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Updated: May 4, 2025
The more precise fixing of new year's day was accomplished through observation of the time of the so-called heliacal rising of the dog-star, Sirius, which bore the Egyptian name Sothis. It chances that, as viewed from about the region of Heliopolis, the sun at the time of the summer solstice occupies an apparent position in the heavens close to the dog-star.
Now although I cannot but think that I have already demonstrated, and that abundantly more than was necessary, that our fathers were not originally Egyptians, nor were thence expelled, either on account of bodily diseases, or any other calamities of that sort; yet will I briefly take notice of what Apion adds upon that subject; for in his third book, which relates to the affairs of Egypt, he speaks thus: "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, towards the city walls; but that he reduced them all to be directed towards sun-rising, which was agreeable to the situation of Heliopolis; that he also set up pillars instead of gnomons, under which was represented a cavity like that of a boat, and the shadow that fell from their tops fell down upon that cavity, that it might go round about the like course as the sun itself goes round in the other."
It is possible. that both theories as to the routes of these primeval conquerors are true, and that two waves of Semites entered the Nile valley towards the close of the Neolithic period, one by way of the Upper Nile or Wadi Hammamat, the other by way of Heliopolis.
Its doctrines must have differed in many important particulars from those of the worshippers of the Sun-god of Heliopolis, whose priests preached the existence of a heaven of a solar character, and taught their followers to believe in the Sun-god Rā, and not in Temu, the ancient native god of Heliopolis, and not in the divine man Osiris.
Alan speaketh of this bird and saith, that when the highest bishop Onyas builded a temple in the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, to the likeness of the temple in Jerusalem, on the first day of Easter, when he had gathered much sweet-smelling wood, and set it on fire upon the altar to offer sacrifice, to all men's sight such a bird came suddenly, and fell into the middle of the fire, and was burnt anon to ashes in the fire of the sacrifice, and the ashes abode there, and were busily kept and saved by the commandments of the priests, and within three days, of these ashes was bred a little worm, that took the shape of a bird at the last, and flew into the wilderness.
But its flesh, putrefying, breeds a certain worm, which, being nourished by the juice of the dead bird, brings forth feathers; and when it is grown to a perfect state, it takes up the nest in which the bones of its parent lie, and carries it from Arabia into Egypt, to a city called Heliopolis: "4.
Damascus was conquered, and the impetuous spirit of the Moslems led them rapidly on to Heliopolis, then to Hems or Emesa. In subtlety they were no less practised than they were well proved in courage, and by many arts they succeeded in creating diversions among their adversaries, and often in enlisting them under the Saracen standard.
On their part, the English officers and non-commissioned officers declared that the prisoners are well disciplined and very willing. In short, we took away with us an excellent impression of Heliopolis Camp. Hospital No. 2, at Abbassiah, near Cairo.~
The stories given above are valuable because they contain elements of history, for it is now well known that the immediate successors of the fourth dynasty, of which Khufu, Khāfrā, and Menkaurā, the builders of the three great pyramids at Gīzah, were the most important kings, were kings who delighted to call themselves sons of Rā, and who spared no effort to make the form of worship of the Sun-god that was practised at Anu, or Heliopolis, universal in Egypt.
The elements of this Creation legend are very, very old, and the form in which they are grouped in our text suggests the influence of the priests of Heliopolis.
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