Jewish Temple at Leontopolis

The Land of Onias (Greek: Ὀνίας) is the name given in Hellenistic Egyptian, Jewish, and Roman sources to an area in Ancient Egypt's Nile delta where a large number of Jews settled. The Land of Onias, which included the city of Leontopolis (Λεόντων πόλις), was located in the nome of Heliopolis. While accounts differ on the details, it is known that the Jews of Leontopolis had a functioning Temple, presided over by kohanim of the family of Onias IV (for whom the "Land of Onias" is named). Like its predecessor the Jewish Temple at Elephantine (destroyed in the 4th century BCE), the Temple at Leontopolis was the only Jewish sanctuary outside of Jerusalem where sacrifices were offered. Aside from a somewhat uncertain allusion of the Hellenist Artapanus, only Josephus gives information about this temple. The Talmudic accounts are internally contradictory. The establishment of a central sanctuary in Egypt was probably undertaken in response, in part, to the disorders that arose in Judea under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the desecration of the Temple at Jerusalem under his reign, the supplanting of the legitimate family of priests by the installation of Alcimus, the personal ambition of Onias IV, and the vast extent of the Jewish diaspora in Egypt that created demand for a sanctuary of this nature.

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