LEONTOPOLI. – The locality called L. by Flavius Josephus corresponds to present-day Tell el-Jehādijjeh, approximately 30 km from Cairo and 20 from ancient Heliopolis (v.), in a north-easterly direction. Excavations by Naville and Flinders Petrie document the existence there of a Jewish colony predating Christianity; a Jewish temple also existed there.
Flavius Josephus relates its origins somewhat differently in Bell. Ind. (I, 1, 1; VII, 10, 2–3) and in Antiq. Ind. (XIII, 3, 1–3); according to the latter work, the temple was founded by Onia, son of Onia III, the high priest killed at Daphne (II Mach. 4, 33), with the permission of Ptolemy VI Philometor and Cleopatra, on the ruins of a temple of the goddess Bast. On the other hand, the Jewish colony of L. also had a military character,
as attested both by the excavations and by the fact that it initially opposed with arms Antipater, who was bringing aid to Caesar. It was Palestinian in character, unlike the numerous Jewish colonies of the Hellenistic type. Evidently in Jerusalem the worship of the temple of L. was considered illegal; its sacrifices were invalid, and its priests could not officiate in the Temple of Jerusalem, but, strangely, vows made expressly for it retained their validity (Māndīrīh, XIII, 10). In reality, it must have been of little importance; the overwhelming majority of the Hellenized Jews of Egypt adhered to the Jerusalem Temple, and the temple of L. survived in a kind of toleration. Lupus, governor of Alexandria, received orders from Vespasian to destroy it, but contented himself with closing it; Paul, his successor, destroyed it completely in A.D. 73 (Fl. Josephus, Bell. Ind., VII, 10, 4).