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Philo or Sanchuniathon? A Phoenicean Cosmogony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

M. J. Edwards
M. J. Edwards
Affiliation:
New College, Oxford
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Extract

Herennius Philo of Byblos is the subject of a notice in the Suda, which states that he was a grammarian born in Nero's time who lived to such an advanced age that he was still composing works in the reign of Hadrian. The titles listed include: On the Acquisition and Choice of Books; On Cities and their Eminent Citizens; and On the Reign of Hadrian (= Fr. 1 Jacoby). His name, like that of Flavius Josephus, could imply the patronage of a Roman family; we may suppose that, like Porphyry and Maximus of Tyre, he was a Phoenicean by origin who had adopted the tongue and culture of the Greeks.

Type
Articles
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 41 , Issue 1 , May 1991 , pp. 213 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1991

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References

1 The fragments can be found in Jacoby, F., Die Fragmente der Griechischen Historiker, iii (Leiden, 1958), pp. 802–24Google Scholar. Fragments of Philo and other historians will hereafter be referred to under the name of Jacoby with the relevant number.

2 For the name Herennius Philo see Jacoby F5 (Lydus) and F9 (Origen), both taken from reliable witnesses. The only other Greek to bear the name Herennios appears to have been the pupil of Ammonius Saccas: see Pauly–Wissowa, , RE 8 (1912), 649ff.Google Scholar; for the Oscan origin of the name and its Roman bearers see pp. 662ff.

3 On the compatibility of our sources with this statement and with one another see Appendix.

4 The most useful modern work, though I shall here disagree with some of its conclusions, is Baumgarten, A. I., The Phoenicean History of Philo of Byblos (Leiden, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Baumgarten holds, as I do, that the history is a Hellenistic treatment of Phoenicean materials. Nautin, P., ‘Sanchuniathon chez Philo de Byblos et chez Porphyre’, in Revue Biblique 56 (1949), 272Google Scholar, treats the Sanchuniathon of Philo as a Hellenistic fantasy, though admitting that the name itself is of Phoenicean provenance. The accuracy of Eusebius, though not as Baumgarten asserts (45 n. 26) the existence of Sanchuniathon, is denied by Lobeck, C. A., Aglaophamus, ii. 1265–79Google Scholar. The chief proponent of a more credulous estimate of Philo has been O. Eissfeldt, some of whose writings are cited below. For a judicious review of the many controversies surrounding Sanchuniathon, see Barr, J., ‘Philo of Byblos and his “Phoenicean History”’, BJRL 57 (1974), 17–68.Google Scholar

5 The most important modern work on the Phoenicean ingredients has been Eissfeldt, O., Taautos und Sanchuniathon (Berlin, 1952).Google Scholar

6 Barr (1974), 36 and n. 2, after Albright but against Eissfeldt.

7 E.g. the equation of Phoenicean names with Greek counterparts, and the eclectic borrowings from other national historians, treated below.

8 On this see Murray, O., ‘Hecataeus of Abdera and Pharaonic Kingship’, JEA 56 (1970), 141–71.Google Scholar

9 That is, against the Jews. See Menander F1 Jacoby on the solution of Solomon's riddles by an adviser to Hiram of Tyre; Mochus F1 Jacoby on the trade between Hiram and Solomon; Dius F1 Jacoby on the failure of the ‘tyrant’ Solomon to solve the riddles of Hiram.

10 Hecataeus is no. 264 in Vol. iiia of Jacoby. On his anticipations of Euhemerus see Murray (1970), 151 andn. 4.

11 Euhemerus is no. 63 in Jacoby, Vol. i; for the Ennian passage see F14.

12 See Philo F10 (on Taautos and Sourmobelos), F3 (on Taautos) at P.E. 1.10.36 and 38. Though the plural form is more widely applied, the singular appears to be the privilege of the scholars. On the Hellenistic deification of benefactors in chronographic writing see Murray (1970), 160–1.

13 See Euhemerus F2 Jacoby at Diodorus Siculus 6.1.3; T4c Jacoby (Aetius). The language applied by Porphyry to Sanchuniathon resembles the encomium of Eunapius on Porphyry himself at Lives of the Philosophers 456 Boissonade.

14 I follow the rendering of Nautin (1949), 261–6. Despite the strictures of Baumgarten and others, it seems to me not improbable that Philo should have included the shrines of Ammon among the repositories whose archives Sanchuniathon is said to have perused. The assimilation of Hermes to Thoth would encourage such a conceit.

15 See Manetho F1 Jacoby. For Ammon in Hecataeus see F4 Jacoby. All the information concerning Egypt in Hecataeus F1–F6 is of the kind that one would expect to obtain from priests.

16 See Euhemerus F3 Jacoby.

17 See Herodotus, Histories 2.143.4.

18 See Baumgarten (1981), pp. 59ff. on the bearers of the name Abibalos. Hierom is more commonly known to modern readers as Hirdam: for the form see Theophilus, Ad Autolycum 3.22. In this author, as in the Phoenicean chroniclers, Hiram himself is the son of an Abibalos.

