found written in the Cosmogony of Taautus, and were drawn 
from his observations and natural acuteness, or, what would be 
termed in our age, perhaps, the depths of his moral conscious- 
ness, by which he has penetrated all science and enlightened 
the world.* 
8. Although some have pronounced Sanconiatho to be a 
myth who only existed in the imagination of Philo Byblius, a 
writer of the first century, there are reasonable grounds for 
believing him to be a real person, who lived about a 
century after the Trojan War.j- For Porphyry, who was 
no friend to Christianity, and who flourished two cen- 
turies after Philo, appears to describe Sanconiatho as having 
related Jewish history with truthfulness, saying that he received 
his accounts from Jerubbaal, the same as Gideon (Judges vii. 1), 
and that he dedicated his work to Abibulus, king of Berytus. 
Canon Titcomb, in an admirable paper on the Ethnic Tes- 
timonies to the Pentateuch, read before this Institute, May 1, 
1871, considers in the fragments of Sanconiatho “we have an 
interesting testimony to the Mosaic cosmogony.” I am hardly 
prepared to go so far as this ; but I think we may accept his 
teaching of the cosmological notions of the Phoenicians in very 
ancient times. { 
9. Although we should be inclined to take the Chaldaean 
cosmogony as interpreted by Zoroaster next in order, yet, as 
Hyde, in his Historia Religionis Veterum Persarum, considers 
the Boun-dehesch, or “ cosmogony of the Persians,” of a date 
much earlier than the era of Zoroaster — i.e. the sixth century 
B.C., we will let it have the precedence it claims, and learn 
what the ancient Persians believed on this subject, which is 
stated as follows : — 
10. The Deity Ormisda created all things at six different 
intervals. First, he formed the heavens ; secondly, the waters ; 
* Eusebius, Prcep. Evan., lib. i. c. x. t Id. ib. 
J Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute, YI. p. 248. Canon 
Titcomb writes that Sanconiatho mentions “the Supreme God of the 
Phoenicians was Eli/un, which is the very name Moses gives in Genesis 
(xiv. 18) as that by which Melchisedec served Jehovah. This testimony is 
very remarkable.” I do not understand Sanconiatho in this way. It is true 
that he says from Chaos sprang Mot, which some call Pvg or “Mud”; 
and also from the marriage of “ Heaven ” with his sister “ Earth ” sprang four 
sons, the first-mentioned being l\i>g, “ who is called Cronus but I do not 
see that this Ilus or Cronus, who was deified after death, was necessarily 
the Supreme God of the Phoenicians, or the same as the El Elion of Genesis 
xiv. 18, 19, which Moses terms “ the most High God” ; although it is true 
that Sanconiatho says “ the auxiliaries of Ilus, who is Cronus, were called 
Eloeim." If this be the same person who is described by Berosus under the 
same name of “ Cronus,” it would point rather to the deified Noah, than to 
the Supreme Jehovah. 
