Phoenicia

To judge from earliest evidence on the subject, the Baealath of Gebal or Byblus, referred to again and again in the Amarna letters (Bait sa Gubla, Nos. 68-125), must have been the most popular of the Phoenician deities, as her sanctuary was the oldest and most renowned. The mistress of Gebal was no doubt 'Ashtart (Astarte in Greek, 'Ashtoreth in the Old Testament, pronounced with the vowels of basheth, "shame"), a name which is obviously connected with the Babylonian Ishtar, and, as used in Phoenician, is practically the equivalent of "goddess." She represented the principle of fertility and generation; the common epithets Kinrpts and KvNpfta (of Kuthera in Cyprus), Cypria and Paphia, show that she was identified with Aphrodite and Venus. Though not primarily a moon-goddess, she sometimes appears in this character (Lucian, Dea syr, § 4; Herodian v. 6, o), and Herodo tus describes her temple at Ashkelon as that of the heavenly Aphrodite (i. 105). We find her associated with Baal and called "the name of Ba'al", i.e., perhaps his manifestation. Another goddess, specially honoured at Carthage, is Tanith (pronunciation uncertain) ; nothing is known of her characteristics; she is regu larly connected with Ba'al on the Carthaginian votive tablets, and called "the face of Ba'al", i.e., his representative or revelation, though again some question this rendering as too metaphysical, and take "face of Baal" to be the name of a place, like Peni'el ("face of 'El"). Two or three other deities may be mentioned here : Eshmun, the god of vital force and healing, worshipped at Sidon 'especially, but also at Carthage and in the colonies, identi fied by the Greeks with Asclepius; Melqarth, the patron deity of Tyre, identified with Heracles; Reshef or Reshuf, the "flame" or "lightning" god, especially popular in Cyprus and derived origi nally from Syria, whom the Greeks called Apollo. A tendency to form a distinct deity by combining the attributes of two produced such curious fusions as Milk-lashtart, Milk-ba`al, Milk-'osir, Esh mun-melqarth, Melqarth-resef, etc. As in the case of art and in dustries so in religion the Phoenicians readily assimilated foreign ideas. The influence of Egypt was specially strong (NSI. pp. 62, 69, 148, 154). The Phoenician settlers at the Peiraeus worship ped the Assyrian Nergal, and their proper names are compounded with the names of Babylonian and Arabian deities (NSI. p. 1 o ). Closer intimacy with the Greek world naturally brought about modifications in the character of the native gods, which became apparent when Baal of Sidon or Ba'al-shamem was identified with Zeus, Tanith with Demeter or Artemis, 'Anath with Athena, etc. ; the notion of a supreme Ba'al, which finds expression in the Greek tiiThos and gaakris or giXOns (the goddess of Byblus), was no doubt encouraged by foreign influences. On the other hand, the Phoenicians produced a considerable effect upon Greek and Roman religion, especially from the religious centres in Cyprus and Sicily. A great number of divinities are known only as ele ments in proper names, e.g., Sakun-yathon (Sanchuniathon), `Abd-sasom, Sed-yathon, and fresh ones are continually being discovered. It was the custom among the Phoenicians, as among other Semitic nations, to use the names of the gods in forming proper names and thus to express devotion or invoke favour; thus Hanni-ba'al, 'Abd-melqarth, Hanni-cashtart, Eshmun-tazar. The proper names further illustrate the way in which the relation of man to God was regarded; the commonest forms are servant (eabd, e.g., (Abd-eashtart), member or limb (bod, e.g., Bod melqarth), client or guest (ger, e.g., Ger-eshmun) ; the religious idea of the guest of a deity had its origin in the social custom of extending hospitality to a stranger and in the old Semitic right of sanctuary.

Sacred Objects and Worship.

Probably like other Canaan ites the Phoenicians offered worship "on every high hill and under every green tree"; but to judge from the allusions to sanctuaries in the inscriptions and elsewhere, the Ba'al or 'Ashtart of a place was usually worshipped at a temple, which consisted of a court or enclosure and a roofed shrine with a portico or pillared hall at the entrance. In the court sometimes stood a conical stone, probably the symbol of Astarte, as on the Roman coins of Byblus (see Ohnefalsch-Richter, Cyprus, pl. lvi., the temenos at Idalion). Stone or bronze images of the gods were set up in the sanctuaries (NSI. Nos. 13 seq., 23-27, 3o, etc.) ; and besides these the baetylia (meteoric stones) which were re garded as symbols of the gods. Pillars, again, had a prominent place in the court or before the shrine (nasab, ibid. pp. 102 seq. and W. R. Smith, Rel. of pp. 203 ff., 456 ff.) ; but it is not known whether the sacred pole ('asherali), an invariable feature of a Canaanite sanctuary, was usual in a Phoenician temple. The

