20 HAM, OR CHRONUS, DEIFIED. [ c h a p . I.
likely that Moses would have noticed this woman only if she
had not been a person of great fame in the world, as well as
the last of Cain’s line,1 and therefore the last of the “ daughters
of men.”
Ham’s The circumstance itself is of no trifling importance; for if the
Caimte wife. SUpp0Sj(;j0n 0f a Ca'inite wife be correct, it would, in a great
measure, explain the cause of Ham’s apostacy. He had, we
are told, studied the science of astrology before the flood, and,
knowing that he could not introduce his books into the Ark,
Early he engraved his sacrilegious inventions on metals and rocks,
astrology. ^ ic h pe fQUIl(J again after the flood, and thus perpetuated the
knowledge he had acquired.2 This seems to be the means by
which idolatry spread among the followers of Ham, who elevated
their leader to the rank of Patriarch of the Deluge, to
the exclusion of Noah himself,
worship of the Bel, who is generally called Saturnus,3 was considered as
the primary object of worship; and we are told that, when
there were great droughts, the people of Phoenicia stretched
forth their hands to heaven, and towards the sun, for him they
supposed to be God, calling him Beelsamin. This, in the
Phoenician dialect, signifies Lord of Heaven ;4 and Ham
appears to have added the worship of the moon,8 dedicating
moon, and their city to Baaltis,6 or Ashtaroth, from Astarte,7 one of his
the serpent. wjveg) arKj the Queen of Byblus and Melcander.8 The serpent,
as an emblem of the sun, being also that of time and eternity,
was in some way or other connected with those luminaries in
Phoenicia, and its worship was subsequently adopted by Nimrud,
and became general amongst the people of Chaldea.9 Ham
1 Bishop Cumberland’s Sanchoniatho, p. 108.
! Cassianus, Collatio V I I I . cap. xxi.
8 Euseb., Prsep. Evan. IX . cap. xvii., xviii.
4 Which is equivalent to Zeus. See Sanchoniatho: Ancient Fragments by
Isaac Preston Cory, Esq., pp. 5, 6. W. Pickering, London, 1832.
5 Bel the Sun, Belthis the Moon: Jackson’s Antiquities, &c., vol. I I I .,
p. 24, note.
8 Mistress, from Ba’a l; Sanchoniatho, from Cory’s Ancient Fragments,
p. 15; and Abydenus, apud Euseb. Prsep., lib. IX ., c. xli., p. 456.
7 Ibid., p. 14. 8 Plutarch, de Iside.
9 Compare Cory’s Ancient Fragments, p. 17, with Lucian, de Diis Syris ;
Syncel. I., c. iii., p. 4 9 ; and Euseb, Prsep., lib. IX ., chap. 17.
CHAP. I .J THE CANAANITES AND PHILISTINES. 21
or Chronus, whom the Phoenicians called II, ’ . • i i wias* a fter histHoa t™he a psslaignneetd
death deified, and assigned to the planet which bears his name, Satum.
Bel, Belus, or Saturnusand in later times the Chaldean
creed became a part of Sabaism, which, according to Sanchoniatho,
had been founded by Cain and his sister-wife.2
It appears that Canaan was born at Byblus,3 and, his elder The Canaan-
brother Mizraim having already passed on to govern the region
southward, he received the territory afterwards occupied by
the descendants of his eleven sons, namely, the Hivites, the
Avim,4 Anakim, &c.: this tract took his name, its limits
being Sidon to the north, and Gaza to the south.8 Adjoining
this tract, to the south-westward, were the Pathrusim and
Casluhim, of whom came the Philistines and Caphthorim,
both from the branch of Mizraim; and the former were already
a considerable people, under a king of their own, when Abraham
came into the country.6 From the preceding circumstances, it
may safely be inferred that the migration of the children of Ham
took place almost simultaneously with that of Shem; and the
fact of having made their way from Asia Minor into Syria,
is indicated by the question propounded in the book of the
prophet Amos, “ Have I not brought the Philistines from Philistines.
Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir ?”7
In addition to the territory occupied by the Canaanites, &c.,.
at the time that the children of Israel quitted Egypt, other
sections of the giant race of Ham appear to have inhabited the
country westward of the river Jordan and the Dead Sea.
One branch of the Amalekites,8 as well as the Amorites,9
occupied antecedently the tract near the present Wadi El
Ghor, where they were at the period of Abraham’s arrival in
the country. In the tracts north-westward of these, at short
1 Cory’s Ancient Fragments, <p. 17; Euseb., Praep. Evangel., lib. IX .,
chap. 17.
1 Euseb., Prmp. Evang , lib. I., p. 34.
3 Cumberland’s Times of the First Planting of Nations, pp. 176, 177.
London, 1724.
4 Deut., chap. I I ., v. 23. 5 Gen., chap. X., v. 15-20.
8 Gen., chap. X X ., v. 2. 7 Amos, chap. IX ., v. 7.
8 According to the Arabs, the father of the tribe was Amalek, a son of
Ham. 9 Gen., chap. X IV ., v. 7.