SECTION V.-PHOENICIAN RELIGION. HE Phoenician religion was a gross polytheism, and is but imperfectly understood, as there is no sacred book, like the Old Testament of the Hebrews, or like the Zend-Avesta of the Medes and Persians, or the Vedas of the Sanskritic Hindoos, or the Ritual of the Dead of the Egyptians, to spread before us a view of the system. Neither is there any extensive range of sculptures or paintings to give us an idea of the outward aspect of the worship, as in Egypt, Assyria and Greece. Neither has any ancient writer given us any account of this religion excepting Philo Byblius, a Greek writer of the first or second century after Christ, and who was a native of Byblus. This author is quoted by Eusebius in his "Evangelical Preparation" several centuries later. But the work of Philo Byblius deals exclusively with Phoenician cosmogony and mythology, and thus gives us no light upon the real character of the religion. We are obliged to rely mainly upon the notices of the Phoenician religion by the writers of portions of the Old Testament, upon incidental allusions by classical authors, upon inscriptions, upon the etymology of names, and upon occasional representations accompanying inscriptions upon stones or coins. These are, however, so disconnected and vague as to give us but scanty and unsatisfactory knowledge of the inner nature of the Phoenician religious system. The Phoenician religion evidently was derived from the same source from which the religions of Chaldæa and Assyria took their origin. It was based on the conception of one Supreme and Universal Divine Being, "whose person was hardly to be distinguished from the material world, which had emanated from his substance without any distinct act of creation." The Universal Supreme Being was usually termed Baal, meaning "the Lord." He represented the sun, which was regarded as the great agent a number of secondary divinities, named Each divinity had his female principle, or wife. Each secondary Baal had a corresponding Baalath, representing the same god under a different aspect. The female principle of the great god Baal at Sidon was Ashtoreth, or Astarte, the representative of the moon, therefore corresponding to the Grecian goddess Artemis, or Diana. The planets were worshiped under the generic title of Cabirim, the "powerful ones." Fire was likewise reverenced, and the sun and star deities were emphatically "fire gods." Movers describes the Phoenician religion as "an apotheosis of the forces and laws of nature; an adoration of the objects in which these forces were seen, and where they appeared most active.” The most cruel and licentious ceremonies accompanied the worship of the Phoenician deities. Children were burnt alive to appease the wrath of Baal-Moloch; a custom carried to great excess in Carthage. There was a systematic offering of human victims as expiatory sacrifices to El and other gods. The reason for this shocking superstious custom is to be found in the words addressed by Balak to Balaam, as follows: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" Philo Byblius says: "It was customary among the ancients, in times of great calamity and danger, that the rulers of the city or nation should offer up the best beloved of their children, as an expiatory sacrifice to the avenging deities; and these victims were slaughtered mystically." The Phoenicians were instructed that at one time the god El himself, under the pressure of extreme peril, had taken his only son, clad him in kingly attire, set him as a victim upon an altar, and killed him with his own hand. Thereafter it was the duty of rulers to follow this divine example, and private persons, when surrounded by difficulties, might offer up their children to appease the divine anger. Porphyry says that "the Phoenician history was full of instances, in which that people, when suffering under great calamity from war, or pestilence, or drought, chose by public vote one of those most dear to them, and sacrificed him to Saturn." The worship of Ashtoreth in Phoenicia and Syria was accompanied with licentious rites. The worship of the great Nature-goddess "tended to encourage dissoluteness in the relations between the sexes, and even to sanctify impurities of the most abominable description." "This religion silenced all the best feelings of human nature, degraded men's minds by a superstition alternately cruel and profligate, and we may seek in vain for any influence for good it could have exercised on the nation.". The religion well illustrated the moral character of the Phoenicians, who were generally insubordinate, but also servile, gloomy and cruel, corrupt and fierce, covetous and selfish, vindictive and treacherous. Being traders in everything they were devoid of every