=4. Jews in the East under Persian Rule.=――The Eastern Jews, reinforced by these Western ones, remained under their Persian masters unmolested for quite another century. The Persians were fire-worshippers, and their simple belief forbade persecution under the name of religion. The sun was their divinity, and every morning as they stood on the hilltops to salute it as it rose, and watched it shining impartially on sea and on land, on the pinnacles of a king’s palace and on the twigs of a bird’s nest, they made a beautiful meaning out of the beautiful sight. They saw that there was no limit and no selection in their sun-god’s rays. As he warmed the roses into life, he did not stay to ask if they were going to be white roses or red ones. So these Persians who worshipped the sun tried humbly to imitate its wide and generous ways. They did not stay to ask any questions of their fellow-citizens, but like the sun with the roses, so long as each was good ‘according to its kind,’ gave each his due share of warmth and light with the rest. Thus, under the kindly protection of the fire-worshippers, the Babylonian schools flourished when the Palestinian schools were closed. And as the patriarch of the West lost his followers, the reigning Prince of the Captivity רֵישׁ נְּלוּתָא gained extra state and influence. He came to be greatly respected by all the scholars of the period, whether native subjects of Persia or immigrants from the Western world. =5. Julian the Apostate.=――The zeal of the early converts, and the legislation of the first two Christian Emperors, made life very difficult to the Jews; and Christianity, in the name of which they were persecuted, grew very distasteful to them. When on the death of Constantius, in 360, an emperor was crowned who proclaimed himself a pagan, there was great and barely concealed delight amongst the Jewish subjects of Rome. One’s estimate of men or things depends so much on the point of view. By the fathers of the Church this pagan Emperor is called Julian the Apostate; by the heads of the Synagogue he must have been looked upon as a saviour. Immediately on his accession he declared all the persecuting laws to be a dead letter; he reduced taxes, abolished disabilities, and finally gave permission to the Jews to rebuild their Temple. Great were the rejoicings wherever this good news travelled. East and west, throughout the Roman dominions, Jews met and congratulated each other, and all hastened to send gifts and contributions to Jerusalem, like as in the old days when the Tabernacle was furnished in the wilderness by loving, liberal hands, which had to be ‘restrained from giving.’ Those on the spot set to work with a will, and the walls rose as by magic; and it really seemed to the Jews, in the exalted mood they were in, as if the ruins were helping to transform themselves into the Temple. It was all like a dream――so hurried, and so wonderful, and so unreal. Julian’s whole reign only lasted three years.