It was painted between 1511 and 1512 as part of Raphael's commission to decorate with frescoes the rooms that are now known as the Stanze di Raffaello, in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.

Heliodorus is ordered by Seleucus IV Philopator, the king of Syria, to seize the treasure preserved in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Answering the prayers of the high priest Onias III, God sends a horseman assisted by two youths to drive Heliodorus out.

The architecture begs comparison with Raphael's earlier fresco masterwork The School of Athens (1509-1511), although the Domes in “The Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple” are much richer and are gilded and highly decorated.

[1] In 1725 the baroque Italian painter Francesco Solimena[2] and 1850 the French romantic artist Eugène Delacroix each created a work based on the same story.