Heliodorus was a minister of Seleucus IV Philopator ca. [187 BC - 175 BC] and a Greek ambassador of Antialcidas ca. [130 BC - 95 BC], the Indo-Greek king of Taxila, who erected Heliodorus pillar while at the court of king Bhagabhadra. According to some sources he is said to have assassinated Seleucus.
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Biblical background
Around 178 BCE Seleucus sent Heliodorus to Jerusalem to collect money to pay the Romans. This is mentioned in Daniel 11:20, "He will send out a tax collector to maintain the royal splendor". 2 Maccabees 3:21-28 reports that Heliodorus entered the Temple in Jerusalem in order to take its treasure, but was turned back by three forms of God. On his return, he killed the king and seized the throne for himself; but it was not long before Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the brother of the late king, with the help of the Pergamon monarch, Eumenes II, recovered it. [1] There is a well-known Greek inscription on tablets at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem called "the Heliodorus inscription" which announces the appointment of Heliodorus as the viceroy of Seleucus in charge of all the temples in the kingdom.
2 Maccabees 3:34-36records that Heliodorus received "orders from God" to "proclaim to all men the majesty of God's power" .
Since you have been scourged by God, proclaim to all men the majesty of God's power - 2 Maccabees 3:34
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Later years
After the establishment of Antiochus on the throne of Seleucus, Heliodorus is famed as a Greek ambassador of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas to the court of the Sunga king Bhagabhadra who erected the famous votive Heliodorus pillar in central India in Vidisha near modern Besnagar.
The pillar was surmounted by a sculpture of the eagle Garuda and was apparently dedicated by Heliodorus to Vasudeva, called god of gods, in front of the temple of Vasudeva. He, along with Agathocles of the same period, would be the earliest converts to the monotheistic Vaishnava tradition of Hinduism.
Coins minted during the time period of Antialcidas depict Dios (Zeus) with lotus-tipped sceptre, in front of an elephant with a bell (symbol of Taxila), surmouted by Nike holding a wreath, crowning the elephant. The coins carry the inscription BASILEOS NIKEPHOROU ANTIALKIDOU. These coins were also minted at the Pushkalavati mint and carry the same inscription in Kharoṣṭhī script [2]
Zeus' Eagle messenger and companion Aetos Dios[3], was considered also Zeus himself.
"When you [Zeus] were an eagle, when you picked up the boy [Ganymedes] on the slopes of Teukrian Ida with greedy gentle claw, and brought him to heaven." - Nonnus, Dionysiaca 10. 308 ff
The Aetos Dios was also considered a "messenger of God (Zeus)" and adopted by the Greek and Roman military:
"he put a golden eagle on his war standards and dedicated it as a protection for his valour" - Anacreon, Fragment 505d (from Fulgentius, Mythologies) (trans. Campbell, Vol. Greek Lyric II) (Greek lyric C6th B.C.)
Inscriptions
There is a Greek-language inscription in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, dated to 178 BCE in which Seleucus appoints Heliodorus as his viceroy in charge of the Temples in Judaea.
There is also a Sanskrit inscription in the ancient Brahmi script on the Heliodorus pillar in India:
"This Garuda-column of Vasudeva (Visnu), the god of gods, was erected here by Heliodorus, a worshiper of Visnu, the son of Dion, and an inhabitant of Taxila, who came as Greek ambassador from the Great King Antialkidas (Antialcidas) to King Kasiputra Bhagabhadra, the savior, then reigning prosperously in the fourteenth year of his kingship."
(Transliteration and translation of this ancient Brahmi inscription was published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London: JRAS, Pub., 1909, pp. 1053-54.)
Professor Kunja Govinda Goswami of Calcutta University concludes that Heliodorus "was well acquainted with the texts dealing with the Bhagavata religion."[4]
Based on this evidence it has been suggested that Heliodorus is the earliest Westerner on record to convert to monotheistic Vaishnavism. But some scholars, most notably A. L. Basham[5] and Thomas Hopkins, are of the opinion that Heliodorus was not the only Greek to convert to Bhagavata Krishnaism. Hopkins, chairman of the department of religious studies at Franklin and Marshall College, has said, "Heliodorus was presumably not the only foreigner who was converted to Vaishnava devotional practices-although he might have been the only one to erect a column, at least one that is still extant. Certainly there must have been many others."[6]
The 2nd book of Maccabees includes a description of the form of God that is strikingly similar to the depictions of Krishna and Balarama in Vaisnavism. In Vaisnavism, Krishna and Balaram are characterized as two youthful, resplendently dressed and very handsome young men. This depiction matches the description of God as He appeared to Heliodorus in the temple of Jerusalem according to the record of 2nd Maccabees.
Then two other young men, remarkably strong, strikingly beautiful, and splendidly attired, appeared before him. Standing on each side of him, they flogged him unceasingly until they had given him innumerable blows. -- 2 Maccabees 3:26
Vāsudeva is also a popular name for Krishna and Balarama.
Heliodorus in the Arts
During the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the episode of the The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple was taken in Roman Catholic apologetics as a symbol of the inviolability of Church property.[7] For some time, it became a popular subject in works of artists, such as:
- Raphael (1512): Vatican, Palazzi Vaticani
- Wouter Crabeth (1566): Gouda (Holland), Sint Janskerk
- Bertholet Flémal (1662), Brussels (Belgium), Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts
- Giuseppe Tortelli (1724): Brescia (Italy), Musei civici di Arte e Storia
- Francesco Solimena (1725): Naples (Italy), Gesù Nuovo
- Giambattista Tiepolo (1727): Verona (Italy), Museo di Castelvecchio
- Serafino Elmo (1734): Muro Leccese (Italy), Annunziata
- Franz Sigrist (1760): Zweifalten (Germany), Klostenkirche
- Eugène Delacroix (1861): Paris (France), Saint Sulpice
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Notes
- ^ George Rawlinson, Ancient History, 256
- ^ Antialcidas - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antialcidas
- ^ Aetos Dios [1]
- ^ K. G. Goswami, A Study of Vaisnavism (Calcutta: Oriental Book Agency, i956), p. 6
- ^ A. L. Basham, The Wonder That Was India, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Taplinger Pub. Co., 1967), p. 60.
- ^ Steven J. Gelberg, ed.. Hare Krsna Hare Krsna (New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1983), p. 117
- ^ Gabriele Boccaccini, Portraits of Middle Judaism in Scholarship and Arts (Turin: Zamorani, 1992).
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