Lectures on the religion of the Semites. First series : the fundamental institutions / by W. Robertson Smith.

Date:: 1889

Credit: Lectures on the religion of the Semites. First series : the fundamental institutions / by W. Robertson Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$GIVERS OF FERTILITY. In this rapid sketch of the development of the idea of the local Baalim I have left many things to be confirmed or filled out in detail by subsequent reference to the particulars of their ritual, and I abstain altogether from entering at this stage into the influence which the con- ception of the Baalim as productive and reproductive powers exercised on the development of a highly sensual mythology, especially when the gods were divided into sexes, and the Baal was conceived as the male principle of reproduction, the husband of the land which he fertilised,^ for this belongs rather to the discussion of the nature of the gods. You will observe also that the sequence of ideas which I have proposed is applicable in its entirety only to agricultural populations, such as those of Canaan and Syria on the one hand and of Yemen on the other. It is and fern.] etc.; Nabatfean, Cosnathan [Euting, No. 12]); and Ai-abic names formed by adding the god's name to Wahb, Zaid (perhaps also Aus), gift of. Cognate to these are the names in which the birth of a son is recog- nised as a proof of the divine favour (Heb. Hananiah, Johanan ; Phojn. Hannibal, No'ammilkat [0. I. S. No. 41], etc.; Edomite, Baal-Hanau [Gen. xxxvi. 38]; Ar. Na^a»i [Wadd. 2143], favour of El, Auf-el [good] augury from El, Oi.a%x« [Wadd. 2372] love of El), or which express the idea that he has helped the parents or heard their prayers (Heb. Azariah, Shemaiah; Pha3n. Asdrubal, Eshmunazar, etc.); cf. Gen. xxix., xxx., 1 Sam. i. Finally there is a long series of names such as Yehavbaal {C. I. S. No. 69), Kemoshyehi (De Vogiie, Mdlanges, p. 89), Baal, Chemosh gives life. The great variety of gods referred to in Phcenician names of these forms shows that the gift of children was not ascribed to any one god, but to all Baalim, each in his own sphere ; cf. Hosea, chap. i. 1 This conception appears in Hosea and underlies the figure in Isa. Ixii. 4, where married land (be'ulah) is contrasted with wilderness ; Wellhausen, Heidenthum, p. 170. It is a conception which might arise naturally enough from the ideas above developed, but was no doubt favoured by the use of haal to mean husband. How baal comes to mean husband is not perfectly clear; the name is certainly associated with monandry and the appropriation of the wife to her husband, but it does not imply a servile relation, for the slave-girl does not call her master ba'l. Probably the key 13 to be found in the notion that the wife is her husband's tillage (Coran 11. 223), in which case private rights over land were older than exclusive marital rights.$