inscriptions mention altars of stone and bronze, and from the sacrificial tariffs which have survived we learn that the chief types of sacrifice among the Phoenicians were analogous to those which we find in the Old Testament (NSI. p. ii7). The ghastly practice of sacrificing human victims was resorted to in times of great distress (e.g., at Carthage, Diod., xx. 14), or to avert national disaster (Porphyry, de Abstin, ii. 56) ; it was regarded as a patriotic act when Hamilcar threw himself upon the pyre after the disastrous battle of Himera (Herod., vii. 167). The god who demanded these victims, and especially the burning of chil dren, seems to have been Milk, the Molech or Moloch of the Old Testament. In this connection may be mentioned the custom of burning the chief god of the city in effigy, or in the person of a human representative, at Tyre and in the Tyrian colonies, such as Carthage and Gades; the custom lasted down to a late time (see Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, ch. v.). Another horrible sacri fice was regularly demanded by Phoenician religion : women sac rificed their virginity at the shrines of Astarte in the belief that they thus propitiated the goddess and won her favour (Rel. of 329, 611 ff.); licentious rites were the natural accompani ment of the worship of the reproductive powers of nature. These temple prostitutes are called qedeshim qedesh5th, i.e., sacred men, women, in the Old Testament (Deut. xxiii. 18; I Kings xiv. 24, etc.). Other persons attached to a temple were priests, augurs, sacrificers, barbers, officials in charge of the curtains, masons, etc. (NSI. No. 20) ; we hear also of religious gilds and corpo rations, perhaps administrative councils, associated with the sanctuaries (ibid., pp. 94, 121, 130, 144 seq.).

Mythology and Religious Ideas.

No doubt the Phoeni cians had their legends and myths to account for the origin of man and the universe; to some extent these would have resembled the ideas embodied in the book of Genesis. Two cosmogonies have come down to us which, though they differ in details are fundamentally in agreement. The one, of Sidonian origin, is pre served by Damascius (de prim. principiis, 125) and received at his hands a Neoplatonic interpretation ; the other and more elaborate work was composed by Philo of Byblus (temp. Hadrian) ; he professed that he had used as his authority the writings of Sanchuniathon (q.v.), an ancient Phoenician sage, who again derived his information from the mysterious inscribed stones = d `30r1, i.e., images or pillars of Bacal-bamman) in the Phoenician temples. Philo's cosmogony has been preserved, at least in fragments, by Eusebius in Praep. evang., vol. i. (Fr. hist. gr., iii. 563 sqq.). It cannot, however, be taken seriously as an account of genuine Phoenician beliefs. At the same time Philo did not invent all the nonsense which he has handed down ; he drew upon various sources, Greek and Egyptian, some of them ultimately of Babylonian origin, and incidentally, he mentions matters of interest which, when tested by other evidence, are fairly well supported. He shows at any rate that some sort of a theology existed in his day; particularly interesting is his de scription of the symbolic figure of Cronus with eyes before and behind and six wings open and folded (Fr. hist. gr., iii. 569), a figure which is represented on the coins of Gebal-Byblus (2nd century B.c.) as the mythical founder of the city. It is evident that the gods were regarded as being intimately concerned with the lives and fortunes of their worshippers. The vast number of small votive tablets found at Carthage prove this; they were all inscribed by grateful devotees "to the lady Tanith, Face of Bacal, and the lord Ba'al-tiamman, because he heard their voice." The care which the Phoenicians bestowed upon the burial of the dead has been alluded to above; pillars (masseboth) were set up to commemorate the dead among the living (e.g., NSI. Nos. 18, 19, 21, 32) ; if there were no children to fulfil the pious duty, a monument would be set up by a man during his lifetime (ibid., No. 16; cf. 2 Sam. xviii. 18). Any violation of the tomb was regarded with the greatest horror (ibid., Nos. 4, 5). The grave was called a resting-place (ibid., Nos. 4, 5, 16, 21), and the de parted lay at rest in the underworld with the Refaim, the weak ones (the same word and idea in the Old Testament, Isa. xiv. 9, xxvi. 14, 19; Job xxvi. 5; Ps. lxxxviii. 1 o etc.). The curious notion prevailed, as it did also among the Greeks and Romans, that it was possible to communicate with the gods of the under world by dropping into a grave a small roll of lead (tabella devo tionis, NSI. No. 5o), inscribed with the message, generally a curse, which it was desired to convey to them.