christians reasserted control over the empire , and the opportunity to rebuild the Temple ended
Galilee earthquake of 363 CE
Galilee earthquake of 363
Third Temple