The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

SYRIA. 115
protector of the emperors and the empire. The country
where Aurelian found the pattern he sought to repro
duce, was again Syria. Into the new sanctuary he
transferred the images of Bel and Helios, taken from
Palmyra,
after it had fallen before his arms.
* * *
The sovereigns, then, twice attempted to replace the
Capitoline Jupiter by a Semitic god and to make a
Semitic religion the principal and official religion of
the Romans. They proclaimed the fall of the old
Latin idolatry and the accession of a new paganism
taken from Syria. What was the superiority attributed
to the creeds of that country? Why did even an II-
lyrian general like Aurelian look for the most perfect
type of pagan religion in that country? That is the
problem to be solved, but it must remain unsolved
unless an exact account is given of the fate of the
Syrian beliefs under the empire.
That question has not as yet been very completely
elucidated. Besides the superficial opuscule of Lucian
on the dea Syria, we find scarcely any reliable infor
mation in the Greek or Latin writers. The work by
Philo of Byblos is a euhemeristic interpretation of an
alleged Phoenician cosmogony, and a composition of
little merit. Neither have we the original texts of the
Semitic liturgies, as we have for Egypt. Whatever
we have learned we owe especially to the inscriptions,
and while these furnish highly valuable indications as
to the date and area of expansion of these religions,
they tell us hardly anything about their doctrines.
Light on this subject may be expected from the ex
cavations that are being made in the great sanctuaries
of Syria, and also from a more exact interpretation