The Cosmology and Generations of Sakkun-Yaton (Sanchuniathon)

COSMOLOGY

In the beginning, there was windy air, Arapel, and a chaos, turbid and black as the pit, Ba’ad, for there was not yet light. These were unbounded, and for many eternities destitute of form.  As the mingling of wind and chaos condensed, there was brought forth Teshuqah, desire, that forced creation to begin. This caused stars to light. The chaos did not know its own creation, but became enamored of its own principles, and a cloudy mud, Mowt, was made. The mud became dense, and floated in the shining light of the stars, hardened by the weight of its own principles. It became heavy and dense, and cooled on the outside but fiery inside. By the collision of icy stones from the chaos, water came to the worlds. The water putrefied, and it sprung forth the germ of creation, the beginning of life.  These were animals without sensation, formed in the shape of an egg, the Zapashamim, who are also called the watchers of heaven. The heavens and suns fed the Zapashamim, who watched and fed, and they multiplied to be more numerous than grains of sand. Their descendants would be the intelligent animals.

When the air of the suns sent forth their light upon the earths, its fiery influence on the sea and the earth produced wind, clouds, and great defluxions and torrents of heavenly waters. And when the waters were thus separated, the heavens were dashed this way and that by the heat of the sun, thunder and lightning were produced. Lightning struck the putrefaction where the Zapashamim dwelt, and the aforementioned intelligent animals were aroused into existence. They moved in the sea, and in time, upon the earth, as male and female.

As for these things, were they not recounted by Tautu and Sakkunyaton, and proven by the wise men and learned scholars since?

GENERATIONS

   Of the wind Qolpiakka, and his wife Ba’au, which is interpreted Night, were begotten two mortal men, Ulom andKadmon so called: and Ulom discovered food from trees.

   The immediate descendants of these were called Qen and Qenat, and they dwelt in Phœnicia: and when there were great droughts they stretched forth their hands to heaven towards the Sun; for him they supposed to be God, the only lord of heaven, calling him Baal-Shamin, which in the Phœnician dialect signifies Lord of Heaven, but among the Greeks is equivalent to Zeus.

   Afterwards by Qen the son of Ulom and Kadmon were begotten mortal children, whose names were Ur,Esh, and holy Lehobah. These found out the method of producing fire by rubbing pieces of wood against each other, and taught men the use thereof.

   These begat sons of vast bulk and height, whose names were conferred upon the mountains which they occupied: thus, from them Zapan, and Libnan, and Antilibnan and Brathu received their names.

   Memrum and Hupsuran were the issue of these men by connection with their mothers; the women of those times, without shame, having intercourse with any men whom they might chance to meet. Hupsuran inhabited Tyre: and he invented huts constructed of reeds and rushes, and the papyrus. And he fell into enmity with his brother Ushu, who was the inventor of clothing for the body which he made of the skins of the wild beasts which he could catch. And when there were violent storms of rain and wind, the trees about Tyre being rubbed against each other, took fire, and all the forest in the neighborhood was consumed. And Ushu having taken a tree, and broken off its boughs, was the first who dared to venture on the sea. And he consecrated two pillars to Fire and Wind, and worshiped them, and poured out upon them the blood of the wild beasts he took in hunting: and when these men were dead, those that remained consecrated to them rods, and worshiped the pillars, and held anniversary feasts in honor of them.

   And in times long subsequent to these; were born of the race of Hupsurans, Agrayu and Haliyu, the inventors of the arts of hunting and fishing, from whom huntsmen and fishermen derive their names.

   Of these were begotten two brothers who discovered iron, and the forging thereof. One of these called Kothar, exercised himself in words, and charms and divinations; and he invented the hook, and the bait, and the fishing-line, and boats of a light construction; he was the first of all men that sailed. Wherefore he was worshipped after his death as a God, under the name of Kothar-wa-Khassis. And it is said that his brothers invented the art of building walls with bricks.

