SANCHONIATHO, a Phoenician philosopher and historian, who is said to have flourished before the Trojan war, and about the time of Semiramis. Of this most ancient writer the only remains extant are various fragments of cosmogony, and of the history of the gods and first mortals, preserved by Eusebius and Theodoret, both of whom speak of Sanchoniatho as an accurate and faithful historian; and the former adds, that his work, which was translated by Philo-Byblius from the Phoenician into the Greek language, contains many things relating to the history of the Jews which deserve great credit, both because they agree with the Jewish writers, and because the author received these particulars from the annals of Hierombalus, a priest of the god Jao.

Several modern writers of great learning, however, have called in question the very existence of Sanchoniatho, and have contended, with much plausibility, that the fragments which Eusebius adopted as genuine upon the authority of Porphyry, were forged by that author or by the pretended translator Philo, from enmity to the Christians, and that the Pagans might have something to show of equal antiquity with the books of Moses. These opposite opinions have produced a controversy that has filled volumes, and of which our limits would hardly admit of an abstract. We shall therefore in few words state what appears to us to be the truth, and refer such of our readers as are desirous of fuller information to the works of the authors mentioned below.^[1. Bochart, Scaliger, Vossius, Cumberland, Dodwell, Stillingfleet, Mosheim’s Cudworth, and Warburton. ]

The controversy respecting Sanchoniatho resolves itself into two questions: First, was there in reality such a writer? and, second, was he of the very remote antiquity which his translator claims for him?

Now that there was really such a writer, and that the fragments preserved by Eusebius are indeed parts of his history, interpolated perhaps by the translator, we are compelled to believe by the following reasons.^[2. Of these indeed there are several proofs. Philo makes Sanchoniatho speak of Byblus as the most ancient city of Phoenicia, which, in all probability, it was not. We read in the book of Judges of Berith or Berytus, the city where Sunchoniatho himself lived; but not of Byblus, which was the native city of Philo, and to which he is therefore partial. He makes him likewise talk of the Greeks at a period long before any of the Grecian states were known or probably peopled. ] Eusebius, who admitted them into his work as authentic, was one of the most learned men of his age, and a diligent searcher into antiquity. His conduct at the Nicene council shows, that on every subject he thought for himself, neither biassed by authority on the one side, nor carried over by the rage of innovation on the other. He had better means than any modern writer can have of satisfying himself with respect to the authenticity of a very extraordinary work, which had then but lately been translated into the Greek language, and made generally known; and there is nothing in the work itself, or at least in those parts of it which he has preserved, that could induce a wise and good man to obtrude it upon the public as genuine, had he himself suspected it to be spurious. Too many of the Christian fathers were indeed credulous, and ready to admit the authenticity of writings without duly weighing the merits of their claim; but then such writings were always believed to be favourable to the Christian cause, and inimical to the cause of Paganism. That no man of common sense could suppose the cosmogony of Sanchoniatho favourable to the cause of revealed religion, further proof cannot be requisite than what is furnished by the following extract.

“He supposes, or affirms, that the principles of the universe were a dark and windy air, or a wind made of dark air, and a turbulent evening chaos; and that these things were boundless, and for a long time had no bound or figure.[7:19:636] But when tins wind fell in love with his own principles, and a mixture was made, that mixture was called desire or cupid (πoθoς).

“This mixture completed, was the beginning of the (χτιoεως ) making of all things. But that wind did not know its own production; and of this with that wind was begotten Mot, which some call Mua, others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. And of this came all the seed of this building, and the generation of the universe.

“But there were certain animals which had no sense, out of which were begotten intelligent animals, and were called Zophesemin, that is, the spies or overseers of heaven; and were formed alike in the shape of an egg. Thus shone out Mot, the sun and the moon, the less and the greater stars.

“And the air shining thoroughly with light, by its fiery influence on the sea and earth, winds were begotten, and clouds and great defluxions of the heavenly waters. And, when all these things first were parted, and were separated from their proper place by the heat of the sun, then all met again in the air, and dashed against one another, and were broken to pieces, whence thunders and lightnings were made; and at the stroke of these thunders the fore-mentioned intelligent animals were awakened, and frighted with the sound, and male and female stirred in the earth and in the sea. This is the generation of animals.”

After these things Sanchoniatho goes on to say, “These things are written in the Cosmogony of Taautus, and in his memoirs; and out of the conjectures and surer natural signs which his mind saw, and found out, and wherewith he has enlightened us.”

Afterwards declaring the names of the winds north and south, and the rest, he makes this epilogue: “But these first men consecrated the plants shooting out of the earth, and judged them gods, and worshipped them; upon whom they themselves lived, and all their posterity and all before them; to these they made their meat and drink offerings.” Then he concludes: “These were the devices of worship, agreeing with the weakness and want of boldness in their minds.”

Let us suppose Eusebius to have been as weak and credulous as the darkest monk in the darkest age of Europe, a supposition which no man will make who knows any thing of the writings of that eminent historian, what could he see in this senseless jargon, which even a dreaming monk would think of employing in support of Christianity? Eusebius calls it, and calls it truly, direct atheism; but could he imagine that an ancient system of atheism would contribute so much to make the Pagans of his age admit as divine revelations the books of the Old and New Testaments, that he should be induced to adopt, without examination, an impudent forgery, not two hundred years old, as genuine remains of the most remote antiquity?

