Onias of Heliopolis (Ὁνιας, Honias). Often referred to as Onias IV. Son of Onias the High Priest of 2 and 4 Maccabees (Onias III). After his father was murdered, Onias fled to Egypt and built a new temple in the city of Heliopolis.

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus offers two traditions of an “Onias” fleeing to Egypt. The first, in Jewish Wars, claims that it was Onias III who fled to Egypt (Josephus, Jewish War 1.33, 7.423). In Antiquities, however, Josephus explains that it was Onias IV who fled to Egypt and built a temple there (Josephus, Antiquities 12.387–88). This second account would fit with what is reported in 2 Maccabees 4:30–35 concerning the murder of Onias III. In addition, Tcherikover has argued that the accounts in Antiquities are both clearer and written later—indicating that Josephus might have been correcting his earlier account in Jewish Wars (Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews, 277–80). This Heliopolis temple, according to Josephus, was built to rival the one in Jerusalem out of Onias’ contempt for the Jews—the people from whom he was exiled (Josephus, Jewish War 7.431).