SANCHUNIATHON 



SANCTUARY 



137 



speak of him as an ancient Phoenician, who lived 

 'before the Trojan war.' There is also a discrep- 

 ancy between the various ancient writers respect- 

 ing the number of books contained in the Phoini- 

 kika. Orelli (1826), and after him C. Miiller 

 (1849), published the remaining fragments of San- 

 chuniathon, and the discussion raised on their 

 genuineness and value can hardly be said to be 

 yet at rest. Several critics went so far as to deny 

 the fact of the existence of a Sanchuniathon point 

 blank. According to some (Lobeck, Aglaophamus, 

 &c.) it was Eusebius, according to others (Movers, 

 &c.) Philo, who fathered his own speculations upon 

 an ancient authority. The latter was actuated, 

 Movers thinks, partly by the desire of proving that 

 the whole Hellenistic worship and religion was simply 

 a faint imitation of the Phoenician ; partly by the 

 desire of lowering the value of the Old Testament, 

 by showing the higher authority of the Phoenician 

 writer ; and partly, as was the fashion among the 

 nn!>elieving philosophers of his age, to bring the 

 popular creed into a bad reputation, by proclaiming 

 his own views under the guise of an ancient sage. 

 Yet even those who deny the authenticity of San- 

 chuniathon agree in allowing the fragments cur- 

 rent under his name a certain intrinsic value, they 

 being founded on real ancient myths. This, in 

 fact, is now, with more or less modification on the 

 part of the different investigators, Ewald, Bunsen, 

 Kenan, &c., the prevalent opinion. Ewald con- 

 tends for the real existence of a Sanchuniathon, in 

 which he is supported by Kenan. Even if there 

 never was a Sanchuniathon it was not Philo who 

 forged him. There seems no doubt that we have 

 but a very dim and confused reproduction of what, 

 after many modifications, misunderstandings, and 

 corruptions, finally passed the hands of Philo and 

 Eusebius, and was by the Church Father, as has 

 been said, quoted in a theological disputation. 

 Yet, even assuming the person of a Sanchuniathon 



his age and Eusebius insists upon a veryremote one 

 indeed must be placed much lower : into the last 

 centuries before Christ, at the earliest. He would 



then, it seems, have endeavoured to stem the tide 

 of Greek superiority in all things, by collecting, 

 grouping, and remodelling the ancient and import- 

 ant traditions of his own country, and thus prov- 

 ing to both his countrymen and the Greeks their 

 high importance, in comparison with the Greek 

 productions, in the field of religion and philosophy. 



The Phoinikika was not only a cosmogony, it 

 would appear, but a history of his own and the 

 surrounding nations ; and, like similar ancient 

 histories, it probably began with the creation of 

 the world, and contained an account of the Jews. 

 All the historical parts, however, are lost, and 

 nothing remains but a fragmentary cosmogony, 

 or rather two or three different systems of cos- 

 mogony, or, according to Movers, merely an 

 Egyptian and Phoenician patchwork. One of the 

 chief difficulties for us consists in the Phoenician 

 words of Sanchuniathon, which Philo either trans- 

 lated too freely or merely transcrilied so faultily in 

 Greek characters as to leave them a puzzle. 



Eusebius further contains a fragment of a treatise 

 K.v SMiiirhuniathon, Peri loudaiiin, but it is doubtful 

 whether this is the work of Philo of Byblus or of 

 Sanchuniathon ; and if it be that of the latter, 

 whether it is a separate work, or merely a separate 

 chapter out of bis larger work. A forgery, said to 

 contain the whole nine books of Sanchuniathon, 

 and to have been found by a Portuguese, Colonel 

 Pereira, at the convent of St Maria de Merinhao, 

 and to have been by him entrusted to a German 

 corporal in Portuguese service, named Christoph 

 Meyer, was published by Wagenfeld (Bremen, 

 1837), and translated into German (Liibeck, 1837), 

 but was very soon consigned to disgrace and 



oblivion by Movers, K. O. Miiller, and Grotefend, 

 the last of whom at first believed and even wrote 

 a preface to the editio princeps. There never was 

 such a convent, nor such a colonel ; but the fac- 

 simile taken by ' Pereira ' in the convent in Portu- 

 gal was found to have been written on paper showing 

 the water marks of an Osnabriick paper-mill. 



