Besides these more or less localized gods and goddesses (dii annfores). a certain num • ber of deities—states and country deities—were worshiped in common by all Phenician states. They were called the children of Sadik (the just), or the Children, or the Pataki (descendants of Pittlia), or the eight Kafiri (strong ones). They are the maritime gl ds, and their images were placed on the prows of Phenician ships. As protectors of naviga tion they are identified with the Dioseuri; and again as representatives of heat, breath, and life, they received the names of Lares and Penates. Their individual names are not generally mentioned; they seem (cf. Emun = eighth) to have been merely counted. Their mode of worship was most mysterious—as. indeed sonic of the earliest mysteries were closely connected with it.
Besides these they also worshiped certain phenomena, personified attributes, and qualities. Their planetary divinities were the Sun and his four horses—to whose worship belongs, among others, to a certain extent the annual festival of the resurrection of the (Tyrian)Ilerakies, under the emblem of a column in the form of a rising flame (Chman); the Moon with her chariot drawn by white bulls; the planet Mars (Aziz or Nergal). Jupiter (Kochab Baal); Venus (Astoret Naltinah = lovely Astarte),, with her voluptuous eultus; and Saturnus (Moloch, Kronos), the evil principle. The elements were revered either in conjunction with certain deities or on their own account. The water, to which sacrifices were offered, both in the shape of human beings and animals or fruits, was haliowed in all its shapes—as the sea, as rivers, fountains. lakes—by which people took their most solemn oaths; the fire, in connection with the oldest deity of Phenicia; the light (Moloch); the air and the winds; the earth and all its plants, its forests, and glens. and trees, and more especially its mountains, as the " symbols of the high ones." or as "faces of God," such as mount Carmel, Lebanon, Antilibanus, and others. Of animal-worship we have only small traces.
Abstract notions and ideas were not forgotten. The year and the months, day and night. Aurora (Lilith), age and youth, art and love, had their altars Nor were cer tain professions and trades without their visible patrons. Thus, there are gods of agriculture and horticulture, like Dagon, the god of grain; 11 Dionysos, whose Pheni cian name is lost, as the god of wine-growers; a god who is the mime!) of fruit-growing, of pisciculture, of mines, etc. Chthonian gods are not wanting. The god of death— the king of the lower regions—is Muth = Death (Pluto), who is represented as a small child. His name was shared by a goddess whose name is vaguely known as Eloti (my goddess). and who is occasionally identified with Astarte, Dido, Anna, Persephone, Europa. and a great many other deities.
We have already touched upon the mode of worship of the Phenicians, and the places chiefly selected for their rites. Mountains, heights, rivers, lakes, fountains, meadows, glens, were, as we said, the favorite habitations of the gods. But the Phe
nicians were also amongst the first who erected temples. These were generally in two parts, containing the sacred arks (the mystic cists of the Greeks); and the chariots upon which the sacred objects were at times carried about. Not heing intended to be prayer-houses, but as dwelling-places for special gods, they were rather small, and did not even 'contain the altar upon which the sacrifices were offered. This generally stood at the entrance of the temple, and around it the priests and hierodonloi danced in their service. Pure wells and an everlasting fire were the indispensable conditions of a sanc tuary. The sacrifices themselves, as far as they consisted of animals, offer great analogies to those of the Jews; but the Pheniciaus also offered up human sacrifices—chiefly first-born male children, as that which the suppliant held dearest—chiefly to Baalsamin, Baal Manion, and Astarte. ' Such human sacrifices, or burnt-offerings took place annu ally at the great festivals of expiation, and further on extraordinary occasions, at the beginning of important enterprises, such as a campaign and in great casualties: in order to expiate by one sacrifice the sin of all. The same fanaticism which fancied the gods best pleased by the offering up of what was most precious, led the Phenician women, like the Babylonian, to sacrifice their honor in honor of Astarte, on certain occasions, so that certain sanctuaries became hot-beds of prostitution. Circumcision—another kind of sacrifice—was not common among all the Phenician tribes, it being a rite principally sacred to El, the god of Berytus and Byblus, Of festivals and pilgrimages in general, we have spoken under FESTIVALS, GREEE: RELIGION, etc. ; and what has been observed there respecting their character in Poly theism (their being to a great extent connected with the births, deaths, resurrections; and other personal phases of special deities), holds good here. No doubt, these festivals, like those of the Hebrews, and all other ancient nations, had, beside their religious, also their political and commercial significance; and Phenicia was more particularly, by the eminent position she held in the world's trade, a place towards which flocked, on solemn occasions, pilgrims from all parts of Asia and Africa. " Festival embassies," as they were called, were dispatched thither from Syria, Arabia, Babylonia, Cappadocia, Cilicia, Egypt, Armenia; nay, from India, Ethiopia, Persia, and Scythia; and not until the 5th c. A.D. did these pilgrimages to Phenicia cease entirely. One festival is entirely peculiar to Tyre, and strangely enough it is still celebrated by the present inhabitants of viz., the " wedding of the land-water with the sea-water." On these occasions, the people walk in procession to the well near the town-gate, and pour some pails of sea water into it, in order to render it clear and sweet again for a long time.