The Phoenician history

Fragment 2: Phoenician History Book 1 PE 1.9.30-10.42)

A) Cosmogony (PE 1.9.30-10.5)

After setting out these definitions in his preface, Philo next begins his interpretation of Sanchuniathon and he presents the Phoenician theology roughly as follows:

He posits as the source of the universe a dark and windy gas, or a stream of dark gas, and turbid, gloomy chaos. These things were unbounded and for ages were without limit.

He says, “When the wind lusted after its own sources and a mixture came into being, that combination was called Desire. This was the beginning of the creation of all things. (It) was not aware of its own creation. From the same interweaving of the wind Mot came into being. Some say that this is mud; others, that it is a putrefaction of the moist mixture. From this substance came every seed of creation and the genesis of the universe.

There were some living creatures without sensation, from which came intelligent creatures and they were called ‘Zophasemin,’ i.e., ‘heavenly observers.’ They were formed roughly in the shape of an egg. Mot shone forth, with sun and moon, stars and great constellations.

Such was their cosmogony, which openly introduces atheism. Next let us see how he says that the generation of animals took place. He says:

“And when the air became luminous, there arose, because of the heating of both the sea and the land, winds and clouds and very great downpours and floods from the celestial waters. These were separated out and removed from their proper place through heating by the sun. When they all intermingled once again and collided in the air, then peals of thunder and flashes of lightning were produced. At the crash of the thunder the intelligent creatures previously mentioned awoke. They were alarmed at the noise, and male and female creatures began to stir on both land and sea.”

Such is their account of the generation of animals. Next the same author adds:

“This is the account found written in the Cosmogony of Taautos and in his records, based on conjectures and on bits of evidence which his intellect perceived, discovered and clarified for us.”

B) History of Culture (PE 1.10.6-14)

Thereafter he mentions the names of the winds, the South and the North and the rest and then adds:

(There follows here a paragraph which is clearly intrusive and which may have come from the preface. Cf. p. 35.)

Then he says that from the wind Colpia and his wife Baau (this means night) were born Aeon and Protogonos, mortal men, so called. Aeon discovered the nourishment from trees. Their offspring were called Genos and Genea and they settled Phoenicia. When droughts occurred, they raised their hands to heaven, toward the sun. “For,” he says, “they considered him, the lord of heaven, to be the only god and called him Beelsamen, which is ‘Lord of Heaven’ in Phoenician, Zeus in Greek.”

After these remarks, he berates the error of the Greeks and says:

“For it is not without reason that we have defined these things in many ways, but because of the later erroneous transmissions of the names related to these matters, which names the Greeks, out of ignorance, received in an improper sense, misled by the ambiguity of translation.”

Next, he says that from Genos, son of Aeon and Protogonos, there were born further mortal children, whose names are Light, Fire, and Flame. He says, “These discovered fire by rubbing sticks of wood together, and they taught its usefulness. They begot sons greater in size and stature, whose names were given to the mountains over which they…

Thus from them derive the names of Mt. Cassios, the Lebanon, the Anti-Lebanon, and Mt. Brathy. “From these,” he says, “were born Samemroumos, who is also called Hypsouranios, and Ousdos.” He says, “They took their names from their mothers, since women at that time mated indiscriminately with whomever they chanced to meet.”

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Then he says that Hypsouranios settled Tyre and that he invented huts made of reeds, rushes, and papyrus. He quarreled with his brother, Ousdos, who first discovered how to gather a covering for the body from the hides of animals which he captured. Once, when there were fierce rainstorms and gales, the trees in Tyre rubbed against one another and started a fire and it burned down their woodland. Ousdos took part of a tree, cut off the branches and, for the first time ever, dared to travel on the sea. He dedicated two steles for Fire and Wind. He worshipped them and poured out to them libations of blood from the animals which he had hunted. He says that when these men died, those who survived them dedicated staves to them. They worshipped the steles and conducted annual festivals for them.

