APPENDIX II
DESTRUCTION OF THE EIGHT HEATHEN TEMPLES OF GAZA (a.d. 401)
During the Episcopate of St. Porphyrius, a.d. 395-420, there were eight State-property temples in the city of Gaza: (1) Helios—the Sun; (2) Aphroditus—Venus; (3) Apollo; (4) Persephone; (5) Hecate; (6) the Hiereion (or Heroon); (7) the Tychæon; (8) the Marneion.
Their names imply that purely Greek worship prevailed in them.
1. The Temple of the Sun.—In Greek mythology the sun-god, son of the Titan Hyperion and the Titaness Theia, is himself often called Hyperion.
Helios was worshipped in many places. The Island of Rhodes was entirely consecrated to him. The worship of this sun-god was with great difficulty eventually suppressed by substituting for him the prophet Ἡλίας. In modern times Helios seems to be identified with St. Elias, whose chapels are built chiefly on hill-tops.
It was this particular worship to which the Antonines showed special favour. The name of Antoninus Pius is connected with the building of the Temple of the Sun at Baalbec.
The late Lieut. Conder wrote an interesting article on "Sun Worship in Syria," in the Quarterly Statement of the P. E. F., April 1881, pp. 80-4. Prof. Sayce, in Patriarchal Palestine, p. 218, ed. 1912, states that with both the Semites of Babylonia and of Canaan the supreme object of worship was Baal or Bel, "the Lord," who was but the Sun-god under a variety of names.[55]
2. Aphrodite (called Venus by the Romans).