Onias III

“ I thought of our meeting at the city gates, and alarmed at the chance of his discovering my family, anxiously asked whether Onias had obtained any late knowledge of his rival.
A Confessor’s Fear
“Of that I know but little,” said he; “yet quick as his revenge may be, unless my honest employer manages with more temper than usual, he will rue the hour when he set foot on the track of the prince of Naphtali. If ever man possessed the mastery of the spirits that our wizards pretend to raise, the prince is that man. I myself have hunted him for years, yet he always baffled me. ”

“ It is not merely the enemy, but also the “prince of the covenant,” whom he destroys. בּרית נגיד is analogous to בּרית בּעלי, Gen 14:13, and בּרית אנשׁי, Oba 1:7, cf. Mal 2:14, and, as the absence of the article shows, is to be taken in a general sense. The interpretation of בּרית נגיד of the high priest Onias III, who at the commencement of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes was driven from his office by his brother, and afterwards, at the instigation of Menelaus, was murdered by the Syrian governor Andronicus at Daphne near Antioch, 2 Macc. 4:1ff., 33ff. (Rosenmüller, Hitzig, etc.) ”

“ He had forgotten her. He had asked her to come again, not because he wanted her, but because he pitied her. She must nerve herself to the point of engaging the interest of a stranger. So she called for a glass of wine.
In the meantime, Onias had passed up the café with his companion; finding no vacant chairs at the far end, they retraced their steps and sat down at a table only a few yards from Artemis.
A waiter brought her wine and, as she glanced up at him, she saw that Onias’ eyes were upon her. She heard his voice.
“Ah, there’s Lucette!” he exclaimed. ”

“ Now as to Onias, the son of the high priest, who, as we before informed you, was left a child when his father died, when he saw that the king had slain his uncle Menelaus, and given the high priesthood to Alcimus, who was not of the high priest stock, but was induced by Lysias to translate that dignity from his family to another house, he fled to Ptolemy, king of Egypt; and when he found he was in great esteem with him, and with his wife Cleopatra, he desired and obtained a place in the Nomus of Heliopolis, wherein he built a temple like to that at Jerusalem ”

“ The cruel war had laid Jerusalem desolate, and terrible was the suffering of the people.
Rabbi Onias, mounted on a camel, was sorrowfully making his way toward the unhappy city. He had traveled many days and was weary from lack of sleep and faint with hunger, yet he would not touch the basket of dates he had with him, nor would he drink from the water in a leather bottle attached to the saddle. ”

“ Give thanks to Onias the priest: because for his sake the Lord hath granted thee life.
34 And thou having been scourged by God, declare unto all men the great works and the power of God. And having spoken thus, they appeared no more.
35 So Heliodorus after he had offered a sacrifice to God, and made great vows to him, that had granted him life, and given thanks to Onias, taking his troops with him, returned to the king. ”

“ She hurried off to the café with a light heart. The envelope with her weekly seventy-five drachmas was waiting for her. As she was leaving, she met Onias at the entrance.
“Hello, Lucette!” he said, smiling and shaking hands; “how are you?”
“Oh, Onias—Jason is getting better! The doctor came this morning and said he wouldn’t die. If great care is taken of him, he will live. I am so happy that I can hardly contain myself—and if it had not been for your money....” ”

“ When at last a treaty of peace was concluded (in 240) , Cœlesyria and Judæa remained with Egypt, but the fourth king of the Seleucidæ, Antiochus Callinicos, instigated these provinces to revolt, and seems to have won over Onias II. to side with him. Onias refused to pay the annual tax of twenty talents to the Ptolemies. Although the sum was small, the payment was looked upon as a mark of submission, and its refusal gave great offence at the Egyptian court. Ptolemy II., after vainly demanding the tribute money, threatened to divide the province amongst various foreign colonists. ”

