The Historians' History of the World 02 [Israel, India, Persia, Phoenicia, Minor Nations of Western Asia]

But this island as explored by modern investigators has seemed to be so limited in size as to prohibit any thought that its population was ever large. And it at once becomes clear how necessary it was that colonies should be sent out from time to time, since the population of any prosperous country is constantly increasing. It has even been suggested that the main population of Tyre must, at any given period of its prosperity, have been necessarily absent from its island home on voyages of war or peace, since the restricted area of the island itself makes it difficult to account otherwise for the distribution of such a number of men as was necessary to the equipment of the Phœnician navies and trading fleets.

A nation of traders must necessarily have a high degree of intelligence of a practical kind, but it would seem that the culture of the Phœnicians did not greatly advance beyond this. Their religion was always apparently of a very crude oriental type, akin to that of the Babylonians and of the early Hebrews. In literature they apparently never ranked with these neighbouring nations. Indeed, if they produced at any time a literature of significance, all traces of it are now lost, except certain fragments of doubtful authenticity that have come to us through the Greeks; the most important of these being the alleged writings of Sanchoniathon, as translated into Greek by Philo Byblius, and preserved, in part, by Eusebius.a

Such knowledge as we have of the religion of the Phœnicians is derived from the writings of foreign authors, Greek, Roman, and Hebrew, and from the disputed work of Sanchoniathon just referred to. With this doubtful exception, all native literature on the subject has perished. Nor does art step in, as in the case of Egypt and Babylonia, to atone in some measure for the loss; a few coins and idols found in Cyprus are all the help it gives us in forming an idea of how the Phœnicians conceived of their gods. [Renan discovered the remains of a temple of Adonis near Byblus.]

In the Phœnician cosmogony, the beginning of all things was a moving and limitless chaos of utter darkness. After the lapse of ages this agitated air became enamoured of its own first principles, and from this embrace was generated Mot, which some interpret mud, and others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. From this the universe came forth, first living creatures without sensation, then intelligent beings (Zophasemin or beholders of the Sun), in shape like an egg. From this, too, the sun, moon, and stars were evolved, and the heat and light generated clouds, wind, and rain. At the sound of the tempest creatures male and female awoke, intelligent, but feeble and timid in mind, worshipping the products of the earth. Next, of Kol-pia (Wind) and his wife Baau (Night) were born mortals, Æon and Protogonos, whose children, Genos and Genea, dwelt in the land of Phœnicia and worshipped the Sun, Beelsamin, Lord of Heaven.

Sanchoniathon’s history tells how three sons were born to Æon and Protogonos,—Light, Fire, and Flame. These begot a gigantic race, whose names were bestowed upon the mountains, and of them sprang Memrumus and Hypsouranius (unless the latter name be merely the Greek version of the former). Hypsouranius fixed his dwelling in the island of Tyre, and by him and his race the various arts of mankind were invented.

Of the gods we are told that the progenitors of the race were Eliun and his wife Beruth, who dwelt near Byblus, the oldest city in Phœnicia. Ouranos (Heaven) son of Eliun, wedded his sister Ghe (Earth), and by her had four sons and three daughters. Cronos, the eldest son, deposed and ultimately slew his father, and it is he who assigned to the various other deities their offices and places of abode in Phœnicia.

The Phœnician religion was of a distinctively national type. The active and passive forces of nature were symbolised by male and female deities, as in Egypt, but the Phœnician gods were more definitely associated with the heavenly bodies than the Egyptian. It is doubtful whether Osiris and Isis were primarily identified with the Sun and Moon, but such was unquestionably the case with the Baal and Ashtoreth of Phœnicia. According to Sanchoniathon, the proper title of Baal was Beelsemin, Lord of the Heavens, or Sun. He was the principal Phœnician divinity, and thus his name came to be equivalent to Supreme God, and is more frequently used in this sense than with reference to his original character of Sun-god. In this sense, too, it was applied to other gods locally regarded as supreme, Melkarth, for example, is the Baal of Tyre; and it is therefore difficult to distinguish the character and attributes of Baal, Bel, or Belus from those of Cronos, Ouranos, and Moloch, who were likewise identified with the Sun. In the course of time, the later character so far prevailed over the earlier that the Sun became the object of a separate worship; a process to which we find analogies in the religions of Egypt and Greece. Baal was also identified with the planet Saturn, which presided over the rest, and was therefore their lord or Baal.