PHOENICIA
15S
PHOENICIA
of this article. We -ball only mention tli.it Sanehoni- atho distinguishes— a sure sign of the consciousness on the part of native writers of the hopeless confusion in the n Ligious notions and traditions of their time — three periods or .era-, with distinct circles of deities of special classes and families. The first period contains twelve families of gods. In the second three dynasties follow
each other, and there are twenty-two supreme deities (according to the letters of the Phoenician alphabet), at the head of whom stands El or Kronos, etc., as fol- lows :
X, El, Kronos. 2, Baityl. B, Astarte. ", Apollo.
i, Dagon. *\ Rhea. £, Pontos.
% Atlas. a, Baaltis. 2, Typhon.
n, Persephone. b, Eeimarmene. p, Nereus.
1, Athene. », Bora. "1, Sido.
t, Zens Demarns. I, Kronos. 1L\ Poseidon.
H, Sadid. 6, Zeus Belus. n, Hadod.
Of the third period only fragments of Sanchoniatho have come down, hut it would appear as if Zeus Belus had in this assumed the chief rank, equal to Kronos of the second period. These gods and goddesses were propitiated in various ways, but chiefly by sacrifices, which consisted on certain occasions of first-born male children (~il»^ *P2yn). Prostitution QDlp) in honor of Astarte was considered another praiseworthy act Among the rites of sacrifice and expiation must also be enumerated circumcision, which was not prac- ticed with all the Phoenician tribes, but seems to hare l» i i! a ceremony peculiar to the worshippers of El, the special deity of Berytus and Bybhis. Whether, bow- ever, as has been held, it is to be considered analogous to this prostitution of virgins in the service of Astarte, We shall not here investigate. The country abounded with place- of worship, for every grove and every height, every river and every well, were adapted for the pur- pose, if it could be fancied a dwelling-place for some deity. See Idolatry. Nor were special buildings (sanctuaries, temples i, with all their accessories of arks and priests, wells and fires, wanting; as indeed the Phoe- nicians are supposed to have been the first who creeled such permanent sanctuaries. Their construction was in accordance with their destination, which was not to be houses of prayer, but the seat of honor of the special deity. They were divided into two parts, the first of which contained I lie statues ami symbols which were the objects of public worship. The second, the Adj ton, on the other hand, contained such symbols which w. re nol to I"- seen constantly, but were reserved for certain >pe,iai festive occasions; besides the holy arks with their mystical contents, and the holy vehicles upon which these sacred objects were carried about. The walls were covered with the symbolical representations of the deities; and in this place also the priests kept their archives. Something of the abhorrence of all vis- ible representations of the Deity which seems in the - oi their existence to have filled the minds of all Shemitic nations — an abhorrence erroneously taken of late to indicate their monotheistic propensity (comp. Renan's and Munk's Inaugural Lectures) — is also noticeable with the Phoenicians, whose gods were Legion. No paintings, statues, or other likenesses of deities are recorded as found in the ancient temples of Gades, Tyre, Samaria, Paphos, etc. There were, how- ever, certain symbolical columns of wood, 0 — ©8 (for the female Numen, Vstarte i,ol stone, r--^-; for Baal) of gold or ennr.ild (S^an . togi thi r with phallic rep- resentations, found in and before the Phoenician sanctu- aries. Another kind of divine mementos, as it were, were the Betylia irx SYO), probably meteors, for which a fetich-like reverence was shown, and which wen
called by the names of Father. Mighty Father (ZX ^X (St), and at the time of Augustine there were -till a number ofpriests engaged in Funic' Africa to wait upon these idols and to elicit oracles from them | Eucaddire). Anion- the principal festivals, with some of which, as with those of the Hebrews, were connected pilg —from the farthest colonies even— are the "awaken- ing" and the '•self-destruction by tire" of Hercules, a certain festival of "staves," a vintage-feast in honor of the Tyrian Bacchus, and certain others in honor of Astarte, celebrating her disappearance, flight, and wan- derings, the Adonia. etc. Aii account of the different Phoenician gods named in the Bible will be found else- where (see Asherah; Ashtaroth; Baal, etc.), but it will be proper here to point out certain effects which the circumstance of their being worshipped in Phoenicia produced upon the Hebrews.
(1.) In the first place, their worship was a constant temptation to polytheism and idolatry. It i- the gen- eral tendency of trade, by making merchants acquainted with different countries and various modes of thought, to enlarge the mind, to promote the increase of knowl- edge, and. in addition, by the wealth which it diffuses, to afford opportunities in various ways for intellectual culture. It can scarcely be doubted that, owing to these circumstances, the Phoenicians, as a great com- mercial people, were more generally intelligent, and as we should now say civilized, than the inland agricultu- ral population of Palestine. When the Bimple-minded dews, therefore, came in contact with a people more versatile and. apparently, more enlightened than them- selves, but who nevertheless, either in a philosophical or in a popular form, admitted a system of polytheism, an influence would be exerted on Jewish minds, tending to make them regard their exclusive devotion to their own one God, Jehovah, however transcendent bis attri- butes, as unsocial and morose. It is in some such way that we must account for the astonishing fact that Sol- omon himself, the wisest of the Hebrew race, to whom Jehovah is expressly stated to have appeared twice— once, not long after his marriage with an Egyptian princess, on the night after his sacrificing 1000 burnt- offerings on the high place of Gibeon, and the si 1