the weather or some
planet. The particular line of development would vary in different places,
but the change from an association of the Baal with earthly objects to
heavenly is characteristic of a higher type of belief and appears to be
relatively later. The idea which has long prevailed that Baal was properly
a sky-god affords no explanation of the local character of the many baals;
on the other hand, on the theory of a higher development where the gods
become heavenly or astral beings, the fact that ruder conceptions of nature
were still retained (often in the unofficial but more popular forms of
cult) is more intelligible.

A specific Baal of the heavens appears to have been known among the
Hittites in the time of Rameses II., and considerably later, at the
beginning of the 7th century, it was the title of one of the gods of
Phoenicia. In Babylonia, from a very early period, Baal became a definite
individual deity, and was identified with the planet Jupiter. This
development is a mark of superior culture and may have been spread through
Babylonian influence. Both Baal and Astarte were venerated in Egypt at
Thebes and Memphis in the XIXth Dynasty, and the former, through the
influence of the Aramaeans who borrowed the Babylonian spelling Bel,
ultimately became known as the Greek Belos who was identified with Zeus.

Of the worship of the Tyrian Baal, who is also called Melkart (king of the
city), and is often identified with the Greek Heracles, but sometimes with
the Olympian Zeus, we have many accounts in ancient writers, from Herodotus
downwards. He had a magnificent temple in insular Tyre, founded by Hiram,
to which gifts streamed from all countries, especially at the great feasts.
The solar character of this deity appears especially in the annual feast of
his awakening shortly after the winter solstice (Joseph. _C. Apion._ i.
18). At Tyre, as among the Hebrews, Baal had his symbolical pillars, one of
gold and one of smaragdus, which, transported by phantasy to the farthest
west, are still familiar to us as the Pillars of Hercules. The worship of
the Tyrian Baal was carried to all the Phoenician colonies.[14] His name
occurs as an element in Carthaginian proper names (Hanni_bal_, Hasdru_bal_,
&c.), and a tablet found at Marseilles still survives to inform us of the
charges made by the priests of the temple of Baal for offering sacrifices.

The history of Baalism among the Hebrews is obscured by the difficulty of
d