Philo of Byblos : The Phoenician History

by Harold W. Attridge

Philo of Byblos in the early Roman imperial period claimed to have translated the work of an ancient author Sanchuniathon who recorded stories of the ancient Canaanite gods, stories that resemble the myths found in Ugaritic sources. This monograph provides an English translation of Philo's Greek text with an introduction and notes.

Genres: Mythology, Religion, History

184 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1981

About the author

Harold W. Attridge, Ph.D., is Dean of Yale University Divinity School and Lillian Claus Professor of New Testament. He has published many scholarly contributions to New Testament exegesis and to the study of Hellenistic Judaism and the history of the early Church. He also has served as the president of the Society of Biblical Literature.

Reviews

[The Esoteric Jungle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philo of Berytus, per the earliest records, was a disciple of one of the disciples and he was named Herennius and a certain Hesychius made use of his extensive writings (I speak of the earliest Hesychius known to Christian authorship, unknown now except in the Patrologia Graecae). Now the high self initiate of our age, Gurdjieff, seemed to find some records in his travels that revealed the true first council of the Christian Ecclesia was long before Nicea of 320 AD; it was in 185 AD, and involved a one “Herennius”... he mentions by name (Herunanoo) and another individual I have found, per Mani and other very early writers, to be the head of the Elkasites (they mixed with the dispossessed Nazari relatives of Christ’s family). So to uncover anything that may be written by this bloke would be invaluable as it would be first hand Christian Wisdom scholarship.

What is left to us though, as this work shows, is just some schachermachery of his works that Eusebius made of them here, alas. But even this is valuable, for Herennius is the only known source to have revealed the full hidden teaching on history and the gods/angels/descents per the Phoenicians, as revealed through Sanchoniathan the Phoenician Priest’s works whom he translated. This we also have some fragments of in what Eusebius and a few others quoted of Philo.

So all of this is beyond compare, whatever you can find of Philo’s works like this here. But do not confuse Philo Byblus of Berytus with Philo Judaeus, two totally different people. Confusing him however with being a disciple of Christ’s oldest apostle of similar name whom Da Vinci depicts so grey and whom was said to be a governor of royal line and per Acts and Eusebius went off on his own to just this region, that may be not so off the mark - though others say Philo was a disciple of Apostle John. Perhaps he was taught by both (see the fragments of Phillip of Side and the court document available online of early Christians in the Sassanid court mentioning Philip Side the Historian and prolific writer, one also called Philo Hebraeus, as an early Christian). Hopefully one day more will be recovered of his writings which Poryphry says were voluminous.

[Joseph Noun · Rating 5 out of 5]

A true non Greek account of the ancient from a near eastern point of view