1. The Phoenicians: "Ancient Phoenicia embraced a little strip of broken seacoast lying between the Mediterranean Sea and the ranges of Mount Lebanon. * * * The Phoenicians were of Semitic race. Their ancestors lived in the neighborhood of the Persian Gulf. From their seats in that region they migrated westward, like the ancestors of the Hebrews, and reached the Mediterranean before the light of history had fallen upon its shores. The various Phoenician cities never coalesced to form a true nation. They constituted merely a sort of league or confederacy, the petty states of which generally acknowledged the leadership of Tyre or of Sidon, the two chief cities. The place of supremacy in the confederation was at first held by Sidon, but later by Tyre.
"The greatest of the Phoenician colonies was Carthage, on the northern coast of Africa, founded by Dido, a Tyrian princess, 878 B. C. For awhile, Carthage contested the mastery of the world with Rome." (Myers' General History, p. 54.)
2. The Gods of the Phoenicians: "The Phoenicians had somewhat the same religious notions as the Babylonians, and worshipped some of the same gods, Baal for instance" (Crabb Ch. lv.). "Baal was the supreme male divinity of the Phoenician and Canaanitish nations. Ashtoreth was their female divinity. The name Baal means lord. He was the sun-god. The name is generally used in connection with other names as Baal-Gad, that is Baal the Fortune-bringer; Baal-Berith or Covenant-making Baal; Baal-Zebub, the Fly-god. The people of Israel worshipped Baal up to the time of Samuel, at whose rebuke they forsook this iniquity for nearly a hundred years. The practice was introduced again in the time of Solomon, and continued to the days of the captivity." (Dobbin's World's Worship, p. 142).
It was with the priests of Baal, on Mount Carmal, that Elijah had his great contest, in which Jehovah was vindicated as God. (See I Kings, xviii.)
3. The Worship of Moloch: Saturn was most honored by the Carthaginians a colony of the Phoenicians, be it remembered; and Saturn was the Moloch of the Jewish scripture.
"This idol was the deity to whom they offered up human sacrifices, and to this we owe the fable of Saturn's having devoured his own children. Princes and great men, under particular calamities, used to offer up their most beloved children to this idol. Private persons imitated the conduct of their princes, and thus, in time, the practice became general; nay, to such a height did they carry their infatuation, that those who had no children of their own purchased those of the poor, that they might not be deprived of the benefits of such a sacrifice, which was to procure them the completion of their wishes. This horrid custom prevailed long among the Phoenicians, the Tyrians, and the Carthaginians; and from them the Israelites borrowed it, although expressly contrary to the order of God.
"The original practice was to burn these innocent children in a fiery furnace, like those in the valley of Hinnom, so often mentioned in Scripture; and sometimes they put them into a hollow brass statue of Saturn, flaming hot. To drown the cries of the unhappy victims, musicians were ordered to play on different instruments—and mothers—shocking thought!—made it a sort of merit to divest themselves of natural affections while they beheld the barbarous spectacle. If it happened that a tear dropped from the eyes of a mother, then the sacrifice was considered as of no effect; and the parent who had that remaining spark of tenderness was considered as an enemy to the public religion. In later times they contented themselves with making their children walk between two slow fires to the statue of the idol; but this was only a more slow and excruciating torture, for the innocent victims always perished. This is what, in Scripture, is called the making their sons and daughters pass through the fire to Moloch; and barbarous as it was, yet those very Israelites in whose favor God had wrought so many wonders, demeaned themselves so low as to comply with it." (II Kings, xvi and xxi.) (Burder's History of All Religions, pp. 510, 511).
4. The Persians: "In remote times some Aryan tribes, separating from the other members of the Aryan family, sought new abodes on the plateau of Iran (East of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, and between the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf). The tribes that settled in the south became known as the Persians, while those that took possession of the mountain regions of the northwest were called Medes. The names of the two peoples were always very closely associated, as in the familiar legend, 'The law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.' The Medes were at first the leading people. But the leadership of the Median chieftains was of short duration. A certain Cyrus, king of Anshan, in Elam, overthrew their power, assumed the leadership of both Medes and Persians, and soon built up an empire more extended, so far as we know, than any established before his time." (Myers' General History p. 59).
5. Persian Literature: "The literature of the ancient Persians was mostly religious. Their sacred book is called the Zend-Avesta. The religious system it teaches is known as Zoroastrianism, from Zoroaster, its supposed founder. This great reformer and teacher is believed to have lived and taught about six centuries before our era.
"Zoroastrianism was a system of belief known as dualism. Opposed to the "good spirit," Ormazd (Ahura Mazda), there was a "dark spirit," Ahriman (Angro-Mainyus), who was constantly striving to destroy the good creations of Ormazd by creating all evil things;—storm, drought, pestilence, noxious animals, weeds and thorns in the world without, and evil in the heart of man within. From all eternity these two powers had been contending for the mastery; in the present, neither had the decided advantage, but in the near future Ormazd would triumph over Ahriman, and evil be forever destroyed.