kindly feeling and lofty impulse. The Phoenicians did not worship images of their deities, and were therefore not idolaters, in the usual acceptation of the term. In the temple of Melkarth at Gades there was no material emblem of the god whatever, exceping a constantly-burning fire. In other places conical stones, called batyli, were dedicated to the different deities, and were honored with a limited adoration, being con-, sidered as possessing a certain mystic virtue. These stones were sometimes replaced by pillars, which were erected in front of the temples and had sacrifices offered to them. The pillars were mostly of wood, though sometimes of stone or metal, and were called asherahs, "uprights," by the Jews. festive occasions they were adorned with boughs of trees, flowers and ribbons, and constituted the chief object of a worship of a sensual and debasing nature. An emblem in the Assyrian sculptures is regarded as conveying a correct idea of the usual appearance of these asherahs at such times. On Phoenician worship was conducted publicly, and included praise, prayer and sacrifice. Animals were generally sacrificed, though, as we have observed, there were frequently human sacrifices. The victims were usually consumed entirely upon the altars. Libations of wine were lavishly poured out in honor of the principal deities, and incense was burnt in extravagant profusion. Sometimes an endeavor was made to influence the deity by vociferous and prolonged cries, and even by self-inflicted wounds and mutilation. Festivals were frequently held, particularly one at the vernal equinox, on which occasion sacrifices on a large scale were made, and vast multitudes of people assembled at the leading temples. Says Rawlinson: "Altogether the religion of the Phoenicians, while possessing some redeeming points, as the absence of images and deep sense of sin which led them to sacrifice what was nearest and dearest to them to appease the divine anger, must be regarded as one of the lowest and most debasing of the forms of belief and worship prevalent in the ancient world, combining as it did impurity with cruelty, the sanction of licentiousness with the requirement of bloody rites, revolting to the conscience, and destructive of any right apprehension of the true idea of God." SECTION VI.-GEOGRAPHY OF SYRIA. YRIA-at present a province of the Turkish Empire-now embraces ancient Syria, Palestine and Phoenicia; thus having an area of about seventy thousand square miles and a population of two millions. It is located between the Arabian desert on the east and the Mediterranean sea on the west. The Greeks regarded Syria as including Palestine and Phoenicia, but the Jews always considered these three countries as distinct from each other. Aram was the Jewish name for Syria. Ancient Syria proper was bounded on the west by the Mediterranean, on the north by Mount Amanus, on the east by the Euphrates and Arabia, and on the south by Arabia. Its principal geographical divisions in the time of the Romans were Syria proper; Cole Syria, or Hollow-Syria; and Commagêné, in the North. The chief mountains of Syria were Amanus, now Al Lucan; Casius, now Cas; Libanus and Anti-Libanus, the Mount Lebanon of Scripture, whose summit is said to be perpetually capped with snow. The principal rivers of Syria are the Euphrates, the Orontes and the Leontes. The small river called Eleutherus was anciently said to be haunted by a dragon, whose immense jaws could receive a mounted horseman. Sabbatum was represented as ceasing to flow on the Sabbath. The Adonis, tinged with reddish sand in the rainy season, was believed to flow with blood on the anniversary of the death of Adonis, who was said to have been killed on its banks by a wild boar. The palm, the plane-tree and the cypress are The PALMYRA; MIDDLE CROSSING OF GRAND COLONNADE; GRANITE MONOLITH. represent primeval Syria as divided into a number of small kingdoms, among which were Damascus, Hamath, Zobah and Geshur. Syria is believed to be one of the earliest inhabited regions of the globe, and the modern Syrians still have traditions representing their country as the oldest in the world. The Syrians were at first governed by numerous petty chiefs, called kings, a title which the ancient writers applied to every ruler or leader, or chief, of a community. last four centuries under the Ottoman Turks. Under its present masters the country has everywhere fallen into decay, and can scarcely be said to have any history; though in ancient and mediæval times it was the theater of many important events, having witnessed the prowess and martial deeds of Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Pompey, Abu-bekir and Omar, Godfrey of Bouillon, Saladin and Richard the Lionhearted, Zingis-Khan and Tamerlane. |