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

132 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
life full of adventures and experiences, and each fol
lowed its special calling to the exclusion of all the
others. One was a physician, another a poet, a third
a shepherd, hunter or blacksmith. The Greek inscrip
tions found in Syria are, in this regard, eloquently
concise. 8^
Usually they have the name of Zeus ac
companied by some simple epithet: kurios* (Lord),
aniketos-f (invincible), megist os^. (greatest). All these
Baals seem to have been brothers. They were per
sonalities of indeterminate outline and interchangeable
powers and were readily confused.
At the time the Romans came into contact with
Syria, it had already passed through a period of syn
cretism similar to the one we can study with greater
in the Latin world. The ancient exclusive-
precision
ness and the national particularism had been overcome.
The Baals of the great sanctuaries had enriched them
selves with the virtues 8* of their neighbors ; then, al
ways following the same process, they had taken cer
tain features from foreign divinities brought over by
the Greek conquerors. In that manner their characters
had become indefinable, they performed incompatible
functions and possessed irreconcilable attributes. An
inscription found in Britain 8 * assimilates the Syrian
and even to
goddess to Peace, Virtue, Ceres, Cybele,
the sign of the Virgin.
In conformity with the law governing the develop
ment of paganism, the Semitic gods tended to become
pantheistic because they comprehended all nature and
were identified with it. The various deities were noth
ing but different aspects under which the supreme and
infinite being manifested itself. Although Syria re-
* KVplOS. f