   Afterwards, of this race were born two youths, one of whom was called Mohandu, and the other was called Gayanu Napshu. These discovered the method of mingling stubble with the loam of bricks, and of baking them in the sun; they were also the inventors of tiling.

   By these were begotten others, of whom one was named Agru, the other Agruwaru Agrotu, of whom in Phœnicia there was a statue held in the highest veneration, and a temple drawn by yokes of oxen: and at Byblus he is called, by way of eminence, the greatest of the Gods. These added to the houses, courts and porticos and crypts: husbandmen, and such as hunt with dogs, derive their origin from these: they are called also Aletæ, and Titans.

   From these were descended Amun and Mago, who taught men to construct villages and tend flocks.

   By these men were begotten Misor and Sadiq Resheph, that is, Well-freed and Just: and they found out the use of salt.

   From Misor descended Tautu, who invented the writing of the first letters: him the Egyptians called Thoor, the Alexandrians Thoyth, and the Greeks Hermes. But from Resheph descended the Qabirim: these (he says) first built a ship complete.

   From these descended others; who were the discoverers of medicinal herbs, and of the cure of poisons and of charms.

   Contemporary with these was one called El’abu Eliyanu,  (the most high); and his wife named Beruth, and they dwelt about Byblus.

   By these was begotten Shamuma (Heaven); so that from him that element, which is over us, by reason of its excellent beauty is named heaven: and he had a sister of the same parents, and she was called Arsa (Earth), and by reason of her beauty the earth was called by the same name.

   Eliyanu, the father of these, having been killed in a conflict with wild beasts, was consecrated, and his children offered libations and sacrifices unto him.

   But Shamuma, succeeding to the kingdom of his father, contracted a marriage with his sister Arsa, and had by her four sons, Ilu, and Betulu, and Dagon, which signifies Grain, and Atlas.

  But by other wives Shamuma had much issue; at which Arsa, being vexed and jealous of Shamuma, reproached him so that they parted from each other: nevertheless Shamuma returned to her, again by force whenever he thought proper, and having laid with her, again departed: he attempted also to kill the children whom he had by her; but Arsa often defended herself with the assistance of auxiliary powers.

   But when Ilu arrived at man's estate, acting by the advice and with the assistance of Kothar, who was his secretary, he opposed himself to his father Shamuma, that he might avenge the indignities which had been offered to his mother.

   And to Ilu were born children, Allani and Anat; the former of whom died a virgin; but, by the advice of Anat and Kothar, Ilu made a scimitar and a spear of iron. Then Hermes addressed the allies of Ilu with magic words, and wrought in them a keen desire to make war against Shamuma in behalf of Arsa. And Ilu having thus overcome Shamuma in battle, drove him from his kingdom, and succeeded him in the imperial power. In the battle was taken a well-beloved concubine of Shamuma who was pregnant; and Ilu bestowed her in marriage upon Dagon, and, whilst she was with him, she was delivered of the child which she had conceived by Shamuma, and called his name Hadad.

   After these events Ilu surrounded his habitation with a wall, and founded Byblos, the first city of Phœnicia. Afterwards Ilu having conceived a suspicion of his own brother Atlas, by the advice of Kothar, threw him into a deep cavern in the earth, and buried him.

   At this time the descendants of the Qabirim having built some light and other more complete ships, put to sea; and being cast away over against Mount Zapan, there consecrated a temple.

   But the auxiliaries of Ilu were called Elohim. And ILu, having a son called Sadid, dispatched him with his own sword, because he held him in suspicion, and with his own hand deprived his child of life. And in like manner he cut off the head of his own daughter, so that all the gods were astonished at the disposition of Ilu.

   But in process of time, whilst Shamuma was still in banishment, he sent his daughter Athirat, being a virgin, with two other of her sisters, Rahmay and Elat, to cut off Ilu by treachery; but Ilu took the damsels, and married them notwithstanding they were his own sisters. When Shamuma understood this, he sent Aymar-Rimnat and Marat with other auxiliaries to make war against Ilu: but Ilu gained the affections of these also, and detained them with himself. Moreover, the god Shamuma devised Baetyls, contriving stones that moved as having life.

