Roman Emperor Caligula Orders Statue of Himself to Be Placed in Temple

38 CE

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In 38 CE, the Roman Emperor Caligula (reign:37-41 CE) ordered statues of himself to be placed in the Temple in Jerusalem and also in all the synagogues in Egypt. ‍

Josephus, Antiquities, 18.8.2:

Hereupon Caius (Caligula)... sent Petronius to be president of Syria… and gave him order to make an invasion into Judea, with a great body of troops: and if they would admit of his statue willingly, to erect it in the temple of God: but if they were obstinate, to conquer them by war.

In response, the Jews of both communities rose up in revolt. Caligula was assassinated by Claudius before a statue could be erected in the Temple. In Alexandria, the Roman Prefect Flaccus unleashed an enraged mob on the Jews, leading to a pogrom in which all the Jews of Alexandria were purged from their homes.

Jewish Philosopher Philo of Alexandria wrote about the ordeal:

“whole families, husbands with their wives, infant children with their parents, were burnt in the heart of the city … They inflicted worse outrages on the bodies, dragging them through almost every lane of the city until the corpses … were wasted to nothing.”

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Bust of Roman Emperor Caligula

Credit: Wikipedia_Richard Mortel from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, CC BY 2.0

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Overview

In 38 CE, the Roman Emperor Caligula (reign: 37-41 CE) ordered statues of himself to be placed in the Temple in Jerusalem as well as in the synagogues in Egypt. In response, the Jews of both communities rose up in revolt. In Alexandria, the Roman Prefect Flaccus unleashed an enraged mob on the Jews, leading to a pogrom in which all the Jews of Alexandria were purged from their homes. Caligula was assassinated by Claudius before a statue could be erected in the Temple.

In Jerusalem, Josephus, Antiquities, 18.8.2:

Hereupon Caius (Caligula)... sent Petronius to be president of Syria… and gave him order to make an invasion into Judea, with a great body of troops: and if they would admit of his statue willingly, to erect it in the temple of God: but if they were obstinate, to conquer them by war.

‍

In Egypt, Philo of Alexandria, Against Flaccus:

“whole families, husbands with their wives, infant children with their parents, were burnt in the heart of the city … They inflicted worse outrages on the bodies, dragging them through almost every lane of the city until the corpses … were wasted to nothing.”