Leontopolis, temple of

Under Ptolemy VI Philometor (180–145 bce), Onias, high priest of the temple of Jerusalem, in exile after the capture of the temple by Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 167 bce, founded a Jewish temple in Egypt. This was the “temple of Leontopolis,” or the “temple of Onias” and the centre of a Jewish military community. It was in the image and likeness of the Jerusalem temple, only smaller: it had an altar and performed sacrifices to God. The king granted permission to build it on the site of an older Egyptian sanctuary to Boubastis. The sources suggest that the Onias temple never became schismatic, although it was originally intended for the replacement of the temple of Jerusalem. Deliberate insertions of the fake-motif of Onias’s murder in Daphne in 170 bce and of the foundation of Leontopolis by his alleged son Onias IV, in Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities and in 2 Maccabees, were attempts to portray Judas Maccabaeus as the legitimate successor of the former high priests, and the temple of Leontopolis as unlawful. Finally, the identification of the site of Leontopolis as Tell el-Yahoudieh is no longer accepted; it is suggested that it was in Heliopolis.