— ee oe
PHINOE
animal peace-offerings was the inner fat (Ly 3), was always burnt on the altar first; that is, the Lord received His portion before either priest or offerer took theirs. (b) The portion of the animal due to the priest was strictly defined, although neither the law of Ly 7* (‘the wave breast and the heave thigh have I taken . . . and given unto Aaron the priest and unto his sons as a due for ever from the children of Israel’) nor that of Dt 185 (‘they shall give unto the priest the shoulder and the two cheeks and the maw’) may have been then in force. The worshippers, however, seem to have resented the impiety more than the greed of the priests. The sin of the young men is graphically summed up in the statement that ‘they contemned (sx3) the offering of the Lord’ (1S 2", on which see Driver or H. P. Smith).
3. Ezr 853,1 Es 8%. Father of Eleazar, one of the two priests who received at Jerusalem the offerings brought by Ezra from Babylon.
N. rd D. WHITE.
PHINOE (Φινόε, AV Phinees), 1 Es 5°=Paseah
(Φισόν), Ezr 2°, Neh 75,
PHLEGON (®\éywv).—The name of a Christian greeted with others by St. Paul in Ro 16%, He is commemorated with Herodion and Asyncritus (which see) on April 8 (Acta Sanctorum, April, i. p. 741). The name was borne by a Greek writer
of the 2nd cent. who is stated by Origen to have given some information concerning Christ.
A. C. HEADLAM.
PHBE (4o!87).—In Ro 16! St. Paul commends Pheebe to the Roman Christians. He describes her as (1) ‘our sister,’ (2) ‘a servant (διάκονος) of the Church that is at Cenchree’—the port of Corinth. (3) He asks that they ‘receive her in the Lord, worthily of the saints, and ‘assist her in whatso- ever matter she may have need of them.’ (4) He says that she has been ‘a succourer (προστάτις) of many,’ and of himself in particular. It is generally assumed that Phoebe was the bearer of the Episile, and the words by which she is introduced (συνίστημι ὑμῖν) imply a formal introduction to the Roman community.
Two points demand a short discussion : (1) How far is διάκονος technical? This is the only place where the office is referred to by name in the NT (for 1 Ti 3" 58" cannot be quoted), but the younger Pliny (Zp. X. χονὶ. 8) speaks of ministre in the Christian Church, and there are constant references to them under the names of διάκονος (ii. 26) and διακόνισσα (viii. 19, 20, 18) in the Apos- tolic Constitutions. Moreover, the circumstances of Oriental life must have made it necessary that there should be female attendants to perform for women what the deacons did for men, in baptism, in visiting the women’s part of the house, and in introducing women to the bishop or deacons (A post. Const. iii. 15, ete.). There is no occasion, there- fore, for thinking that the word has not, at any rate to a certain extent, a technical meaning, but we have not sufficient grounds for assuming an order of deaconesses in the later sense. The translation ‘servant,’ however, is inadequate.
(2) The description of her as προστάτις suggests that she was a person of some wealth and position. This word again is probably technical. It implies the legal representative or wealthy ‘patroness.' Her residence at Cenchresse —the port towards Ephesus—would enable her to exercise the duties of hospitality, and to give other forms of assist- ance to Christians on their first landing in the country, and to help what must have been a small and struggling Church. She is commemorated on Sept. 3. ἘΞ Acta Sanctorum, Sept., vol. i. p. 602.
A. C. HEADLAM.
PHENICIA PHENICIA.—
i. Sources. fi, The Country— (a) Its extent and natural features. (δ) Its history. (c) Greater Phanicia, fii. The People. iv. The Alphabet and Language. v. Constitution and Government. vi. Civilization and Commerce. vii. Religion— (a) The deities. (6) Sacred objects and cultus.
i. SourcEs.—The sources of our knowledge of Pheenician history and civilization are contained in—(a) Inscriptions in the Phenician language. These are very numerous, amounting to some thousands. They have been found in Phenicia itself and in Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, the islands of Melita, Gaulos, Sicily, Cossura, Sardinia, and Corsica, as well as in Africa, Italy, France, and Spain. Whilst these are invaluable for the restora- tion of the language (especially such as have Greek transliterations and translations appended), unfor- tunately very few are of historical interest, few are of any length, few have been found in Pheenicia itself, and, with one exception, none are earlier than the Persian period. The oldest known is CIS No. 5. This is on the fragments of a bowl discovered in Cyprus (‘in insula Cypro, casu [ut poeeunel reperta’) but belonging to a temple of
a‘al not far from Sidon, and on paleographical grounds is assigned to the 9th cent. B.c. It mentions a ‘ Hiram, king of the Sidonians,’ but it remains uncertain to which of the kings of this name it refers. The remaining inscriptions consist mostly of dedications and memorials on tombs, with two or three pertaining to sacrifices. Their chief value lies in the names of kings they con- tain, and in the proper names containing names of gods.*
(δ) The Egyptian hieroglyphic and Babylono- Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions contain many references to the land of Phoenicia, and give some idea of its relation to foreign powers from the 16th cent. B.c. to the Persian period. The Tel el-Amarna tablets give a glimpse into contem- porary history which is valuable and probably characteristic. Much, however, remains to be done in the classification and identification of the