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Philo of Byblos

 

 
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Philo of Byblos
 
 
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The more famous Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-40 CE) was an educated Hellenized Jewish philosopher.


Philo of Byblos
Byblos

Byblos is the Greek language name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic language name of Jbeil and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades....
 (Herennios Philon), (c. 64-141 CE
Common Era

Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used in the Western world, and also internationally, for numbering the year part of the calendar date....
) was an antiquarian writer of grammatical
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
, lexical
Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes....
 and historical
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
 works in Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. His name "Herennius" suggests that he was a client of the consul suffectus Herennius Severus, through whom Philo could have achieved the status of a Roman citizen.

Philo wrote a dictionary of synonym
Synonym

Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy....
s, a collection of scientific writers and their works organized by category, a catalogue of cities with their famous citizens, and a Vita of the Emperor Hadrian
Hadrian

Publius Aelius Hadrianus , as emperor Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, and Divus Hadrianus after his apotheosis, known as Hadrian in English language, was Roman Emperor of Roman Empire from AD 117 to 138, as well as a Stoicism and Epicureanism philosopher....
.






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The more famous Philo of Alexandria (20 BCE-40 CE) was an educated Hellenized Jewish philosopher.


Philo of Byblos
Byblos

Byblos is the Greek language name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic language name of Jbeil and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades....
 (Herennios Philon), (c. 64-141 CE
Common Era

Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used in the Western world, and also internationally, for numbering the year part of the calendar date....
) was an antiquarian writer of grammatical
Grammar

Grammar is the field of linguistics that covers the conventions governing the use of any given natural language. It includes morphology and syntax, often complemented by phonetics, phonology, semantics, and pragmatics....
, lexical
Lexicon

In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes....
 and historical
HIStory

HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by Michael Jackson, released on June 20, 1995, and is Jackson's ninth. The first disc, named "HIStory Begins" consists of a selection of Jackson's greatest hits from the singer's past fifteen years, while the second, named "HIStory Continues" features new songs, with the...
 works in Greek
Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
. His name "Herennius" suggests that he was a client of the consul suffectus Herennius Severus, through whom Philo could have achieved the status of a Roman citizen.

Philo wrote a dictionary of synonym
Synonym

Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called synonymy....
s, a collection of scientific writers and their works organized by category, a catalogue of cities with their famous citizens, and a Vita of the Emperor Hadrian
Hadrian

Publius Aelius Hadrianus , as emperor Imperator Caesar Divi Traiani filius Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, and Divus Hadrianus after his apotheosis, known as Hadrian in English language, was Roman Emperor of Roman Empire from AD 117 to 138, as well as a Stoicism and Epicureanism philosopher....
. Some of his work is known to us by titles only; others have survived in fragmentary quotes in Christian authors.

Philo's Greek Phoenician History was so extensively quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea
Eusebius of Caesarea

Eusebius of Caesarea became the bishop of Caesarea Maritima c 314. He is often referred to as the Father of Church History because of his work in recording the history of the early Christianity church, especially Chronicon and Church_History_....
 in his 4th century work Praeparatio Evangelica that the fragments have been assembled and translated (see References). Eusebius's quotations often have an agenda contrary to Philo's original intentions: the sources of Phoenician religion
Canaanite religion

Canaanite religion is the name for the group of Ancient Semitic religions practised by the Canaanites living in the ancient Levant from at least the early Bronze Age through the first centuries of the Common Era....
 are quoted simply in order to disparage. Philo's passages show a jumbling together of Phoenician lore with Greek mythology
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
, Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism

Zoroastrianism is the religion and philosophy based on the teachings ascribed to the prophet Zoroaster, after whom the religion is named. The term Zoroastrianism is in general usage, essentially synonymous with Mazdaism, i.e., the worship of Ahura Mazda, exalted by Zoroaster as the supreme divine authority....
 beliefs and ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an Ancient history civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile in what is now the modern nation of Egypt....
ian beliefs concerning the Ibis
Sacred Ibis

The Sacred Ibis is a species of wading bird of the ibis family, Threskiornithidae, which breeds in Sahara Desert Africa, SE Iraq and formerly in Egypt, where it was venerated and often mummified as a symbol of the god Thoth....
-headed god, Thoth
Thoth

Thoth, , though variations are accepted , was considered one of the more important god of the Egyptian pantheon, often depicted with the head of an Sacred Ibis....
, who in Philo is called Taautos or Tauthos. In Philo as among the ancient Egyptians, Taautos/Thoth is given characteristics that were much argued in 4th century Christology
Christology

Christology is a field of study within Christian theology which is concerned with the nature of Jesus the Christ, particularly with how the divine and human are related in his person....
: "everlasting, unbegotten, undivided". Allusions to serpent veneration
Serpent (symbolism)

Serpent is a word of Latin origin that is commonly used in a specifically mythology or religion context, signifying a snake that is to be regarded not as a mundane natural phenomenon nor as an object of scientific zoology, but as the bearer of some symbolic value....
 mingled with the cult of Thoth are also found.

According to Eusebius, Philo claimed to have discovered secret mythological writings of the ancient Phoenicians assembled by a potentially fictitious "Sanchuniathon
Sanchuniathon

Sanchuniathon is the purported Phoenician author of three lost works originally in the Phoenician language, surviving only in partial paraphrase and summary of a Greek language translation by Philo of Byblos, according to the Christian bishop Eusebius of Caesarea....
" who, according to Eusebius/Philo, transcribed the sacred lore from pillars in the temples of Byblos
Byblos

Byblos is the Greek language name of the Phoenician city Gebal . It is a Mediterranean city in the Mount Lebanon Governorate of present-day Lebanon under the current Arabic language name of Jbeil and was also referred to as Gibelet during the Crusades....
. The work is also known from quotations in Porphyry
Porphyry (philosopher)

Porphyry of Tyre was a Phoenician Neoplatonism philosopher. He is important in the history of mathematics because of his Life of Pythagoras and his commentary on Euclid's Euclid's Elements, used by Pappus of Alexandria when he wrote his own commentary....
, who says that Sanchuniathon (here also called a native of Byblos) wrote a history of the Jews, based on information derived from Hierombal (i.e. Jeruba'al), a priest of the god Jevo (i.e. Yahweh, Jehovah), and dedicated it to Abelbal or Abibal, king of Berytus.

The sequence of the gods and their genealogy among the Phoenicians, as gleaned from Philo's quoted fragments, were for long recognized as supporting the general scheme in Hesiod
Hesiod

Hesiod was a Greek language oral poet, his date is uncertain but leading scholars agree that Hesiod lived in the latter half of the Eighth-century BCE....
's Theogony
Theogony

The Theogony is a poem by Hesiod describing the origins and genealogy of the polytheism of the ancient Greeks, composed circa 700 BC....
. Names of deities on the cuneiform
Cuneiform

Cuneiform can refer to:*Cuneiform script, an ancient writing system originating in Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC*Cuneiform , three bones in the human foot...
 tablets from Ugarit
Ugarit

Ugarit was an ancient cosmopolitan port city, sited on the Mediterranean coast. Ugarit sent tribute to Ancient Egypt and maintained trade and diplomatic connections with Cyprus , documented in the archives recovered from the site and corroborated by Mycenaean Greece and Cypriot pottery found there....
 (Ras Shamra) fall into similar patterns. Compare the genealogical tables at Sanchuniathon
Sanchuniathon

Sanchuniathon is the purported Phoenician author of three lost works originally in the Phoenician language, surviving only in partial paraphrase and summary of a Greek language translation by Philo of Byblos, according to the Christian bishop Eusebius of Caesarea....
.

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