CHAPTER TEN

CHILD SACRIFICE & SNAKES

The fragments to be discussed in this chapter deal with child sacrifice and with snakes. These passages have, on the whole, less interested all commentators on Philo and accordingly have not been intensively discussed. The lack of interest is readily explicable: these fragments are not directly related to the central questions of the scholarly debate concerning Philo and his sources. Nonetheless, they have some interest.

11 Translation of Texts Discussed (Porphyry) (813: 26) The Phoenicians, too, in great disasters, whether of wars, or droughts, or plagues, used to sacrifice one of their dearest, dedicating him to Kronos. (813: 28) And the Phoenician History, which San­ chuniathon wrote in Phoenician and which Philo of Byblos translated into Greek in eight books, is full of such sacrificers. (Eusebius) (814: 3) Accordingly let these [quotations] from the aforementioned work suffice. 1 But from the first book of Philo's Phoenician History I shall cite the following: (Philo) (814: 6) It was the custom of the ancients, when great dangers befell [them], that, to avoid complete destruction, the rulers of the city or the people should give over to slaughter the most beloved of their children as a ransom to the vengeful daimons. And those given over

I As Jacoby notes, the aforementioned work is Porphyry's De Abstinentia. CHILD SACRIFICE & SNAKES 245 were slain with mystic 2 rites. (814: 10) Now Kronos-whom the Phoenicians call El and who ruled the land and later, after the end of his life was deified in the star of Kronos-had, by a native nymph called Anobret, an only son who was therefore called Ieoud (for an only son is thus called even now by the Phoenicians). (814: 15) When on account of war, the greatest dangers seized the land, he adorned his son as if he were king and, having prepared an altar, sacrificed him. (Eusebius) (814: 18) Observe what the same author again (translating "On the Phoenician Elements" from Sanchuniathon's work) says concerning creeping and venomous animals which serve no good end for men but work death and destruction to those in whom they inject their dangerous and painful poison. And he indeed writes, word for word, the following things, saying thus: (Philo) (814: 23) The nature therefore of the snake and of serpents, Taautos himself regarded as· divine, and after him, again, the Phoenicians and Egyptians (did so]. For he presented the animal as that of all the reptiles which contained most spirit and as being (of the nature] of fire. (814: 26) Besides which he also attributes to it unsurpassable swiftness on account of the spirit, since it lacks feet and arms or any other of the outer limbs by means of which the other animals move. (815: 1) And it makes the forms of various figures, and when it moves it advances with spiral motions at whatever speed it desires. (815: 3) And it is most long-lived, for it not only sheds its old skin and becomes young but also it is increased (by the process] and becomes bigger. (815: 5) And when it has filled out the established measure (of age] it consumes itself, just as Taautos himself described in the sacred writings. (815: 7) Therefore, too, this animal is taken into the temples and mysteries. (815: 8) It has been discussed by us more fully in the trea­ tises entitled Ethothion, in which it is established that the snake is immortal and that it is resolved into itself as was said above. (815: 11)

2 The choice between "mystic" and "secret" as renderings of J.lUo"nKro~ is discussed in the commentary ad loc.