If this Phoenician cosmogony be a fabrication of Porphyry, or of the pretended translator, it must surely have been fabricated for some purpose; but it is impossible for us to conceive what purpose either of these writers could have intended to serve by forging a system so extravagantly absurd. Porphyry, though an enemy to the Christians, was not an atheist, and would never have thought of making an atheist of him whom he meant to obtrude upon the world as the rival of Moses. His own principles were those of the Alexandrian Platonists; and had he been the forger of the works which bear the name of Sanchoniatho, instead of the incomprehensible jargon about dark wind, evening chaos, Mot, the overseers of heaven in the shape of an egg, and animation proceeding from the sound of thunder, we should doubtless have been amused with refined specula tions concerning the operations of the Demiurgus and the other persons in the Platonic Triad.

Father Simon of the oratory imagines,^[3. Bib. Crit. vol. i. p. 140. ] that the purpose for which the history of Sanchoniatho was forged, was to support Paganism, by taking from it its mythology and allegories, which were perpetually objected to it by the Christian writers. But this learned roan totally mistakes the matter. The primitive Christians were too much attached to allegories themselves to rest their objections to Paganism on such a foundation. What they objected to that system was, the immoral stories told of the priests. To this the pagan priests and philosophers replied, that these stories were only mythological allegories, which veiled all the great truths of theology, ethics, and physics. The Christians said this could not be; for that the stories of the gods had a substantial foundation in fact, these gods being only dead men deified, who in life had like passions and infirmities with other mortals. This, then, was the objection which the forger of the works of Sanchoniatho had to remove, if he really forged them in support of Paganism; but instead of doing so he gives the genealogy and history of all the greater gods, and shows that they were men deified after death for the exploits, some of them grossly immoral, which they had performed in this world. We have elsewhere (see Polytheism ) given his account of the deification of Chrysos, and Ouranos, and Gé, and Hypsistos, and Muth.; but our readers may not perhaps be ill pleased to accompany him through the history of Ouranos and Kronus, two of his greatest gods; whence it will appear how little his writings are calculated to support the tottering cause of Paganism against the objections which were then urged to it by the Christian apologists.

“Ouranos,” says he, “taking the kingdom of his father, married Gé, his sister, and by her had four sons; Ilus, who is called Kronus; Betylus; Dagon, who is Siton, or the god of corn; and Atlas. But by other wives Ouranos had much issue, wherefore Gé, being grieved at it and jealous, reproached Ouranos, so as they parted from each other. But Ouranos, though he parted from her, yet by force invading her, and lying with her when he listed, went away again; and he also attempted to kill the children he had by her. Gé also often defended or avenged herself, gathering auxiliary powers unto her. But when Kronus came to man’s age, using Hermes Trismegistus as his counsellor and assistant (for he was his secretary), he opposed his father Ouranos, avenging his mother. But Kronus had children, Persephone and Athena; the former died a virgin, but by the counsel of the latter Athena, and of Hermes, Kronus made of iron a scimitar and a spear. Then Hermes, speaking to the assistants of Kronus with enchanting words, wrought in them a keen desire to fight against Ouranos in the behalf of Gé; and thus Kronus, warring against Ouranos, drove him out of his kingdom, and succeeded him in the imperial power of office. In the fight was taken a well-beloved concubine of Ouranos, big with child. Kronus gave her in marriage to Dagon, and she brought forth at his house what she had in her womb by Ouranos, and called him Demaroon. After these things Kronus builds a wall round about his house, and founds Byblus, the first city in Phoenicia. Afterwards Kronus, suspecting his own brother Atlas, with the advice of Hermes, throwing him into a deep hole of the earth, there buried him, and having a son called Sadid, he despatched him with his own sword, having a suspicion of him, and deprived his own son of life with his own hand. He also cut off the head of his own daughter, so that all the gods were amazed at the mind of Kronus. But in process of time, Ouranos, being in flight, or banishment, sends his daughter Astarte, with two other sisters, Rhea and[7:19:637] Dione, to cut off Kronus by deceit, whom Kronus taking, made wives of these sisters. Ouranos, understanding this, sent Eimarmene and Hore, Fate and Beauty, with other auxiliaries, to war against him; but Kronus, having gained the affections of these also, kept them with himself. Moreover, the god Ouranos devised Baetulia, contriving stones that moved as having life. But Kronus begat on Astarte seven daughters called Titanides or Artemides; and he begat on Rhea seven sons, the youngest of whom, as soon as he was born, was consecrated a god. Also by Dione he had daughters, and by Astarte, moreover, two sons, Pothos and Eros, that is, Cupid and Love. But Dagon, after he had found out bread-corn, and the plough, was called Zeus Aratrius. To Sydyc, or the just, one of the Titanides bare Asclepius. Kronus had also in Peraea three sons, first, Kronus, his father’s namesake; second, Zeus Belus; and, third, Apollo.”

