Of Phœnician literature nothing is known in the original language, but some cosmogonic data taken from the book of Sanchoniathon by Philo of Byblus reflect myths that can have been produced only on the soil of Babylon, although the Philhellenic author is unable to interpret them with exactness. The primordial couple of chaos, Apason and Tomoth, are in reality the Babylonian divinities prior to the creation: Apsu, “ocean, abyss,” and Tiamat, “sea”; but Philo, carried away by Neoplatonic doctrine and confounding similar consonants, attributes to Apason the meaning of “desire,” and seems to discern in Tiamat the divinity Mot, “death,” symbolical of matter. Another goddess, Chosartes, recalls the consort of Asshur, Kishar, of cosmogonic character. On the Syrio-Phœnician monuments we often read the name of the goddess Anath, bearing the title of “force of life or of the living,” but the masculine consort is not met with. The Babylonian inscriptions fill the gap by very frequently furnishing the couple Anu and Anata. Philistia worshipped principally the ichthyomorphous god Dagon, who is no other than the Babylonian Daganu, associated with Anu.
Among other divine personages we note in the first place Tammuz, consort of Astarte, who was slain by a boar in the flower of his youth. His death was mourned for a month each year, and his resurrection was later celebrated with frenzied demonstrations of joy. This myth of nature, symbolical of the passing of summer and metaphorically of that of ardent and passionate youth, has as its basis the Babylonian tale of Du’uzu, eponym of the month of that name (Tammuz), who died prematurely, and whom the goddess Ishtar (Astarte), the incarnation of ardent passion, endeavours, though in vain, to bring back from the kingdom of death. The grief and the heroic effort of the goddess are told in a touching manner in the beautiful poem, entitled The Descent of Ishtar into Hades. The Phœnicians mourned Tammuz under the honorary title of Adon, Adonim, “lord,” whence the Greek Adonis. From Phœnicia this rite passed to Greece, and was celebrated there with no less pomp, while the descent of Ishtar became there the point of departure for several analogous legends.
Less known is the cult of the Babylonian god of war, Nergal, who had sanctuaries in Phœnicia. Among celestial gods we identify Hadad or Hadod, styled “king of the gods,” Rimmon, Nabu, Sin, and Mar, called among the Babylonians Adad, Ramman (god of the air), Nabu, Sin, Allat, and Marduk (god of Babylon). The inscriptions of Sam’al add to these Nusk and Be’el-Kharran, one of whom is the Babylonian Nusku, the other a local Bel of the Babylonian city of Kharran, whose cult was transplanted to the city of the same name in Upper Mesopotamia.
Since very remote antiquity certain names of Babylonian divinities have been fixed in Syrio-Phœnicia as names of places and persons: the city of Nebo in Moab, the desert of Sin, and probably also Mount Sinai in Arabia Petræa, the fortress of Anathoth in the territory of Benjamin; Ana, a chief of Esau, Anath, a judge of Israel, Hadad, the common name of a king of Aram and a king of Idumæa. So many reminiscences of the superior rank of the Babylonian religion clearly prove how the mind of the western Semites was imbued and moulded into permanent form by their ancient masters in the ages preceding the occupation of Syria by the Egyptians. Egypt did almost nothing to modify the tendencies of the subject peoples; she contented herself with collecting the taxes, and gave nothing in exchange. We must not then be surprised that, if we except the maritime coast, Egyptian dominion left no trace on the civilisation of the interior of Syria. These peoples, when they became independent, continued to cultivate the germs of civilisation they had received in such abundance, but regarded them as their own creations.
Passing to the nomads of northern Arabia we find ourselves before an ethnographic unknown, the ancient tribes having disintegrated and new ones formed, a transformation that was certainly repeated several times. There is as yet no agreement on the question whether the tribes called in ancient times Ishmaelites and Ceturians spoke Arabic or Aramæan. It is, however, certain that fragments of southern tribes of true Arabian race moved to the north at periods very difficult to determine. It is not very long since it was affirmed that these unstable populations lacked every element of civilisation, and it was even claimed that they were a pure example of unmixed Semitic race, to which an instinctive monotheism was attributed.
These speculations have been dissipated by the testimony of the Assyrian texts, which show that the Arabs possessed statues of their gods. These proud children of the desert even signed their submission to the government of Nineveh, in order to recover the statues which the Assyrians had taken from them in the course of an expedition into the interior of Arabia. The possession of statues implies the existence in the oases of fixed sanctuaries, of religious rites, and of a traditional priesthood.
When we consider that the conquering nation of the Persians did not arrive at the idea of anthropomorphic gods until the time of Artaxerxes II, and then solely under the influence of the Babylonian cult, we cannot doubt that the worship of statues by the nomadic Arabs in the seventh century before our era was due to the same influence. The Ishmaelites were particularly devoted to Atar Celeste, that is, to the great goddess Ishtar, whose cult spread from Babylon among all the Semites of Syria.
In the oasis of Teyma a stele has been found that fixes the revenues of a priest, who had lately been installed, to provide for the expenses of the cult of an adopted divinity, and this priest is dressed in the mode of the Babylonian priesthood. Such a borrowing is all the more remarkable because the garments of sacrificing priests had in antiquity a meaning intimately connected with the religious mysteries. This fact supposes the presence of Babylonian instructors at some previous epoch.
Hedjaz forms the first province, whose inhabitants belong to the Arabian race, properly so called, whose idiom and whose writing are very different from those of the Aramæan populations of the north. Some of these tribes settled in the east of Syria, on the edge of the desert, especially in the oasis of Safa, south of Damascus. We must wait until the numerous graffiti, discovered in recent times, are published, before we can get an exact idea of the theophorous names used among these tribes. The names Bel and Hadad figure here, however; but this may be a late borrowing from their Aramæan neighbours. From northern Hedjaz we have a considerable number of inscriptions and graffiti, copies of which are still to be regarded with caution, and there, too, the names Bel, Hadad and compounds of the Babylonian Nabu, are found in the list of names of the nomads.
More interesting is the ancient name of Mecca, Macoraba, which originally designated the celebrated central sanctuary of the region. This name is derived front the verb karaba, which in Babylonian means “worship, bless, pray”, in evident proof of an ancient borrowing from the idiom of the cuneiform texts. We shall know some day what the inscriptions of middle and southern Hedjaz contain in the way of theophorous names. These inscriptions certainly exist, and await a traveller courageous enough to save them from total destruction at the stupid hands of the pilgrims. The famous black stone of Kaaba seems to bear an inscription of which it would be well to have a photograph.