[Sidenote:  Jos.  Jew.  War, vii, 3:3a] For the Jewish race is widely dispersed among the inhabitants of all the world; and especially was it intermingled with the population of Syria, because of the nearness of that country.  Above all, in Antioch, because of the size of the city, it had great numbers.  There the kings who followed Antiochus gave the Jews a place where they might live in the most undisturbed security; for although Antiochus, who was called Epiphanes, laid waste Jerusalem and plundered the temple, the kings who succeeded him restored all the gifts of brass that had been made to the Jews of Antioch, and dedicated them to their synagogue.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Jew.  War, vii, 3:3b] The succeeding kings also treated them in the same way, so that they became very numerous, and adorned their temple with ornaments and at great expense with those things which had been given them.  They also continued to attract a great many of the Greeks to their services, making them in a sense part of themselves.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Jew.  War, vii, 10:2d-3e] Now Onias, the son of Simon, one of the Jewish high priests, fled from Antiochus [Epiphanes] the king of Syria, when he made war with the Jews, and came to Alexandria.  And after Ptolemy [Philometor] received him very kindly on account of his hatred to Antiochus, Onias assured him that if he would comply with his proposal, he would bring all the Jews to his assistance.  Now when the king agreed to do whatever he was able, Onias desired him to give him permission to build a temple somewhere in Egypt and to worship God according to the customs of his own nation.  So Ptolemy complied with his proposals and gave them a place about twenty miles distant from Memphis.  That province was called the province of Heliopolis.  There Onias built a fortress and a temple like that at Jerusalem except that it resembled a tower.  He built it of large stones to the height of sixty cubits, but he made the structure of the altar an imitation of that in his own country.  In like manner also he adorned it with gifts, excepting that he did not make a candlestick but had a single lamp hammered out of a beaten piece of gold, which illuminated the place with its rays, and which he hung by a chain of gold.  The entire temple was surrounded by a wall of burnt brick, although it had a gateway of stone.  The king also gave him a large territory for a revenue in money, that both the priests might have plentiful provision for themselves, and that God might have abundance of those things which were necessary for his worship.

[Sidenote:  Jos.  Ant.  XIII, 10:4] Now in the days of John Hyrcanus, not only did the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea enjoy prosperity but also those who were at Alexandria in Egypt and Cyprus.  For Cleopatra the queen was at variance with her son Ptolemy, who is called Lathyrus, and appointed as her generals Chelcias and Ananias, the son of that Onias who built the temple in the province of Heliopolis similar to that of Jerusalem.  Cleopatra intrusted these men with her army and did nothing without their advice.  Strabo of Cappadocia also attests that only those who were called Onias’s party, being Jews, continued faithful to Cleopatra because their countrymen, Chelcias and Ananias, were in highest favor with the queen.