In much later times there were born, in the line of Hypsouranios, Hunter and Fisher, the inventors of fishing and hunting, from whom…

From them were born two brothers who discovered iron and how to work it. One of these, Chousor, practiced verbal arts including spells and prophecies. He is, in fact, Hephaestos and he invented the hook, lure, line, and raft, and was the first of all men to sail. Therefore they honored him, too, as a god after his death. He is also called Zeus Meilichios. Some say that his brothers invented walls of brick.

Later, in the line of these men, there were two youths. One of them is called Craftsman and the other Earthly Native. “These youths invented the method of making bricks by mixing straw with clay, then baking them in the sun. In addition, they also devised roofed dwellings. From these came others, one of whom was called Field, and the other Hero of the Field or Rustic, in whose honor there is in Phoenicia both a very venerable image and a shrine drawn by a pair of beasts. Especially among the Byblians he is named the greatest of gods. These two conceived of adding courtyards to dwellings, as well as encircling walls and grottoes.

From these came Trappers and Huntsmen. These are also called Rovers and Titans. From these came Amynos and Magos, who introduced villages and flocks of sheep. From these came Misor and Sydyk, i.e., “agile” and “just.” These discovered how to use salt.

“From Misor came Taautos, who discovered how to write the first letters. He is the one whom the Egyptians called Thouth, the Alexandrians Thoth, and the Greeks Hermes. From Sydyk came the Dioscouri, or Kabeiri, or Korybantes, or Samothracians. These,” he says, “first invented a boat. From these came others who discovered the use of herbs, and the remedy for animals’ bites, and spells.”

C) History of Kronos (PE 1.10. 15-30)

“Among their contemporaries was a certain Elioun, called Most High, and a woman called Berouth, who settled the area around Byblos. From these were born Terrestrial Native, subsequently called Ouranos (Heaven). Because of his superlative beauty, the element above us was given the name “heaven,” from him. A sister, who was called Ge (Earth), was born for him from the previously mentioned individuals. Because of her beauty,” he says, “they call the earth by the same name after her. The Father of these, Most High, became an object of worship after he died in an encounter with beasts. His children performed funeral libations and sacrifices for him.

“Ouranos inherited his father’s dominion and married his sister Ge, and from her produced four children: Elos, who is also Kronos, Baetylos, Dagon, who is Grain, and Atlas. From other wives Ouranos had numerous offspring. Ge therefore, being angry and jealous, reproached Ouranos, and as a result, they separated from one another. After Ouranos had left her, he would come and forcefully rape her whenever he wished and then depart again. He also tried to kill his children by her, but Ge repeatedly defended herself once she had assembled an alliance for herself.

“When Kronos reached manhood, he punished his father Ouranos and thus avenged his mother, utilizing Hermes Trismegistos—for he was his secretary—as counselor and helper. The children of Kronos were Persephone and Athena. The former died in early maidenhood; with the advice of the latter, Athena, as well as of Hermes, Kronos made a sickle and spear of iron. Then Hermes used magic spells on the allies of Kronos and instilled in them a desire to fight against Ouranos on behalf of Ge. Thus, Kronos waged war against Ouranos expelled him from his dominion, and took up his kingdom. Ouranos’ favorite mistress, who was pregnant, was also captured in the battle and Kronos gave her in marriage to Dagon. While with the latter, she gave birth to the child conceived by Ouranos, whom she called Demarous.

“Furthermore, Kronos surrounded his own dwelling with a wall, and founded the first city, Byblos in Phoenicia. Afterwards, Kronos began to suspect his own brother Atlas, and on the advice of Hermes, he cast him down and buried him in the depths of the earth. During this same era, the descendants of the Dioscouri constructed rafts and ships and made voyages. Cast ashore near Mount Cassios, they consecrated a shrine there. Now the allies of Elos, i.e., Kronos, were called ‘Eloim,’ as the ones named after Kronos would be ‘Kronians.’

“Kronos had a son Sadidos whom he destroyed with his own weapon because he was suspicious of him. He became the murderer of his own child and deprived him of life. Similarly, he beheaded his own daughter, so that all the gods were astounded at the disposition of Kronos.