Is it conceivable, that a writer so acute as Porphyry, or indeed that any man of common sense, either in his age or in that of Philo, would forge a book filled with such stories as these, in order to remove the Christian objections to the immoral characters of the Pagan divinities? The very supposition is impossible to be made. Nor let any one imagine that Sanchoniatho is here writing allegorically, and by his tales of Ouranos, and Gé, and Kronus, is only personifying the heaven, the earth, and time. On the contrary, he assures us, that Ouranos, or Epigeus, or Autochthon (for he gives him all these names), was the son of one Eliaun or Hypsistos, who dwelt about Byblus, and that from him the clement which is over us was called heaven, on account of its excellent beauty, as the earth was named Gé after his sister and wife. And his translator is very angry^[4. Apud Euscbium, Praep. Evang. lib. i. cap. vi. ] with the Neotoric Greeks, as he calls them, because that, “by a great deal of force and straining, they laboured to turn all the stories of the gods into allegories and physical discourses.” This proves unanswerably that the author of this book, whoever he was, did not mean to veil the great truths of religion under the cloak of mythological allegories; and therefore, if it was forged by Porphyry in support of Paganism, the forger so far mistook the state of the question between him and his adversaries, that he contrived a book, which, if admitted to be ancient, totally overthrew his own cause.

The next thing to be inquired into with respect to Sanchoniatho is his antiquity. Did he really live and wτite at so early a period as Porphyry and Philo pretend? We think he did not; and what contributes not a little to confirm us in our opinion, is that mark of national vanity and partiality, common to after-times, in making the sacred mysteries of his own country original, and conveyed from Phoenicia into Egypt. This, however, furnishes an additional proof that Porphyry was not the forger of the work; for he well knew that the mysteries had their origin in Egypt (see Mysteries), and would not have fallen into such a blunder. He is guilty, indeed, of a very great anachronism, when he makes Sanchoniatho contemporary with Semiramis, and yet pretends that what he writes of the Jews is compiled from the records of Hierombalus the priest of the god Jao; for Bochart has made it appear in the highest degree probable,^[5. ’ Geogr. Sac. p. 2, book ii. lib. ii. cap. xvii.\ ] that Hierombalus or Jeromb-baal is the Jerub-baal or Gideon of Scripture.

Between the reign of Semiramis and the Trojan war a period elapsed of near eight hundred years, whereas Gideon flourished not above seventy years before the destruction of Troy. But supposing Sanchoniatho to have really consulted the records of Gideon, it by no means follows that he flourished at the same period with that judge of Israel. He speaks of the building of Tyre as an ancient thing, while our best chronologers^[6. ’ Scaliger. ] ’ place it in the time of Gideon.

Indeed, were we certain that any writings had been left by that holy man, we should be obliged to conclude, that a large tract of time had intervened between the death of their author and their falling into the hands of Sanchoniatho; for, surely, they could not, in a short period, have been so completely corrupted as to give any countenance to his impious absurdities. His atheistic cosmogony he does not indeed pretend to have got from the annals of the priest of Jao, but from records which were deposited in his own town of Berytus by Thoth, a Phoenician philosopher, who was afterwards made king of Egypt. But surely the annals of Gideon, if written by himself, and preserved pure to the days of Sanchoniatho, must have contained so many truths of the Mosaic religion, as must have prevented any man of sense from adopting so impossible a theory as Thoth’s, although sanctioned by the greatest name of profane antiquity. Stillingfleet indeed thinks it most probable that Sanchoniatho became acquainted with the most remarkable passages of the life of Jerub-baal from annals written, by a Phoenician pen. He observes, that immediately after the death of Gideon, the Israelites, with their usual proneness to idolatry, worshipped Baal-berith, or the idol of Berytus, the town in which Sanchoniatho lived; and from this circumstance he concludes, that there must have been such an intercourse between the Hebrews and Berytians, that in process of time the latter people might assume to themselves the Jerub-baal of the former, and hand down his actions to posterity as those of a priest instead of a great commander. All this may be true; but if so, it amounts to a demonstration that the antiquity of Sanchoniatho is not so high by many ages as that which is claimed for him by Philo and Porphyry; though he may still be more ancient, as we think Vossius has proved him to be, than any other profane historian whose writings have come down to us either entire or in fragments.

But granting the authenticity of Sanchoniatho’s history, what, it may be asked, is the value of his fragments, that we should be at any trouble to ascertain whether they be genuine remains of high antiquity, or the forgeries of a modern impostor? We answer, with the illustrious Stiilling-fleet, that though these fragments contain such absurdities as it would be a disgrace to reason to suppose credible, though the whole cosmogony is the grossest sink of atheism, and though many persons make a figure in the history, whose very existence may well be doubted; yet we, who have in our hands the light of divine revelation, may in this dungeon discover many excellent relics of ancient tradition, which throw no feeble light upon many passages of holy scripture, as they give us the origin and progress oif that idolatry which was so long the opprobrium of human nature. ’ They furnish, too, a complete refutation of the extravagant chronology of the Chaîdaeans and Egyptians, and show, if they be genuine, that the world is indeed not older than it is said to be by Moses.