On the Phoenician coast
was a river Kadisha, "the holy," and the Canaanite maiden saw in the red
marl which the river Adonis brought down from the hills the blood of the
slaughtered Sun-god Tammuz.

The temple of Solomon, built as it was by Phoenician architects and
workmen, will give us an idea of what a Canaanitish temple was like. In
its main outlines it resembled a temple in Babylonia or Assyria. There,
too, there was an outer court and an inner sanctuary, with its _parakku_
or "mercy-seat," and its ark of stone or wood, in which an inscribed
tablet of stone was kept. Like the temple of Jerusalem, the Babylonian
temple looked from the outside much like a rectangular box, with its
four walls rising up, blank and unadorned, to the sky. Within the open
court was a "sea," supported at times on oxen of bronze, where the
priests and servants of the temple performed their ablutions and the
sacred vessels were washed.

The Canaanitish altar was approached by steps, and was large enough for
the sacrifice of an ox. Besides the sacrifices, offerings of corn and
wine, of fruit and oil were also made to the gods. The sacrifices and
offerings were of two kinds, the _zau'at_ or sin-offering, and the
_shelem_ or thank-offering. The sin-offering had to be given wholly to
the god, and was accordingly termed _kalil_ or "complete"; a part of the
thank-offering, on the other hand, might be carried away by him who made
it. Birds, moreover, might constitute a thank-offering; they were not
allowed when the offering was made for sin. Such at least was the rule
in the later days of Phoenician ritual, to which belong the sacrificial
tariffs that have been preserved.

In these sacrificial tariffs no mention is made of human sacrifices,
and, as M. Clermont-Ganneau has pointed out, the ram takes in them the
place of the man. But this was the result of the milder manners of an
age when the Phoenicians had been brought into close contact with the
Greeks. In the older days of Canaanitish history human sacrifice had
held a foremost place in the ritual of Syria. It was the sacrifice of
the firstborn son that was demanded in times of danger and trouble, or
when the family was called upon to make a special atonement for sin. The
victim was offered as a burnt sacrifice, which in Hebrew idiom was
euphemistically described as passing through the fire.

Side by side with these human sacrifices were the abominations which
were performed in the temples