HELIODORUS: The name of several men recorded in the history of the Eastern Church: (1) A minister of the Syrian King Seleucus IV. Philopator (187;-175 B.c.), sent by him to Jerusalem to demand the surrender of the Temple treasures, and, according to the account in II Macc. iii, 7-40 (also IV Mace. iv.), struck down by a horseman appearing from heaven, but healed by the intercession of the high priest Onias. Josephus says nothing of the occurrence; but Fritzsehe (Schenkel's Bibellexikon, iii. 7) thinks there is a historic basis for the narrative, and the courtier Heliodorus mentioned by Appian (Hist. Syriaca, xlv.), who poisoned the king in order to seize the throne for himself, has been identified with the Heliodorus of Maccabees. (2) A bishop of Laodicea mentioned by Dionysius of Alexandria in his letter to Stephen of Rome (254-257). (3) A bishop of Trieca in Thessaly mentioned by Socrates (Hist. eccl., v. 22) as the author of the rule enforced there that bishops should abstain from commerce with their wives, and identified by him with the author of an erotic romance still extant, but probably written later. (4) Some have also identified the Thessalonian bishop with the friend of Jerome, a native of Dalmatia mentioned with reverence in several of Jerome's oldest letters (iii.-vii.), and in another, twenty years later, to Nepotian, the nephew of Heliodorus, who had in the mean time been ordained at Aquileis and had become bishop of Altino, though still keeping up his monastic manner of life.

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Once more, probably in 396, Jerome writes to him on Nepotfan's death (Epist. Ix.); and he dedicates to him his version. of the Proverbs. (b) A presbyter mentioned by Rufinus (Appl., xxx.) as one of (;he Greek-speaking collaborators of Hilary on his commentaries. (6) A Christian who, is 289, wrote some iambic verses to Theodosius I. (7) A priest who, according to Gennadius (vi.), lived about the middle of the fourth century, and wrote against the Manicheans ' a work (now lost), De naturis rerum ex4rdialium, in which he defended the doctrine that God is the only world-principle. (8) Another priest mentioned by Gennadins (xxix.) as living in Antioch about the middle of the fifth century and the author of a lost treatise, De virginitate.

(Adolf Harnack.)

Bibliography: 1. G. A. Deisemann, BibdetudieN pp. 171-175, Marburg, 1895, Eng. transl., Edinburgh, 1901; DD, ii. 348; BB, 12005; JE, vi. 335; and the commentaries on II Macc.