Alexandria, on the model of the great Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.
8. Mommsen (Röm. Gesch. v. p. 489) ascribes this rather to Ptolemy I.
9. Sukk. 51 b.
It is a strange, almost inexplicable fact, that the Egyptian Jews had actually built a schismatic
Temple. During the terrible Syrian persecutions in Palestine Onias, the son of the murdered
High-Priest Onias III., had sought safety in Egypt. Ptolemy Philometor not only received him
kindly, but gave a disused heathen temple in the town of Leontopolis for a Jewish sanctuary.
Here a new Aaronic priesthood ministered, their support being derived from the revenues of the
district around. The new Temple, however, resembled not that of Jerusalem either in outward
appearance nor in all its internal fittings.10 At first the Egyptian Jews were very proud of their
new sanctuary, and professed to see in it the fulfilment of the prediction,11 that five cities in the
land of Egypt should speak the language of Canaan, of which one was to be called Ir-ha-Heres,
which the LXX. (in their original form, or by some later emendation) altered into `the city of
righteousness.' This temple continued from about 160 b.c. to shortly after the destruction of
Jerusalem. It could scarcely be called a rival to that on Mount Moriah, since the Egyptian Jews
also owned that of Jerusalem as their central sanctuary, to which they made pilgrimages and
brought their contributions,12 while the priests at Leontopolis, before marrying, always consulted
the official archives in Jerusalem to ascertain the purity of descent of their intended wives.13 The
Palestinians designated it contemptuously as `the house of Chonyi' (Onias), and declared the
priesthood of Leontopolis incapable of serving in Jerusalem, although on a par with those who
were disqualified only by some bodily defect. Offerings brought in Leontopolis were considered
null, unless in the case of vows to which the name of this Temple had been expressly attached.14
This qualified condemnation seems, however, strangely mild, except on the supposition that the
statements we have quoted only date from a time when both Temples had long passed away.
10. Instead of the seven-branched golden candlestick there was a golden lamp, suspended from a chain
of the same metal.
11. Is xix. 18.
12. Philo, ii. 646, ed. Mangey.
13. Jos. Ag. Ap. i. 7.
14. Men. xiii. 10, and the Gemara, 109 a and b.
Nor were such feelings unreasonable. The Egyptian Jews had spread on all sides - southward to
Abyssinia and Ethiopia, and westward to, and beyond, the province of Cyrene. In the city of
that name they formed one of the four classes into which its inhabitants were divided.15 A Jewish
inscription at Berenice, apparently dating from the year 13 b.c., shows that the Cyrenian Jews
formed a distinct community under nine `rulers' of their own, who no doubt attended to the
communal affairs - not always an easy matter, since the Cyrenian Jews were noted, if not for
turbulence, yet for strong anti-Roman feeling, which more than once was cruelly quenched in
blood.16 Other inscriptions prove,17 that in other places of their dispersion also the Jews had