A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

3. AEGYPTIUS, or the EGYPTIAN. The early Christian writers, in their controversy with the heathens, refer not unfrequently to a Leo or Leon as having admitted that the deities of the antient gentile world had been originally men, agreeing in this respect with Evemerus [EVEMERUS], with whom he was contemporary, or perhaps rather earlier. Augustin (De Consensu Evangel. 1.33, and De Civ. Dei, 8.5), who is most explicit in his notice of him, says he was an Egyptian priest of high rank, " magnus antistes, " and expounded the popular mythology to Alexander the Great, in a manner which, though differing from those rationalistic explanations received in Greece, accorded with them in making the gods (including even the dii majorum gentium) to have been originally men. Augustin refers to an account of the statements of Leo contained in a letter of Alexander to his mother. It is to be observed, that although Leon was high in his priestly rank at the time when Alexander was in Egypt (B. C. 332-331), his name is Greek; and Arnobius (Adv. Gentes, 4.29) calls him Leo Pellaeus, Leo of Pella, an epithet which Fabricius does not satisfactorily explain. Worth (Not. ad Tatian. p. 96, ed. Oxford, 1700) would identify our Leo with Leo of Lampsacus, the husband of Themista or Themisto, the female Epicurean (D. L. 10.5. 25). But the husband of Themista was more correctly called Leonteus, while the Egyptian is never called by any other name than Leo. Arnobius speaks in such a way as to lead us to think that in his days the writings of Leon on the human origin of the gods were extant and accessible; but it is possible that he refers, like Augustin, to Alexnnder's letter. The reference to Leon in Clemens Alexandrinus is not more explicit. (Stromata, 1.21.106. p. 139, ed. Sylburg. p. 382, ed. Pott. vol. ii. p. 75, ed. Klotz, 12mo. Lipsiae, 1831.) But Tatian's distinct mention of the γπομνήματα, or Commentaries of Leo, shows that his system had been committed to writing by himself; and Tertullian (De Corona, 100.7) directs his readers to " unrol the writings of Leo the Egyptian." Hyginus (Poeticon Astronomicon, 100.20) refers to Leon in terms which seem to intimate that he wrote a history of Egypt, " Qui res Aegyptiacus scripsit;" and the scholiast on Apollonius Rhodius (4.262) gives a reference here to what Leon had said respecting the antiquity of the Egyptians, " in the first (of the books or letters ?) to his mother." But we suspect the last reference is to the statements of Leon already mentioned, as given by Alexander the Great in his letter to his mother; and perhaps the reference of Hyginus is to the same document, for the subject of it belongs to the mythic period of history. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. vii. pp. 713, 719, vol. xi. p. 664; Voss. De Hist. Graec. lib. iii. p. 179, ed. Amsterdam, 1699.)