Heliopolis of Egypt

The earliest non – Jewish source that mentions Moses and the Exodus is the writings of an Egyptian priest and historian named Manetho , who lived c. 320 BC . Manetho seems to have acutely aware of the legends circulating Egypt during his own day concerning a great prophet and leader known to the Jews of Alexandria as Moses.

Manetho tells us …….

It was then that the 80.000 “impure people” elected for themselves a leader” out of the priests of Heliopolis ” named Osarsiph , who afterwards took the name Moses . He instituted many new laws and customs quite opposite to those of Egypt and told his people that they should not “worship the Egyptian gods “. They were also not to abstain from killing those animals sacred to these gods and were to join themselves to nobody but to those that were of this confederacy”.

Manetho records that Osarsiph – Moses then told the “impure people “to stop working in the quarries and instead build walls around their city and make ready for a war against the king.

Manrtho tells us that Osarsiph – Moses belonged to an elite religious group known as the as the priests of Heliopolis. Who exactly were these priests of Heliopolis…?

A Greek grammarian of the first century AD named Apion of Alexandria made some quite remarkable statement about the life of Moses, the biblical Lawgiver. In a quotation taken from his now lost work Aegyptiaca, fortunately preserved by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, tells us:

I have heard of the ancient men of Egypt, that Moses was of Heliopolis, and that he thought himself obliged to follow the customs of his forefathers, and offered his prayers in the open air, toward the city walls: but that he reduced them all to be directed toward the sun – rising, which was agreeable to the situation in Heliopolis…

Apion was writing 1300 year after the Exodus out of Egypt, and yet it is clear that even in his own age the memory of Israel’s great religious reformer was still strong in the minds of the Egyptian people. Like Manetho before him , Apion goes on to strata that this wise man ” of Heliopolis ” united the ” lepers ” and ” impure people “against the might of Egypt before being out of the country by the ruling Pharaoh .

Heliopolis was a great centre of learning, a “university “known throughout the ancient world. Greek writers and travelers would come to spend time with its learned priests, who were apparently versed in the ancient wisdom.

The ancient heritage and wisdom of the Heliopolis priesthood were renowned. Herodotus, the famous Greek historian of the fifth century BC, visited Heliopolis and subsequently recorded that in his opinion its priests had ” the reputation of being the best skilled in history of all the Egyptians “.

Not only were they versed in geometry, medicine, mythology and philosophy, but they were also looked on as “masters of astronomy “.

Herodotus alludes to this in his History by stating that the priests of Heliopolis , along with those of Memphis and Thebes , ” were the first to discover the solar year , and to portion out its course into 12 parts- knowledge , he said they obtained ” from the stars ” .The priests also Informed him that the Egyptians were the first to use the ” names of the 12 gods , which the Greeks adopted from them ” and the first to erect ” altars , images and temples to the gods ” and that ” in most cases they proved to me that what they said was true ” .

The age-old libraries of Heliopolis contained many ancient books hoary with age even in Khasekhemre – Neferhoteps days. It was from Manetho, who was himself a priest there. Undoubtedly obtained much of the material that appear sunsequently in both his king-lists and his how lost three volume history of Egypt

Other writers who are known to have consulted the Libraries at Heliopolis include Pythagoras, Thales,Democritus and Eudoxus . Plato, the noted Greek philosopher and author of various literature works of great importance , wrote that the priests of Egypt had observed the stars ” for 10.000years or so to speak , for an infinite time ” .

God were viewed by the priests of Heliopolis as the true founders of its first physical temple , known as the Mansion of the Princes or the Mansion of the Nobles .

The priesthood would seem to have been convinced that the Divine Souls had ruled from Heliopolis and its environs during a golden age prior to the coming of the mortal kings…..

To these astronomers-priests of great wisdom and understanding, such concepts were not simply myths; they were a tangible reality conveyed in poetic terms within their cosmological doctrine. To them Heliopolis really was the home of the gods, who really had build the first temples both here and at nearby Giza.

Our knowledge of the Giza plateau antiquity, along with its astronomical alignments and high technology, points clearly towards the fact that the astronomer- priests of Heliopolis were somehow preserving the memory of the Sphinx – building Elder culture, who reigned supreme in Egypt during the First Time, the age of the lion, which had passed many thousands of years before the ascension of the first Pharaoh..

It seems plausible that if anyone inherited the advanced technology of the Elder gods, then it was the priesthood of Re at Heliopolis.

~ by vittidk on April 26, 2009.