“Some time later, while Ouranos was in exile, he secretly sent his maiden daughter Astarte together with two other sisters of hers, Rhea and Dione, to kill Kronos by stealth. Kronos, however, caught the lasses and made the sisters his wives. When Ouranos found out, he sent Destiny, Hour, and other allies into battle against Kronos. These too Kronos won over and kept at his side. Also, he says, “the god Ouranos further invented baetyls, by devising stones endowed with life.”

“Kronos had seven daughters, Titanids or Artemids, by Astarte, and again by Rhea he had seven sons, the youngest of whom was made an object of worship at the time of his birth. By Dione he had two female children and again by Astarte two male children, called Desire and Love.

“Dagon, since he discovered grain and plough, was called Zeus Ploughman. One of the Titanids mated with Sydyk, called ‘just one,’ and bore Asclepius.

“Three more children were born to Kronos in (or ‘by’) Peraea, Kronos, named after his father, Zeus Belos, and Apollo. In their time there also lived Pontos, Typhon, and Nereus, father of Pontos and son of Belos. From Pontos came Sidon, who first discovered how to sing a song because of her superlative voice, and Poseidon. Demarous had a son Melkarthos, who is also known as Heracles.

“Then Ouranos again went to battle, against Pontos. Demarous revolted and allied himself with him and Demarous advanced against Pontos, but Pontos routed him. Demarous vowed to offer a sacrifice in return for his escape.

“In the thirty-second year of his own assumption of royal authority Elos, i.e., Kronos, trapped his father Ouranos in a certain inland place. He overpowered and castrated him near springs and rivers. There Ouranos was made an object of worship and he breathed his last and the blood from his genitals dripped into the springs and the rivers’ waters. Even now the place is shown.”

Such are the things told about Kronos; and such are the solemn tales about the life of the contemporaries of Kronos as that is celebrated by the Greeks. They say that these were the first, indeed golden, race of mortals. O, for that blessed happiness of the ancients!

D) Accounts of Later Rulers (PE 1.10.10.30-42)

After relating other matters, our author continues as follows:

“Greatest Astarte and Zeus, called both Demarous and Adodos, king of gods, were ruling over the land with the consent of Kronos. Astarte placed upon her own head a bull’s head as an emblem of kingship. While traveling around the world, she discovered a star which had fallen from the sky. She took it up and consecrated it in Tyre, the holy island. The Phoenicians say that Astarte is Aphrodite.”

“Also when Kronos was traveling around the world, he gave the kingdom of Attica to his own daughter Athena. At the occurrence of a fatal plague, Kronos immolated his only son to his father Ouranos, and circumcised himself, forcing the allies who were with him to do the same. And not long after this, when another of his children died, one born of Rhea and called Muth, he made him an object of worship. The Phoenicians call him Death and Pluto. In addition, Kronos gave the city Byblos to the goddess Baaltis who is also Dione, and the city Beirut to Poseidon and to the Kabeiri, the Hunters and the Fishers, who made the relics of Pontos an object of worship in Beirut.

“Before this, the god Taautos, imitating the visages of his fellow gods, Kronos, Dagon and the rest, engraved the sacred forms of the letters. He also invented as royal emblems for Kronos four eyes, on the front and in the rear, two awake, and two closed restfully; and upon the shoulders, four wings, two as if fluttering, and two as if relaxed.

This a symbol, since Kronos was watchful even when in repose, and was in repose even when awake; similarly the wings were symbolic because he flew while at rest, and was at rest while flying. Each of the other gods had two feathers upon his shoulders, since they in fact flew with Kronos. In addition, he also had two wings on his head, one for the mind, which is the supreme authority, and one for the faculty of perception. When he went to the southern land, Kronos transferred all of Egypt to the god Taautos, so that it might become his kingdom.

“The seven sons of Sydyk, the Kabeiri, and the eighth son, their brother Asclepius,” he says, “were the first of all men to record these things, as the god Taautos ordered them.

“When Thabion, the very first hierophant of the Phoenicians since the beginning of time, had interpreted all these things allegorically and had combined them with natural and cosmic phenomena, he transmitted them to the priests and to the prophets who led the rites. They, in turn, intending to magnify the delusion in every way, handed them on to their successors and to the aliens, one of whom was Eisirios, inventor of the three scripts, brother of Chna, the first to change his name to Phoenix.

