PHILO OF BYBLOS

Phoenician scholar who flourished c. a.d. 100. Philo of Byblos is the author of several works in Greek, of which fragments have been preserved in the citations of later Greek writers. Of these works, the most important is Τα, Φοίνικα, a history of Phoenicia, of which sections are transcribed in books 1 and 4 of eusebius of caesarea's Praeparatio evangelica. These sections of the work recount the theogonic and cosmogonic myths of ancient Phoenicia, and picture the contemporary world state as derived from a dark and infinite chaos that gave birth to successive generations of divine beings. The first several of these generations include hypostatized natural forces, such as Desire, Death, Light, Fire, and Flame; these, however, are succeeded by the gods proper, successive generations of whom engage in a conflict whose outcome determines their permanent hierarchical relationship. Philo represented this history as the translation of a work written by Sanchuniaton, a native Phoenician of a remote age who gathered in written form the traditions of his country.

Despite evident editorial additions by Philo himself—notably his euhemeristic explanations of myths and his comparisons with Hellenistic religious concepts—the antiquity claimed by Philo for his material has been largely justified by comparison with ancient Near Eastern texts discovered in the 20th century. Thus, the names of several of the gods of Philo's pantheon, hitherto unattested elsewhere, are found in the Ugaritic texts of the 14th century b.c. (see ugarit), and details of his myths recur in Hittite texts of the second millennium b.c. (see hittites). Therefore, while one must allow for the influence of Greek thought in Philo's history, the work in its essentials must be judged to be representative of ancient Phoenician religious thought. Those parts of it that have been preserved, therefore, offer a source of great importance for a knowledge of the Canaanite religious conceptions that surrounded Israel in the early period of its history. Fragments of two further works of Philo, On Cities and On Forming a Library, have been preserved by Stephen of Byzantium (5th century) and Serenus. Nothing remains of a composition On the Reign of Hadrian mentioned by Suidas (late 10th century).

Bibliography: l. b. paton, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. j. hastings (Edinburgh 1908–27) 9: 843–844. h. eising, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner (Freiberg 1957–65) 8:471. c. mÜller, ed., Fragmenta historicorum graecorum, 5 v. (Paris 1878–85) 3:560–576. w. f. albright, Archeology and the Religion of Israel (Baltimore 1946; 4th ed. 1956) 69–71. o. eissfeldt, Sanchunjaton von Berut und Ilumilku von Ugarit (Halle 1952); Taautos und Sanchunjaton (Berlin 1952).

[r. i. caplice]