Egypt, and rose into high favour with the king and Cleopatra, his queen. The high-priesthood of the temple of Jerusalem, which belonged of right to his family, having passed from it to the family of the Maccabees, by the nomination of Jonathan to this office, (B. C. 153) Onias used his influence with the court to procure the establishment of a temple and ritual in Egypt, which should entirely detach the Jews who lived there from their connection with the temple at Jerusalem. The king readily complied with the request, hoping thus to assimilate the Jews more completely with his subjects, and to retain at home the gifts and tributes which they sent to the temple at Jerusalem. It was a bold innovation on the Jewish law, which had prescribed that sacrifices should be offered at one place only, for which purpose Jerusalem had long been appropriated. But on the other hand it might be urged that this law was given only in the contemplation of the Israelites living altogether in their own land, and that the case of a large number of Jews dwelling in a foreign country, not having been in the view of the lawgiver, was to be provided for when it arose. To reconcile the Egyptian Jews to a second temple, Onias is said to have alleged a passage in Isaiah, (xix. 18, 19.) of which we shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The place which he chose for the purpose was a ruined temple of Bubastis, at Leontopolis, in the Heliopolitan nome, one hundred and eighty stadia from Memphis; and the king having granted it to him, he repaired it, built a city resembling Jerusalem in miniature, (Jos. Bel. Jud. i. 1.) and erected an altar in imitation of that in the temple, constituted himself high-priest, and appointed priests and Levites from among the Jewish settlers. The king granted a tract of land around the temple for the maintenance of the worship, and it remained in existence till destroyed by Vespasian. (Jos. Ant. xiii. 3. xx. 9. Bell. Jud. vii. 11.) The chief seat of the Jews in Egypt, after Alexandria, appears to have been the district in which this temple stood, and which was called, from the founder, Ὀνίου Χώρα. (Jos. Ant. xiv. 8.) Onias was also a great warrior, and jointly with another Jew, Dositheus, was intrusted by Ptolemy with the management of all his civil and military affairs. When, after the death of Philometor, a dispute arose between Cleopatra and Ptolemy Physcon about the succession, Onias raised an army of Jews, and came to her assistance. During the reign of this voluptuous and cruel prince, (145-117 B. C.) the Jews in Egypt probably suffered in common with the other inhabitants of Alexandria, who were more than once in open rebellion against him; but nothing particular is related respecting them, if we except the circumstance mentioned in the preceding note, which the Latin translation of Josephus contra Apionem refers to the reign of Ptolemy Physcon. His queen Cleopatra associated