19 See Josephus, Contra Apionem I, passim and such Christian apologists as Tertullian, Apologeticum 19, Tatian, Oratio ad Graecos 31, Theophilus, Ad Autolycum 3.21. All these authorities argue for the superior antiquity of Moses, which Porphyry himself, indeed, appears to have conceded.

20 F4 Jacoby at P.E. 1.10.52. On the classification of this work see my Appendix.

21 Baumgarten (1981), p. 59.

22 On the spurious character of this work see Stern, M., Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, i (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 23–4Google Scholar and Murray, O., ‘Aristeas and Ptolemaic Kingship’, JTS 18 (1967), 342ff.Google Scholar

23 F11 Jacoby, from Helladius apud Photium.

24 See Gager, J., ‘Moses as Alpha’, JTS 20 (1969), 245–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 Gager (1969), 247–8, suggesting that the statement means ‘We grammarians call Moses Alpha’. I do not know why Gager assumes that the Philo in question was the Alexandrian, when he was neither a grammarian nor a hater of the Jews, and does not say anything in his extant writings which is susceptible of Helladius' interpretation.

26 Philo F3 Jacoby at P.E. 1.10.37.

27 So one gathers from F1 at P.E. 1.9.24. Since Taautos is one of Philo's earliest characters and cannot have written the history of his descendants, we must suppose that he was consulted for his theological acumen rather than for his knowledge of the past.

28 Eissfeldt (1952), pp. 12–24; See Barr (1974).

29 F3 Jacoby at P.E. 1.10.38.

30 So F10 Jacoby.

31 So Pope, M., Job (Garden City, 1961), pp. 73–4Google Scholar, with the endorsement of Baumgarten (1981), pp. 111–12.

32 For the few analogies to the contents that can be gleaned from Semitic literature, see Eissfeldt, O., ‘Das Chaos in der Biblischen und in der Phonizischen Cosmogonie’ in his Kleine Schriften, iii (Tübingen, 1963), pp. 258–62Google Scholar. As to the use of κα, consultation of Pritchard, J. B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 1955)CrossRefGoogle Scholar reveals no case in which the incidence of the conjunction is so high. The reason is, no doubt, that the epic style is more prolix; but the avoidance of the epic style in this excerpt is itself a significant fact.

33 Scott, W. B., Hermetica, ii (London, 1925), pp. 112–17Google Scholar on Hermeticum III. The latter text affords the closest parallel: with regard to the Jewish influence on t he Hermetica see Dodd, C. H., The Bible and the Greeks (London, 1935).Google Scholar

34 See Foerster in Kittel, G. (ed.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament, iii (Stuttgart, 1938), pp. 1022–7.Google Scholar

35 See, e.g. Hermeticum iii.2b, where, after a series of dichotomies, light appears at last when the heavens ‘are seen’ complete with the astral bodies.

36 For this suggestion see Baumgarten (1981), pp. 114–15. On the other hand, the allusion may be to the Hellenistic commonplace that man alone of animals was so made as to contemplate the heavens. The form of the word, at least, is undoubtedly Semitic.

37 For a modern contribution to the tortuous discussions on this subject see Emerton, J. A., ‘The Priestly Writer in Genesis’, JTS 39 (1988), 381–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 See the collection of texts in Robinson, J. M. (ed.), The Nag Hammadi Library in English (Leiden, 1977)Google Scholar. Note especially The Hypostasis of the Archons, described on p. 152 as ‘an esoteric interpretation of Genesis 1–6’, which has the Spirit (or Incorruptibility) become enamoured of the watery Chaos, and descend with the result that it quickens man.

39 See Grant, R. M., Gnosticism and the Early Church (New York, 1964)Google Scholar for the theory that Gnostic literature was precipitated by the Fall of Jerusalem. The most convincing proponent of the Jewish origins of Gnosticism is G. Quispel, whose Gnostic Studies were collected in 1974 (Istanbul).

40 On Galen see Walzer, R., Galen on Jews and Christians (Oxford, 1949) pp. 11 and 23–37Google Scholar; on Longinus, De Sublimitate 9.9 see Russell, D. A., Longinus: On the Sublime (Oxford, 1964) pp. 92–3Google Scholar; and on Numenius, Fr. 30.5 Des Places see Edwards, M. J., ‘Atticizing Moses? Numenius, the Fathers and the Jews’, Vigiliae Christianae 43.3 (1989).Google Scholar

41 See Artapanus in Eusebius, P.E. 9.27.6ff.

42 As by Eissfeldt (1963). For a collection of more cautious notices see Barr (1974), 20 and n. 2.

43 One fragment of which is introduced at P.E. 4.16.6 as a quotation from the first book of the History. I agree with Baumgarten ad loc. that Philo will have been quoting his own translation of Sanchuniathon in his treatise against the Jews, just as Cicero cites his own translations in his Cato (78–81) and De Divinatione (1.13–16).