Heliodorus

HELIODORUS [ISBE]

HELIODORUS - he-li-o-do'-rus (Heliodoros): Treasurer of the Syrian king Seleucus IV, Philopator (187-175 BC), the immediate predecessor of Antiochus Epiphanes who carried out to its utmost extremity the Hellenizing policy begun by Seleucus and the "sons of Tobias." Greatly in want of money to pay the tribute due to the Romans as one of the results of the victory of Scipio over Antiochus the Great at Magnesia (190 BC), Seleucus learned from Apollonius, governor of Coele-Syria (Pal) and Phoenicia, of the wealth which was reported to be stored up in the Temple at Jerusalem and commissioned Heliodorus. (2 Macc 3) to plunder the temple and to bring its contents to him. On the wealth collected in the Temple at this time, Josephus (Ant., IV, vii, 2) may be consulted. The Temple seems to have served the purposes of a bank in which the private deposits of widows and orphans were kept for greater security, and in 2 Macc 3:15-21 is narrated the panic at Jerusalem which took place when Heliodorus came with an armed guard to seize the contents of the Temple (see Stanley, Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church, III, 287). In spite of the protest of Onias, the high priest, Heliodorus. was proceeding to carry out his commission when, "through the Lord of Spirits and the Prince of all power," a great apparition appeared which caused him to fall down "compassed with great darkness" and speechless. When "quite at the last gasp" he was by the intercession of Onias restored to life and strength and "testified to all men the works of the great God which he had beheld with his eyes." The narrative given in 2 Macc 3 is not mentioned by any other historian, though 4 Macc refers to the plundering of the Temple and assigns the deed to Apollonius. Raffaelle used the incident in depicting, on the walls of the Vatican, the triumph of Pope Julius II over the enemies of the Pontificate.

J. Hutchison