ecting this personage, for which there is no good reason.
Dr. Barnes, a standard author, whose commentaries have been adopted by
the Presbyterian Board, takes the position that there can be no
question but that Melchizedek was a Canaanite.

That the Phoenicians, who were the founders of Carthage in connection
with the original Africans, were the descendants of Canaan there ought
to be no question; but, since everything honorable to the Negro race
is questioned, we will simply give the testimony of Rollin. He says:
"The Canaanites are certainly the same people who are called almost
always Phoenicians by the Greeks, for which name no reason can be
given, any more than the oblivion of the true one." Thus it is seen,
that up to Rollin's time there was no question as to the fact that the
Phoenicians were Canaanites. Rollin did not know why this, instead of
the true name, was given; neither do we know; but we may easily
conjecture that, since it was the Greeks that gave this name instead
of the true one, it may have been their purpose to hide the fact that
the people to whom they were so greatly indebted were the descendants
of the accursed son of Ham. This would be in perfect accord with the
conduct of Caucasian authors now. We have also the testimony of Dr.
Barnes that the Phoenicians were descended from the Canaanites. In his
notes on Matt. XV., 22, of the woman of Canaan who met Jesus on the
coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he says: "This woman is also called a Greek,
a Syro-Phoenician by birth" (Mark VII., 26).

Anciently the whole land, including Tyre and Sidon, was in the
possession of the Canaanites, and called Canaan. The Phoenicians were
descended from the Canaanites. The country, including Tyre and Sidon,
was called Phoenicia or Syro-Phoenicia. That country was taken by the
Greeks under Alexander the Great, and these cities, in the time of
Christ, were Greek cities. This woman was therefore a Gentile, living
under the Greek government, and probably speaking that language. She
was by birth a Syro-Phoenician, born in that country, and descended
therefore from the ancient Canaanites. On the same text Dr. Abbott
says: "The term Canaan was the older title of the country and the
inhabitants were successively termed Canaanites and Phoenicians; as
the inhabitants of England were successively called Britons or
Englishmen."

Of Carthage we may remark that through all the hundreds of years of
its existence as an independent gover