THE HOKINES. 523 



Arabic Gahjan (for its initial letter is ayin), meaning of lofty 

 stature}^^ The Punic form, appears in the " Alonim v 'Alonuth " of 

 the' Poenuliis of Plantus, designating the gods and goddesses. ■^^ I 

 must here anticipate by introducing the authority of the Phosnician 

 History of Sanchoniatho, which deals with the region about the 

 Dead Sea, Persea being a px'imitive seat. ■^^ He gives, indeed, an 

 older divinity, Elioun, whom he makes the husband of Beruth, a 

 kind of Aphrodite or Ephrath, and who would correspond with the 

 father of Hur ; but he has a later divinity (no divinity with him 

 however), who in the Greek translation is termed Ilus or Cronus 

 and Avhose brothers are Betylus, Dagon, and Atlas. Now, Betylus 

 is probably Bethlehem, closely connected with this family, rather 

 than Bethel, as many, like Bishop Cumberland, have supposed. 

 Dagon I shall yet prove to be Onam. As for Atlas, he does not 

 belong to this line at all, but to that of Jerahmeel. The important 

 part of the name Alvan or Allan is the initial Al. The final n is 

 vakieless, for duke Aliah of the Edomites is clearly of the same 

 name. The yocl and vav are, as we see above, interchangeable ; so 

 that the Al remains, denoting in Hebrew and other Shemitic tongues, 

 without any assistance of additional letters, the Most High. God. 

 This is the Ilus of Sanchoniatho, who appears along with Dagon on 

 many sculptured walls of Chaldea. He is there called II, and is the 

 highest of the Babylonian divinities. It is in the Chaldean myth- 

 ology that we are furnished with the materials for identifying Alvan 

 and Reaiah. II or Ba, Sir Henry Bawlinson and many other 

 students of Oriental monuments and inscriptions inform us, is the 

 great god of Babylonia.^* This Ra is an Egyptian term originally, 

 and denotes the sun in the ancient Coptic of the hieroglyphics. The 

 word Roeh or Haroeh divested of the definite article, denotes, 

 according" to G-esenius, vision, the sight of the sun ; and a corre- 

 sponding Coptic word connecting with Ba is Bo, the face. But 

 Puerst, with his usual wisdom, renders Boeh, the All-seeing One, 

 that is, God. Beaiah seems to me an attemjot to provide a Hebrew 



11* Foi" this meaning of the name Alvan I have confirmation in the high authority of Fueist. 

 That judicions lexicographer finds in the word a high, suilivie one, and makes it, as I have 

 done, the same as El and Elioun. Fuerst's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon in loc. 



12 Plauti Poenuli, v. 1. 



13 Sanchoniatho's Phojuician History, by Cumberland, 197. 



14: Rawlinson's Herodotus, App., Bk. i.. Essay x., s. 2, (i.) &e. Both Ea and 11 as conver- 

 iible terms signified " a god " in general, and this agrees with Fuerst's translations of Alvan. 

 ^nd. EoelL See below in the text. 



