Onias III חוניו השלישי
the last high priest before the office was put up for sale
Onias III was high priest until 175 BCE, when he had to yield the place to his brother Jason. II Maccabees describes him as a pious man who stood against the Hellenization of Judea.
By its account, when Menelaus removed the vessels of the Temple, Onias accused him to his face; after this he fled to Daphne near Antioch and was secretly killed there by the contrivance of Menelaus with the governor Andronicus. He was mourned, the book says, by Jews and Greeks alike, and the king put Andronicus to death.
Josephus tells it otherwise: in his account Onias is not killed but departs after 167 BCE for Egypt. The discrepancy is old and unresolved, and we do not resolve it—both readings are named here.
On the timeline
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Sources
Documents of the period
- II Maccabees 3–5 — a Hellenistic work, not received into the Jewish canon; the principal account of Onias III, Jason and Menelaus
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, XII — the account of the high priests and the house of Tobiah; written two centuries after the events and for a Roman reader
Basis: documents and evidence.