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ONIAS.—Four high priests bore this name. Onias I. was son of Jaddua and father of Simon the Just (Sir_50:1, where, however, the Heb. reads John in place of Onias). In his time a letter was said to have come from the Spartan king Areus I. claiming kinship and suggesting alliance (1Ma_12:7 f. [RV [Note: Revised Version.] . Arius]; cf. Jos. [Note: Josephus.] Ant. XII. iv. 10).—Onias II. was son of Simon the Just. His reluctance to pay the tribute of 20 talents to Egypt would have led to great trouble if his shrewd and self-seeking nephew Joseph had not conciliated Ptolemy (Ant. XII. vi. 1).—Onias III. was son of Simon II., and entered on his office about b.c. 198. According to 2Ma_3:1 to 2Ma_4:38, he ruled the city well. A dispute arose between him and a man named Simon. The latter persuaded king Scleucus to send Heliodorus (4Ma_4:1-14 substitutes Apollonius) to seize the Temple treasury. Heliodorus being supernaturally repulsed, Onias went to Antioch to defend himself. He was deposed from his office. In b.c. 175 he was murdered (Dan_9:26). The esteem in which his memory was held appears from 2Ma_15:12-14.—His son Onias IV. fled to Egypt and was welcomed by Ptolemy Philometor, who gave him a disused temple in Leontopolis, which he re-built after the model of the one in Jerusalem, to serve as a centre of unity for the Hellenistic Jews (Ant. XIII. iii. 1, 3, BJ I. i. 1, VII. x. 2).
J. Taylor.