See Ewald, Abhandlmigen d. Gottinger Gesellschaft der 

 Wissensrhafttn (vol. v. 1851); Renan, Mtmoire sur 

 Sanehoniathon (1858); and Bandissin, Studien zur 

 Kemitischen Relviionsyeschichte ( vol. i. 1876 ) ; also chap. 6, 

 vol. i. (1877 ) of Abbott's trans, of Duncker's History of 

 Antiquity. 



San Cristdbal, (1) capital of Chiapas state 

 in Mexico, has a handsome capitol, a cathedral, a 

 secondary school, and 8500 inhabitants. (2) A 

 town of Venezuela, in the state of Los Andes, with 

 streets straight, but much cut up by small ravines; 

 an important trade (especially in coffee), mainly in 

 the hands of Germans and Danes ; deposits of coal 

 beside the town, and near by copper-mines and 

 petroleum wells. Pop. 5000. 



Sancroft, WILLIAM, Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury, was born at Fressingfield in Suffolk on 30th 

 January 1616-17, and from Bury St Edmunds 

 grammar-school passed in 1634 to Emmanuel Col- 

 lege, Cambridge, of which in 1642 he was elected a 

 Fellow. Jn 1651 he was expelled from his fellow- 

 ship for refusing to take the 'Engagement;' and 

 iu 1657 he crossed over to Holland, whence, after 

 a year and a half at Utrecht, he visited Geneva, 

 Venice, and Rome. In 1660, the Restoration 

 accomplished, his friend Bishop Cosin of Durham 

 appointed him his chaplain, and his subsequent 

 advancement was rapid, to be a king's chaplain 

 and rector of Houghton-le-Spring ( 1661 ) ; pre- 

 bendary of Durham and master of Emmanuel 

 ( 1662) ; Dean first of York and next of St Paul's 

 (1664), as such having a principal hand in the 

 rebuilding of the burnt cathedral; Archdeacon of 

 Canterbury (1668); and Archbishop (1678). A 

 Tory and High Churchman, he is of course be- 

 littled by Bnrnet and Macaulay ; but the manner 

 in which he discharged his high duties deserves 

 the warmest commendation the one flaw, perhaps, 

 in his conduct that he employed an Italian spy in 

 Holland who dared propose to him the assassina- 

 tion of Sir William Waller. Sancroft attended 

 Charles II. on his deathbed, and used great free- 

 dom of speech to him on the nature of his past life. 

 He refused to sit in James II. 's Ecclesiastical Com- 

 mission ( 1686) ; and in 1688 was sent to the Tower 

 for presenting the petition of the Seven Bishops 

 (q.v.) against the reading of the second Declara- 

 tion of Indulgence, but on their trial in West- 

 minster Hall he and his six brethren were acquitted. 

 In the events that immediately preceded and at- 

 tended the Revolution he preserved on the whole a 

 position of non-intervention ; still, having taken 

 the oath of allegiance to James, he would not take 

 it to William and Mary. Accordingly, he was sus- 

 pended by act of parliament (1st August 1689), 

 though he did not quit Latnbeth until his eject- 

 ment on 23d June 1691. He then retired to his 

 native village, where he died on 24th November 

 1693. Of eight works ascribed to him one only 

 retains much interest Fur Pra'destinatus (1651), 

 a dialogue between a Calvinist minister and a 

 thief condemned to the gallows ; and this seems 

 to be really a translation from a Dutch pamphlet. 



See NONJDROBS, with works there cited ; the Life of 

 Archbishop Sancroft, by George D'Oyly, D.D. (2 vol. 

 1821 ) ; and Miss Strickland's Lives of the Seven Biihopi 

 (1866). 



Sanctuary, a consecrated place which gives 

 protection to a criminal taking refuge there ; or the 

 privilege of taking refuge in such a consecrated 



