II. THE SECOND TEMPLE.—In the year B.C. 536 the Jews obtained permission from Cyrus to colonise their native land. Cyrus commanded also that the sacred utensils which had been pillaged from the first temple should be restored, and that for the restoration of the temple assistance should be granted (Ezra i. and vi. ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 22, seq.) The first colony which returned under Zerub babel and Joshua having collected the necessary means, and having also obtained the assistance of Pheenician workmen, commenced, in the second year after their return, B.C. 534, the rebuilding of the temple. The Sidonians brought rafts of cedar trees from Lebanon to Joppa. The Jews refused the co-operation of the Samaritans, who bein,g thereby offended, induced the king Artasashta (probably Sinerdis) to prohibit the building. And it was only in the second year of Darius HyStaSpiS, B.C. s2o, that the building was resumed. It was completed in the sixth year of this king, B.C. 511,, (comp. Ezra v. and vi. ; and Haggai i. 15). Ac cording to Josephus (Antiq. xi. 4. 7) the temple was completed in the ninth year of the reign of Darius.
This second temple was erected on the site of the former, and probably after the same plan. According to the plan of Cyrus the new temple was sixty cubits high and sixty cubits wide. It appears from Josephus, that the height is to be understood of the porch, for we learn from the speech of Herod which he records, that the second temple was sixty cubits lower than the first, whose porch was 12o cubits high (comp. Joseph. Antiq. xv. 1). The old men who had seen the first temple were moved to tears on beholding the second, which appeared like nothing in comparison with the first (Ezm Hi. 12 ; Haggai ii. 3, seq.) It seems, therefore, that it was not so much in dimen sMns that the second temple was inferior to the first, as in splendour, and in being deprived of the ark of the covenant, which had been burned with the temple of Solomon. The temple of Zerub
babel had several courts (atiXat) and cloisters or cells (rp6Oupa). Josephus distinguishes an internal and external le*, and mentions cloisters in the courts. This temple was connected with the town by means of a bridge Wittig. xiv. 4). During the wars from B.C. 175 to B.C. 163, it was pillaged and desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes, who intro duced into it idolatrous rites (2 Maccab. vi. 2, 5), dedicating the temple to Jupiter Olympius, and the temple on Mount Gerizim, in allusion to the foreign origin of its worshippers, to Jupiter 4€7n6s. The temple became so desolate that it was overgrown with vegetation (1 Maccab. iv. 38 ; 2 Maccab. vi.4). Judas Maccabxus expelled the Syrians and restored the sanctuary, B.C. 165. He repaired the building, furnished new utensils, and erected fortifications against future attacks (t Maccab. iv. 43-6o ; vi. 7 ; xiii. 52 ; 2 Maccab. 18 ; x. 3). Alexander Jan nTus, about B.C. 106, separated the court of the priests from the extemal court by a wooden railing (Joseph. Antiq. xiii. 5). During the contentions among the later Maccabees, Pompey attacked the temple from the north side, caused a great massacre in its courts, but abstained from plundering the treasury, although he even entered the holy of holies, B.C. 63 (Joseph. Antiq. xiv. 4). Herod the Great, with the assistance of Roman troops, stormed the temple, B.C. 37 ; on which occasion some of the surrounding halls were destroyed or damaged.