Search this Site

Shall we be allowed to come near [Caligula] and open our mouths in defense of the synagogues to the destroyer of the all-holy place? For clearly to houses less conspicuous and held in lower esteem no regard would be paid by one who insults that most notable and illustrious shrine whose beams like the sun’s reach every whither, beheld with awe both by east and west (Philo, Legat. 191).

Here Philo despairs to make his complaint to Caligula about attacks against the Egyptian synagogues because he has learned of the emperor's plans to place a statue of Zeus inside the Jerusalem Temple. The Jewish philosopher goes on to compare the synagogues with the Jerusalem Temple, characterizing the former as "less conspicuous and held in lower esteem" than the central shrine. The passage reveals Philo's belief that the fate of the synagogues was closely intertwined with that of the Temple.