“ The king also gave him a large country for a revenue in money, that both the priests might have a plentiful provision made for them, and that God might have great abundance of what things were necessary for his worship. Yet did not Onias do this out of a sober disposition, but he had a mind to contend with the Jews at Jerusalem, and could not forget the indignation he had for being banished thence. Accordingly, he thought that by building this temple he should draw away a great number from them to himself. ”

“ Onias was elevated with this prediction, and wrote the following epistle to Ptolemy and Cleopatra: "Having done many and great things for you in the affairs of the war, by the assistance of God, and that in Celesyria and Phoenicia, I came at length with the Jews to Leontopolis, and to other places of your nation, where I found that the greatest part of your people had temples in an improper manner, and that on this account they bare ill-will one against another, which happens to the Egyptians by reason of the multitude of their temples, and the difference of opinions about Divine worship. ”

“ The greed of Onias was the first scene in the drama which is unfolded in the Books of the Maccabees.
Euergetês was the last of the “good” Ptolemies. His son and successor, Ptolemy iv., was the incarnation of weakness, cruelty and vice. He began his reign with the murder of his mother and only brother, taking the title of Philopator—“Lover of his Father”—by way of compensation. ”

“ The innermost workings of the heart are not revealed in history. To secure the approval of the Judæans, Onias referred to a prophecy of Isaiah xix. 19, "On that day there will be an altar to the Lord in Egypt." Philometor, to whom he expressed his wish, out of gratitude for his military services, presented him with a tract of land in the region of Heliopolis, four and a-half geographical miles north-east of Memphis, in the land of Goshen, where the descendants of Jacob had once lived until the exodus from Egypt. ”

“ After this Antiochus made a friendship and league with Ptolemy, and gave him his daughter Cleopatra to wife, and yielded up to him Celesyria, and Samaria, and Judea, and Phoenicia, by way of dowry. And upon the division of the taxes between the two kings, all the principal men framed the taxes of their several countries, and collecting the sum that was settled for them, paid the same to the [two] kings. Now at this time the Samaritans were in a flourishing condition, and much distressed the Jews, cutting off parts of their land, and carrying off slaves. This happened when Onias was high priest ”

“ If thou hast any enemy, or traitor to thy king dom, send him thither, and thou shalt receive him again scourged, if so be he escape: for there is undoubtedly in that place a certain power of God.
3:39. For he that hath his dwelling in the heavens, is the visitor and protector of that place, and he striketh and destroyeth them that come to do evil to it.
3:40. And the things concerning Heliodorus, and the keeping of the treasury, fell out in this manner.
2 Machabees Chapter 4
Onias has recourse to the king. The ambition and wickedness of Jason and Menelaus. Onias is treacherously murdered. ”

“ And Concerning The Death Of Judas.
At the same time that Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, had a quarrel with the sixth Ptolemy about his right to the whole country of Syria, a great sedition fell among the men of power in Judea, and they had a contention about obtaining the government; while each of those that were of dignity could not endure to be subject to their equals. However, Onias, one of the high priests, got the better, and cast the sons of Tobias out of the city; who fled to Antiochus, and besought him to make use of them for his leaders, and to make an expedition into Judea. ”

“ The High Priest, perhaps Onias I., Jaddua's son and Simon's father, went forward, like the kings and princes of the land, with a suite of the elders, to do homage and swear allegiance to the conqueror. Alexander was a noble, generous conqueror, who punished cruelly only resistance to his will, but in no way interfered with the peculiar development, the customs, or religious rites of any nation under his sway. He did not force the Grecian faith on any nation, and the favour which he granted to other nations he certainly did not deny to the Judæans. ”

“ Here then we will begin the narration: let this be enough by way of a preface: for it is a foolish thing to make a long prologue, and to be short in the story itself.
2 Machabees Chapter 3
Heliodorus is sent by king Seleucus to take away the treasures deposited in the temple. He is struck by God, and healed by the prayers of the high priest.
3:1. Therefore, when the holy city was inhabited with all peace, and the laws as yet were very well kept, because of the godliness of Onias, the high priest and the hatred his soul had of evil,
3:2. ”