Next, he makes these additional comments:

“The Greeks, who surpass all men in their natural cleverness, first appropriated most of these tales. They then dramatized them in various ways with additional literary ornaments, and intending to beguile with the delights of myths, they embellished them in all sorts of ways. Thence Hesiod and the highly touted cyclic poets fabricated their own versions and made excerpts of Theogonies and Giants’ Battles and Titans’ Battles, which they carried about and with which they defeated the truth. Our ears have for ages become habituated to and predisposed by their fictions. We preserve the received mythology as a sacred trust, as I said also at the beginning. Assisted by the force of time, it has rendered its hold inescapable, so that the truth is regarded as drivel and the bastard tale as truth.”

Let these selections serve as examples from the writing of Sanchuniathon, which was interpreted by Philo of Byblos and whose veracity is attested by the testimony of the philosopher Porphyry.

(There follows a short passage from the work “On the Jews” by Philo, which also credits Taautos with the discovery of true “theology.” Cf. Appendix I.)

Fragment 3 (PE 1.10.44=4.16.11)
E) On Human Sacrifice.

Shortly afterward he says, “Among ancient peoples in critically dangerous situations it was customary for the rulers of a city or nation, rather than lose everyone, to provide the dearest of their children as a propitiatory sacrifice to the avenging deities. The children thus given up were slaughtered according to a secret ritual. Now Kronos, whom the Phoenicians call El, who was in their land and who was later divinized after his death as the star of Kronos, had an only son by a local bride named Anobret, and therefore they called him Ieoud.—Even now among the Phoenicians the only son is given this name.—When war’s gravest dangers gripped the land, Kronos dressed his son in royal attire, prepared an altar and sacrificed him.”

Fragment 4 (PE 1.10.45-53)
F) On Snakes

The same author, again dealing with the letters of the Phoenicians, translating from the works of Sanchuniathon, says such wondrous things about the creeping and venomous beasts, which certainly perform nothing beneficial for humans, but rather effect ruin and destruction for whomever they strike with deadly and cruel venom. He writes these things just as follows:

“So Taautos himself regarded as divine the nature of the serpent and snakes, as did the Phoenicians and Egyptians after him; for this animal, according to the tradition established by him, was fiery and the most filled with breath of all crawling things. Moreover, it displayed a matchless swiftness by means of its breath, without feet, hands, or any other external members by which the other animals make their movements. In addition, it produces shapes of many sorts, and while moving along makes twisting advances as swiftly as it wishes. It is also exceedingly long-lived, and by nature not only does it slough off old age and become rejuvenated, but it also attains greater growth. When it fulfills its determined limit, it is consumed into itself, as Taautos himself similarly narrates in his sacred writings. Therefore, this animal is included in the rites and mysteries.

“We have discussed this species at greater length in our monographs entitled ‘Ethothion,’ in which we demonstrate that it is immortal and that it dissolves into itself, as noted above; for this sort of animal does not die an ordinary death unless it is violently struck. The Phoenicians call it Good Demon. Similarly, the Egyptians give it a name, Kneph, and they also give it the head of a hawk, because of the hawk’s active character.

“Epéeis, whom they call a very great hierophant and sacred scribe and whom Areios Heracleopolites translated, says just what follows in an allegorical fashion: ‘The first most divine being is a very beautiful snake with the form of a hawk. Whenever it would open its eyes, there was light everywhere in its land which was the first created, but whenever it would shut its eyes, there was darkness.’ Epéeis gives the impression that the animal is also glowing, since he says ‘it shone,’ for to shine is a characteristic of light.

“Pherecydes too, took his materials from the Phoenicians and dealt with the divine attributes of the god he called Ophioneus (Snake-like) and with Ophionides, about whom we will have more to say.

“The Egyptians still portray the cosmos according to this same notion. They draw an encompassing sphere, misty and fiery, and a hawk-shaped snake dividing the middle.—The entire device is rather like our letter theta.—They indicate that the circle is the cosmos, and they signify that the snake in the middle holding it together is Good Demon.