   And by Athirat, Ilu had seven daughters called Kathirat; by Rahmay also he had seven sons, the youngest of whom was consecrated from his birth; also by Elat he had daughters, such as Ashtart; and by Athirat again he had two other sons, Putu and Habibu.

   To Resheph, who was called the just, one of the Kathirat bare Eshmun: and to Ilu there were born also in Peraya three sons, Ilu bearing the same name with his father, and Baal Hammon, and Nebo.

   Contemporary with these were Yam Nahar,  from  Yam Nahar descended Sidon, who by the excellence of her singing first invented the hymns of odes or praises.

   But to Hadad was born three daughters, Pidray, Arsay, and Tallay, and Melqart, who is also called Heracles.

   Shamuma then made war against Yam-Nahar, but afterwards relinquishing the attack he attached himself to Hadad, when Hadad invaded Yam: but Yam put him to flight, and Hadad vowed a sacrifice for his escape.

   In the thirty-second year of his power and reign, Ilu, having laid an ambuscade for his father Shamuma in a certain place situated in the middle of the earth, when he had got him into his hands dismembered him over against the fountains and rivers. There Shamuma was consecrated, and his spirit was separated, and the blood of his parts flowed into the fountains and the waters of the rivers; and the place, which was the scene of this transaction, is shewed even to this day.

But Ashtart called the greatest, and Hadad who is entitled the king of gods, reigned over the country by the consent of Ilu: and Ashtart put upon her head, as the mark of her sovereignty, a bull's head: and travelling about the habitable world, she found a star falling through the air, which she took up, and consecrated in the holy island of Tyre: and the Phœnicians say that Ashtart is the same as Aphrodite.

   Moreover, Ilu visiting the different regions of habitable world, gave to his daughter Anat the kingdom of Attica: and when there happened a plague with a great mortality, Ilu offered up his only begotten son as a sacrifice to his father Shamuma, and circumcised himself, and compelled his allies to do the same: and not long afterwards he consecrated after his death another of his sons, called Mot, whom he had by Rahmay; this Mot the Phœnicians esteem the same as Death and Pluto.

   After these things, Ilu gave the city of Byblus to the goddess Baalat, which is Dione, and Beirut to Yam, and to the Qabirim who were husbandmen and fishermen: and they consecrated the remains of at Beirut.

   But before these things the god Tautu, having portrayed Shamuma, represented also the countenances of the gods Ilu, and Dagon, and the sacred characters of the elements. He contrived also for Ilu the ensign of his royal power, having four eyes in the parts before and in the parts behind, two of them closing as in sleep; and upon the shoulders four wings, two in the act of flying, and two reposing as at rest. And the symbol was, that Ilu whilst he slept was watching, and reposed whilst he was awake. And in like manner with respect to the wings, that he was flying whilst he rested, yet rested whilst he flew. But for the other gods there were two wings only to each upon his shoulders, to intimate that they flew under the control of Ilu; and there were also two wings upon the head, the one as a symbol of the intellectual part, the mind, and the other for the senses.

   And Ilu visiting the country of the south, gave all Egypt to the god Tautu, that it might be his kingdom.

   These things, says he, the Qabirim, the seven sons of Resheph, and their eighth brother Eshmun, first of all set down in the records in obedience to the commands of the god Tautu.

   All these things the son of Thabiyanu, the first Hierophant of all among the Phœnicians, allegorized and mixed up with the occurrences and accidents of nature and the world, and delivered to the priests and prophets, the superintendents of the mysteries: and they, perceiving the rage for these allegories increase, delivered them to their successors, and to foreigners: of whom one was Isir, the inventor of the three letters, the brother of Kana’an who is called the first Phœnician.