“ There are many “Red Mounds” in Egypt, and the name Kom el-Ahmar or “Red Mound” is accordingly very plentiful in a modern map of the country. Wherever kiln-baked bricks have been used in the construction of a building, or where the wall or houses of a city have been burnt, the mound of ruins to which they give rise is of a reddish colour. Such a mound must have existed in the neighbourhood of Heliopolis in the days of Herodotos. There is still a Kom el-Ahmar close to Tel el-Yehudîyeh, where the Jewish temple of Onias was built. ”

“ There was feasting in the halls of Oineus, the chieftain of Kalydon, in the Ætolian land, and all prayed for wealth and glory for the chief, and for his wife, Althaia, and for the child who had on that day been born to them. And Oineus besought the King of gods and men with rich offerings, that his son, Meleagros, might win a name greater than his own, that he might grow up stout of heart and strong of arm, and that in time to come men might say, "Meleagros wrought mighty works and did good deeds to the people of the land." ”

“ And everywhere there was faintness of heart and grief of spirit, for the enemy had wasted their fields and slain the bravest of the men, and little store remained to them of food. Day by day Oineus besought his son, and the great men of the city fell at the knees of Meleagros and prayed him to come out to their help, but he would not hearken. Still he tarried in his chamber with his wife, Kleopatra, by his side, and heeded not the hunger and the wailings of the people. Fiercer and fiercer waxed the roar of war ”

“ Then Œnone knelt by the side of Paris, and saw the wound which the arrow of Philoctetes had made; but soon she knew that neither gods nor men could stay the poison with which Herakles had steeped his mighty weapons. There she knelt, but Paris spoke not more. The coldness of death passed over him as Œnone looked down upon his face and thought of the days when they lived and loved amid the dells of Ida.
Long time she knelt by his side, until the stars looked forth in the sky. Then Œnone said, "O Eris, well hast thou worked thy will, and well hath Aphrodite done thy bidding. ”

“ For Oenomaus was king of Pisa, a town close to Olympia; and having been warned by an oracle that he would die by the hand of the man who married his daughter Hippodamia, he resolved to keep her a maid. So when any one came a-wooing her, the king made the suitor drive away in a chariot with Hippodamia, while he himself pursued the pair in another car drawn by fleet horses, and, overtaking the unlucky wight, slew him. In this way he killed twelve suitors and nailed their heads to his house, the ruins of which were shewn at Olympia down to the second century of our era. ”

“ Perceiving the Aged One to be a good singer, he gave him a place of honour by the hearth and said to him:
"Old Man, when we have satisfied our hunger, thou shalt sing to us all thou knowest of Achilles and Ulysses. Endeavour to charm the ears of Oineus, my guest, for he is a hero full of wisdom."
And Oineus, who had long wandered over the sea, asked the minstrel whether he knew "The Voyages of Ulysses." But the return of the heroes who had fought at Troy was still wrapped in mystery, and no one knew what Ulysses had suffered in his wanderings over the pathless sea. ”

“ As god of the great deep, he was often figured as a man with the tail of a fish, and in this form was known to the Greeks under the name of Oannes or 'Ea the fish.' Sometimes the skin of a fish was suspended behind his back. Oannes, it was said, had in early days ascended out of the Persian Gulf, and taught the first inhabitants of Babylonia letters, science, and art, besides writing a history of the origin of mankind and their different ways of life. ”

“ When Dionysius saw the Ionians assembled at Ladê, willing, eager, full of talk and mutual encouragement, but untrained and taking no thought of discipline, or nautical practice, or coöperation in the hour of battle,—he saw the risk which they ran for want of these precautions, and strenuously remonstrated with them: “Our fate hangs on the razor’s edge, men of Ionia: either to be freemen or slaves,—and slaves too, caught after running away. Set yourself at once to work and duty,—you will then have trouble indeed at first, with certain victory and freedom afterwards. ”