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114 LECTURES ON THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.
Another famous name of the deity, traces of which can be found among most of the Semitic nations, is Baal, or Bel. The Assyrians and Babylonians 1, the Phænicians and Carthaginians, the Moabites and Philistines, and, we must add, the Jews also, all knew of Bel or Baal as a great, or even as the supreme God. Baal can hardly be considered as a strange and foreign god in the eyes of the Jewish people, who, in spite of the protests of the Hebrew prophets, wor-, shipped him so constantly in the groves of Jerusalem 2. He was felt by them almost as a home deity, or at all events, as a Semitic deity, and among the gods whom the fathers served on the other side of the flood, Baal or Bel held most likely a very prominent place. Though originally one 3, Baal becaine divided into many divine personalities through the influence of local worship. We hear of a Baal-tsur, Baal-tsidon, Baal-tars, originalls the Baal of Tyre, of Sidon, and Tarsus. On two candelabra found in the island of Malta we read the Phænician dedication to 'Melkarth, the Baal of Tyre.'
THY de Oùpavim 'Aliát. In Herod, i. 131, 138, this name is corrupted to "ATTA. See Osiander, * Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, vol. ii. pp. 482, 483. Sprenger, Mohammad,' i. p. 292, Havs, I hesitate to identify the Alilat of Herodotus with the al-Låt of t'i vif, for even if it could be proved that this goddess had been worshipped in his time, he (Herodotus) would not have heard of her. Arabia and its worship extended at that time far to the North, and one should compare the importance of Palmyra with that of Tayif. Secondly, the form Lit is purer Arabic and older than Ilat, always supposing that the root is lih, and not alh.' See also his 'Remarks of Arabian idols,' 1. c. p. 361. Orotal has been explained as 'light' or 'fire' of El. Kuenen, Religion of Israel,' vol. i. p. 228.
1.Fragmenta Hist. Græc.' vol. ii. p. 498, 2. - Ibid. vol. iii. p. 568, 21. • M. de Vogüé, Journal Asiatique,' 1867, p. 135.
