one of the ten titles of the true God.* Il, or El, was the same as Elioun, who is termed by Sanchoniathon, "the most high." He had no one superior or antecedent to himself, as may be proved from the same author. Cronus, therefore, could not, according to the principles of the very people appealed to, have sacrificed his son to his father; for he was himself the chief and original deity, and had no one above him to whom he could make such an offering. Ouranus, to whom he is erroneously thought to have exhibited this sacrifice, is the same as Il, or El, and Elioun; being another title of the same person. Thus it is clear who the deity was, whom the Phoenicians are supposed to have copied in this particular; and that nothing could have preceded for them to imitate, but that what they did was a type and representation of something to come. It is the only instance in the Gentile world of any sacrifice which is said to be mystical; and it is attended with circumstances which are very extraordinary. Cronus, we find, was the same as El, and Elioun; and he is termed Yoros The Most High, and Ypoupavios The Most Heavenly. He is moreover said to have had the Elohim for his

* Hieron. Epist. ad Marcellam, 136.

coadjutors: he had no father to make any offering to, for he was the father of all, and acknowledged as Κύριος Ουρανe The Lord of Heaven, by the confession of the author, by whom the account is given. These sacrifices, therefore, had no reference to any thing past, but alluded to a great event to be accomplished afterwards. They were instituted probably in consequence of a prophetic tradition, which had been perhaps preserved in the family of Esau, and transmitted through his posterity to the people of Canaan. The mystical sacrifice of the Phoenicians had these requisites, that a prince was to offer it, and his only son was to be the victim: and as it has been shewn that this could not relate to any thing prior, let us consider what is said upon the subject as future, and attend to the consequence. For if the sacrifice of the Phoenicians was a type of another to come, the nature of this last will be known from the representation, by which it was prefigured. According to this, El, or Il, the supreme deity, whose associates were the Elohim, was in process of time to have a son, ayaжптov, well beloved, povoyevn, his only begotten; who was to be conceived and born of Anobret, which, according to Bochart, signifies of grace, or, according to another interpretation, of the

αγαπητον,

fountain of light. He was to be called Jeoud, whatever that name may relate to; and to be offered up as a sacrifice to his father, λurpov by way of satisfaction and redemption, Twpois dapoor, to atone for the sins of others, and avert the just vengeance of God; αντι της παντων φθορας to prevent universal corruption, and at the same time general ruin. And it is further remarkable, he was to make this grand sacrifice βασιλικω σχηματι KEKOOμEVOS invested with the emblems of royalty. These, surely, are very strong expressions; and the whole is an aggregate of circumstances highly significant, which cannot be the result of chance. Certainly, therefore, this mystical sacrifice was typical of something to come; and how truly it corresponds with that to which it is imagined to allude, must be submitted to the reader's judgment. It must necessarily be esteemed, at all events, a most wonderful piece of history.*

I would just observe, further, that in this

* Bryant, vol. vi. 323-333. See further, Bochart, Can. ii. 2. p. 790. Vossius de Orig. et Prog. Idol. i. 18. 143. Huet. Dem. Evang. p. 116. The three last learned authors all acknowledge the traces of the celebrated Abrahamic offering, Gen. xxii. Gale may be also consulted with great advantage.

account of the mystical sacrifice, there appear manifest vestiges of the offering made on Mount Moriah, by the father of the Hebrew nation; and which, as is well known, exhibited a wonderful type of the propitiatory atonement thereafter made, not far from the same site, by the Son of God. This indeed shone as a star of the first magnitude, if the allusion may be allowed, in the night of the old dispensation, before it gave way to the rising glories of the Sun of Righteousness. So extraordinary a transaction, however, as that of the Patriarch being about to offer up as a sacrifice his only son as a symbol of Him who was to be after the flesh, "of the seed of the woman and bruise "the serpent's head," must have excited considerable attention in the country where Abraham was then sojourning; and accordingly, we find in the history just given of the great Phoenician rite, that the prince* who was erroneously supposed to have instituted it, also enforced upon his followers, as well as performed on himself, the painful ordinance of circumcision; moreover, that his only son whom he offered up was

* Abraham himself is mentioned as a "prince who reigned "at Damascus," by Nicholas Dam. ap. Joseph. Ant. Jud.

i. 7.

*

called Jeoud, which is precisely the same as the Hebrew Jehid, the very word used by Moses, when he describes God as saying to Abraham, "Take now thy son, thy Jehid or "Jeoud, i. e. thine only son, whom thou lovest, "and get thee into the land of Moriah, and "offer him there for a burnt offering upon one "of the mountains which I will tell thee of." This only son was born, according to the ancient tradition, of a nymph called Anobret, or (according to the Phoenician name) Annoberet, which is, by interpretation "conceiving "by grace," as the learned Bochart has ingeniously shewn; referring evidently to the mother of Isaac, who "received strength to conceive "seed," and bare unto Abraham the child of promise. It should also not be omitted, that Porphyry, cited by Eusebius, mentions the name of the king who instituted, as they imagined, the mystical sacrifice, which was no other than that of Israel, which he further says, was a title conferred after his death on one of the planets. There is indeed a difference of

* Jeoud may possibly have some reference to Judah, the name of the patriarch and tribe from whom the Messiah was more immediately to derive his human descent. "For Judah

prevailed over his brethren, and of him came the chief "ruler." 1 Chron. v. 2. Gen. xlix. 8.