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

SYRIA. 129
omnipotence resulted from the development of the
ancient autocracy with which the Baals were credited.
As we have stated, they were conceived after the
image of an Asiatic monarch, and the religious ter
minology was evidently intended to display the humil
ity of their priests toward them. In Syria we find
nothing analogous to what existed in Egypt, where
the priest thought he could compel the gods to act, \/
and even dared to threaten them. 74 The distance sepa
rating the human and the divine always was much
greater with the Semitic tribes, and all that astrology
did was to emphasize the distance more strongly by
giving it a doctrinal foundation and a scientific appear
ance. In the Latin world the Asiatic religions propa
gated the conception
of the absolute and illimitable
sovereignty of God over the earth. Apuleius calls
the Syrian goddess omnipotcns et omniparens, "mis
tress and mother of all things."75
The observation of the starry skies, moreover, had
led the Chaldeans to the notion of a divine eternity. ^
The constancy of the sidereal revolutions inspired the
conclusion as to their perpetuity. The stars follow
their ever uncompleted courses unceasingly ; as soon
as the end of their journey is reached, they resume
without stopping the road already covered, and the
cycles of years in which their movements take place
extend from the indefinite past into the indefinite fu
ture. 76 Thus a clergy of astronomers necessarily con
ceived Baal, "Lord of the heavens," as the "Master
of eternity" or "He whose name is praised through all
eternity" 77 titles which constantly recur in Semitic
inscriptions. The divine stars did not die, like Osiris
or Attis ; whenever they seemed to weaken, they were