NOTES TO CHAPTER II

1. The medieval dictionary, the Suda, which gives Philo's dates and a list of titles of his work, apparently indi­ cates that Philo was born in the reign of Nero (54-68) and survived at least into the reign of Hadrian (117-138). See PBPH, 2 and 2 n. 6, and 16-7, no. 1, with nn. 1-4.

2. For bibliographical references, see PBPH, 2 n. 5.

3. Other excerpts deal with a) cosmogony and b) the history of culture. The portions in Praeparatio evangelica on a) human sacrifice and b) snakes may not be from Philo's Phoenician History. See PBPH, 93 n. 148 and 94 n. 151.

4. Porphyry, de abstinentia 2.56 (PBPH, 16-7); Praeparatio evangelica 1.9.20 (PBPH, 18-9), 1.9.23 (PBPH, 28-9), 1.9.30 (PBPH, 36-7), 1.10.42 (PBPH, 60-1).

5. Praeparatio evangelica, 1.9.20-21 (PBPH, 18-21). The fall of Troy traditionally was dated to 1184 B.C. and was the earliest historical event in Greek chronography. See PBPH, 23-4 n. 17.

6. Praeparatio evangelica, 1.9.20-21, 24-26 (PBPH, 18-21, 28-31). See also PBPH, 4-5.

7. For surveys of the history of scholarship on the Phoenician History, see Carl Clemen, Die phonikische Religion nach Philo von Byblos (Mitteilungen der vorderasiatisch­ agyptischen Gesellschaft 42/3; Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs, 1939) 1-16 and James Barr, "Philo of Byblos and his 'Phoenician History,'" BJRL 57 (1974) 18-21.

8. Otto Eissfeldt ("Ph6nikische und griechische Kosmogonie," Kleine Schriften 3 [1966] 510-2; for other references, see PBPH, 6 n. 27), accepting the tradition placing Sanchuniathon somewhere about the time of the Trojan War, thinks that Sanchuniathon lived in the second millennium B.C., while Albright ("Neglected Factors in the Greek Intellectual Revolution," Pr>oceedings of the American Philosophical Society 116 [1972] 240) advances a date around the mid-first millennium B.C. Albright explains that Sanchuniathon, probably originally a native of Tyre, presumably escaped from that city before, during, or after

69 70 "Aserah

the long siege (585-572 B.C.) and final capture of Tyre by Nebuchadnezzar. Sanchuniathon then lived, according to Albright, at the court of Abedbalos, king of Berytus, where he wrote between ca. 585 and ca. 550. Briefly, the main evidence cited for the position that there was a Sanchuniathon who lived and wrote a Phoenician History in pre-Hellenistic times is the fact that the name sknytn definitely could have belonged to a native Phoenician, and, especially, the similarities between Philo's source and the Ugaritic and Hittite mythological material dis­ covered in the twentieth century. The name sknytn has been found in a Punic inscription from Hadrumetum, North Africa (see Mark Lidzbarski, Handbuch der nordsemitischen Epigraphik [2 vols.; Weimar: Emil Felber, 1898] 1: 432 b.2.2). Additional names compounded with the theophorus element skn are also evidenced: e.g., Cbdskn, found in a Phoenician inscription perhaps dating to ca. 600 B.C. (Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum [Ab Academia inscriptionum et litterarum humaniorum; Paris: e Repub­ licae typographeo, 1881-; hereafter CIS] Pars Prima, no. 112a) and other inscriptions, and grskn, which occurs in numerous inscriptions from Carthage, some perhaps from the very early period of that city. See, conveniently, Frank L. Benz, Personal Names in the Phoenician and Punic Inscriptions (Studia Pohl 8; Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1972).

9. PBPH, 9. Attridge and Oden argue that although sknytn could have been a native Phoenician name, this does not prove the antiquity or even the historicity of Sanchuniathon. Also, they point out that since the reli­ gion of which the Ugaritic texts are one manifestation lived on long after the fall of Ugarit, a correspondence between the Ugaritic material and the Phoenician History of Philo is not adequate proof that Philo used an ancient Phoenician source, and if he did, it need not have been one dating from remote antiquity (PBPH, 6). Attridge and Oden further argue against seeing the Phoenician History as a translation of an ancient work (authored by a Sanchuniathon) by explaining that the material in Philo lacks any apparent structure which might correspond to that of other ancient Semitic documents (PBPH, 6-7). They additionally state that the highly developed, thorough and consistent euhemeristic analysis of mythology in the Phoenician History indicates a date in the Hellenistic or Roman periods for this compilation of ancient myth, as does a) the fact that a large part of the surviving text deals with the history of culture and the progress in human civilization achieved through the contributions of various inventors (the Hellenistic world witnessed a great interest in this issue), and b) a dependence at some points on Greek myths and an ignorance of the meaning of some of the Semitic names given in the Phoenician History (PBPH, 7-9). Oden, in his article "Philo of Byblos and Hellenistic Historiography" (PEQ 110 [1978] 118-26) sees certain ten­ dencies exhibited in the entire Phoenician History,