The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

270 PHGINICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

the flames'*to bring good luck for the rest of the year. This clearly shows that it was essentially a simple rite of ceremonial Purification by Fire and presumably a rite of initiation into the Solar Religion by ‘‘ Baptism with Fire,’ with the addition of Protection by the Sun as Fire. The fire employed to ignite the bonfire was doubtless the sacred Fire produced by friction of two pieces of tinder sticks or “ firedrill,” as this method of producing sacred fire was employed so late as 1830 in Scotland, and was formerly common in the Hebrides,® where old customs linger longest.

This appears to be the same rite which is repeatedly referred to in the Old Testament of the Hebrews as practised by the pre-Israelite inhabitants of Canaan (7.c., PhoeniciaPalestine), in which children were passed through fire in consecration to “ Moloch ’’—spelt Melek in the old Hebrew —a name which is evidently intended for the “ Meleq-art ’’* title of Hercules in the later Semitic Phoenician inscriptions, as the “ Baal of Tyre,’ and other Phcenician cities; and thus connecting it with the Phcenicians :—

“And they built up the high places of Baal, to cause their sons and daughters to pass through the fire to Moloch [Melek).’’>

But it seems that the Semites of Canaan who adopted the externals of the Sun-cult of their Aryan overlords, had in their inveterate addiction to bloody matriarchist sacrifices, human and other—practices also formerly current amongst the Hebrews*—sometimes actually burned their children to death in sacrifice, in their perverted form of worshipping Bil or Bel.?- Now this sacrificial perversion of the simple and innocuous Bel-fire rite appears also to have been prevalent in Britain to some extent amongst the aboriginal

1Cormac in the tenth century describes two fires for the cattle to pass between.

* Cp. H.E-F., 44, etc.

‘Carmichael, Carmen Gaddica, 2, 340; and Martin, Descript. West. Islands, ed. 1884, 113.

4 This name, spelt /-/-g-r-t, is usually considered to represent Melek-qart or “ ing of the City.”

5 Jeremiah, 32, 35, and cp. 2 Kings, 23, Io.

®W. R. Smith, Relig. of Semites, 1889; H. L. Strack, The Jew and Human Sacrifice, Lond., 1900, for sacrifices of first-born, etc.

72 Wings, 17, 31; 21,6. Ezekiel, 16, 21; 20, 26, etc.