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CHAMOS

Volume 6 · 206 words · 1842 Edition

or CHEMOSH, the idol or god of the Moabites. The name of chamos comes from a root which, in Arabic, signifies to make haste; for which reason many believe Chamos to be the sun, whose apparent course might well procure for that luminary the epithet of swift or speedy. Others have confounded Chamos with the god Hammon or Ammon, adored not only in Libya and Egypt, but also in Arabia, Ethiopia, and the Indics. Macrobius shows that Ammon was the sun, and that the horns with which he was represented denoted his rays. Calmet is of opinion that the god Hamonos, and Apollo Chomous, mentioned by Strabo and Ammianus Marcellinus, were the same as Chamos or the sun. These deities were worshipped in many of the eastern provinces. Some who go upon the resemblance of the Hebrew term chamos to that of the Greek ξαμος, have believed Chamos to signify the god Bacchus, the god of drunkenness, according to the signification of the Greek ξαμος. St Jerome, and with him most other interpreters, take Chamos and Peor for the same deity. But it seems that Baal-Peor was the same as Thammuz or Adonis; so that Chamos must be the god whom the heathens call the sun.