es of the temple to Alexandria,
by Ptolemy II (B.C. 286), its downfall was well assured. When Strabo
visited it (B.C. 24) the greater part of it was in ruins.... Heliopolis
had a large population of Jews and it will be remembered that Joseph
married the daughter of a priest of On (Annu).... Macrobius says that the
Heliopolis of Syria or Baalbek, was founded by a body of priests who left
the ancient city of Heliopolis of Egypt" (The Nile, p. 132).

Indirectly we learn the tenor of the doctrines and ideas held by the sages
of Heliopolis at one period by the remarkable attempt to reform the
religion of Egypt, carried out by their pupil, Amenhotep IV (about B.C.
1450). Evidently realizing, with his masters, the extent to which the
ancient fundamental religion had become obscured and debased by the
multiplication of images of the deity, and the institution of rival cults,
which were shrouded in mystery and darkness, the young prince boldly made
war against the priesthood of Amen-Ra and the cult of a "hidden god."

Destroying the monstrous images which had originally been rebus figures
only, and represented the supreme deity in partly human and animal form,
he instituted the disk or circle as the simple and purer form under which
the divinity was to be revered.(118) Animated by the clear realization to
what an extent the original communal or republican scheme of organization
was being departed from by the artificial creation of a "divine" race of
kings who claimed to be gods, he caused himself and his queen to be
portrayed as simple mortals, and not as the deities Osiris and Isis.
Choosing the sun as his emblem, this champion of pure light and open truth
fought the Egyptian votaries of darkness. He erased the word Amen=hidden,
from public monuments, changed his own name from Amenhotep to
Chu-en-Aten=the brilliance or glory of the disk and founded a city also
named Chu-aten, which was to be the centre of a new and reformed state. It
seems evident that this was instituted on the familiar archaic plan and
that the so-called "heresy of Amenhotep" was but an attempt, backed by the
sages and philosophers of Heliopolis, to abolish the artificialities and
abuses which had come into existence and destroyed the order of the state
and the harmony of the primitive plan. It is well known that gradually
Amenhotep's successors were obliged to yield to the hostility of the
priesthood of the "hidden god" and that these, in turn, erased or defa