This article considers the metaphor of the sanctuary in Diderot and d’Alembert's Encyclopédie and proposes two readings. One shows how the Encyclopédie is concerned with issues of censorship and wishes to provide a safe refuge for heterodox knowledge. The second reading considers the metaphor of the sanctuary with regard to the accessibility of the Encyclopédie. The essay demonstrates how the Encyclopédie wavers between proclamations of the work's relative inaccessibility and aspirations to make knowledge available for all. Ultimately, the metaphor of the sanctuary lays bare some of the fundamental tensions in the Encyclopédie project and in the Enlightenment more generally.