“Also the magus Zoroaster, in his sacred collection of Persian lore, says just this: ‘The one who has the head of a hawk is god. He is the first, imperishable, everlasting, unbegotten, undivided, incomparable, the director of everything beautiful, the one who cannot be bribed, the best of the good, the wisest of the wise. He is also father of order and justice, self-taught, and without artifice and perfect and wise and he alone discovered the sacred nature.’

“Ostanes also says the same thing about the animal in the work entitled Octateuch.

“Therefore, all took their materials from Taautos and speculated on nature as previously indicated. They built temples and consecrated, in the temples’ innermost shrines, the first letters, those created by serpents, and for them, they celebrated feasts and sacrifices and rites. They considered them the greatest gods and the founders of the universe. So much, then, for serpents.”

Epilogue of Eusebius

The theology of the Phoenicians has this character. The salvific word proclaims that we flee from this without turning back and search out the cure for the ancient peoples’ madness. For myths and fictions of poets do not happen to contain some hidden theory in allegorical form. Instead, as they themselves would have it, these are the authentic testimonies of wise and ancient theologians, with material older than all authors of poetry or prose. The trustworthiness of these accounts is deduced from the gods’ appellations, even now prevalent in the cities and villages settled by the Phoenicians, and from the account of the rites performed among each of these cities and villages. It should be evident that it is no longer necessary to track down forced explanations of natural phenomena in these matters, since the facts of themselves provide a clear refutation of such an endeavor. Such, then, is the theology of the Phoenicians.

Fragment 5 (Lydus De mens. 4.154)

The Phoenicians understand Kronos according to the interpretation of a similar name or according to some allegory, as one may gather from the second book of the work on Phoenicia by Herennius Philo. The history transmits the account that he ruled as king, as I mentioned previously, over Libya and Sicily and the western regions, and that he founded a city, as Charax says, which was once called Kronia, but now Sacred City.

Fragment 6 (Stephen of Byzantium, s.v. Nisibis)

Nisibis: a city in the district outside the (Roman) boundary, in the direction of the Tigris River. Philo in his work on Phoenicia says Nasibis, with an “a”… Nasibis, as Philo says, means “steles.”

Fragment 7 (Lydus, De mens. 4.53)

There has been and is much disagreement among theologians about the god honored among the Hebrews… The Roman Varro says, in discussing him, that among the Chaldaeans in their mysteries he is called Iao, which stands for “intelligible light” in the Phoenician language, as Herennius says.

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APPENDIX 1

3. Helladius, Chrestomathy (Photius, Bibl. 529 b27)
   This one, too, says nonsensically that Moses is called Alpha, because his body was afflicted with leprosy (ἀλφοίς) and he calls Philo as a witness to the falsehood.

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Appendix II
Other Phoenician Cosmogonies

Damascius, de princ. 125.C5

According to the same author (scil. Eudemus), the Sidonians posit before all things Chronos and Pothos and Omichle. When, as the two first principles, Pothos and Omichle had intercourse, Aer and Aura came to be. They interpret Aer as pure intellect and Aura as the prototypical living being which is set in motion by him (i.e., Aer). Then from these two Otos was born, in an intellectual way, I believe, as the one perceived by intellect.

Apart from that of Eudemus we find the Phoenician mythology according to Mochos. At first there was Aether and Aer, the same two first principles, from which Oulomos, the god perceived by intellect, was created; it, I believe, is pure intellect. They say that from him, when he had intercourse with himself, there was born Chousor, the first opener, and then an egg. The latter, I believe, they say is the mind perceived by intellect, and the opener Chousor is the intellectual power, inasmuch as it first distinguishes indistinct nature. It could be that after the first two principles comes at the top one Wind, and in the middle the two winds, the West and the South, for in some way they make these prior to Oulomos. Oulomos is the mind perceived by mind. The opener Chousor is the first order after that perceived by mind. The egg is heaven, for it is said that when it was broken in two, Heaven and Earth came into being, each from one of the halves.

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